Robert Kuttner
There is a lot of circumstantial evidence that President Obama is planning to include in his eagerly anticipated post-Labor Day jobs speech a variation on a truly lame state program called Georgia Works. The program, begun in 2003, pays people on unemployment insurance a small additional stipend, currently $240, if they agree to work 24 hours a week, for no wages, for a private employer while unemployed, in exchange for some form of training by the employer.
Even if the administration kids itself into thinking that this is smart policy, a political reality check should give the White House pause. How many voters, really, will this impress? What will it do to the actual plague of unemployment? As it happens, Obama has just hired as his new chair of the Council of Economic Advisers one of our premier labor economists, Alan Krueger of Princeton University. Krueger came to prominence in 1995 as co-author of an academic study defending minimum wages. Krueger is not making public comments, since he still has to get confirmed. But he should be privately advising the president that sending out jobless Americans on meager unemployment compensation stipends to work for free is no solution to the crisis of mass unemployment
Even if the administration kids itself into thinking that this is smart policy, a political reality check should give the White House pause. How many voters, really, will this impress? What will it do to the actual plague of unemployment? As it happens, Obama has just hired as his new chair of the Council of Economic Advisers one of our premier labor economists, Alan Krueger of Princeton University. Krueger came to prominence in 1995 as co-author of an academic study defending minimum wages. Krueger is not making public comments, since he still has to get confirmed. But he should be privately advising the president that sending out jobless Americans on meager unemployment compensation stipends to work for free is no solution to the crisis of mass unemployment
Those people on unemployment compensation will get some training all right, and that's to pluck chickens and flip burgers.
ReplyDeleteme thinks jobs would be made if goverment did its job. make toca bells, gas stations, pizza parlers, ring dings. if this comes to pass people will be employed. when people are employed people make money. the sad truth is americans cant make money off jobs. money needs to be printed by goverment. This is how to make money. Call your local senaters to demand money. demand a system change. we gotta take the power back. as rage against the machine put it. Dig the trench line, stick booby traps in the line, get some fire going here folks. Get ready folsk bad stuff coming are way.
ReplyDelete- Sam
Welcome back Sam!
ReplyDelete-Not Sam
It ain't a party unless Sam is here!
ReplyDeleteNow where the hell is the guy who rants in all capitals?
The problems will be solved once the government drops the debt it carries. It created it, it can end it.
ReplyDeleteI see jobs almost everywhere I go. Pizza Hut is hiring, many other jobs in the plaza as well are available.
There is nothing wrong with working at Starbucks for the time being. When the government introduces its new jobs programs in your communities jump on board.
My kids right now are going door to door asking to pick up dog poop or mow lawns. This is how we fix an economy. We can accept some debt too, it is okay to be in debt. Debt can be solved easily. There are also credit cards for those who cannot afford things right away.
The stocks are going to rise, this might be a good time to stop looking at worthless rocks and start looking at some greenback investments. We are strong and we are going to last long!
Eric T said...
ReplyDeleteThe problems will be solved once the government drops the debt it carries.
This would be fine in a fantasy or a closed system but...You need to wake up!