Contesting claims that postwar American liberalism retreated from fights against unemployment and economic inequality, The Problem of Jobs reveals that such efforts did not collapse after the New Deal but instead began to flourish at the local, rather than the national, level.

With a focus on Philadelphia, this volume illuminates the central role of these local political and policy struggles in shaping the fortunes of city and citizen alike. In the process, it tells the remarkable story of how Philadelphia’s policymakers and community activists energetically worked to challenge deindustrialization through an innovative series of job retention initiatives, training programs, inner-city business development projects, and early affirmative action programs. Without ignoring the failure of Philadelphians to combat institutionalized racism, Guian McKee's account of their surprising success draws a portrait of American liberalism that evinces a potency not usually associated with the postwar era. Ultimately interpreting economic decline as an arena for intervention rather than a historical inevitability, The Problem of Jobs serves as a timely reminder of policy’s potential to combat injustice.
 

“Deeply and impressively researched, The Problem of Jobs offers an important corrective to the relentless narrative of policy failure and frustration one gets from looking at urban policy from the federal perspective or from the perspective of the ideological right. Especially notable is Guian McKee’s focus on how Philadelphia perceived, experienced, and attempted to forestall transformations that were threatening its economic livelihood—a dimension of the urban crisis that is widely recognized but rarely understood as something more than historical inevitability, and still more rarely recognized as an arena for local policy innovation.”

“A stunningly rich work of policy and urban history that is a must-read for anyone studying deindustrialization and postwar politics.”

“A remarkable piece of urban policy history. . . .McKee uses the richness of his sources and the strength of his organization figures to provide one of the clearest explorations of liberalism’s nuts and bolts that one can find in recent studies of the American city. His skills as a political historian allow him to craft a smooth narrative arc.”