President Downgrade Grasping At Straws On Jobs

I was hoping this Georgia jobs training problem would be dismissed by the feds, but apparently I failed to factor in how desperate this empty suit in the White House is to appear to be doing something about employment in the country without blaming all of his feel good economy destroying plans.

CNN is stepping up to the plate to provide some cover and is another example of how media can report facts while painting a different picture from what the reality is. This little bit is from the CNN article.

Since the inception of Georgia Works in 2003, more than 23,000 participants have completed training programs at more than 16,500 employers. A quarter of them were hired at the firm by the end of the eight weeks, while nearly 60% were employed somewhere within three months of completing the program, state labor officials said.

Sounds great, right? Until you discover that the unemployment rate in Georgia has been above the national average for about 18 straight months. Current state unemployment rate is 10.1% while in Atlanta it is around 10.4%. Now look at the little phrase I put in bold. Notice it uses the year 2003 as a starting point. The program is far less effective then that since President Downgrade has taken over.

New Labor Commissioner Mark Butler, who took office in January, swiftly reinstated the original rules. Since then 1,400 people have received training, 197 of whom were hired.

That works out to about 1 in 10 actually getting a job. The state actually suspended the program for a while because of the cost, something Barry O never worries about, but should be a warning to taxpayers everywhere.

Whatever its value, the program has proved too costly for the state to sustain in the face of Georgia's stubbornly high unemployement. In September, [2010] Thurmond opened up the program to anyone who registered with DOL for employment services. Before that, it had been limited to people receiving unemployment compensation.

The fact is there isn't any jobs to be had, regardless of how much training you have. That little fact seems to keep slapping the eggheads in Washington upside the head but they still can't figure it out. They would rather halt energy production in west Texas to preserve a lizard or ruin the farming industry by forcing farmers to get CDL licenses or cutting off their water to save a fish or raid guitar manufacturers who don't make the right political donations.