Today is the 75th anniversary of the Works Progress Administration, a $10 billion federal program that put millions of Americans to work during the Great Depression. The WPA enabled workers and their families to survive the ravages of the Great Depression, while taking on public works projects that created a sound foundation for greater economic growth.
Across the country, local organizations are holding events marking the anniversary and calling on Congress to pass legislation introduced by Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., that would put one million people to work almost immediately. The jobs created by the bill would help build schools and keep our streets safe, among other essential work in communities across America. The Local Jobs for America Act, which quickly gathered nearly 120 co-sponsors, is the best chance this country has to begin filling the massive shortfall in jobs that our economy is experiencing. (The prestigious Economic Policy Institute estimates that the economy is now nearly 17 million jobs short.)
Faced with the enormous unemployment created by the Great Depression, President Franklin Roosevelt and Congress acted decisively to get Americans back on their feet with real jobs, helping jump-start the economy. From LaGuardia Airport to Camp David to the Golden Gate Bridge, the legacy of WPA remains with us today. No matter where you reside, there are lasting testaments to the enduring legacy of infrastructure and rejuvenation created by the WPA.
We need the same type of bold investment to address the scale of our current crisis. The Local Jobs for America Act is an important first step. The Local Jobs for America Act will provide $100 billion over two years to create or save a million public and private sector jobs, extend critical support to local communities to maintain essential services, and fund private sector job training to help local businesses put people back to work. While the focus of the jobs created will be on education and other vital community services rather than infrastructure, the principle is the same: create meaningful jobs to meet public needs and provide long-term benefits for our communities and economy.
Congress and the Administration have failed to adequately address the needs in our communities and their efforts haven't been bold enough to make a dent in the enormous human disaster we face. Consider that almost 3.5 million people (a number higher than population of 21 entire states) have been unemployed for more than a year. That's a post-World War II record. Nor have efforts to date been targeted in a manner which can get the hardest hit communities back on their feet. It's important to note that the staggering 9.7% unemployment rate is even worse amongst some populations. Nearly 20 percent of African-American men are now jobless. The unemployment rate amongst Latinos is nearly 13 percent.
Franklin D. Roosevelt's bold actions to meet the challenge of economic crisis were founded on an important understanding that our present generation of leaders ought to heed on this important anniversary. Roosevelt understood that the depression was the product of government failing to live up to its obligations. Much like the Great Depression, the Great Recession grew out of the Republican leadership's decisions to block government oversight of markets and eschew any role for government in addressing persistent economic problems in communities across America. The failed policies of George Bush were not merely tactical mistakes - they were the fundamental product of an ideology that places greed above social responsibility.
Roosevelt's answer to all those who pronounced that every person should be on their own and that government does not have a role in creating mutual responsibility was simple and straight forward: "In our seeking for economic and political progress, we all go up -- or else we all go down." That's what a direct job creation program means: it recognizes that we are all in this together, and creating jobs in distressed communities benefits the nation and our economy as a whole.
On the anniversary of one of the most successful programs ever created by our government, we would do well to remember the notions of mutual responsibility and community values that underpinned its overwhelming success.
To join the movement for bold action, text change to 69866.
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1. Little known and less believed breakthroughs in energy are on the horizon. These include the replacement of oil as a transportation fuel by small amounts of ordinary water. See Running on Water at: http://www.aesopinstitute.org
Parked cars can become power plants and a source of income. Accelerating this development can restore the auto industry and provide millions of well-paid jobs. Autos are the backbone of the economy and can propel a much stronger recovery.
2. A Human Investment Tax Credit program, originally developed by the late economist Robert Edmonds, is aimed at creating up to 6 million jobs and helping launch up to 4 million small firms.
See the same Aesop Institute website. These credits can create many more jobs than direct government subsidy which also is much more difficult to get through Congress.
3. Expanded ownership opportunities, such as initiated by the late Louis Kelso and the Center for Economic and Social Justice will open doors to substantial second incomes. The work week can gradually be reduced without reducing income. See: www.cesj.org
These three possibilities:
1. Cost-competitive energy breakthroughs that can restore strong economic growth;
2. A Human Investment Tax Credit program;
3. Substantial second incomes not based on savings;.
together, can help lead the world toward a surprising full-employment economy that encourages widespread abundance.
More about them can be found in articles, such as The Brooklyn Project, on the Aesop Institute website.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/c5a456a2-4341-11df-9046-00144feab49a.html
The difference between what France is doing and what the US is doing is striking. While France wants to increase industrial production so that they do not have a trade deficit in industrial products, the US talks of jobs only in the vaguest terms possible. There is not connection between the jobs and trade deficits in any US administration. The talk is always about monetary and financial solutions as if all we need is a healthy financial sector and everything will be OK. How stupid can we be?
Our unsustainable trade deficits are there because the US based corporations have moved productive capacity offshore. What would have counted towards our GDP and would have been reflected as a much richer tax base, has been transformed into imports from China. This recessions has provided the cover for even more aggressive export of our jobs with not a peep from Obama's administration.
Americans, when are you going to realize that we are being fooled on a colossal scale?
We have started by opening two WPA offices - one in a rural hamlet, and one in an urban center - to do government recovery driven by the neighborhood itself.
For more info and to support the new WPA:
http://bit.ly/wpa-kickstarter
Economy recovered from TGD 1.0 after we destroyed most of Europe and Asia's ability to produce goods. We eliminated the competition.
The public sector is currently bloated. Jobs need to be cut, not added. Right now public spending remains at housing bubble levels. They need to be adjusted to normalized levels. Private sector job training is almost always a buzz word with minimal real word benefit, kind of like "green jobs".
"Republican leadership's decisions to block government oversight of markets and eschew any role for government in addressing persistent economic problems in communities across America"
Republican governments spent, spent, and spent; thus adding millions to the govt payroll directly and indirectly. The author of this article should have liked that. About govt oversight of markets, there was plenty. The overseers were just incompetent, per usual.
No they didn't. WPA jobs were part time and temporary (max duration of 12 months) and WPA folks were supposed to continue looking for real work while in the program. The WPA did not create "a sound foundation for greater economic growth", all it did was give the unemployed something to do until private corporations started employing labor again. And that didn't work. The program was disbanded long before the private sector recovered, which occurred around 1948.
"Roosevelt and Congress acted decisively to get Americans back on their feet with real jobs, helping jump-start the economy"
WPA certainly didn't jump-start the economy. It was a relief program, equivalent to giving someone on the dole a rake or shovel. It's not much different than the census workers being hired now. The govt is just give over a million people on the dole a clip board and pencil to go door to door and count people. Do these census jobs "jump start" the economy? No. But it gives unemployed folks something to do temporarily, instead of sitting on their sofa watching TV.