In 2024, the Center for Working-Class Politics (CWCP) and Jacobin published a report summarizing the state of public opinion on a federal jobs guarantee. Looking across nine publicly available polls conducted since 2018, we found an average of 59% support for the policy. That’s not a slim majority driven by one partisan base but a consistent, solid majority that spans the political spectrum.

Our report showed that Democrats backed a jobs guarantee at rates between 81% and 88%. Independents supported it at 56% to 74%. And even among Republicans, 46% expressed support, with stronger backing among those under forty-five. Perhaps most striking is the fact that voters who switched from Barack Obama to Donald Trump in 2016 showed 29% net approval for the policy, meaning support substantially outweighed opposition even among a group that had recently rejected the Democratic Party.

But we also found that the framing matters. Depending on the specific wording, support ranged from a high of 74 percent to a low of 46 percent. Proposals that highlighted additions like guaranteed health care or a high minimum wage performed worse than those emphasizing the personal economic and broader societal benefits of the program. But across virtually every poll, the basic proposition — that the government should guarantee a job to anyone who wants one — commanded majority support.