This policy makes wellbeing possible – it isn't the one you think

The National

23-05-2025

Here is this week's Scotonomics, we hope you will enjoy. This week the newsletter comes from William Thomson (follow me on X/Twitter!)
LATER this year, the WEAll Alliance Scotland will release its wellbeing manifesto. Scotonomics will be proposing that a government job guarantee scheme forms part of the manifesto.
WEAll Scotland gathered contributors for a wellbeing workshop in Glasgow last week. If there is to be a wellbeing economy (there certainly isn't one now) in Scotland after the next Holyrood election, then WEAll wants to suggest some policies.
This marks a different, and in my opinion, a much-needed change of direction from WEAll. Up until now, it has been keen to sketch the idea of wellbeing and to let others decide on those policies.
The need to get practical about a wellbeing economy reflects many of the conversations I've had over the past year. People don't struggle with the idea but very often their vision is rather hazy. With WEAll producing a 'wellbeing manifesto' for the next parliament, we may all be in a better position to action a wellbeing economy.
READ MORE: David Lammy can call us 'clickbait' all he wants. He can't change the facts
Aileen McLeod, director of WEAll Scotland, in her opening notes summarised the need for a wellbeing economy.
She said: 'Delivering the wellbeing economy agenda has been a political commitment of the Scottish Government for a number of years. While some progress has been made, there are concerns that the Government is retreating and falling back on an outdated economic model that cannot deliver the transformative change that people and communities across Scotland urgently need.
'The crisis and day-to-day difficulties we all face are being compounded by the combination of short-termism and populism. The very things that we need – more immigration, shorter working week and genuine green and just transition – are being portrayed as the problem.
"We are seeing a doubling down of the relentless focus on GDP growth at all costs, short-term profit maximisation over long-term societal wellbeing, where the power and control of the economy increasingly now lies in the hands of the wealthiest few. Rather than improving our lives, this logic is tearing societies and our planet apart and taking us down a very dangerous road.
'The challenge for us is how to sustain political effort in difficult times. We can take people with us by helping them to see and understand the connection between the economy and their everyday lives and we must also give politicians and policymakers policy solutions that are relevant, practicable, doable and deliverable.'
One such solution is a government job guarantee (GJG).
A GOVERNMENT JOB GUARANTEE
I HAVE suggested that a GJG should form the central plank of an independence campaign. I listed wellbeing policies in a Scotonomics discussion paper (job guarantee was included) but to be honest, this policy is unlikely to appear on anyone else's 'wellbeing' list. And here is the evidence from the wellbeing workshop.
People voted for their favourite 'fairness' wellbeing policy. The one vote for the government job guarantee was mine. Image: Author's
The job guarantee scheme is the policy most closely linked to Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) and in a sense it is when that theory becomes practical. It has always been at the centre of MMT as a stabilising policy for the economy. If everyone who wants a job is given one by the government, it stabilises the business cycle – it expands during a recession and contracts during a boom.
By setting a floor for wages, it also sets the price level for labour. And from there you can theorise that this in turn sets the price for everything that can be purchased in the issuer's currency. So, it's a three-for-one macro policy. It softens recessions, controls inflations and leads to full employment. Those facets should be enough for it to be on the table as a policy in every country in the world. I support the policy at a macro level and I want to expand it into the wellbeing economy.
Surely if everyone who wants a job has one there would be no better wellbeing policy than that?
A WELLBEING JOB GUARANTEE
TO make the case, specifically in a wellbeing context, I want to highlight the other policies offered up at the workshop last week.
The five wellbeing needs as identified by WEAll are dignity, purpose, nature, participation, and fairness. We have already seen the three policies we discussed on our table (image above) but it was interesting to see how seamlessly a job guarantee supported the ideas from the other groups.
Here they are:
Invest long-term in learning to respect nature at all stages of life
Mass participation via citizen assemblies
Structural approach to participation, e.g. built in at local level
Ethical consumerism campaigns
Restructuring of the economy to support more local/ethical businesses etc – with social and environmental focus
Participatory budgeting with more control passed to local communities
Investment in multi-use community spaces
Repair hubs and link to circular economy
Presumption in favour of community ownership
Mass participation with cultural events
Leverage and regulate public and private investment into nature-based solutions to support human and nature and wellbeing.
So, what do you think – is this a good list of wellbeing policies? I certainly think so.
One question that most people would ask is: where does the money come from for all of these policies? That's an easy one for an MMT economist. Finding the money is not the problem if Scotland has its own government that can create currency and purchase everything that is available in Scottish pounds. The same goes if the UK Government supports these policies. The question I want to ask is, who is it that does all the work?
Once you come to the profound realisation that it is not the job of the private sector to give everyone a job (they tend to minimise costs including labour costs) then a government job guarantee becomes a sensible response. Look at that list again.
Who trains and educates us all to keep our lifelong connection to nature? Who organises, manages and reports from the citizen assemblies? Who runs the campaigns? Who works for businesses that aren't profit motivated? Who provides resources, support and guidance to the volunteers on community councils? Who paints, fixes up and manages the community spaces? Who works in the repair hubs? If more community ownership is the target, who ensures those people have the necessary skills? Who organises and runs the cultural programmes? And finally, who is it that develops and supports all those nature-based solutions – tree planting, floor damage repairs, peat restoration?
A job guarantee is the glue that makes all of this possible.
READ MORE: Anas Sarwar responds to claim by-election candidate 'can't string sentence together'
A final thought. Attendees also included a 'universal basic income' (UBI) on their list and there was general agreement on this policy in the group. A basic income is part of a job guarantee scheme, with an income paid to anyone unwilling or unable to work. So why isn't a job guarantee scheme as popular as a UBI in a wellbeing discussion?
My response is that very few people know about the policy. I hope that once more people engage with the idea, they will see why it should top any list of wellbeing policies.
Final works from Aileen: 'The wellbeing economy is the most important and relevant agenda of our times for responding to the interlinked crises and challenges we face and for delivering lasting change with security for all.
'We all have a role to play in ensuring the wellbeing economy approach is high on the political agenda and getting Scotland on track'.
I believe that a government job guarantee scheme should be central to that vision and will be working over the coming months to raise the profile of a policy that should be at the heart of a wellbeing policy.