Note: This Op-Ed was printed in the Macomb Daily on Sunday, April 4, 2010.
In states like Michigan, where the unemployment has reached epidemic proportions, communities are caught in a Catch-22. The economic tsunami left far too many ready, willing, and able to work but without any prospect of employment. Consequently, the need for public services has risen dramatically.
Unfortunately, as public budgets are increasingly pressured by plummeting revenues, the ability to provide these public services is stretched thinner. Non-profit organizations, like the United Way and Catholic or Lutheran Social Services help in the relief effort even though their budgets often shrink.
As credit markets seized up and markets tumbled the federal government was quick to step in and assist those who were deemed “too big to fail.” Bailouts for Wall Street investment banks, insurance companies and mortgage lenders were Washington’s response to keeping the national economy from falling into ruin. A total economic meltdown was averted but Main Street is still hurting.
Almost 18 months after the initial crash, people in Macomb County are wondering what the bailout meant for them? What about those of us not “too big to fail?” Those who left economic ruin in their wake through bad decisions and shortsightedness are some of the very same people who were rescued by the federal government. As a result, many of us in Michigan feel that recovery has been an empty promise.
In September of 2009, the Macomb County Board of Commissioners was among the first public entities to call for an extension of unemployment benefits, for the 10,000 residents in our county and the 100,000 people throughout Michigan that would have been left with no income and no prospects of a solid job. Now, seven months later, Congress has enacted another extension. What most people on unemployment want, and we all know is needed, are jobs where people can be productive and earn a fair wage. Put more succinctly, what America needs most of all is jobs for Americans.
During the 1930s, public job programs employed millions of people and left a legacy of improvements including more than 100,000 miles of new roads, 35,000 community buildings such as fire stations and libraries and enhanced national parks and forests. A similar program in the 1980’s employed 750,000 people at its peak, gave on-the-job training that boosted the long-term income of hundreds of thousands of jobless people, and performed valuable services in thousands of communities. We know from those experiences that a large-scale jobs program can be geared up quickly and help put a million of our citizens back to work in jobs that will improve their communities and contribute to shared prosperity.
While no one can predict how Congress will choose to address the issue—the Macomb County Board of Commissioners recently called for a comprehensive jobs plan, and several commissioners formulated a suggestion we think would work: we believe that those TARP funds should be provided to Michigan Works! agencies. Non-profit organizations could competitively apply for those dollars and if approved, funds could be used to hire people from the unemployed list. This effort should be limited to areas of high unemployment and have a time limit.
This approach helps people get back to work — the work they do will benefit our community and the wages they earn will help support our local businesses. It’s well overdue that we recognize that the fundamental basis of our economy is the individual and his or her job.
Paul Gieleghem David Flynn
Chairman County Commissioner
Macomb County Board of Commissioners Chair, Education and Training Committee
