
The Case for a New WPA - 8sigma
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/04/subsidized-work-programs/478302/?utm_source=SFFB&amp;single_page=true
======
matt_wulfeck
> During the recession, the stimulus bill authorized $1.3 billion for
> subsidized employment programs in 39 states.

I'm reminded about how much we've wasted bombing and rebuilding the
infrastructure in foreign lands. Think of what we could have built if we
invested the deficit here.

> Subsidized employment programs “really help get money into the pockets of
> some of the hardest-hit families,”

It gets tricky here because even most liberal or conservative ideologies agree
that working is good, and government-created demand for work is fine. It gets
hairy when we start to spitball exactly how that demand should come.

What may work for both sides? Find out how to create the most demand with the
least amount of long-term dependance. Let's start talking about avoiding the
second part while encouraging the first.

~~~
minikites
The right certainly demonizes those who don't/can't work more than the left so
I'm not sure your equivalency tells the whole story.

Also, working is good now but what happens when jobs become increasingly
automated? I don't think it's too far fetched to predict that automation could
take the place of most of the jobs on this chart:
[http://www.bls.gov/spotlight/2014/occupations/images/chart_0...](http://www.bls.gov/spotlight/2014/occupations/images/chart_01.png)
in the next 50-150 years. What happens to our opinion of work when many people
can't work?

~~~
justinlardinois
> The right certainly demonizes those who don't/can't work more than the left
> so I'm not sure your equivalency tells the whole story.

Well yes, but how is that relevant to what he said: "even most liberal or
conservative ideologies agree that working is good"?

The point was that work and willingness to work are almost universally seen as
good in American politics.

~~~
minikites
Like I said, it puts them on the same level which doesn't tell the whole
story. Right and left agree that working is good, but if you can't/don't work,
one side will hold you up as an example of a moral failing of character to be
stigmatized and one side won't.

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brudgers
_The Works Progress Administration (renamed in 1939 as the Work Projects
Administration; WPA) was the largest and most ambitious American New Deal
agency, employing millions of unemployed people (mostly unskilled men) to
carry out public works projects,[1] including the construction of public
buildings and roads._ \--
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Works_Progress_Administration](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Works_Progress_Administration)

------
Zigurd
While there is a lot of general cleanup work to do in some places, there
probably isn't enough manual labor to go around. There are machines that grade
and pave roads with amazing efficiency. A new WPA would probably have a large
training element since health care, assisting teachers, etc. are the areas
that need the most headcount.

Plus this could get us over the downside of shrinking the surveillance state,
prison industrial complex, Homeland "Security," etc. If there is a fallback
program that always has jobs on offer, the need to create jobs more
expensively declines.

~~~
StillBored
Even during the original WPA, I suspect that a lot of the labor was borderline
make work. AKA building a stone bridge for a hiking trail in a national park
wasn't the most efficient way to cross a stream even back then.

------
leepowers
One possible wrinkle: my understanding is that most WPA workers eventually
transitioned to blue-color manufacturing work in the post-war era. And so the
WPA was able to be disbanded without any political fallout.

Given the decline of manufacturing jobs and the transition from blue-collar to
service oriented work, wouldn't a modern WPA be more permanent? If a MWPA job
is the equivalent of most low-wage service-sector jobs, what's the incentive
to transition to the private sector? We would be creating a environment for
MWPA "lifers" \- a significant percentage of the electorate that depends on a
MWPA for a living.

That's not necessarily bad. But a UBI (Universal Basic Income) would make more
sense. It would be better to have a program (UBI) that doesn't have the
additional overhead of vetting, training, and administrating a national-scale
job training and employment program. A UBI provides more bang for each
government buck.

~~~
maxerickson
You can subsidize jobs for a few billion dollars a year. If it makes sense to
do it, we should do it, not hold out for a radical several trillion dollar
change to the federal budget.

The first step to a UBI is universal healthcare, or at least substantially
cheaper healthcare. How close are we to that politically?

------
lukasm
The problem is that government doesn't have low hanging fruits any more. There
are enough highways. Building more doesn't yeld that much GDP and you don't
need that many workers.

~~~
aaronbrethorst
Not true at all. American infrastructure desperately needs to be rebuilt.

[http://www.infrastructurereportcard.org](http://www.infrastructurereportcard.org)

[https://hbr.org/2015/05/what-it-will-take-to-fix-americas-
cr...](https://hbr.org/2015/05/what-it-will-take-to-fix-americas-crumbling-
infrastructure)

[http://www.vice.com/read/america-is-collapsing-a-brief-
look-...](http://www.vice.com/read/america-is-collapsing-a-brief-look-at-the-
us-infrastructure-meltdown-130)

[http://www.cbsnews.com/news/falling-apart-america-
neglected-...](http://www.cbsnews.com/news/falling-apart-america-neglected-
infrastructure-60-minutes/)

[http://www.cnn.com/2015/05/19/opinions/blumenauer-renacci-
in...](http://www.cnn.com/2015/05/19/opinions/blumenauer-renacci-
infrastructure/)

[http://www.nssga.org/case-missed-60-minutes-falling-apart-
am...](http://www.nssga.org/case-missed-60-minutes-falling-apart-americas-
neglected-infrastructure/)

[http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/american_prosperity...](http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/american_prosperity_consensus/2013/10/american_prosperity_consensus_is_crumbling_infrastructure_the_most_important.html)

[https://www.yahoo.com/news/america-s-crumbling-
infrastructur...](https://www.yahoo.com/news/america-s-crumbling-
infrastructure-katie-couric-explains-170349892.html?ref=gs)

[http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/the-us-economy-is-
under-...](http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/the-us-economy-is-under-threat-
because-of-its-neglected-infrastructure-10125082.html)

~~~
jayess
* Courtesy the American Society of Civil Engineers

------
d33
For a while I was hoping they meant wi-fi. We sure as hell need WPA3, with
some decent security for a change (for example, preventing everyone who knows
the key from snooping and injecting traffic or getting rid of this DEAUTH
nonsense).

~~~
dave2000
As someone who until recently knew next to nothing about networking, it's been
a real eye opener reading up on it and discovering how shitty everything is.
WPA supplicant because people didn't think to make it secure in the first
place. Deauth "attacks" \- well, if you can even call it an attack. "Kick
everyone off this network now".."ok!". "Uhh.. how do I stop that?" "You
can't". Some real bozos put this shit together, didn't they? Can we start
again please, and do it properly this time?

------
joelg236
Link looks broken, try
[http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/04/subsidiz...](http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/04/subsidized-
work-programs/478302/)

------
mangix
am i the only one thinking of wireless protected access?

~~~
spydum
same thought came to my mind, thought it would be a strange article to be on
theatlantic.. WPA3!

------
nickysielicki
We are $19.2TN in debt. Six percent of federal income is spent directly on
interest on that debt, to the tune of $222BN annually. That money goes
directly into the pockets of big banks, many of them foreign.

It sure would be nice if that could be spent differently! But unfortunately,
we keep spending money we don't have!

~~~
bubbleRefuge
This is completely ignorant. The federal government is an issuer of currency
and therefore has infinite amounts of money . We are no longer on the gold
standard where money was limited by gold reserves. Making and repeating these
kind of FUD statements which reinforce a false analogy that federal budgets
are like household budgets is keeping many bad politicians in business .

~~~
nickysielicki
How am I implying or reinforcing the idea that our federal budget is analogous
to a household budget? There is no FUD here.

> This is completely ignorant. The federal government is an issuer of currency
> and therefore has infinite amounts of money . We are no longer on the gold
> standard where money was limited by gold reserves.

That's a tautology. We are only an issuer of currency insofar as we have
credit. Our credit rating is heavily dependent on our ability to make interest
payments, which are $222BN annually.

Now maybe what you're saying is that since we can issue more currency, we will
never be unable to make these payments because US debt is denominated in US
dollars. And sure, that's technically true, but absolutely no one in America
comes out ahead after that. Americans are the people most invested in the
future of the dollar-- particularly lower and middle class Americans who have
savings accounts and retirement funds that are mostly denominated in US
dollars, whereas rich people hold capital assets.

So that doesn't address my point, which is that right now we have an
expenditure of $222BN annually and we're obligated to make those payments or
face some consequences that are much greater.

And all I'm saying is that it would have been really great if we didn't have
to spend those $222BN every year. And what would be less great, but still
great, is if we could start moving that number down.

~~~
bubbleRefuge
>but absolutely no one in America comes out ahead after that. Huh ?

Anyway. You need to educate yourself. Read up on Modern Monetary Theory. You
continue to make analogies between household budget constraints and money
issuer budget constraints. Money issuers have no budget constraints. The only
constraint is inflation and policy makers the world over have been try to
create inflation for 25 years. ( see japan, europe, usa post 2008).

Government debt == private sector savings. Eliminating government debt would
lead to another great depression. It makes no sense for a country like ours
which is a net importer. Again, you're empowering the politicians with this
FUD.

