[Congressional Bills 110th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 1050 Introduced in House (IH)]







110th CONGRESS
  1st Session
                                H. R. 1050

To establish a living wage, jobs for all policy for all peoples in the 
       United States and its territories, and for other purposes.


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                           February 14, 2007

   Ms. Lee introduced the following bill; which was referred to the 
Committee on Education and Labor, and in addition to the Committees on 
the Budget, Armed Services, and Rules, for a period to be subsequently 
   determined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such 
 provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
To establish a living wage, jobs for all policy for all peoples in the 
       United States and its territories, and for other purposes.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE; TABLE OF CONTENTS.

    (a) Short Title.--This Act may be cited as the ``A Living Wage, 
Jobs For All Act''.
    (b) Table of Contents.--The table of contents is as follows:

Sec. 1. Short title; table of contents.
Sec. 2. Findings and declaration of policy.
Sec. 3. Basic rights and responsibilities.
Sec. 4. Overall planning for full employment.
Sec. 5. Joint Economic Committee.
Sec. 6. Authorization of appropriations.

SEC. 2. FINDINGS AND DECLARATION OF POLICY.

    (a) Findings.--The Congress finds the following:
            (1) Uneven progress.--(A) In recent years the income and 
        wealth gaps among individuals in the United States have 
        expanded.
            (B) Many individuals have become rich or richer, poor 
        individuals have become more numerous, and many individuals 
        depend on two jobs.
            (C) Localized mass depression appears in the midst of elite 
        opulence, unmet basic needs exist in the midst of unused labor, 
        and there is massive insecurity in the United States despite 
        large-scale military spending.
            (D) Although unused labor exists in the United States, 
        unmet basic needs exist in repairing and improving the 
        infrastructure of the Nation, including private industry, 
        farming, agriculture, public facilities, public utilities, and 
        human services, with special emphasis on the availability of 
        good and affordable education, quality child care, health 
        promotion services, housing, artistic cultural activities, and 
        basic as well as applied research and development.
            (E) While some individuals enjoy the best health services 
        in the world, many other individuals are without health care or 
        have inadequate or overly expensive health services.
            (F) While many individuals enjoy higher life and activity 
        expectancy, poor individuals suffer lower levels of life 
        expectancy and higher levels of infant mortality and infectious 
        disease, factors that are aggravated by race.
            (G) Some individuals live in safe neighborhoods with good 
        housing and public facilities while many others live in bad or 
        over-crowded housing in dangerous neighborhoods without 
        adequate recreational, educational, library, energy, or public 
        transportation facilities.
            (H) Uncounted individuals, including children, are 
        homeless.
            (I) The entire country benefits from the education provided 
        by many of the best universities in the world, while suffering 
        from some of the worst high school education in the industrial 
        world.
            (J) Despite the existence of efficient technologies for 
        improving the environment, all individuals suffer directly or 
        indirectly from dangerous levels of air, water, and soil 
        pollution, and the effects of global warming, especially 
        agricultural workers.
            (K) Despite discrimination against immigrants and their 
        children, the United States is still the preferred haven of 
        refuge for victims of oppression in other countries.
            (2) Insecure people.--(A) Although about 10,000,000 new 
        jobs have been created in the United States economy between 
        1993 and 1996, there are nearly 17,000,000 individuals who want 
        jobs and do not have them or are forced to work part-time 
        because they cannot find full-time employment.
            (B) Millions of individuals face the threat of downsizing 
        as the result of mergers, plant closings, or higher labor 
        productivity.
            (C) New jobs increasingly come at lower wage levels or with 
        few, eroding, or no benefits.
            (D) So-called welfare reform is increasing the number of 
        job-seekers but not the number of living wage job 
        opportunities.
            (3) Job-based military spending.--(A) Billions of dollars 
        are being spent annually on military programs that have been 
        and are justified less by strategic and tactical military needs 
        than by--
                    (i) the jobs they create; and
                    (ii) the economic health of communities that have 
                become dependent upon the maintenance or expansion of 
                such programs.
            (B) Careful termination of such contracts, with appropriate 
        protection for workers, contractors, subcontractors, and 
        communities could release resources for activities to meet 
        unmet human needs while advancing the civilian economy.
            (4) Entitlement confusions.--(A)(i) Among the recipients of 
        corporate welfare, some individuals have been enlarging their 
        collective entitlements.
            (ii) This has been done through tax deductions, Government 
        guaranteed loans, price supports, military contracts and other 
        forms of direct or indirect subsidy.
            (B)(i) Other individuals have swelled personal entitlements 
        at the expense of taxpayers, shareholders, employees and local 
        communities.
            (ii) This has been done through unprecedented increases in 
        salaries, stock options, deferred compensation, and other 
        luxurious benefits.
            (C) Some beneficiaries of elite entitlements have been 
        supporting attacks on the rights and entitlements of working 
        people, the elderly, racial or ethnic minorities, the jobless, 
        the homeless, poor people, the disabled, welfare parents, and 
        immigrants.
            (D) Others have been undermining collective bargaining 
        rights through anti-union propaganda, trade promotion 
        authority, subcontracting to non-unionized companies, and plant 
        closings.
            (E) Funds now deposited into the Social Security Trust Fund 
        are enormously attractive to those who would like to divert the 
        people's savings from secure Government bonds into the risk-
        laden stock and bond markets.
            (5) Defective growth.--(A) Recent economic growth has been 
        below the levels needed to provide decent employment for a 
        larger and more productive population.
            (B) As a result, many individuals have been forced into 
        jobs that are underpaid, part-time, temporary, irregular, or 
        lacking in health insurance or other social benefits.
            (C) Many face the disappearance of career ladders and an 
        ever-present specter of lay-offs.
            (D) Consumer debt and business bankruptcy have been 
        reaching historic levels.
            (E) These trends have created deeper and longer term 
        poverty or insecurity, with the consequent loss of personal 
        dignity and self-respect.
            (F) Among the more obvious symptoms are the fostering of 
        mental depression, family breakdown, child or spousal abuse, 
        and illegal forms of income.
            (G) Lesser known symptoms have been the increase in the 
        prison population, the exploitation of prison labor, the spread 
        of new hate groups, church bombings, homophobia, and 
        unregulated armed militias.
            (H) As a result, an insecurity plague unravels the social 
        fabric of United States society.
            (6) Misleading information.--(A) While most individuals are 
        flooded by information overloads, much of the information they 
        receive consists of oversimplifications, misinformation or 
        disinformation.
            (B) By themselves, aggregate measures of national output or 
        income neglect their disaggregated components, overemphasize 
        monetary data, ignore the entire world of unpaid volunteer and 
        household elderly and healthcare services and care for 
        children.
            (C) Their use tends to nurture the misleading idea that 
        human progress or regress can be represented by a single 
        overall measurement.
            (D) Statistical data on employment, unemployment, prices, 
        education, crime, and health are often based on outmoded 
        concepts that have not been adapted to changing conditions or 
        new capabilities for information collection, processing, and 
        distribution.
            (E) Many people misuse averages and other measures of 
        central tendency without attention to frequency distributions 
        and other measures of dispersion. The use of a single measure 
        of consumer prices and inflation ignores the long-established 
        fact that poor individuals pay more.
            (7) Lost legacies.--(A) Few people now remember, and many 
        young people never learned, how President Franklin D. Roosevelt 
        started planning for conversion from war to peace by 
        proclaiming a ``second Bill of Rights''.
            (B) The first principle in this long-forgotten document was 
        ``the right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries 
        or shops or farms or mines of the Nation''.
            (C) This right was backed up with seven other human rights: 
        adequate income, adequate medical care, family farming, freedom 
        from monopolies, decent housing, Social Security, and a good 
        education.
            (D) These ideals led to law-based entitlements that 
        nurtured high wages, a successful Social Security system, 
        unemployment insurance, other social benefits, collective 
        bargaining, higher productivity and the rising purchasing power 
        needed for private enterprises to earn profits without 
        Government subsidy.
            (8) Limitations in mainstream discourse.--(A) During World 
        War II and the subsequent conversion from war to peace, the 
        idea of full employment was widely held.
            (B) The United States made a commitment to promote full 
        employment when it ratified the United Nations Charter, 
        including a commitment to adhere to articles 55(a) and 56 of 
        that treaty.
            (C) More recently, the full employment ideal has been 
        mistakenly defined as a high level of unused labor or regarded 
        as impossible without excessive deficits, inflation or 
        regulations.
            (D) Discussion of full employment has thus become taboo in 
        mainstream discourse.
            (E) Something similar has happened with the ideal of decent 
        job opportunities as a human right.
            (F) In earlier decades this ideal was supported by most 
        religious leaders and articulated, under United States 
        leadership, in the United Nations Charter and in other United 
        Nations treaties and declarations.
            (G) More recently, the idea of full employment has also 
        become taboo in mainstream economic discourse.
            (9) Globalization.--(A) Transnational corporations have 
        evolved into giant global institutions that control much of the 
        world's information, assets and money, while often undermining, 
        if not entirely escaping, national and international defenses 
        against the violation of the right to dignity and all basic 
        human rights and responsibilities.
            (B) One-third of world trade is transactions among the 
        various units or sub-units of the same organization.
            (C) An excessive amount of global financial transactions 
        consists of speculative operations that create no new wealth 
        and thereby divert resources from productive use.
    (b) Declaration of Policy.--To help promote the general welfare and 
secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, the 
Congress hereby declares the following to be the policy of the Federal 
Government:
            (1) Reaffirming basic rights.--To reaffirm to public 
        discourse the human rights proclaimed by President Roosevelt 
        more than half a century earlier, express them in terms that 
        have been developed in more recent years and, as part of the 
        bridges to the twenty-first century, affirm basic rights 
        regarding dignity, personal security, collective bargaining, 
        the environment, information, and voting.
            (2) More emphasis on basic responsibilities.--(A) To help 
        root these ideals of living wage jobs for all individuals in 
        explicit recognition of personal, corporate, and Federal 
        responsibilities.
            (B) These include the continuing responsibility of 
        government of the following:
                    (i) To protect the rights of individuals.
                    (ii) To nurture healthy partnerships among Federal, 
                State, county, and local government agencies, and 
                between government agencies and such private sectors as 
                nonprofit enterprises, labor unions, trade or fraternal 
                associations, religious groups, and cooperatives.
                    (iii) To update and continuously improve such 
                fundamental laws and procedures as are required for the 
                protection of private property, the functioning of 
                public utilities, competitive markets, and such 
                limitations on market activities as are necessary to 
                promote the common good by protecting employees, 
                consumers, and the environment.
            (3) Overall democratic planning.--To mandate under law an 
        overall planning process of legislative and executive action to 
        help provide the essential remedies and resources needed to 
        attain and maintain conditions under which all Americans may 
        freely fulfill basic human rights and responsibilities, 
        including the right to dignity and to help reduce poverty, 
        inequality, and the concentrations of economic and political 
        power.
            (4) Congressional monitoring and initiatives.--To 
        strengthen the constitutional checks and balances by providing 
        continual congressional monitoring of the overall planning 
        process through the activities of the Joint Economic Committee 
        and the requirement of open debate and voting on the Annual 
        Economic Policy Resolution.
            (5) Cooperative international leadership.--To work with 
        individuals and governments of other nations and the United 
        Nations and its organs and specialized agencies in providing 
        leadership for supporting basic human rights and 
        responsibilities through the provision of sufficient remedies 
        and resources.

SEC. 3. BASIC RIGHTS AND RESPONSIBILITIES.

    (a) Updating the 1944 Economic Bill of Rights.--The Congress 
reaffirms the responsibility of the Federal Government to implement 
and, in accordance with current and foreseeable trends, update the 
statement by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the State of the Union 
message of January 11, 1944. The Congress therefore proclaims the 
following rights as continuing goals of United States public policy:
            (1) Decent jobs.--(A) The right of every adult American to 
        earn decent real wages, to a free choice among opportunities 
        for useful and productive paid employment, or for self-
        employment. The right of every child not to have to work during 
        school hours.
            (B) With more full employment at living wages, the economy 
        will be more productive, attain higher levels of responsible 
        and sustainable growth and provide more Federal revenues even 
        without desirable changes in existing tax laws.
            (2) Income security for individuals unable to work for 
        pay.--(A) Notwithstanding any other provision of law, the right 
        of every adult American truly unable to work for pay to an 
        adequate standard of living that rises with increases in the 
        wealth and productivity of the society.
            (B) With more full employment at living wages, more 
        individuals will be able to earn a decent living without the 
        help of welfare benefits or other transfer payments.
            (3) Family farming.--(A) The right of every farm family to 
        raise and sell its products at a return which will give it a 
        decent living through the production of useful food, with 
        staged incentives for conversion from unhealthy to healthier 
        food or other products, with special attention to production 
        processes that conserve soil, water, and energy and reduce 
        pollution.
            (B) With more full employment at living wages, the market 
        for farm output will be enlarged, with less need for controls 
        over output, or Federal, State, or local support prices or 
        subsidies.
            (4) Freedom from monopolies.--(A) The right of every 
        business enterprise, large and small, to operate in freedom 
        from domination by domestic and foreign monopolies and cartels, 
        and from threats of undesirable mergers or leveraged buy-outs, 
        and the right of consumers to obtain goods and services at 
        prices that are not determined by monopolies, cartels, and 
        price leadership.
            (B) With more full employment at living wages, more 
        business enterprises will be able to earn profits without 
        monopolistic controls or government welfare and consumers will 
        be able to enjoy lower prices.
            (5) Decent housing.--(A) The right of every American to 
        decent, safe, and sanitary housing, public utilities, and 
        community facilities, with adequate maintenance and 
        weatherization, including large-scale rehabilitation of 
        millions of existing buildings, thereby helping to reduce 
        overcrowding and energy loss and the need to build new roads, 
        power plants, storm sewers, sewage, and refuse disposal.
            (B) With more full employment at living wages more people 
        will be able afford adequate housing with less government 
        subsidy.
            (6) Adequate health services.--(A) The right of every 
        American to such widely available health services as may be 
        necessary to promote wellness, extend both life expectancy and 
        activity expectancy, and reduce mortality and disability 
        through such non-contagious afflictions as cancer, heart 
        disease, stroke, infant mortality, high blood pressure and 
        obesity, and reduce the incidence of contagious diseases.
            (B) With more full employment at living wages, more tax 
        revenues will be available to help finance expanded health 
        services for a larger and older population.
            (7) Social security.--(A) The right to adequate protection 
        from the economic fears of old age, disability, sickness, 
        accident, and unemployment.
            (B) With more full employment at living wages and higher 
        levels of responsible growth, more tax revenues will be 
        available to help finance Social Security, medicare, medicaid, 
        unemployment compensation, and welfare payments.
            (8) Education and work training.--(A) Every individual has 
        a right to opportunities for continuous learning through free 
        public education, from pre-kindergarten and kindergarten 
        through postsecondary levels.
            (B) With more full employment at living wages, more local, 
        State and Federal revenues will be available to help support 
        education and continuous learning.
    (b) Extending the 1944 Economic Bill of Rights.--The Congress 
proclaims the following additional rights as continuing goals of United 
States public policy:
            (1) Personal security.--The right of every American to 
        personal security against any form of violence, whether in the 
        home, in the workplace, on the streets and highways, in the 
        community or the nation.
            (2) Employee organizing and collective bargaining.--
        Notwithstanding any other provision of law, the right of all 
        employees to organize and bargain collectively, to withhold 
        from any form of work or purchasing when necessary to protect 
        such rights, and to receive full diplomatic, economic, and 
        other support from the Federal Government in helping make this 
        right effective in other countries and eliminating policies or 
        activities that undermine such rights.
            (3) Safe environments.--The right of every American to 
        unpolluted breathable air, to potable water available through a 
        reliable and safe water supply, to safety from hazardous 
        materials and energy blackouts, and to such international 
        protections as may be needed to facilitate living and working 
        in a safe and sustainable physical environment.
            (4) Information.--The right of every American to currently 
        available and fully explained information on recent and 
        foreseeable trends with respect to sources of pollution and on 
        products and processes that threaten the health or life of 
        individuals and on employment, unemployment, underemployment, 
        economic insecurity, poverty, and the distribution of wealth 
        and income, with detailed attention to various groups in the 
        population and broader panoramic attention to such matters in 
        each region of the world.
            (5) Voting.--The right of every American to vote and to 
        seek nomination or election without having that right debased 
        by the domination of electoral campaigns by large-scale private 
        financing of campaign operations or by the scheduling of 
        elections during weekdays or by unequal voting machines and 
        processes, or in other manners that may interfere with regular 
        working hours.
    (c) Personal Responsibility.--The Congress hereby recognizes that 
every person benefiting from the rights set forth in subsections (a) 
and (b) has a personal responsibility to promote her or his health and 
wellbeing, rather than relying exclusively on health services by 
others, to provide for appropriate care to the best of their abilities 
of children and elderly parents, to protect the environment, to work 
productively, to vote, to involve herself or himself in public concerns 
and in ongoing education and training, to speak out against corruption 
or injustice, and to cooperate with others in promoting the nonviolent 
handling of inevitable conflicts in the household, the workplace, the 
community and elsewhere.
    (d) Corporate Responsibility.--
            (1) Reports to the securities and exchange commission.--To 
        help implement the recognition of the most responsible 
        corporations and encourage more responsible behavior by other 
        corporations, each corporation registered with the Securities 
        and Exchange Commission shall include in the annual reports 
        filed with the Commission a full and fair disclosure of 
        information regarding the impact of their activities in the 
        United States and other countries on environmental quality, on 
        child labor, and on the rights of other stakeholders, including 
        employees, consumers, and communities.
            (2) Reports by state-chartered corporations.--To help 
        implement the recognition of the most responsible corporations 
        and encourage movement in this direction by other corporations, 
        a State shall not be entitled to receive any Federal grants or 
        enter into any Federal contracts unless the State has initiated 
        a time-phased program to require that all State-chartered 
        corporations submit annual reports that include full and fair 
        disclosure of information regarding the impact of their 
        activities in this or other countries on environmental quality, 
        on child labor, and on the rights of other stakeholders, 
        including employees, consumers, and communities.
            (3) Recognition of most responsible corporations.--Because 
        some profit-seeking corporations have managed their enterprises 
        with recognition not only of the rights of stockholders and 
        chief executives, but also with responsible action toward 
        environmental quality and the rights of other stakeholders, 
        including employees, consumers, and communities, the Secretary 
        of Labor, in cooperation with the Director of the Environmental 
        Protection Agency, shall identify those corporations that have 
        gone the furthest in exercising such responsibilities and 
        recommend to the President a special annual award to those 
        chief executives and boards of directors that have made the 
        greatest progress in this direction.
            (4) Computer registration of corporate crimes.--
                    (A) In general.--The Attorney General, with the 
                assistance of business leaders and organizations, shall 
                establish an ongoing computerized registration program 
                of all corporations that are found guilty of violating 
                a Federal or State law. The register shall set forth--
                            (i) the nature of each violation;
                            (ii) the names of the members of the board 
                        and principal officers of the corporation at 
                        the time of the violation;
                            (iii) the penalties imposed; and
                            (iv) the extent to which penalties were 
                        reduced or avoided by consent decrees, plea 
                        bargains, and no contest pleas or tax 
                        deductions.
                    (B) Registration noncompliance.--In the absence of 
                clear and convincing evidence of rehabilitation, the 
                President may deny Federal contracts, loans, or loan 
                guarantees to corporations that fail to comply with 
                this section.
    (e) Responsibility of Federal Government.--
            (1) Positive responsibilities.--Each Federal agency and 
        commission, including the Board of Governors of the Federal 
        Reserve System, has the responsibility to plan and carry out 
        its policies, programs, projects, and budgets in a manner 
        designed to help establish and maintain conditions under which 
        all Americans may freely exercise the responsibilities and 
        rights recognized in this Act.
            (2) Prohibition.--Each such Federal agency or commission 
        shall not directly or indirectly promote economic recession, 
        stagnation, or unemployment as a means of reducing wages, 
        salaries, or inflation.

SEC. 4. OVERALL PLANNING FOR FULL EMPLOYMENT.

    (a) Goals.--As a part of the annual submission of the budget of the 
United States Government for the following fiscal year pursuant to 
section 1105 of title 31, United States Code, the President shall 
establish a framework for such budget that meets the following goals:
            (1) Quality of life and environment.--The goal of improving 
        the quality of life and environmental conditions in the United 
        States by the first decade of the 21st century, including 
        establishing and maintaining conditions under which the rights 
        and responsibilities recognized in section 3 may be fully 
        exercised.
            (2) Goals for responsible and sustainable growth.--The goal 
        of responsible and sustainable annual growth of at least 3 
        percent, after correction for price changes, in gross domestic 
        output.
            (3) Reducing officially measured unemployment.--The goal of 
        reducing officially measured unemployment to the interim goal 
        of at least 3 percent for individuals who have attained the age 
        of 20 and at least 4 percent for individuals who have attained 
        the age of 16 but have not attained the age of 20, as set forth 
        in the Full Employment and Balanced Growth Act of 1978.
            (4) Supporting international human rights declarations.--
        The goal of implementing the commitments set forth in the 
        Employment Act of 1946, the Full Employment and Balanced Growth 
        Act of 1978, and in treaties ratified by the United States, 
        including the Charter of the United Nations, the Charter of the 
        Organization of American States, the International Covenant on 
        Civil and Political Rights, the International Convention on the 
        Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, the 
        International Convention Against Torture and other Cruel, 
        Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, including the 
        Federal and State reporting requirements, and in treaties 
        signed but not yet ratified by the United States, including the 
        International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, 
        the International Convention for the Elimination of All Forms 
        of Discrimination of Women, and the International Convention on 
        the Rights of the Child, and in the Universal Declaration of 
        Human Rights, which is a part of customary international law.
    (b) A Full Employment Minimum.--The framework for the annual budget 
established under subsection (a) shall also include, as a basic minimum 
of activities needed to achieve conditions under which Americans may 
better fulfill basic human rights and responsibilities, specific 
legislative proposals, budgets, and executive policies and initiatives 
such as the following:
            (1) Conversion from military to civilian economy.--The 
        establishment of the following:
                    (A) The establishment of a conversion planning 
                fund, to be administered under the guidance of the 
                Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of Labor, and the 
                Secretary of Commerce, to include not less than 1 
                percent of the amount appropriated for military 
                purposes during each subsequent year for the purpose of 
                promoting and activating short- and long-term plans for 
                coping with declines in military activities by 
                developing specific policies, programs and projects 
                (including feasibility studies, education, training and 
                inducements for whatever increased labor mobility may 
                be necessary) for the expansion of economic activates 
                in non-military sectors.
                    (B) The recognition of the right of all businesses 
                with terminated military contracts to fair 
                reimbursement for the work already completed by such 
                businesses, including quick advance payments on initial 
                claims, adequate termination payments for released 
                employees, and conversion assistance for communities 
                previously dependent on such contracts.
            (2) Truth in budgets.--The establishment of policies and 
        initiatives that--
                    (A) make distinctions between operating and 
                investment outlays as such outlays regularly appear in 
                the budgets of business organizations and State and 
                local governments;
                    (B) present outlays of the military in terms not 
                only of Department of Defense outlays but also of all 
                other forms of military related spending;
                    (C) provide for the development of a tax 
                expenditure budget, as defined in the Congressional 
                Budget Act of 1974, that is presented not only in a 
                separately published special analysis but also 
                incorporated into the general revenue provisions of the 
                budget and accompanied by estimates of the benefits 
                sought and thus far obtained by such planned losses of 
                tax revenue; and
                    (D) express any debt and deficit data in constant 
                as well as current United States dollars.
            (3) Improved indicators of progress and regress.--(A) The 
        establishment of procedures for the collecting, processing, and 
        making publicly available improved indicators of recent, 
        current and foreseeable trends with respect to--
                    (i) health, life expectancy, activity expectancy, 
                morbidity and disability in the United States;
                    (ii) employment, unemployment, underemployment, and 
                economic insecurity data;
                    (iii) indices of job security, family security, and 
                the ratio of job applicants to job openings in the 
                United States;
                    (iv) poverty in the sense of both absolute 
                deprivation and relative deprivation;
                    (v) the distribution of wealth and income in the 
                United States;
                    (vi) the sources of pollution, products and 
                processes that threaten the health or life of people in 
                the United States; and
                    (vii) the kinds, quantity, and quality of unpaid 
                services in homes, households, and neighborhoods, 
                including volunteer activities.
            (B) In establishing the procedures under subparagraph (A), 
        emphasis shall be placed on distinguishing among the various 
        groups in the population of the United States and on trends 
        with respect to such matters in other countries.
            (4) Anti-inflation policies.--The establishment of policies 
        and initiatives for preventing or controlling inflationary 
        tendencies through a full battery of standby policies, 
        including public controls over price fixing through 
        monopolistic practices or restraint of trade, the promotion of 
        competition and productivity, and wage-price policies arrived 
        at through tripartite business-labor-government cooperation.
            (5) Lower real interest rates.--The establishment of 
        policies and initiatives to enlarge employment opportunities 
        through reductions in real interest rates.
            (6) Public works and services.--The establishment of 
        policies and initiatives for including provisions in Federal 
        grant programs and other assistance programs to encourage the 
        planning and fulfillment of public works and public services 
        planning by town, city, county and State governments projects--
                    (A) to improve the quality of life for all people 
                in the area;
                    (B) to renovate, and to the extent desirable, 
                enlarge the decaying infrastructure of public 
                facilities and services required for productive, 
                efficient, and sustainable enterprise;
                    (C) to utilize the wasted labor power, and nurture 
                the creative energies of, those suffering from 
                joblessness and poverty; and
                    (D) to have contracts awarded competitively to 
                smaller as well as larger business enterprises or such 
                other private sector units as non-profit enterprises, 
                labor unions, cooperatives, neighborhood corporations 
                or other voluntary associations.
            (7) International economic policy.--The establishment of 
        policies and initiatives to make any future financial support 
        for the International Monetary Fund and the International Bank 
        for Reconstruction and Development to be conditioned on 
        development and implementation of certain policies and 
        procedures by such institutions, including the protection of 
        the rights of women and children, concern for the environment, 
        employees' right to organize and to work in safe and healthy 
        conditions as will help raise the living standards of those 
        people with the lowest levels of income and wealth, thereby 
        promoting such higher levels of wages and salaries in such 
        countries as will provide larger markets for their own 
        industries and for imports of goods and services from the 
        United States.
            (8) International conferences on unemployment and 
        underemployment.--The establishment of policies and 
        initiatives--
                    (A) to begin working toward the prompt initiation 
                of a series of international and regional conferences 
                through the United Nations and International Labor 
                Organization on alternative methods of reducing 
                involuntary unemployment, underemployment, and poverty; 
                and
                    (B) to organize, through the Department of Labor, 
                planning seminars and other sessions in preparation for 
                a worldwide conference and convention of independent 
                labor unions.
            (9) Reductions in hours.--The establishment of policies and 
        initiatives to provide for phased-in actions for reductions in 
        the length of the work year through longer paid vacations, the 
        prohibition on compulsory return to work of new mothers before 
        six months maternity leave, the elimination of compulsory 
        overtime, curbing excessive overtime through an increase in the 
        premium to triple time on all hours in excess of 40 hours in 
        any week, exempting administrative, executive, and professional 
        employees from the overtime premium only if their salary levels 
        are three times the annual value of the minimum wage, reducing 
        the average work week in manufacturing and mining to no more 
        than 35 hours without any corresponding loss in weekly wages, 
        and voluntary work-sharing arrangements.
            (10) Part-time employment with social benefits.--The 
        establishment of policies and initiatives to increase the 
        opportunities for freely-chosen part-time employment, with 
        social security and health benefits, to meet the needs of older 
        people, students, individuals with disabilities, and 
        individuals with housekeeping, child care, and family care 
        responsibilities.
            (11) Insurance protection for pension fund investments.--
        The establishment of policies and initiatives to encourage more 
        private and public investment in those areas of localized 
        depression in which people suffer from massive joblessness, 
        overcrowded schools, overcrowded housing, inadequate library 
        and transportation facilities, violence and social breakdown 
        by--
                    (A) promoting comprehensive plans for raising the 
                quality of life through expanded small business 
                activity, middle income housing (including 
                rehabilitation) and improvements in private and public 
                infrastructure;
                    (B) encouraging private, Federal, State and local 
                pension funds to invest a substantial portion of their 
                resources in projects approved in accordance with such 
                plans; and
                    (C) protecting the beneficiaries of such funds by 
                whatever insurance guarantees may be needed to 
                eliminate the risks involved by entering areas not 
                normally regarded as profitable by banks and other 
                investors.
            (12) Other matters.--The establishment of policies and 
        initiatives to present and continuously adjust proposals, 
        budgets and executive policies and initiatives on taxation, 
        Social Security, health care, child care, public education, 
        training and retraining, the arts and humanities, basic and 
        applied science, housing, public transportation, public 
        utilities, military conversion, environmental protection, anti-
        racism, agriculture, enforcement of anti-monopoly laws, public 
        financing of election campaigns, crime prevention, punishment 
        and rehabilitation, and such other matters as may be necessary 
        to fulfill the objectives of this Act.

SEC. 5. JOINT ECONOMIC COMMITTEE.

    (a) Monitoring of Actions Under This Act.--In addition to its 
responsibilities under the Employment Act of 1946, the Joint Economic 
Committee shall monitor all actions taken or proposed to be taken to 
carry out the purposes under this Act.
    (b) Report.--The Joint Economic Committee shall prepare and submit 
to the Congress, and publish in the Federal Register, an annual report 
containing a summary of the findings of the Committee with respect to 
the actions monitored under subsection (a) for the preceding year, with 
special attention to the extent to which the President and Federal 
agencies have faithfully executed or may have failed to faithfully 
execute the provisions of this Act and fulfill their obligations under 
international covenants and conventions requiring periodic reporting to 
United Nations committees.
    (c) Concurrent Resolution on Economic Policy.--Not later than July 
1 of each year the Joint Economic Committee shall submit to the Senate 
and the House of Representatives a Concurrent Resolution on Economic 
Policy setting forth both in aggregate terms and in detail its proposed 
goals for employment by type of employment, with special attention to 
hours, wages, and social benefits, and for reducing unemployment, 
underemployment, and poverty in urban, suburban and rural areas. 
Notwithstanding any other provisions of law, these goals shall serve as 
the framework for any concurrent resolutions on the Federal budget.

SEC. 6. AUTHORIZATION OF APPROPRIATIONS.

    There are hereby authorized to be appropriated such sums as may be 
necessary for operating and investment expenses to implement the 
policies, programs and projects set forth in accordance with this Act.
                                 <all>