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Shovels are so 1933

Over at The Next Right, Matt Dabrowski asks:

If Obama's stimulus plan doesn't give jobs to the white-collar, educated people who need them, can the stimulus possibly work?

Let's leave aside for the moment whether or not the nation needs these projects (which I believe we do), or whether we support them (which I do as well). Will these infrastructure projects even work?

The answer is "No, they won't".

The Wall Street Journal says that "many Americans have been out of work for months and are resorting to lower-wage or part-time jobs to make ends meet." But infrastructure construction jobs are skill positions--the era of digging ditches with shovels is long gone. It's not a matter of handing out shovels to millions of laborers who have been locked out of their factories or whose farms have failed. That's not how things are built these days. And after decades of changing the shape of the American workforce, it is finally time to admit that the shape of the workforce has changed.

This is not 1933, and the old New Deal simply can't be enacted in today's America.

Anybody who wants to address ways to lower unemployment needs to consider this point made by the Economist:

The New Deal was introduced into a world of giant organisations—of big businesses and big trade unions that were capable of striking deals with big government. But today’s economy is much more fluid. America’s most successful companies are entrepreneurial outfits like Apple and Google, which thrive on flexibility; even giant companies such as General Electric are breaking themselves up into entrepreneurial divisions. More Americans own their own companies (15%) than belong to trade unions (12%).

Please re-read that last sentence again before advocating any government-works plans to address today's unemployment.