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The 16 Best Ideas to Supercharge Job Creation in One Venn Diagram
The most interesting and substantive ideas from the Atlantic/McKinsey Great Jobs Debate
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The economy has been growing for nearly two years since the Great Recession— but someone forgot to tell the American worker. Twenty five million Americans are still underemployed, out of work, working part time, or out of the workforce altogether. For perspective, that number is the same as the population of Texas. Something is broken. Has Washington given up on the unemployed? Or has the economy been fundamentally transformed under the pressures of globalization, technology, and a housing bust?
The Atlantic and McKinsey & Company brought together some of the top minds in business, government, and the world of ideas, each to answer the same question: What is the single best thing Washington can do to jumpstart job creation? Check back here each day through July 22 for more entries.
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What is the single most important step the government should take to create more jobs? Easy--it should stop trying. Just stop trying.
The most interesting and substantive ideas from the Atlantic/McKinsey Great Jobs Debate
Call it a "try before you buy" model, or a risk-free hiring process
Suggestions to create jobs won't actually help America's unemployed any time soon
What if creating jobs -- for ourselves and for others -- became the mantra of our MBA, engineering, science and graduate programs?
We need to apply an "Einstein Principle" in our approach to immigration and technology innovation
Students are less likely to drop-out and more likely to enjoy school when they see their classes as relevant to their future.
We are, as a culture, deeply invested in not identifying with people who cannot find a job.
The most important thing the United States can do to create jobs is strip away outdated policies that no longer support companies or the people who work in them.
We should reduce the corporate tax rate to 23 percent, a 12-percentage-point reduction from the current 35 percent rate.
Health care reform, financial reform, and the Consumer Protection Act have made it difficult for businesses to anticipate their future costs.
By far the most important thing the federal government can do to build confidence is to agree on a ten-year plan to deal with the budget deficit.
The job creation engine of small business is out of gas. Let's try microlending to get small firms money to hire and expand.
Surely we can muster the political courage to tell millionaires they can keep their yachts, but it's time to put American back to work
Tar roofs cover millions of American buildings, absorbing huge amounts of heat and requiring more air conditioning to cool the rooms
The unemployed will spend all or most of their benefits. And they just happen to be the principal victims of the recession
Too many high-tech companies rely on talented immigrants to fill jobs in the digital economy. Immigration is important, but we also need homegrown talent.
The only government solution to long-term unemployment we've ever found was to have World War II. We don't want to do that again. But here's an idea.
First, we need to put in place fair and rigorous teacher evaluation systems
First, give every foreign graduate student in a U.S. science, technology, engineering, or mathematics program a work visa
The Fed needs to buy more Treasury bonds and securities. As money in circulation rises, so too will the value of spending.
Michelle A. Rhee
Former chancellor of the District of Columbia Public Schools system, and founder and CEO of StudentsFirst
Steve Case
Chairman and CEO of Revolution LLC, co-founder of America Online, and chairman of The Case Foundation
Julián Castro
Mayor of San Antonio
Eric Spiegel
President and chief executive officer of Siemens Corporation and CEO of the U.S. Region
Paul Kedrosky
Contributing editor for Bloomberg, editor of the popular financial blog Infectious Greed
Carl Schramm
President and chief executive officer of the Kauffman Foundation
Mary Kay Henry
International president of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU)
Matthew Yglesias
Senior editor at the Center for American Progress Action Fund
Bruce Katz
Vice president at the Brookings Institution and founding director of the Brookings Metropolitan Policy Program
Gerald Chertavian
Founder & CEO of Year Up, a training program for urban young adults
Jody Lewen
Founder and executive director of the Prison University Project at San Quentin State Prison
Clive Crook
Senior editor of The Atlantic, a columnist for National Journal, and a commentator for the Financial Times
Frederick Hess
Resident scholar and director of Education Policy Studies
Megan McArdle
Senior editor at The Atlantic who writes about business and economics
Darrell M. West
Vice president of governance studies and director of the Center for Technology Innovation at the Brookings Institution
Ryan Avent
The Economist's economics correspondent and the primary contributor to Free Exchange, an economics blog
Martin Neil Baily
Senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and former chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers for the Clinton administration from 1999 to 2001
Dana Goldstein
Education journalist based in Brooklyn, Puffin Fellow at The Nation Institute, and Schwartz Fellow at the New America Foundation
Ross DeVol
Executive director of economic research at the Milken Institute
Reihan Salam
Reihan Salam is a policy advisor at Economics 21, a columnist for The Daily, and a blogger for National Review Online
Michael Fleischer
President of Bogen Communications in Ramsey, New Jersey
Peter Wallison
Member of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission and codirector of financial policy program at the American Enterprise Institute
Richard Florida
Senior editor at The Atlantic and director of the Martin Prosperity Institute at the University of Toronto
Carl Camden
President and chief executive officer of Kelly Services, Inc., a world leader in workforce solutions
Mike Haynie
Barnes Professor of Entrepreneurship at the Whitman School of Management and executive director of the Institute for Veterans and Military Families at Syracuse University