If COVID-19 is a crisis of public health, it has also become an ominous crisis of unemployment. Over forty million Americans have filed for unemployment, and the national unemployment rate is on track to surpass 25 percent. Increasingly, it appears we will be enduring a protracted period of slow economic recovery at best. The resulting problem of unemployment is here to stay for a while, especially considering the tepid and inadequate economic response from the federal government.

There has never been a more urgent moment to consider the federal government’s role in ensuring quality employment for all those that want it. The Case For a Job Guarantee, by Pavlina Tcherneva, makes the case in a clear and accessible manner about how our society can move toward full employment, and why it is so important to do so. This project inevitably entails taking on capital, for as the great British socialist Aneurin Bevan said, “Security of employment and the competitive society are a contradiction in terms.”

The idea of a federal job guarantee has recently received more attention due to the Bernie Sanders campaign. However, it still has not been as prominent in policy discussions as other core demands like Medicare for All and free public higher education. The COVID-19 crisis should make us all seriously rethink the strategic value of the federal job guarantee, and how we can campaign around this issue in the future. As many of us continue to live in quarantine, this short and punchy book is a great way to stimulate our thinking about what the post-COVID recovery plan should look like.