Let’s not confuse summer jobs programs with “recovery”

"President Barack Obama promised green jobs to be funded through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, and those federal stimulus dollars are the focus of a new program in Beloit that's putting young people to work and saving energy." Story from Beloit, Wisconsin.

There is nothing new in the world of politics and jobs programs. I’m sure we had them even before FDR raised them to their glory in the WPA. Perhaps it’s a family legend, but I remember stories of the “Tennessee migration" to Ogle County, Illinois, aided by my great-grandfather, Grandad Ballard, who got his friends and relatives jobs on the road crews for the county in the early 20th century.

In the 1980s I worked on a contract program funded by the JTPA (Job Training Partnership Act, which replaced a public works jobs program, CETA, 1974-1982) and the Ohio Bureau of Employment Services (or was that Unemployment? Labor?). I was a Democrat; my boss was a Republican and also my aerobics instructor; her boss was a Republican; his boss was a Democrat at the cabinet level; her boss was Governor Gilligan, a Democrat and the father of former Kansas Governor Sebilius, now head of HHS of the Obama administration. I believe the President at that time was a Republican named Reagan. The problem with all these federal jobs programs is that either they train for jobs that aren't there, or they are the actual jobs with nowhere to go. Either way, the poor usually stay poor with the government's help. This Wisconsin ARRA program is a jobs program, almost guaranteed to go nowhere. I think 5 young adults are "energy advocates." They are teaching people to do what our mothers taught us back in the 1950s.

"Members of a team of five from the Beloit area are called Energy Advocates. They are all between 18 and 24 years old, and their job is teaching others to save energy and money.

"(We remind people to) turn off their appliances when they're not using them. You're still pulling energy in just because they're plugged in," said Sharome Crawford.

Crawford uses devices like kilowatt readers, energy efficient light bulbs, low-flow shower heads and sink aerators to help residents cut costs.

"You're going to have the full capacity of water, and it's going to keep your bills low," he said, displaying the low-flow sink aerator.

The Department of Workforce Development program gives these young workers training for future careers."

In what? Nanny state community organizing? Well, some do get to the top that way.

I learned so much in that 6 mo. JTPA job--about how hard some lower level, career government employees work, and how others who do nothing were appointed because of connections and donations to the party (either). My job specifically was in a training program to get seniors (over 55) re-employed and re-trained because the recession during the Carter years was not unlike today's but with both high inflation and high unemployment. We worked through the Private Industry Councils (PIC) and the Area Agencies for Aging. Even though I was a novice at government largesse and wealth transfer, even I could see that dollars were taken from the taxpayer, filtered through a variety of huge departments in Washington like Labor, then partially returned to the states, and then to various levels within the state, and counties, each agency and official (and contract worker like me) getting a cut along the way.