Progressives have not only been able to beat back the D.C.-elite effort to cut Social Security, we put the idea of expanding Social Security on the table instead. We pushed LGBT rights and gay marriage and have won significant victories. Sunday’s Climate March will force climate onto the map.

We got the discussion of income inequality going. We have achieved minimum wage increases and paid sick days in several cities and states. The National Labor Relations Board is functioning and we even saw labor-movement gains in the South this week. We have held back (so far) the drumbeat for big cuts in corporate taxes they’re calling “tax reform.”

Now it’s time to put our demand for full employment policies on the table. And guess what – it’s a great way to win elections!

What would it mean in people’s lives if there were more job openings than people? Right now people suffer terrible job fear that forces them to accept pay cuts, benefit cuts, extra hours and other things that increase profits for the giant corporations.

Think about the huge change in the mood and structure of the country if employers had to fight to get employees. If your boss couldn’t find the people needed to do the work and knew that you had three job offers, you might be getting a raise instead of a pay cut – and you would know that, too.

It has been a while, but imagine the situation in our economy if working people had the upper hand. This is what full employment would mean. And it is possible to achieve full employment – but only if We the People decide to just go ahead and pursue this, through our government.

How To Get To Full Employment

There are so many things we could be doing to bring about full employment. For example, this is the record of the 2009 “stimulus.” We were losing more than 800,000 jobs a month in the wake of the 2008 recession, then because of “government spending” we were gaining 100,000-250,000 jobs a month. Look at this chart and think, “No wonder Republicans don’t want more government spending to create jobs.”

This blog originally appeared in Campaign for America’s Future (Ourfuture.org) on September 19, 2014. Reprinted with permission.  http://ourfuture.org/20140919/full-employment-is-more-than-possible-it-is-essential

About the Author: Dave Johnson has more than 20 years of technology industry experience. His earlier career included technical positions, including video game design at Atari and Imagic. He was a pioneer in design and development of productivity and educational applications of personal computers. More recently he helped co-found a company developing desktop systems to validate carbon trading in the US.