Politics and Labor Markets: Toward an Explanation of the Formation and Adoption of U.S. Labor Market Policy

摘要

A study of the formation and adoption of federal labor market programs. Examines the origins of the U.S. Employment Service and the Manpower Development and Training Act. Develops concepts for policy analysis, including program design (basic legislative and administrative decisions concerning the changes sought, tools applied, population served, agents used, organizations established, and budgets committed), program premises (the elements of these decisions), and an original typology of the causes of public policy. These concepts are applied to the USES and MDTA in case studies that depend on evidence drawn from Congressional and administrative documents, archives, books, magazines, and an interview. The study concludes (1) that labor market programs largely perform as they are designed to perform, (2) that American labor market programs are designed to exert minimal federal control and to adjust the supply of unorganized labor to demand, and (3) that structural factors and ideas within the government are the most important causes of federal labor market policy design in the U.S. Includes an extensive bibliography of federal labor market policy.