Job creation: What can $100 billion per year do? [View all]

[ProSense]

Republicans love to claim that the rich are "job creators," but everyone knows that giving tax cuts to the rich will not create a single job.

If Republicans are really interested in creating jobs, would they object to a proposal that's a win-win for businesses and the unemployed?

Here's the plan: Instead of tax cuts for the "job creators," subsidize jobs for employees.

The money goes directly to wages and the employer gains a worker at a reduced cost. Putting people back to work stimulates demand, creating more jobs.

Now, there have been similar programs funded by the stimulus at about $1 billion, but with significant job creation, though for a limited period.

Tens of thousands of people will lose their jobs within weeks unless Congress extends one of the more effective job-creating programs in the $787 billion stimulus act: a $1 billion New Deal-style program that directly paid the salaries of unemployed people so they could get jobs in government, at nonprofit organizations and at many small businesses.

In rural Perry County, Tenn., the program helped pay for roughly 400 new jobs in the public and private sectors. But in a county of 7,600 people, those jobs had a big impact: they reduced Perry County’s unemployment rate to less than 14 percent this August, from the Depression-like levels of more than 25 percent that it hit last year after its biggest employer, an auto parts factory, moved to Mexico.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/26/us/26stimulus.html

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About 247,000 workers will have been placed in these subsidized jobs by the end of September, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a research organization. The jobs cover everything from assembly-line work to white-collar positions like business development, and typically pay $8 to $15 an hour, according to LaDonna Pavetti, a director at the center. There are exceptions: San Francisco, for example, pays up to $74,000 in annual salary, which employers can also supplement with additional pay.

So far just over a billion dollars has been approved to create subsidized employment programs in 36 states and the District of Columbia, according to the Department of Health and Human Services. The biggest year-round program is run by Illinois, which has put 22,000 workers in subsidized jobs (and 5,000 in subsidized summer youth jobs) and has 30,000 people on its waiting list.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/29/business/economy/29workers.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all

Why not reinstate, expand and extend this program? Ensure that the jobs created cover a spectrum of industries and wage levels. The snip above offers examples of $8 to $15 per hour up to $74,000 per year.

What can $100 billion per year do? The incentives could be strengthened, the program's time frame expanded, the wages increased and the benefits to the economy significantly enhanced.

If Republicans reject such a plan, it will prove that they're only interested in lining the pockets of the rich (not that proof is needed).