March 25, 2014 Employment Act of 1946 Is Subject of Book Discussion

The 1930s and 1940s were a time when the role and responsibility of government in overseeing the nation’s economy were redefined. New Deal programs followed by wartime deficit spending showed that government could – and many felt should – play an active role in stabilizing the economy and creating opportunity for workers. The Employment Act of 1946 was a dramatic step toward this goal.

In “Tackling Unemployment: The Legislative Dynamics of the Employment Act of 1946,” (W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, 2013), author Ruth Ellen Wasem covers the sweeping legislation on which postwar United States economic policy was built.

Wasem will discuss and sign her book on Tuesday, April 15, at noon in the Mary Pickford Theater, located on the third floor of the James Madison Memorial Building, 101 Independence Ave. S.E., Washington, D.C. This Books & Beyond event, sponsored by the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress, is free and open to the public; no tickets are required.

The 1946 law justified compensatory spending, tax cuts, job-creation tax credits and other tools advocated by the English economist John Maynard Keynes.

Wasem is a social-science analyst in the Domestic Social Policy division of the Congressional Research Service (CRS) of the Library of Congress. She has researched, written and testified before Congress on immigration and social-welfare policies. Before joining CRS, she was a Public Health Service fellow in the Office of Population Affairs at the Department of Health and Human Services.

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