EXCLUSIVE — Vice President Kamala Harris no longer supports a federal job guarantee, an idea championed by some on the Left and Green New Deal proponents that gained traction among Democrats during the 2020 election cycle.
A spokesperson for Harris’s campaign told the Washington Examiner on Wednesday that the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee has changed her position on the policy proposal. The statement is the latest in a series of reversals from Harris on major policy questions in recent days.
A federal jobs guarantee would mean that the federal government would provide a job to anyone who wants one, a massively costly proposal that harkens back to the New Deal policies of the 1930s.
The effort culminated in a 2019 resolution recognizing the duty of the federal government to pass a Green New Deal. Harris, then a senator from California, was one of 14 co-sponsors of the resolution, which called for the creation of “millions of good, high-wage jobs.” A number of Democratic presidential hopefuls backed the measure, which was a messaging bill that would not have changed law. A similar resolution had over 100 co-sponsors in the House.
A group of liberal lawmakers, including Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), have pushed for a Green New Deal that would enact sweeping new programs, as former President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal did, geared toward limiting climate change and building clean energy projects.
A federal job guarantee was a key part of the resolution. Among its list of required goals and projects was “guaranteeing a job with a family-sustaining wage, adequate family and medical leave, paid vacations, and retirement security to all people of the United States,” according to the text.
The Harris spokesperson told the Washington Examiner in the context of the Wednesday reversal that the campaign is trying to be forward-looking, rather than looking backward. The aide said Harris is very proud of the Biden administration’s climate record and is excited to build upon the progress of those changes.
Harris also signed on to a 2018 bill that would require the Labor Department to establish a pilot program to provide grants to eligible entities for programs to guarantee employment to individuals residing in the areas served by those entities, for instance, tribal entities with high unemployment.
A job guarantee would be a major departure in economic policy. The idea does not have significant backing among mainstream economists. It is advanced by proponents of “modern monetary theory,” a heterodox economic school of thought that bucks the notion that the U.S. should be concerned with how spending affects the national debt, among other ideas.
The price tag for such an ambitious job guarantee program would be exceedingly high. A 2018 study found that it could cost between $654 billion and $2.1 trillion per year. For reference, this year’s budget deficit is expected to be $1.9 trillion.
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Harris has backtracked from supporting a number of liberal policy initiatives since President Joe Biden bowed out of the 2024 contest and endorsed her presidential bid, seeking to position herself closer to the middle of the political spectrum.
For example, she has backed away from her endorsement of eliminating private healthcare plans as part of a Medicare for All proposal. Her campaign also told the Hill that she will not seek to ban fracking if she is elected. That was after previously telling CNN while running for president, “There’s no question I’m in favor of banning fracking.”
