I
105TH CONGRESS
1ST SESSION
H. R. 1050
To establish a living wage, jobs for all policy by instituting overall planning
to develop those living wage job opportunities essential to fulfillment
of basic rights and responsibilities in a healthy democratic society; by
facilitating conversion from unneeded military programs to civilian activi-
ties that meet important human needs; by producing a Federal capital
budget through appropriate distinctions between operating and invest-
ment outlays; and by reducing poverty, violence, and the undue con-
centration of income, wealth, and power, and for other purposes.
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
MARCH 12, 1997
Mr. DELLUMS (for himself, Mr. BROWN of California, Mr. CONYERS, Mr.
EVANS, Mr. FATTAH, Mr. FILNER, Mr. GUTIERREZ, Mr. HASTINGS of
Florida, Mr. HINCHEY, Ms. KAPTUR, Mr. LANTOS, Mr. MARTINEZ, Mr.
MCDERMOTT, Mrs. MINK of Hawaii, Ms. MCKINNEY, Mr. NADLER, Ms.
NORTON, Mr. OLVER, Mr. OWENS, Mr. PAYNE, Ms. PELOSI, Mr. SAND-
ERS, Mr. TORRES, Mr. TOWNS, Ms. WATERS, Ms. WOOLSEY, and Mr.
YATES) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Commit-
tee on Education and the Workforce, and in addition to the Committees
on the Budget, National Security, and Rules, for a period to be subse-
quently determined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such
provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned
A BILL
To establish a living wage, jobs for all policy by instituting
overall planning to develop those living wage job opportu-
nities essential to fulfillment of basic rights and respon-
sibilities in a healthy democratic society; by facilitating
conversion from unneeded military programs to civilian
activities that meet important human needs; by produc-
ing a Federal capital budget through appropriate distinc-
tions between operating and investment outlays; and by
reducing poverty, violence, and the undue concentration
of income, wealth, and power, and for other purposes.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE; TABLE OF CONTENTS.
(a) SHORT TITLE.—This Act may be cited as the ‘‘A
Living Wage, Jobs For All Act’’.
(b) TABLE OF CONTENTS.—The table of contents is
as follows:
Sec. 1. Short title; table of contents.
Sec. 2. Findings and declaration of policy.
Sec. 3. Basic rights and responsibilities.
Sec. 4. Overall planning for full employment.
Sec. 5. Joint Economic Committee.
Sec. 6. Authorization of appropriations.
SEC. 2. FINDINGS AND DECLARATION OF POLICY.
(a) FINDINGS.—The Congress finds the following:
(1) UNEVEN PROGRESS.—(A) In recent years
the income and wealth gaps among individuals in the
United States have expanded.
(B) Many individuals have become rich or rich-
er, poor individuals have become more numerous,
and many individuals depend on two incomes.
(C) Localized mass depression appears in the
midst of elite opulence, unmet basic needs exist in
the midst of unused labor, and there is massive inse-
curity in the United States despite large-scale mili-
tary spending.
(D) Although unused labor exists in the United
States, unmet basic needs exist in repairing and im-
proving the infrastructure of the Nation, including
private industry, public facilities, and human serv-
ices, with special emphasis on the availability of
good and affordable education, quality child care,
health promotion services, housing, artistic cultural
activities, and basic as well as applied research and
development.
(E) While some individuals enjoy the best
health services in the world, many other individuals
are without health care or have inadequate or overly
expensive health services.
(F) While many individuals enjoy higher life
and activity expectancy, poor individuals suffer lower
levels of life expectancy and higher levels of infant
mortality and infectious disease, factors that are ag-
gravated by race.
(G) Some individuals live in safe neighborhoods
with good housing and public facilities while many
others live in bad or over-crowded housing in dan-
gerous neighborhoods without adequate recreational,
educational, library, or public transportation facili-
ties.
(H) Uncounted individuals, including children,
are homeless.
(I) The entire country benefits from the edu-
cation provided by many of the best universities in
the world, while suffering from some of the worst
high school education in the industrial world.
(J) Despite the existence of efficient tech-
nologies for improving the environment, all individ-
uals suffer directly or indirectly from dangerous lev-
els of air, water, and soil pollution.
(K) Despite discrimination against immigrants
and their children, the United States is still the pre-
ferred haven of refuge for victims of oppression in
other countries.
(2) INSECURE
PEOPLE.—(A) Although about
10,000,000 new jobs have been created in the Unit-
ed States economy between 1993 and 1996, there
are nearly 17,000,000 individuals who want jobs and
do not have them or are forced to work part-time be-
cause they cannot find full-time employment.
(B) Millions of individuals face the threat of
downsizing as the result of mergers, plant closings,
or higher labor productivity.
(C) New jobs increasingly come at lower wage
levels or with few, eroding, or no benefits.
(D) So-called welfare reform is increasing the
number of job-seekers but not the number of living
wage job opportunities.
(3) JOB-BASED MILITARY SPENDING.—(A) Bil-
lions of dollars are being spent annually on military
programs that have been and are justified less by
strategic and tactical military needs than by—
(i) the jobs they create; and
(ii) the economic health of communities
that have become dependent upon the mainte-
nance or expansion of such programs.
(B) Careful termination of such contracts, with
appropriate protection for workers, contractors, sub-
contractors, and communities could release resources
for activities to meet unmet human needs while ad-
vancing the civilian economy.
(4) 
ENTITLEMENT
CONFUSIONS.—(A)(i)
Among the recipients of corporate welfare, some in-
dividuals have been enlarging their collective entitle-
ments.
(ii) This has been done through tax deductions,
government guaranteed loans, price supports, mili-
tary contracts and other forms of direct or indirect
subsidy.
(B)(i) Other individuals have swelled personal
entitlements at the expense of taxpayers, sharehold-
ers, employees and local communities.
(ii) This has been done through unprecedented
increases in salaries, stock options, deferred com-
pensation, and other luxurious benefits.
(C) Some beneficiaries of elite entitlements have
been supporting attacks on the rights and entitle-
ments of working people, the elderly, racial or ethnic
minorities, the jobless, the homeless, poor people,
welfare parents, and immigrants.
(D) Others have been undermining collective
bargaining rights through anti-union propaganda,
subcontracting to non-unionized companies, and
plant closings.
(E) Funds now deposited into the Social Secu-
rity Trust Fund are enormously attractive to those
who would like to divert the people’s savings from
secure government bonds into the risk-laden stock
and bond markets.
(5) DEFECTIVE
GROWTH.—(A) Recent eco-
nomic growth has been below the levels needed to
provide decent employment for a larger and more
productive population.
(B) As a result, many individuals have been
forced into jobs that are underpaid, part-time, tem-
porary, irregular, or lacking in health insurance or
other social benefits.
(C) Many face the disappearance of career lad-
ders and an ever-present specter of lay-offs.
(D) Consumer debt and business bankruptcy
have been reaching historic levels.
(E) These trends have created deeper and
longer term poverty or insecurity, with the con-
sequent loss of personal dignity and self-respect.
(F) Among the more obvious symptoms are the
fostering of mental depression, family breakdown,
child or spousal abuse, and illegal forms of income.
(G) Lesser known symptoms have been the in-
crease in the prison population, the exploitation of
prison labor, the spread of new hate groups, church
bombings, homophobia, and unregulated armed mili-
tias.
(H) As a result, an insecurity plague unravels
the social fabric of United States society.
(6) MISLEADING
INFORMATION.—(A) While
most individuals are flooded by information over-
loads, much of the information they receive consists
of 
oversimplifications, 
misinformation 
or
disinformation.
(B) By themselves, aggregate measures of na-
tional output or income neglect their disaggregated
components, overemphasize monetary data, and ig-
nore the entire world of unpaid volunteer and house-
hold services.
(C) Their use tends to nurture the misleading
idea that human progress or regress can be rep-
resented by a single overall measurement.
(D) Statistical data on employment, unemploy-
ment, prices, education, crime, and health are often
based on outmoded concepts that have not been
adapted to changing conditions or new capabilities
for information collection, processing, and distribu-
tion.
(E) Many people misuse averages and other
measures of central tendency without attention to
frequency distributions and other measures of dis-
persion. The use of a single measure of consumer
prices and inflation ignores the long-established fact
that poor individuals pay more.
(7) LOST LEGACIES.—(A) Few people now re-
member, and many young people never learned, how
President Franklin D. Roosevelt started planning for
conversion from war to peace by proclaiming a ‘‘sec-
ond Bill of Rights’’.
(B) The first principle in this long-forgotten
document was ‘‘the right to a useful and remunera-
tive job in the industries or shops or farms or mines
of the Nation’’.
(C) This right was backed up with seven other
human rights: adequate income, adequate medical
care, family farming, freedom from monopolies, de-
cent housing, social security, and a good education.
(D) These ideals led to law-based entitlements
that nurtured high wages, a successful social secu-
rity system, unemployment insurance, other social
benefits, collective bargaining, higher productivity
and the rising purchasing power needed for private
enterprises to earn profits without government sub-
sidy.
(8) 
LIMITATIONS
IN
MAINSTREAM
DIS-
COURSE.—(A) During World War II and the subse-
quent conversion from war to peace, the idea of full
employment was widely held.
(B) More recently, the full employment ideal
has been mistakenly defined as a high level of un-
used labor or regarded as impossible without exces-
sive deficits, inflation or regulations.
(C) Discussion of full employment has thus be-
come taboo in mainstream discourse.
(D) Something similar has happened with the
ideal of decent job opportunities as a human right.
(E) In earlier decades this ideal was supported
by most religious leaders and articulated, under
United States leadership, in many United Nations
declarations.
(F) More recently, the idea of full employment
has also become taboo in mainstream economic dis-
course.
(9) GLOBALIZATION.—(A) Transnational cor-
porations have evolved into giant global institutions
that control much of the world’s information, assets
and money, while often undermining, if not entirely
escaping, national and international defenses against
the violation of basic human rights and responsibil-
ities.
(B) One-third of world trade is transactions
among the various units or sub-units of the same or-
ganization.
(C) An excessive amount of global financial
transactions consists of speculative operations that
create no new wealth and thereby divert resources
from productive use.
(b) DECLARATION OF POLICY.—To help promote the
general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty to our-
selves and our posterity, the Congress hereby declares the
following to be the policy of the Federal government:
(1) REAFFIRMING BASIC RIGHTS.—To reaffirm
to public discourse the human rights proclaimed by
President Roosevelt more than half a century earlier,
express them in terms that have been developed in
more recent years and, as part of the bridges to the
twenty-first century, affirm basic rights regarding
personal security, collective bargaining, the environ-
ment, information, and voting.
(2) MORE EMPHASIS ON BASIC RESPONSIBIL-
ITIES.—(A) To help root these ideals of living wage
jobs for all individuals in explicit recognition of per-
sonal, corporate, and federal responsibilities.
(B) These include the continuing responsibility
of government of the following:
(i) To protect the rights of individuals.
(ii) To nurture healthy partnerships among
Federal, State, county, and local government
agencies, and between government agencies and
such private sectors as nonprofit enterprises,
labor unions, trade or fraternal associations, re-
ligious groups, and cooperatives.
(iii) To update and continuously improve
such fundamental laws and procedures as are
required for the protection of private property,
the functioning of competitive markets, and
such limitations on market activities as are nec-
essary to promote the common good by protect-
ing employees, consumers, and the environment.
(3) OVERALL
DEMOCRATIC
PLANNING.—To
mandate under law an overall planning process of
legislative and executive action to help provide the
essential remedies and resources needed to attain
and maintain conditions under which all Americans
may freely fulfill basic human rights and responsibil-
ities and to help reduce poverty, inequality, and the
concentrations of economic and political power.
(4) CONGRESSIONAL MONITORING AND INITIA-
TIVES.—To strengthen the constitutional checks and
balances by providing continual congressional mon-
itoring of the overall planning process through the
activities of the Joint Economic Committee and the
requirement of open debate and voting on the An-
nual Economic Policy Resolution.
(5) COOPERATIVE
INTERNATIONAL
LEADER-
SHIP.—To work with individuals and governments of
other nations in providing leadership for supporting
basic human rights and responsibilities through the
provision of sufficient remedies and resources.
SEC. 3. BASIC RIGHTS AND RESPONSIBILITIES.
(a) UPDATING
THE
1944 ECONOMIC
BILL
OF
RIGHTS.—The Congress reaffirms the responsibility of the
Federal government to implement and, in accordance with
current and foreseeable trends, update the statement by
President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the State of the Union
message of January 11, 1944. The Congress therefore
proclaims the following rights as continuing goals of Unit-
ed States public policy:
(1) DECENT
JOBS.—(A) The right of every
adult American to earn decent real wages, to a free
choice among opportunities for useful and productive
paid employment, or for self-employment.
(B) With more full employment at living wages,
the economy will be more productive, attain higher
levels of responsible and sustainable growth and pro-
vide more Federal revenues even without desirable
changes in existing tax laws.
(2) INCOME SECURITY FOR INDIVIDUALS UN-
ABLE TO WORK FOR PAY.—(A) Notwithstanding any
other provision of law, the right of every adult
American truly unable to work for pay to an ade-
quate standard of living that rises with increases in
the wealth and productivity of the society.
(B) With more full employment at living wages,
more individuals will be able to earn a decent living
without the help of welfare benefits or other transfer
payments.
(3) FAMILY FARMING.—(A) The right of every
farm family to raise and sell its products at a return
which will give it a decent living through the produc-
tion of useful food, with staged incentives for conver-
sion from unhealthy to healthier food or other prod-
ucts, with special attention to production processes
that conserve soil and water and reduce pollution.
(B) With more full employment at living wages,
the market for farm output will be enlarged, with
less need for controls over output, or Federal, state,
or local support prices or subsidies.
(4) FREEDOM
FROM
MONOPOLIES.—(A) The
right of every business enterprise, large and small,
to operate in freedom from domination by domestic
and foreign monopolies and cartels, and from
threats of undesirable mergers or leveraged buy-
outs, and the right of consumers to obtain goods and
services at prices that are not determined by monop-
olies, cartels, and price leadership.
(B) With more full employment at living wages,
more business enterprises will be able to earn profits
without monopolistic controls or government welfare
and consumers will be able to enjoy lower prices.
(5) DECENT HOUSING.—(A) The right of every
American to decent, safe, and sanitary housing and
community facilities, with adequate maintenance and
weatherization, including large-scale rehabilitation of
millions of existing buildings, thereby helping to re-
duce overcrowding and the need to build new roads,
storm sewers, sewage, and refuse disposal.
(B) With more full employment at living wages
more people will be able afford adequate housing
with less government subsidy.
(6) ADEQUATE
HEALTH
SERVICES.—(A) The
right of every American to such widely available
health services as may be necessary to promote
wellness, extend both life expectancy and activity ex-
pectancy, and reduce mortality and disability
through such non-contagious afflictions as cancer,
heart disease, stroke, infant mortality, high blood
pressure and obesity, and reduce the incidence of
contagious diseases.
(B) With more full employment at living wages,
more tax revenues will be available to help finance
expanded health services for a larger and older pop-
ulation.
(7) SOCIAL SECURITY.—(A) The right to ade-
quate protection from the economic fears of old age,
sickness, accident, and unemployment.
(B) With more full employment at living wages
and higher levels of responsible growth, more tax
revenues will be available to help finance social secu-
rity, medicare, medicaid, unemployment compensa-
tion, and welfare payments.
(8) EDUCATION
AND
WORK
TRAINING.—(A)
Every individual has a right to opportunities for con-
tinuous learning through free public education, from
pre-kindergarten and kindergarten through post-
secondary levels.
(B) With more full employment at living wages,
more local, state and Federal revenues will be avail-
able to help support education and continuous learn-
ing.
(b) EXTENDING
THE 1944 ECONOMIC BILL
OF
RIGHTS.—The Congress proclaims the following addi-
tional rights as continuing goals of United States public
policy:
(1) PERSONAL SECURITY.—The right of every
American to personal security against any form of
violence, whether in the home, in the workplace, on
the streets and highways, in the community or the
nation.
(2) EMPLOYEE ORGANIZING AND COLLECTIVE
BARGAINING.—Notwithstanding any other provision
of law, the right of all employees to organize and
bargain collectively, to withhold from any form of
work or purchasing when necessary to protect such
rights, and to receive full diplomatic, economic, and
other support from the Federal government in help-
ing make this right effective in other countries and
eliminating policies or activities that undermine such
rights.
(3) SAFE ENVIRONMENTS.—The right of every
American to unpolluted breathable air, to potable
water available through a reliable and safe water
supply, to safety from hazardous materials, and to
such international protections as may be needed to
facilitate living and working in a safe and sustain-
able physical environment.
(4) INFORMATION.—The right of every Amer-
ican to currently available and fully explained infor-
mation on recent and foreseeable trends with respect
to sources of pollution and on products and proc-
esses that threaten the health or life of individuals
and on employment, unemployment, underemploy-
ment, economic insecurity, poverty, and the distribu-
tion of wealth and income, with detailed attention
to various groups in the population and broader pan-
oramic attention to such matters in each region of
the world.
(5) VOTING.—The right of every American to
vote and to seek nomination or election without hav-
ing that right debased by the domination of electoral
campaigns by large-scale private financing of cam-
paign operations or by the scheduling of elections
during weekdays or in other manners that may
interfere with regular working hours.
(c) PERSONAL
RESPONSIBILITY.—The Congress
hereby recognizes that every person benefiting from the
rights set forth in subsections (a) and (b) has a personal
responsibility to promote her or his health and wellbeing,
rather than relying exclusively on health services by oth-
ers, to provide for appropriate care to the best of their
abilities of children and elderly parents, to protect the en-
vironment, to work productively, to vote, to involve herself
or himself in public concerns and in ongoing education and
training, to speak out against corruption or injustice, and
to cooperate with others in promoting the nonviolent han-
dling of inevitable conflicts in the household, the work-
place, the community and elsewhere.
(d) CORPORATE RESPONSIBILITY.—
(1) REPORTS
TO
THE
SECURITIES
AND
EX-
CHANGE COMMISSION.—To help implement the rec-
ognition of the most responsible corporations and
encourage more responsible behavior by other cor-
porations, each corporation registered with the Secu-
rities and Exchange Commission shall include in the
annual reports filed with the Commission a full and
fair disclosure of information regarding the impact
of their activities in the United States and other
countries on environmental quality and on the rights
of other stakeholders, including employees, consum-
ers, and communities.
(2) REPORTS BY STATE-CHARTERED CORPORA-
TIONS.—To help implement the recognition of the
most responsible corporations and encourage move-
ment in this direction by other corporations, a State
shall not be entitled to receive any Federal grants or
enter into any Federal contracts unless the State
has initiated a time-phased program to require that
all State-chartered corporations submit annual re-
ports that include full and fair disclosure of informa-
tion regarding the impact of their activities in this
or other countries on environmental quality and on
the rights of other stakeholders, including employ-
ees, consumers, and communities.
(3) RECOGNITION OF MOST RESPONSIBLE COR-
PORATIONS.—Because some profit-seeking corpora-
tions have managed their enterprises with recogni-
tion not only of the rights of stockholders and chief
executives, but also with responsible action toward
environmental quality and the rights of other stake-
holders, including employees, consumers, and com-
munities, the Secretary of Labor, in cooperation
with the Director of the Environmental Protection
Agency, shall identify those corporations that have
gone the furthest in exercising such responsibilities
and recommend to the President a special annual
award to those chief executives and boards of direc-
tors that have made the greatest progress in this di-
rection.
(4) COMPUTER REGISTRATION OF CORPORATE
CRIMES.—
(A) IN GENERAL.—The Attorney General,
with the assistance of business leaders and or-
ganizations, shall establish an ongoing comput-
erized registration program of all corporations
that are found guilty of violating a Federal or
State law. The register shall set forth—
(i) the nature of each violation;
(ii) the names of the members of the
board and principal officers of the corpora-
tion at the time of the violation;
(iii) the penalties imposed; and
(iv) the extent to which penalties were
reduced or avoided by consent decrees, plea
bargains, and no contest pleas or tax de-
ductions.
(B) REGISTRATION NONCOMPLIANCE.—In
the absence of clear and convincing evidence of
rehabilitation, the President may deny Federal
contracts, loans, or loan guarantees to corpora-
tions that fail to comply with this section.
(e) RESPONSIBILITY OF FEDERAL GOVERNMENT.—
(1) POSITIVE
RESPONSIBILITIES.—Each Fed-
eral agency and commission, including the Board of
Governors of the Federal Reserve System, has the
responsibility to plan and carry out its policies, pro-
grams, projects, and budgets in a manner designed
to help establish and maintain conditions under
which all Americans may freely exercise the respon-
sibilities and rights recognized in this Act.
(2) PROHIBITION.—Each such Federal agency
or commission shall not directly or indirectly pro-
mote economic recession, stagnation, or unemploy-
ment as a means of reducing wages, salaries, or in-
flation.
SEC. 4. OVERALL PLANNING FOR FULL EMPLOYMENT
(a) GOALS.—As a part of the annual submission of
the budget of the United States Government for the fol-
lowing fiscal year pursuant to section 1105 of title 31,
United States Code, the President shall establish a frame-
work for such budget that meets the following goals:
(1) QUALITY OF LIFE AND ENVIRONMENT.—
The goal of improving the quality of life and envi-
ronmental conditions in the United States by the
year 2000 and the first decade of the 21st century,
including establishing and maintaining conditions
under which the rights and responsibilities recog-
nized in section 3 may be fully exercised.
(2) GOALS
FOR
RESPONSIBLE
AND
SUSTAIN-
ABLE GROWTH.—The goal of responsible and sus-
tainable annual growth of at least 3 percent, after
correction for price changes, in gross domestic out-
put.
(3) REDUCING OFFICIALLY MEASURED UNEM-
PLOYMENT.—The goal of reducing officially meas-
ured unemployment to the interim goal of at least
3 percent for individuals who have attained the age
of 20 and at least 4 percent for individuals who have
attained the age of 16 but have not attained the age
of 20, as set forth in the Full Employment and Bal-
anced Growth Act of 1978.
(4) 
SUPPORTING
INTERNATIONAL
HUMAN
RIGHTS DECLARATIONS.—The goal of implementa-
tion of the ideals set forth in the Employment Act
of 1946, the Full Employment and Balanced Growth
Act of 1978, the Charter of the United Nations, the
Charter of the Organization of American States, the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Inter-
national Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the
International Covenant on Economic, Social and
Cultural 
Rights, 
the 
International 
Convention
Against All Forms of Racism, the International Con-
vention Against Discrimination of Women, and the
International Convention on the Rights of the Child.
(b) A FULL EMPLOYMENT MINIMUM.—The frame-
work for the annual budget established under subsection
(a) shall also include, as a basic minimum of activities
needed to achieve conditions under which Americans may
better fulfill basic human rights and responsibilities, spe-
cific legislative proposals, budgets, and executive policies
and initiatives such as the following:
(1) CONVERSION FROM MILITARY TO CIVILIAN
ECONOMY.—The establishment of the following:
(A) The establishment of a conversion
planning fund, to be administered under the
guidance of the Secretary of Defense and the
Secretary of Labor, to include not less than 1
percent of the amount appropriated for military
purposes during each subsequent year for the
purpose of promoting and activating short- and
long-term plans for coping with declines in mili-
tary activities by developing specific policies,
programs and projects (including feasibility
studies, education, training and inducements
for whatever increased labor mobility may be
necessary) for the expansion of economic acti-
vates in non-military sectors.
(B) The recognition of the right of all
businesses with terminated military contracts to
fair reimbursement for the work already com-
pleted by such businesses, including quick ad-
vance payments on initial claims, adequate ter-
mination payments for released employees, and
conversion assistance for communities pre-
viously dependent on such contracts.
(2) TRUTH IN BUDGETS.—The establishment of
policies and initiatives that—
(A) make distinctions between operating
and investment outlays as such outlays regu-
larly appear in the budgets of business organi-
zations and state and local governments;
(B) present outlays of the military in
terms not only of Department of Defense out-
lays but also of all other forms of military relat-
ed spending;
(C) provide for the development of a tax
expenditure budget, as defined in the Congres-
sional Budget Act of 1974, that is presented
not only in a separately published special analy-
sis but also incorporated into the general reve-
nue provisions of the budget and accompanied
by estimates of the benefits sought and thus far
obtained by such planned losses of tax revenue;
and
(D) express any debt and deficit data in
constant as well as current United States dol-
lars.
(3) IMPROVED INDICATORS OF PROGRESS AND
REGRESS.—(A) The establishment of procedures for
the collecting, processing, and making publicly avail-
able improved indicators of recent, current and fore-
seeable trends with respect to—
(i) health, life expectancy, activity expect-
ancy, morbidity and disability in the United
States;
(ii) employment, unemployment, under-
employment, and economic insecurity data;
(iii) indices of job security, family security,
and the ratio of job applicants to job openings
in the United States;
(iv) poverty in the sense of both absolute
deprivation and relative deprivation;
(v) the distribution of wealth and income
in the United States;
(vi) the sources of pollution, products and
processes that threaten the health or life of peo-
ple in the United States; and
(vii) the kinds, quantity, and quality of un-
paid services in homes, households, and neigh-
borhoods, including volunteer activities.
(B) In establishing the procedures under sub-
paragraph (A), emphasis shall be placed on distin-
guishing among the various groups in the population
of the United States and on trends with respect to
such matters in other countries.
(4) ANTI-INFLATION POLICIES.—The establish-
ment of policies and initiatives for preventing or con-
trolling inflationary tendencies through a full battery
of standby policies, including public controls over
price fixing through monopolistic practices or re-
straint of trade, the promotion of competition and
productivity, and wage-price policies arrived at
through tripartite business-labor-government co-
operation.
(5) LOWER REAL INTEREST RATES.—The es-
tablishment of policies and initiatives to enlarge em-
ployment opportunities through reductions in real
interest rates.
(6) PUBLIC WORKS AND SERVICES.—The estab-
lishment of policies and initiatives for including pro-
visions in Federal grant programs and other assist-
ance programs to encourage the planning and fulfill-
ment of public works and public services planning by
town, city, county and State governments projects—
(A) to improve the quality of life for all
people in the area;
(B) to renovate, and to the extent desir-
able, enlarge the decaying infrastructure of
public facilities and services required for pro-
ductive, efficient, and profitable enterprise;
(C) to utilize the wasted labor power, and
nurture the creative energies of, those suffering
from joblessness and poverty; and
(D) to have contracts awarded competi-
tively to smaller as well as larger business en-
terprises or such other private sector units as
non-profit enterprises, labor unions, coopera-
tives, neighborhood corporations or other vol-
untary associations.
(7) INTERNATIONAL
ECONOMIC
POLICY.—The
establishment of policies and initiatives to make any
future financial support for the International Mone-
tary Fund and the International Bank for Recon-
struction and Development to be conditioned on de-
velopment and implementation of certain policies
and procedures by such institutions, including the
protection of employees’ right to organize as will
help raise the living standards of those people with
the lowest levels of income and wealth, thereby pro-
moting such higher levels of wages and salaries in
such countries as will provide larger markets for
their own industries and for imports of goods and
services from the United States.
(8) INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCES ON UNEM-
PLOYMENT
AND
UNDEREMPLOYMENT.—The estab-
lishment of policies and initiatives—
(A) to begin working toward the prompt
initiation of a series of international and re-
gional conferences through the United Nations
on alternative methods of reducing involuntary
unemployment, underemployment, and poverty;
and
(B) to organize, through the Department
of Labor, planning seminars and other sessions
in preparation for a worldwide conference and
convention of independent labor unions.
(9) REDUCTIONS
IN
HOURS.—The establish-
ment of policies and initiatives to provide for
phased-in actions for reductions in the length of the
work year through longer paid vacations, the elimi-
nation of compulsory overtime, curbing excessive
overtime through an increase in the premium to tri-
ple time on all hours in excess of 40 hours in any
week, exempting administrative, executive, and pro-
fessional employees from the overtime premium only
if their salary levels are three times the annual value
of the minimum wage, reducing the average work
week in manufacturing and mining to no more than
35 hours without any corresponding loss in weekly
wages, and voluntary work-sharing arrangements.
(10) PART-TIME
EMPLOYMENT
WITH
SOCIAL
BENEFITS.—The establishment of policies and initia-
tives to increase the opportunities for freely-chosen
part-time employment, with social security and
health benefits, to meet the needs of older people,
students, individuals with disabilities, and individ-
uals with housekeeping and child care responsibil-
ities.
(11) INSURANCE
PROTECTION
FOR
PENSION
FUND INVESTMENTS.—The establishment of policies
and initiatives to encourage more private and public
investment in those areas of localized depression in
which people suffer from massive joblessness, over-
crowded schools, overcrowded housing, inadequate li-
brary and transportation facilities, violence and so-
cial breakdown by—
(A) promoting comprehensive plans for
raising the quality of life through expanded
small business activity, middle income housing
(including rehabilitation) and improvements in
private and public infrastructure;
(B) encouraging private, Federal, state
and local pension funds to invest a substantial
portion of their resources in projects approved
in accordance with such plans; and
(C) protecting the beneficiaries of such
funds by whatever insurance guarantees may be
needed to eliminate the risks involved by enter-
ing areas not normally regarded as profitable
by banks and other investors.
(12) OTHER MATTERS.—The establishment of
policies and initiatives to present and continuously
adjust proposals, budgets and executive policies and
initiatives on taxation, social security, health care,
child care, public education, training and retraining,
the arts and humanities, basic and applied science,
housing, public transportation, military conversion,
environmental protection, agriculture, enforcement
of anti-monopoly laws, public financing of election
campaigns, crime prevention, punishment and reha-
bilitation, and such other matters as may be nec-
essary to fulfill the objectives of this Act.
SEC. 5. JOINT ECONOMIC COMMITTEE.
(a) MONITORING OF ACTIONS UNDER THIS ACT.—
In addition to its responsibilities under the Employment
Act of 1946, the Joint Economic Committee shall monitor
all actions taken or proposed to be taken to carry out the
purposes under this Act.
(b) REPORT.—The Joint Economic Committee shall
prepare and submit to the Congress, and publish in Fed-
eral Register, an annual report containing a summary of
the findings of the Committee with respect to the actions
monitored under subsection (a) for the preceding year,
with special attention to the extent to which the President
and Federal agencies have faithfully executed or may have
failed to faithfully execute the provisions of this Act and
fulfill their obligations under international covenants and
conventions.
(c) CONCURRENT RESOLUTION ON ECONOMIC POL-
ICY.—Not later than July 1 of each year the Joint Eco-
nomic Committee shall submit to the Senate and the
House of Representatives a Concurrent Resolution on
Economic Policy setting forth both in aggregate terms and
in detail its proposed goals for employment by type of em-
ployment, with special attention to hours, wages, and so-
cial benefits, and for reducing unemployment, under-
employment, and poverty in urban, suburban and rural
areas. Notwithstanding any other provisions of law, these
goals shall serve as the framework for any concurrent res-
olutions on the Federal budget.
SEC. 6. AUTHORIZATION OF APPROPRIATIONS.
There are hereby authorized to be appropriated such
sums as may be necessary for operating and investment
expenses to implement the policies, programs and projects
set forth in accordance with this Act.
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