Paulo dos Santos is Assistant Professor of Economics at the New School for Social Research.

December 4, 2018
4:00pm - 6:00pm
The New School
6 East 16th Street, Room 1009

The event was part of the Fall 2018 Seminar Series hosted by SCEPA and The New School Economics Department.

Pavlina Tcherneva is the Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Economics and Research Scholar at the Levy Economics Institute, Bard College, NY.

December 11th, 2018
4:00pm - 6:00pm
The New School
6 East 16th Street, Room 1009

The event is part of the Fall 2018 Seminar Series hosted by SCEPA and The New School Economics Department.;

Rishabh Kumar is an Assistant Professor of Economics at California State University, San Bernardino.

October 2nd, 2018
4:00pm - 6:00pm
The New School
6 East 16th Street, Room D1009, Albert and Vera List Academic Center

The event is part of the Fall 2018 Seminar Series hosted by SCEPA and The New School Economics Department.

Venkat Venkatasubramanian is the Samuel Ruben-Peter G. Viele Professor of Engineering at Columbia University and the Co-Director of Center for the Management of Systemic Risk.

September 4th, 2018
4:00pm - 6:00pm
The New School
6 East 16th Street, Room 1009

The event is part of the Fall 2018 Seminar Series hosted by SCEPA and The New School Economics Department.;

Tackling climate change requires transitioning to a green, sustainable economy. But will green transformations that lesson our negative environmental impacts also create high-quality jobs? In a new report from the UN, economist Willi Semmler, director of SCEPA’s Economics of Climate Change project, and his co-authors demonstrate it is possible, but only if policymakers rise to the challenge.

While it’s difficult to quantify overall employment impact, available data shows increased environmental spending can create jobs. In the United States, estimates show that a 10-year green recovery program investing $100 billion in areas like mass transit and solar power would create millions of jobs. Results are also promising for other high-income countries. While data for developing countries is less clear, jobs in green sectors, like energy construction and waste management, are growing. Countries like Brazil, Lebanon, Morocco, and South Africa, where an agreement was signed in 2011 with the aim of creating at least 300,000 green jobs, have seen positive employment effects.

But to ensure sustainable economic transformations enhance the job market, the quality of jobs needs to be considered, not just the quantity. Because technological shifts will change labor demand and skill requirements across most industries, industrial policies must support employers in creating training systems that empower workers as they take on new jobs or fulfill new assignments. Public employment services must help job seekers change sectors, while education reform is necessary to ensure young workers can enter the labor market.

The shift to a greener economy must also offer opportunities for small firms and startups to innovate and lead the way. Improving access to credit, for example, can promote self-employment and entrepreneurship. Introducing revenue-neutral green taxes can force a movement of labor to greener sectors and create jobs. Finally, an open dialogue and cooperation between governments and interested parties, such as trade unions, are essential to ensure these changes go smoothly.

While a greener economy can create high-quality jobs, it will not do so automatically, but must be supported by social and labor policies that reduce the burden of the transition to a low carbon economy, and promote efficiency and equity.

“Enhancing Job Creation Through Green Transformation” by Michela Esposito, Alexander Haider, Willi Semmler, and Daniel Samaan appears in Green Industrial Policy: Concept, Policies, Country Experiences, published by the Partnership for Action on Green Economy, a U.N. Environment Programme initiative, in partnership with the German Development Institute. Daniel Samaan is a New School PHD and a senior researcher at the U.N.'s International Labour Organization, and Alexander Haider is a current New School PHD student.

ReLab's new report, "The Impact of Guaranteed Retirement Accounts on the Retirement Crisis," finds that if the GRA were implemented in 2018, 8.1 million seniors would be saved from old-age poverty or near poverty by the year 2045.

Guaranteed Retirement Accounts (GRAs), proposed in the 2018 book Rescuing Retirement, are universal individual accounts funded throughout a worker’s career by employer and employee contributions and a refundable tax credit. If GRAs were implemented in 2018,1.5 million seniors would be saved from poverty or near poverty by 2025. This increases to 3.6 million seniors by 2035 and 8.1 million seniors by 2045.

• If we do nothing to reform the current retirement system, the number of poor or near-poor people over the age of 62 will increase by 25% between 2018 and 2045, from 17.5 million to 21.8 million.
• If the GRA were implemented in 2018, 8.1 million seniors would be saved from old-age poverty or near poverty by the year 2045.

Author: Teresa Ghilarducci, Michael Papadopoulos, and Anthony Webb
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July 2018 Unemployment Report for Workers Over 55

Raising Social Security’s Full Retirement Age leaves all workers with two bad choices: working longer or living on reduced monthly benefits.

April 2018 Unemployment Report for Workers Over 55