Workforce Developments

$17 million to set youth offenders on the right path

The Department of Labor recently announced $17 million in funds available for projects serving youth offenders. The three grant categories are very narrowly defined, so read carefully:

1) Youth Offender Planning Grants are available to county and city governments to design plans for helping returning youth offenders

2) Juvenile Offender Re-entry Grants will fund strategies to help youth returning home from correctional institutions. These funds are available to state and local juvenile justice agencies.

3) One Juvenile Offender Re-entry Grant "will be awarded to one organization to implement a model program for returning juvenile offenders in four cities."

A press release is here, and the full Solicitation for Grant Applications (SGA/DFA PY0809) is here.

Applications are due December 18, 2008.

New workforce development blog on the block

I've just discovered a new workforce development blog and want to recommend it to readers, especially those of you in the Washington, DC, area: GreaterWashington@Work. It's run by Sarah Oldmixon, Program Director for the Greater Washington Workforce Development Collaborative.

She launched the blog in early October, and it's rich with useful content and analysis. Blogs have gotten so hip these days that some bloggers seem to spend more time on bells and whistles and forget to include much that's worth reading. GW@W stands out from that crowd - I recommend it.

Welcome to the ever-growing workforce development blogosphere - visit my blogroll page to find more.

Obama names economic team; still no word on Labor Secretary

Update Dec 18: Obama names Rep. Hilda Solis (D-CA) as Secretary of Labor. Click here for more.

President-elect Obama ate up the airwaves again today, officially announcing four members of his economic advisory team. Still, there's no word of who he'll name to run the Department of Labor. As a serious workforce development wonk, I was hoping he'd include Labor Secretary among today's early announcements, elevating the position and DOL's work to the same level as those economic advisors. After all, Obama is pledging a job-based stimulus package to get us out of our current economic doldrums.

Timothy Geithner was no surprise, after his unofficial announcement created a bit of an uptick (sort-of) on Wall Street Friday. Larry Summers has been lobbying since Clinton dropped out of the race for a position in the Obama admin. Lesser-knowns economist Christina Romer will be Director of Obama's Council of Economic Advisors, while former chief counsel to Sen. Ted Kennedy, Melody Barnes, will direct his Domestic Policy Council.

Labor hasn't seen the same media storm as the one whirling around his appointments on Treasury and State. The latest coverage I've seen (click here for earlier speculation) says that Rep. George Miller has officially taken himself out of the running, and that Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius is under consideration for the post.

Over at BeyondChron.org, Randy Shaw predicts David Bonior, Linda Chavez-Thompson or another "movement progressive" will be appointed Labor Secretary. He says to expect more progressive appointments also at Interior, Education, Energy and Transportation, areas that haven't gotten a lot of attention so far.

If you have any thoughts or ideas on who you'd like to see running Labor, add your comments below.

Obama pledges 2.5 million new jobs by January 2011

Vowing that "we must do more to put people back to work and get our economy moving again," President-elect Barack Obama this morning connected the dots between jobs and an economic recovery.

The YouTube president announced in his weekly address that he has directed his economic team to develop an Economic Recovery Plan to jump start job creation and create 2.5 million more jobs by January 2011. They'll do it by investing in rebuilding infrastructure including roads and schools, and investing in green technology.

The one thing he left out that I'd like to see in his jobs agenda is rebuilding health care infrastructure.

"These aren't just steps to pull ourselves out of this immediate crisis, these are long-term investments in our economic future that have been ignored for far too long," Obama said.

Watch the video:

If you can't see the video, click here to watch, or read the transcript here.

Unemployment benefits extension passes: the whiplash edition

Amazing how fast the legislative and executive branches of government can work when they put their minds to it. Yesterday the Senate put aside its usual rules to pass an unemployment benefits extension (HR 6867) by voice vote. The House had passed it back in October. Just before 8 a.m. this morning, Bush signed it into law.

This is the same unemployment extension that Bush had been calling "fiscally irresponsible" up until the Department of Labor issued its latest round of historically high unemployment figures yesterday. Six Republican Senators voted against it.

The bill extends unemployment benefits for those who are on the verge of losing those benefits, for three months. The way unemployment works, federal funds are provided to states, which are responsible for administering them. If your benefits are about to run out or recently did, contact your local unemployment office to find out how they'll be managing the extension.

This comes on the heels of news yesterday from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Both announced a moratorium on home foreclosures until after the holidays.

Update: This post is about the Nov 2008 unemployment extension. Click for info on the newest extension in 2009.

New unemployment filers at 16 year high; Bush changes position on benefits extension

The Department of Labor reported this morning that new claims for unemployment benefits increased by 27,000 last week, reaching their highest level since 1992. Those continuing on unemployment rose to just over 4 million, the highest level since 1982.

On the heels of this news, Bush spokesperson Dana Perino announced the president has changed his position and will sign an unemployment benefits extension, if one reaches his desk before the end of hs term. That's the same extension he dismissed as "fiscally irresponsible" only yesterday.

Congress is expected to consider a bill to extend benefits, but they have to act today or tomorrow before the current lame duck session is adjourned for the year.

Whoever is selected to be our next Secretary of Labor will have a big job ahead. It's an important cabinet position that seems to be flying under the radar of the mainstream media. Here at Workforce Developments, we'll be watching closely.

The root causes behind the root causes of the economic meltdown

It's been interesting to watch policymakers and the media jump on the economic crisis bandwagon since summer. Some of the cleverer ones caught on early in the year, when the subprime mortgage meltdown began to gather speed and unemployment numbers started edging up.

Those of us in workforce development and other human services have seen it coming for a long time.

Round about the time of the $700B bailout there was a lot of talk about "root causes" of the current economic crisis. Some blame the creation of mortgage-backed securities that de-linked lenders from borrowers and created something of a moral hazard. Others blame the explosion of sub-prime mortgages, where mortgage brokers and borrowers played a wink-wink, nudge-nudge game of pretending they didn't know the loans could never be repaid. Still others blame greed, pure and simple, on the part of both lenders and borrowers.

In addition to mortgages, there's all the other debt Americans have taken on. You can see it in the chart on the right (click here for a better view). Debt payments as a percent of disposable personal income has soared. Bankruptcy filings exploded in 2005. Prodded by lenders, Congress passed a law making it much harder to declare bankruptcy. Filings fell, but two years later they'd grown again to a level higher than they were in 1990. 

Yes, Americans took on more debt than they could repay. But why?

Answering that question gets us to the real root cause of the problem: in recent years, wages haven't kept up with the cost of living. Americans have been living fairly well, but it isn't because we're earning enough, it's because we've been borrowing. Sure, plenty of that has been spent on things we didn't need. But increasingly, consumers have taken on more debt to pay for things like health care, a college education and even to put food on the table.

Then there's that crazy housing bubble. Anyone who tried to buy a house in any urban or suburban market - and even some rural markets - since 2004 knew something was really out of whack. People earning middle-class incomes couldn't afford what was for sale in middle class neighborhoods.

The availability of easy credit didn't solve any problems, it hid them. As credit has dried up, they've come to light.

If anyone - Congress, President-elect Obama, state or local governments, or even Goldman Sachs - is going to solve the real problem, then they need to get at the real root of it: Jobs and wages have to keep pace with the cost of living. The so-called "real economy" needs balance, and it needs real money, not just credit. At minimum, that will require government intervention in the form of supports for working people and regulation of markets. 

You read it here first. I've been calling for a new New Deal that invests in both infrastructure and our service economy on this blog since way back in April 2007. Today, elected officials and Wall Street analysts are saying much the same thing.

Chart source: American Bankruptcy Institute

Economic stimulus and unemployment extension: before or after the inauguration?

It's starting to look like just a matter of time before a new economic stimulus package is passed by Congress. Odds are likely it will include another extension of unemployment benefits.

At his first post-election press conference last Friday, President-Elect Barack Obama specifically called for the extension, along with investment in infrastructure projects that would create jobs.

Even Wall Street analysts are in the tank. Merrill Lynch's Richard Bernstein wrote more than a month ago that

"The government can come up with any number of refinancing and liquidity plans, but households are likely to increasingly default on mortgages and other debts if cash flow is not stabilized via employment."

Get this: Bernstein says that our current recession, unlike others, is based in "the real economy." As opposed to the one being taken care of by US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson?

Check out my post from yesterday for ideas for how the health care system can be used as part of our economic recovery. That's definitely part of the real economy.

Today's mass layoffs numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show deepening unemployment. The number of Americans on unemployment is at a stunning 25-year high. Click here for the article, including a photo of the Verdugo One-Stop Jobs Center!

Health care as a foundation for the jobs recovery

Last week's unemployment numbers included one upbeat fact worth noting. Overall, our national unemployment may be at a 14-year high of 6.5 percent, and September's figures may be worse than originally calculated.

But in the same month, health services added some 26,000 new jobs.

That's more than ten percent of the 240,000 jobs lost. Not an insignificant number.

The system by which Americans get their health care is in tatters. That's not just health insurance, but physical infrastructure too. It's also the serious shortage of health workers in the US and internationally. Many rural communities are without much-needed specialists, or without any health providers at all. Urban areas are also losing hospitals and clinics. Last year's controversy over substandard conditions for veterans at Walter Reed Army Medical Center is just a symptom of the larger problem.

The continued hiring of health workers suggests this might be a smart place to invest stimulus money. Let's put more money into training health workers and building health care infrastructure - hospitals and clinics. Let's distribute those facilities and workers to the areas where need is greatest. Last week, Dean Baker at CEPR also explained how government investment in health care insurance could serve as a powerful stimulus to the economy.

So many people are cutting back on medications or holding off on trips to the doctor. I suspect this is an area with significant pent-up demand. If we build it, the customers will come, and money will flow.

Hospital photo by Norbert Kaiser

Obama's Labor Secretary: the speculation begins

Update Dec 18: Obama names Rep. Hilda Solis (D-CA) as Secretary of Labor. Click here for more.

Actually, it began even before the election. Here are names being tossed out as a possible Secretary of Labor in the Obama administration:

More than a week before the election the Atlantic's Mark Ambinder suggested Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano might be appointed to Labor, or any of a number of other posts. Her name comes up more often as a possible Attorney General.

On Halloween Politico's Mike Allen suggested former Rep. Dick Gephardt (D-MO) or Andy Stern of SEIU and Change to Win. He also suggested Kay Hagen of North Carolina or Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, if either lost her race for Congress. Both won, so they're out of the running.

Mark Nickolas at Political Base also lists Gephardt, along with former Rep. David Bonior (D-MI), Georgetown law professor Dan Tarullo or Linda Chavez-Thompson, former VP at the AFL-CIO.

CBS News and The Hill like Gephardt's odds.

AP names Bonior and Stern as possibles, and adds Rep. George Miller (D-CA) to the list.

Most articles on possible cabinet picks list the Labor Department down at the bottom, as if it weren't very important. Labor hasn't even made HuffPost's BigNews Cabinet page. With today's new numbers showing unemployment in the US at a 14-year high of 6.5%, I'd say this is one of the more important cabinet decisions Obama will make.

Over at CounterPunch, David Macaray has an interesting article on the history of labor secretaries and the importance of the Labor Department. He offers Chicago labor lawyer Thomas Geoghegan as his choice for the job.

What do you think? Do you like any of these candidates? Have a better idea of your own? Hearing any interesting rumors around the water cooler? Add your comments below.

"Prisons in Crisis" - a radio documentary

JoAnn Mar has produced an excellent radio documentary entitled Prisons In Crisis: A State of Emergency in California.

Segment one covers the health and overcrowding crisis.  Segment two goes into some of the history of the California prison system, and its transition from a national model of rehabilitation to its current state, after the federal government declared its war on crime.  Segment three discusses efforts to bring the system back under control, including reentry programs that have successfully helped people find treatment and employment and avoid returning to prison.

The website has quite a few resources, including a transcript of the documentary and a study guide that can be used as a tool in leading discussions.  Given the complexity of barriers facing ex-offenders looking for employment, this is useful background information for anyone working in this field.

Report from voter #53

I admit, I'm a sucker for the excitement of election day. When I was a kid, my dad would take me with him to vote in machines that looked a lot like this one. I miss the big lever that pulled the curtain closed, and the little metal levers that you clicked one by one. If you changed your mind, you just unclicked it and picked another one. Then you pulled the big lever back. If I was lucky, Dad would let me do that. The curtain opened, the machine recorded the votes, and the levers all magically moved back to their original position for the next voter.

So I didn't vote early this time around. Instead, I got up this morning and strolled down to my local polling place. Usually on election day, the poll workers there are bored out of their minds and delighted to see me show up. Today, there were about 30 people already standing in line at 7:20 am.

By 7:40 I was approaching the door to get inside. Suddenly, a guy three people ahead of me threw up his hands and walked away. The woman he'd been chatting with in line behind him laughed and said, "All this time in line, and he forgot his ID."

ID? In California? No way! Still, people in line all around me started fishing in purses and pockets. I peered in the door. Sure enough, people ahead of me were showing ID as they checked in to vote.

Someone in line behind me shouted, "This isn't Alabama! It's illegal to ask for ID!"

A nervous poll worker soon put things to rights. In California, we don't have to show ID except under a few specific circumstances. People put their wallets away and I was soon voting. I watched the machine mark my vote as the 53rd of the day at my polling place.

On my way out, the guy who'd gone to get his ID was back, trying to reclaim his place in line. There were maybe 50 people lined up in the parking lot by then. People were good-natured and seemed willing to let him go to the front of the line.

For info on voting - including ID requirements by state - check out the League of Women Voters' election site. 

Know your voting rights, and don't be confused by the people around you who don't. Most of all, get out and vote!

Welcome to election day

If you haven't yet voted, what are you doing reading this blog? Get out there and vote! Here's a little something from the League of Women Voters to help you find your polling place:

 

Find Your Polling Place: ----- Alabama Alaska Arizona Arkansas California Colorado Connecticut Delaware District of Columbia Florida Georgia Hawaii Idaho Illinois Indiana Iowa Kansas Kentucky Louisiana Maine Maryland Massachusetts Michigan Minnesota Mississippi Missouri Montana Nebraska Nevada New Hampshire New Jersey New Mexico New York North Carolina North Dakota Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania Rhode Island South Carolina South Dakota Tennessee Texas Utah Vermont Virginia Washington West Virginia Wisconsin Wyoming Voting in Your State: ---- Alabama Alaska Arizona Arkansas California Colorado Connecticut Delaware District of Columbia Florida Georgia Hawaii Idaho Illinois Indiana Iowa Kansas Kentucky Louisiana Maine Maryland Massachusetts Michigan Minnesota Mississippi Missouri Montana Nebraska Nevada New Hampshire New Jersey New Mexico New York North Carolina North Dakota Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania Rhode Island South Carolina South Dakota Tennessee Texas Utah Vermont Virginia Washington West Virginia Wisconsin Wyoming Powered by

While you're there, don't forget to video your experience. PBS has teamed up with YouTube to let you VideoYourVote. Submit videos of your voting experience, or just watch other people around the country voting with you.

Happy voting!