https://www.democraticunderground.com/100213452576Dennis Donovan (17,193 posts)
Franklin Roosevelt Put Young People Back to Work. Let's Do It Again.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/18/opinion/coronavirus-unemployment-youth.html
Franklin Roosevelt Put Young People Back to Work. Let's Do It Again.The Depression-era Civilian Conservation Corps helped build America at a time of national crisis.
By Collin O’Mara
Mr. O’Mara is the president and C.E.O. of the National Wildlife Federation.
Nearly 7.7 million American workers younger than 30 are now unemployed and three million dropped out of the labor force in the past month. Combined that’s nearly one in three young workers, by far the highest rate since the country started tracking unemployment by age in 1948.
Nearly 40 percent worked in the devastated retail and food service sectors. And as the most recently hired, young workers are typically the first let go and often the last rehired, especially those of color.
As our country’s leaders consider a range of solutions to address this crisis, there’s one fix that will put millions of young Americans directly to work: a 21st-century version of the Civilian Conservation Corps.
In 1933, when President Franklin Roosevelt created the C.C.C., he was facing, as we are today, the possibility of a lost generation of young people. The conservation-minded president’s idea was to hire young unemployed men for projects in forestry, soil conservation and recreation. By 1942, the 3.4 million participants in “Roosevelt’s Tree Army” had planted more than three billion trees, built hundreds of parks and wildlife refuges and completed thousands of miles of trails and roads.
While the corps was not perfect — only men were hired, work camps were segregated, and some projects caused ecological damage — the C.C.C. was the most expansive and successful youth employment program in American history. It also played a crucial role in forging the Greatest Generation, which defeated fascism and built the strongest economy in the world. Today, there’s plenty to do for a revitalized conservation corps that would put young Americans back to work.
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I know of some crumbling infrastructure that could use some sprucing up.
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Here's the difference, Doofus. In the '30's THERE WERE NO JOBS because businesses had failed. Today, there are millions of jobs, but the
government has shut down the businesses that employed people. If all the states were able to open up, ASAP, there wouldn't be millions out of work. Duh. Besides, if there were a 21st century CCC, wouldn't that interfere with the whole DNC strategy of hunkering down in a pillow fort (at least until after the election?)
We don't need a CCC; we need some governors to get slapped with some reality.
