Ray Marshall

Getting Immigration Reform Right

In a broad analysis of the nations past immigration policy mistakes, former labor secretary Ray Marshall puts his finger on this most delicate of issues. The United States needs and values its immigrants. But unless it gets policy right, argues Marshall, the number of illegal immigrants will have doubled in twenty years and the situation will be still harder to control. He presents hard-edged and practical solutions to the many issues.

Rural Policy in the New Century

This article outlines the evolution of U.S. rural policy and identifies some likely policy gaps if current trends continue. During the 1930s, the New Deal stabilized agricultural prices and provided greater access to electricity, telephones, and transportation facilities for rural people. Rural nonfarm development was built on natural resources and low cost manufacturing, which became less viable in a global economy. Competitiveness in the new economy requires greater development of human resources and information infrastructures. Rural areas have closed their education gaps with central cities, but not with suburban populations or world class standards. Rural workforce development also lags, although emerging high performance companies demand skilled workers. Information infrastructures improve the quality of life and promote high value-added rural development. Two likely policy gaps are inadequate human resource development and the lack of a coherent rural policy which responds to unique rural conditions. Such a policy would be in the national interest.

Immigration: an international economic perspective.

An effective American immigration policy has been complicated by the diversity of political interests and the absence of reliable statistics to determine the magnitude of the impact on the American economy. Estimates1 of the number of illegal aliens in the U.S. range from one to twelve million.2 While political biases and complexities and data inadequacies complicate our analysis, some generalizations, examined in this essay, seem to be confirmed by worldwide experience.

Can We Restore Broadly Shared Prosperity

Good Jobs, Bad Jobs and other Russell Sage publications greatly strengthen our knowledge of both the causes of low-wage work and what is required to improve jobs and economic opportunities. These multidisciplinary studies complement basic principles with detailed comparative fieldwork which shows that globalized product and labor market competition does not create immutable tradeoffs between the quality and quantity of jobs; although it won’t be easy in the American context, broadly shared prosperity can be restored by a combination of value-added competitiveness policies, collective bargaining, minimum and prevailing wages, human resource development, labor market policies, and social supports.

Restoring the American Dream Analysis and Agenda for Change

Restoring the American Dream requires a new social contract to replace the one revoked by extensive reliance on free-market ideologies. The industrial-era contract was based on the enormous productivity of the mass-production system and supportive policies to counteract some of that systems most serious weaknesses. Restoring the dream of good jobs and opportunities for all requires that highly stressed families demand more flexible high-road policies to unlock the knowledge economys enormous potential, including stronger worker participation on corporate boards, at work, and in the larger society.