Universal Work saved the capitalist/socialist hybrid US in the 30s. It worked so well that as soon as before FDR’s body was even cold the US oligarchs were rolling wheelbarrows of cash into Washington DC to get his policies, particularly those strengthening unions and collective bargaining (i.e. “socialism”) rolled back.

The only time that a universal work program could theoretically be bad is if the economy were at full employment, and the government was competing directly with private business for workers. This could theoretically lead to an inflation cycle, but it’d would be stupidly simple to solve by just putting limitations on government jobs — the same limitations that are listed in serious gov’t work programs. You only get a job if there are not jobs available on the open market.

Note that this is nearly the same as what you are proposing with UBI, my idea is just more efficient because goods and/or services are being produced rather than just checks being cut.

And just to be clear, every country has something like this now, they just don’t call it that for political purposes. The US has a huge park system, huge power needs, huge number of water ways, roads, highways, airports, IT needs, etc. etc. There are trillions of dollars of infrastructure that needs maintenance. All those would be good mostly blue but also white collar jobs to be filled. Those are millions of jobs that would then drive up demand for cars, shoes, phones, work clothes, restaurants, hotels, etc.

When there is a turn down in the economy, social democracies crank up infrastructure spending to get the economy back up ASAP. The US is nearly alone in punishing its residents during hard times — like during Covid.