If the U.S. came up with a second chance program for getting unemployable back into the work force how much would it be worth per man or woman? I am thinking in terms of a 4 year reeducation that included language as well as social skills. Could this be done for $50,000 is it worth $50,000 per person if it was say 70% effective?
Is this program going to create new jobs or just make people more eligible for existing jobs? It doesn’t make good financial sense to spend fifty thousand dollars if all you’ve done is shift the unemployment on to somebody else.
It would take more jobs to support this program. I believe having a better workforce would automaticaly bring some jobs back. I can see some possibilities in programs like this that might even lead to new industries and jobs. We are talking a lot of people here.
History says otherwise. We have qualified people who can’t find jobs now. Yet their existence isn’t creating job for them. I don’t see why adding more people to the mix would change that.
You’re treating the number of available jobs as fixed, a given. But that’s nonsense. It stands to reason that a better educated and skilled workforce will be capable of doing a wider variety of jobs more effectively, and this will make positions viable which were not previously viable, and total employment will increase.
With regard to people who are already qualified but can’t find jobs, the issue may be that they are qualified for jobs for which there is no demand, or it may be that something other than lack of qualifications is preventing them from finding a job. Or it may be that the present state of the economy means that there is no job for them right now, but we have no reason to default to that assumption or to think that, if there is in fact no job for their qualifications, it follows that there is no point in anyone else seeking the same or different qualifications.
Maybe they could use some requalification, additional qualification (such as that language training) or training on how to create a business. It was several years between when I took an Entrepreneurship course and when I actually created a company, but the course taught me a lot about what pitfalls to avoid (stuff like “small costs which add up” and “paperwork you need to file with the Treasury periodically even though it’s not directly linked to taxes”) and which would be the best place to ask for help (local Chamber of Commerce).
If it led to drops in crime, children born in poverty, drug/alcohol abuse, and elder abuse, I’d say yes.
But if it just creates more competition over menial, low-wage work and the “big picture” doesn’t change, then I dunno. If I were caring for a free-loading family member, I’d probably be relieved if they can get “any job”. But if that just means my neighbor’s couch surfer has a harder time getting work now, then my good mood is canceled out by my neighbor’s foul mood.
The problem is that useless courses promising the hope of a new job or career are a very real problem and the Grifters know they can fleece the unemployed (and sometimes the government through the unemployed) with useless courses that do nothing for their careers.
They know that they can operate worthless diploma and certification mills with little or no chance of retaliation.
You’d need to first have a way to separate your training from the con-men who rob the poor of money and hope every day.
You’d also need to prove to people who have been burned already that it leads to good jobs with a decent wage; jobs where there are plenty of openings; jobs that have a future.