While I am a wholehearted supporter of the new President's stimulus package there are dangers here that are not being discussed.
The most important is matching skills to the work. We're talking about investing hundreds of billions of dollars in infrastructure. That's a specialized skill. These are dirty jobs. But the people who have lost their jobs have, on the whole, been working in stores and offices. Sure, some might get new jobs as the money spent on construction filters into the rest of the economy, but not many.
This is why I am advocating spending on The War Against Oil. There are some dirty jobs here, but there are also clean jobs, office jobs, research jobs. You can't turn an Electrical Engineer into a Civil Engineer. But you may be able to find him work on energy research, or in a new type of energy business. Especially if he or she is relatively young.
The second problem is the unanswered question of how much we pay these people. Do we use the old Davis-Bacon Act formulas, and be accused of overpaying, of ripping off the taxpayer? Or do we go to the lowest bidder and risk most of the jobs going to Mexicans? Either way, you raise political opposition that can derail the whole proposal in its tracks, so it's best to know how you're going to get there beforehand.
Just as the economic problems of today don't seem like those of the Great Depression, the work force which will be doing them is unlike the work force of that time as well. Most workers are highly skilled, they hope to be highly paid. But if you're mainly going to be building roads and supertrains, you're not going to be hiring these people. And you're not going to need high levels of education in any case.
We must find ways to match skills to the work, and we must be clear about what we're paying, before we waste this opportunity.
You’d be surprised what skills you need to do infrastructure right. Your focusing on the grunt work, but there is plenty of administration needed and that is a skill that many unemployed white collar workers have. Training is required to acquaint them with the task at hand, but that is a relatively minor expense. You need these administrative resources on site as much as possible. I’ve seen people try and outsource them and it is always met with failure. Indeed, lack of on site administration is a major reason why it is almost impossible to get any construction projects done on time/budget.
You’d be surprised what skills you need to do infrastructure right. Your focusing on the grunt work, but there is plenty of administration needed and that is a skill that many unemployed white collar workers have. Training is required to acquaint them with the task at hand, but that is a relatively minor expense. You need these administrative resources on site as much as possible. I’ve seen people try and outsource them and it is always met with failure. Indeed, lack of on site administration is a major reason why it is almost impossible to get any construction projects done on time/budget.