Ivory marked by the Royal African Company. International Slavery Museum, Liverpool. Wikimedia Commons.
The Employment Act of 1946 said the federal government should promote maximum employment, production, and purchasing power, and it gave no person a right to be hired.
A stretched household laid off after the war gained a council of advisers in Washington and did not gain a paycheck from this statute.
A household with work was told, in effect, that a national slump was now the government’s business to watch, without being told what the answer would be.
Employers remained the ones who hired, and the planning this law required was a report and a council, not an order telling a firm whom to take on.
The original bill had looked more like a promise of full employment, and the act that passed was softer.
It created the Council of Economic Advisers, required a regular economic report, and set up a joint committee of Congress to read it.
A household could not take the statute to a hiring office and demand work.
Employment Act of 1946