Boosting Demand

Pavlina Tcherneva, who teaches at Franklin and Marshall, thinks we should be boosting the demand for labor specifically, rather than aggregate demand. She asserts that improvements in aggregate demand do not result in producing and maintaining full employment. As proof for her argument, she charts the increase in long-term unemployment since 1948. (Unfortunately, I can't copy the chart.) It is dispiriting.

Her recommendation is a return of WPA-style projects. It's not exactly a new idea; there has been a lot of clamor for fixing our infrastructure. Why don't our leaders get the point?