Part of the 2009 economic stimulus legislation was for projects called "home weatherization."
The idea was to help homes save energy and put a lot of people to work.
Sounded like a plan.
Well, I'm listening to the car radio the other day, and the broadcaster describes the latest on a $20-million chunk of "stimulus" for home weatherization in Seattle. The news came the day before Earth Day 2010 (Earth Day is in April so this was well over a year ago).
What I heard was an incredible story. The same facts were reported in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer (8/16):
"[The project] had heady goals: creating 2,000 living-wage jobs in Seattle and retrofitting 2,000 homes in poorer neighborhoods.
"But more than a year later, Seattle's numbers are lackluster. As of last week, only three homes had been retrofitted and just 14 new jobs have emerged from the program. Many of the jobs are administrative..."
Well, it sounded like a plan.
People who hoped for a weatherization job have been waiting a long time. Likewise for many others who are unemployed:
"The number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks and over), at 6.2 million, changed little over the month and accounted for 44.4 percent of the unemployed."
U.S. Department of Labor, August 5
Those long-term jobless numbers are similar to what they were around the time that "jobs creating" weatherization program was announced last year (see chart):
Don't look for the "jobs picture" to improve anytime soon -- with or without government stimulus.
"As we have long argued, because the current bear market is of one larger degree than that of 1929-1932, the depression it creates will be deeper, which in turn means that the unemployment rate will exceed that of 1933. The peak rate in 1933 was 25 percent. Therefore, unemployment in the U.S. should rise to about 33 percent at the trough of this depression."
Elliott Wave Theorist, January 2009
What's next for the economy?