Sunday, April 11, 2010
Now is the time to revisit the New Deal’s Work Progress Administration (WPA), which was created 75 years ago, writes Mike Elk at Campaign for America’s Future. The WPA provided more than three million jobs for a struggling economy in the 1930s, giving good reason to examine the lessons learned from the historic program.
“First, we learned that after the private sector suffers a major shock to the system, it can’t quickly recover on its own. Government must step in,” argues Elk. “Second, direct government hiring not only replaces jobs that have been lost, it also primes the pump so the private sector can start hiring again. Finally, effective government hiring targets the communities hardest hit by economic crisis.”
Elk points out that the National Youth Administration helped 2.7 million young people stay in school while working or gave them job training, while the Civilian Conservation Corps focused on hiring unskilled young people to construct 800 parks and planted three billion trees.
Elk supports the recently introduced Local Jobs for America Act, which currently has 120 co-sponsors in the House of Representatives. The bill would spend $100 billion to create jobs and job training in local communities that have been hardest hit by the economic downturn.
-David Wallechinsky
Happy 75th, WPA: Its Genius Holds Lessons for Today's Jobs Crisis (by Mike Elk, Campaign for America’s Future)
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