Job Ill-Done

I use the radio for my alarm clock, and this morning, I heard the following, or something close to it.

Donald Trump says that he's going to protect oil and gas jobs, while Joe Biden says that he's going to create new "green" jobs.

"Jobs" has an interesting place in the vocabulary of American politics. While the overall number of jobs in the economy is pretty clearly an aggregate measure, the word "jobs" itself is often deployed as a sort of shorthand that means "well-paid employment for individuals," with those individuals often being undefined. Although in this case, a point can be made the both Messrs. Trump and Biden are referring to the same people; veterans of the fossil fuels industry; it's the audiences that differ.

Jobs have become a part of the Culture Wars, in no small part because fossil fuels and renewable energy tend to break down along the same urban-rural divide that drives the rest of the conflict. President Trump touts fossil fuel jobs because they've become a symbol of bygone rural prosperity; former Vice President Biden carries the banner for renewables because they're a symbol of an environmentally-friendly future. Of course, lost on neither candidate, nor their supporters, is who these jobs would belong to. American politics is rarely about lifting all boats, and this is no exception. Which explains the Culture War appeal; the choice that is made going forward has a distinct whiff of "to the victor, go the spoils." Fossil fuel jobs would tend to go to people in conservative areas, while renewable energy jobs would more likely benefit liberal constituencies.

Of course, none of this particular sort of campaigning around jobs is going to do anything to bring down the high rate of joblessness that currently plagues the United States; none of it deals with the demand for goods and services, which has been depressed by the pandemic and wasn't enough to absorb the whole of the American labor force in any event. At least, not at wages and working conditions that most people would find acceptable, let alone desirable.