Enacted as the Full Employment and Balanced Growth Act, Humphrey– Hawkins resulted largely from lobbying by a coalition of black and multiethnic organizations, socialists, democratic leftists, labor unions, Cold War liberals, Senator Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota, and black Representative Augustus Hawkins of California.

In its original form, the bill provided that all able and working adults be guaranteed equal opportunities for useful paid work at fair wages. It declared that the federal government must “meet human and national needs,” including day care, transportation, and housing subsidies. Also, reflecting the crucial need for jobs, it created a Job Guarantee Office to ensure “the right of all ... to a job.”

The act prioritized disadvantaged racial and ethnic minorities such as African American women and children; two-thirds of the latter lived in poverty. Crafted to implement the promise of the Great Society, it was the “most significant employment legislation to appear in the United States in thirty years” (Marable, 2007, p. 168). Even so, House and Senate conservatives strongly opposed it and President Carter “did not battle aggressively for” it. It passed, though in a watered down form, revealing the federal retreat from social programs.