“Confronting the challenge of running for re-election while the unemployment rate remains stubbornly high, President Obama convened a session of his new jobs council on Monday, offering a proposal to train 10,000 American engineering students a year in a program focused on filling high-tech jobs.” (New York Times)
Government has such a stellar record in this regard.
“Federal Job Training: Road to Nowhere” [2] by James Bovard
In 1964, at the height of the Great Society, the Johnson Administration decided that government should provide a job for every teenager who couldn’t find employment. The first summer jobs program, the Neighborhood Youth Corps, was established in 1965 to give poor urban youths “meaningful” work experience and to encourage them to stay in school.
The Neighborhood Youth Corps was the first of a long line of failures. According to several General Accounting Office (GAO) reports, the program had no effect on dropout rates and did not prevent a large increase in youth crime rates. In fact, the GAO concluded in 1969 that some workers “regressed in their conception of what should reasonably be required in return for wages paid.” (GAO,Review of Economic Opportunity Programs, 1969)
Ten years later, conditions were no better. GAO found that “almost three of every four [urban] enrollees were exposed to a worksite where good work habits were not learned or reinforced, or realistic ideas on expectations in the real world of work were not fostered.” (GAO, “More Effective Management is Needed to Improve the Quality of the Summer Youth Employment Program,” February 20, 1979)
When a Federal program fails, politicians can always change its name to create the appearance of reform. In 1972, after years of embarrassing failures, the name of the Neighborhood Youth Corps was changed to the Summer
Read on at the above link.
[1] New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/14/us/politics/14obama.html?ref=todayspaper
[2] “Federal Job Training: Road to Nowhere”: http://www.thefreemanonline.org/columns/federal-job-training-road-to-nowhere/
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