The Federal Jobs Program and Billions of Dollars Failure

For those who are employed and have never really tasted long term unemployment or dealt with being underemployed, it is hard to explain why they cannot find a job. It's like impossible to explain and puts an unfair, biased, negative stigma on them.

The basic problem is that there are way too many people searching for jobs that are low level and basically anyone can do with a little training. That makes a lot of competition for those shit jobs, what is that? ANY job paying less than $11 is that. Many employers pay only $8-9 an hour for these jobs indicating they really agree that they are "shit" jobs in their own eyes. Try paying rent, buying food, paying bills on that. Impossible, unless you live in a dump or just renting a room. Those jobs are plenty and so are those desperate just to work who apply for them. And employers wonder why they have high turnover rates, LOL. If the minimum wage was at least $13, this would not happen because it is a decent starting wage. Because there are so many unemployed and underemployed looking for work still, businesses have no incentive to provide higher wages as there is always someone willing to fill a vacancy.

The underemployed are those who had well paying jobs, jobs that are from $25 to 40 hr., but were laid off or terminated and now compete with those with much less education and skills for the same shit job, just to make ends meet. Others might call this a "taxi job" until a better one comes along. These people face more stigma and bias from managers because when one of these applies for a shit job, the manager sees this from the application. They see little reason to hire them because they know the person can do the job but will not stay because of the wage and job itself. These people are "above" this kind of work but face no choice-either make a little money or none.

So, the US government created a $3.1 billion federal jobs program back in 2008 or so. This program would help those of either group to get help in re-educated in a field that holds a promising need. The program is though the local unemployment offices and related departments. The program shares the costs of learning new skills. About 21 million jobless were retrained in 2012, but many have been retrained in a field that is no longer in demand and remain unemployed or working a shit job AND possess up to $20,000 in debt. Some 35% of them earned AA degrees and remain in the same position but with debt to pay off.

Many of these hardcore are middle aged, who had successful careers until the economic situation changed it all. Some have been trained in medical fields. such as, cardiology technician, yet cannot find work, so they work at AutoZone to pay off the accumulated date. Those with the debt are actually in worse off situations than when they were before. Before, they had no debt.

The average applicant in the program receives $3000 a year for education and retraining. Many of the schools cost $20,000, so debt increases with time. The program has help some, but the lack of direction and oversight in the program has made it another boondoggle government program.