100,000 Jobs Subsidized By Stimulus Will End In September

Debbie Velarde is one of more than 100,000 people who will lose their jobs by September unless Congress extends a stimulus bill provision that gives states funding to create jobs programs for low-income parents and young adults.

"I'll have to pay for everything and I don't have the means to do that," said Velarde, who earns $8 an hour through the program as an administrative assistant at Lifetime, a California membership organization that helps low-income parents pursuing post-secondary education. "They need to leave this program open a little longer."

On Tuesday, Senate Republicans (and four Democrats) defeated a $1.3 billion measure that extends funding until March 2011 for the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families Emergency Fund, the program that pays Velarde's salary. Those lawmakers explained their opposition by saying that the amendment was not paid for and will increase the budget deficit. It was the second time in two weeks that Republicans pitted deficit reduction against the poor and unemployed -- last week, Sen. Jim Bunning (R-Ky.) obstructed an unemployment benefits extension. The Senate also defeated $1.3 billion for a stimulus-created summer jobs program.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said Wednesday that Senate Democrats will revisit the measure soon:

"It's an important program. It allows people who are on welfare to be working," he said. "We're going to come back but the longer we wait on summer jobs, the less important they become."

In fact, while summer jobs are indeed jeopardized by the delay, so too are the jobs created by the TANF program. According to a report by the nonpartisan Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, "Some of the jobs will start disappearing this spring and summer -- well before September 30."

"Employers typically do not want low-wage workers who would be with them for only a month or two because it takes time for new hires to learn their jobs. Accordingly, most people are placed in these job slots for a period such as six months. Many employers who participate in these programs will cease to accept new workers for subsidized jobs well before September 30, if they expect the program to terminate on that date and subsidize no wages paid after that."

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The CBPP, in an analysis with the Center for Law and Social Policy and the National Transitional Jobs Network, estimates that the TANF program is more efficient than almost any stimulus program under consideration in Congress.

In an email to HuffPost, Ross Eisenbrey, vice president of the progressive Economic Policy Institute, blasted a bipartisan tax credit for businesses crafted by Sens. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and said the TANF program "is a far more cost-effective expenditure of tax dollars than the Schumer-Hatch new hires tax credit, which cost $13 billion and will probably create fewer than 200,000 jobs -- if it creates any."

Diana Spatz, Velarde's boss, said Velarde and two other women with children will lose their salaries in September if the program is not extended.

"The senators who voted against that bill are idiots," she added.

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Comments

[Womanvoter4Obama]

It seems to me getting these people through their education would benefit the deficit in the long run. If you have people able to support themselves they won't need welfare. Why not continue the program and encourage education as a means of getting off welfare?

[research]

Edufare! fanned.

give everyone minimal room and board while they "find" themselves through education.

That's the Enlightened public the liberal founders of the USA wanted!

[research]

You have described the very concept of the Enlightenment!

The Enlightenment of the People. Public education, free libraries, health, room and board so they are ready to learn.

I have found Liberalism as originally founded to be as inspiring as it must have been for our founding fathers.

Liberalism consists of two basic ideas:

Representative Democratic and Republican government,
that control banks, money ,economy, commerce, taxes

The Enlightenment of the people.

I have found conservatism to completely explain the otherwise insane behavior.

Conservatives publicly try to pull the wool over peoples eyes, to fool them, to make them believe huge falsehoods and to revise history. to support emotionalism and to "unfetter" bug money,

[eahce]

See you in September, On the unemployment line.

[mcmutter]

My guess is that trickle down will save these folk. Either trickle down or the Rapture, whichever comes first ....

[rougebaisers]

Washington does not care or have a clue as to how to get america back to work permanently. These end just in time to matter in the elections.

[Stable]

Wow...the government can't actually create jobs? You don't say!

[hellboundtrain]

We sure laid one heckova lot o' concrete, though!

Ok, congress, what are the plans post September?

[hellboundtrain]

One idea is to fully fund the mass-transit projects that various cities already have going.
Would you consider relieving them of their local burden? Yes, I know that not everyone in the country would have use of this or that system, but at least the funds are not going to a war.

[Trance2010]

My taxes paying for needless jobs. Awesome.

[eahce]

This is the type of thing Washington does best.

[MJPD345]

The only way to effectively turn this Economy around ?? Repeal the Grahman Ruggman Corporate Tax Code. If you don't provide incentives for Manufacturers to return to the USA they just stay offshore for the Tax Credits. Manufacturing is the only sustainable way to drive the Economy.

[HeightsMark]

Add to that energy production, and a conversion to nat gas of a lot of the infrastructure. We have a lot of hydrocarbons in the ground, we need to get them out and on the market and lower our enegy costs and bring even more industry back.

[sysadmin12439]

What? The "stimulus" jobs were supposed to last until after the November elections!

[Winston120]

We need a thriving and growing non-gov't economy. More brands like Apple, Google, Coca-Cola, Catipillar, etc

I don't see current policies creating an environment to create more brands of this caliber.

[Paralogos]

Apple and Google make a lot of money for their shareholders, but they employ amazingly few people relative to their market capitalization. And those people are highly trained and qualified technologists who are rarely out of work. Most real job creation is in small to medium-sized companies that no one has ever heard of.

[MacQ]

True. And yet our government seems focused on government rather than private sector gorwth.

[zaggy]

When is Obama going to give us stimulus part 2. Wasn"t there some talk about this?

[Paralogos]

There was, but it's not likely to happen any time soon. First, there's some legitimate concern that, by the time a second round program would go into effect, the economy will already have turned the corner, and it will no longer be a particularly useful public expenditure. Second, in case you hadn't noticed, even some not-so-conservative Democrats are getting nervous about the amount of debt the government has been piling on in the past few years. Hard to pass + marginal utility = later, dude.

[MacQ]

You want to spend another trillion for jobs that run out in a year?
The point of the article didn't sink in?

[research]

like war?

[battlinbob]

What happens when the next subsidy runs out? and the next? and the next? clearly not going to work..

[Paralogos]

The idea, of course, is to use subsidized jobs to pull in the slack in the labor market until a generalized recovery takes hold, and employers start adding unsubsidized jobs. People benefiting from the program will always complain when it ends, but that doesn't mean that there aren't times that are more appropriate than others to shut down a jobs program.

Of course, there *are* alternatives to subsidized job programs. We can just throw welfare money at the jobless, without expecting work in return. Or wait for people to start stealing food or rioting in the streets, then arrest them and lock them up. I don't think that actually saves any money, but it will make some people feel more virtuous.

[MacQ]

It's the FDR plan: encourage government growth at the expense of private sector growth. That's what gave us a 10 year depression.

[research]

Great, the money will last till September!

Time to ends the wars, charge the bankster with fraud and start the

rooftop pv solar installation and apprentice program.

jobs, and save the gov money.

green energy is the place to invest in main street jobs. Not banks!

see my profile for details and links.

[zaggy]

All that stuff is being made in China.

[research]

so what? at least 75% of the value chain is still in the USA, mostly the local installers.

[CSM Retired Ranger]

You got into some Bad Dope Dude ! Go ask Europe how much money they LOST going with the "Green Job" Program

To build the Feds Coffers - you need taxpayers - meaning people with jobs that can pay taxes

Easy fix - Handcuff the tree huggers and turn the private sector loose on energy ... ALL of it from drilling here, to Nuke Power, gas, coal, etc .... You got any idea how many checklist items you must meet to just build a new hydroelectric power plant ??? 800 plus!

Zero tax for corporaions who manuafacture their products HERE with American labor

Unions wore out their usefulness after OSHA and chid labor laws - now there just a worthless leech driving up cost and killing our ability to compete in the world market

You want Fair?? Try Fair Tax -- EVERYBODY pays ! including illegals and tourist and some even get a "rebate" google it


I could go on and on .... but nobody seems to care anyway... everybody wants the government to take care of them from cradel to grave... kinda like vote for me and I'll give you more than the other guy

It's really sad

[research]

really sad? Sweden, Denmark,: highest happinesss, lowest misery , highest health, most productive.... levels in the world

The modern automated world can easily take care of everybody's room and board while the figure themselves out, and provide free education.

It's the for the General Welfare.

The danger today is plutocracy, a monarchy of money: Conservatism.

We need to return to the Liberal values of the founding fathers, both democrat, and republican.

The US founders loved " The Enlightenment" of the people. that's part of the general welfare. You need to feed cloth and shelter people before you can educate them, and hopefully Enlighten them.

Never vote conservative.

Throw the Conservatives out in the primaries then for for the liberals in the main election!

"America, the first modern liberal state was founded, without a monarch or a hereditary aristocracy.[8"

"Liberalism first became a powerful force in the Age of Enlightenment, rejecting many foundational assumptions that dominated most earlier theories of government, such as the Divine Right of Kings, hereditary status, and established religion. The French Revolution, which implemented some of these new ideas, was a seminal event in the history of liberalism. John Locke is often credited with laying the philosophical foundations of liberalism.[3][4][5] "

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberalism

Conservatism was founded and continues to be for Destroying the Republic and the Democracy and selling it to the plutocracy.

Conservatism was founded to undo the Enlightenment and the French revolution.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservatism

[wigglwagon]

It's really sad that some people actually believe we can compete in a world market without lowering our standards to those of the other countries.
Those union jobs are really aggravating. You can't get ahead by sucking up to the boss.
How do you tax corporations who do not manufacture their products here?

[HeightsMark]

Right on Bro.... Fanned

We need to have a beer one day, we are just about point for point

[tbk 1968 41]

damn its finally good to see some one who is just as irate about the cradel to grave concept. Get up and work America!!!! Stop waiting for the gov't to take care of you!!!

[Martee]

They should require all public works funded by the stimulus to use technology from the 1930s. Why put 10 men to work with modern machinery when you could put 100 to work with good old fashioned shovels ? Besides, you'll cause a shovel boom! I just don't understand -- the point is to create jobs -- create as many jobs as possible!!

[zaggy]

You could hurt your back doing that. It would help the workmens comp and doctors.

[MacQ]

Might as well, since we seem to be trying to repeat the 30's.

[intptr t]

Sorry, but I honestly can't tell -- are you being facetious?

In the case that you are sincere, I would ask: what is the purpose of a job? To produce something of value; it is the desirability of the produced good which makes its production worthwhile. Given a produced good A, where net profitability per unit is N dollars, N and only N dollars are available to pay the worker who produced it. If you purposefully introduce inefficiency into the equation, i.e. hiring ten men to produce the same good, A, what is the result that you achieve?

[ashcom]

The solution to the deficit problem is clear and simple. Restore tax laws to what they were before
Reagan and Bush administrations started to spend us out of existence.

[Daphydd]

Here Here.

[slowhand0728]

Why stop there? Go back to Kennedys then.

[Jane Do]

Boy that worked out good. By the holidays this year 100,000 folks more will be unemployed. Great work government, incompetent as usual! Did you all actually think this through? NO MORE STIMULUS THOUGH!! Enough is enough.

[MacQ]

And yet, they're talking about another stimulus!
But they won't call it a stimulus. They'll call it a jobs bill.
Just another spending spree.