I really feel sorry for people who have been out of work for over 6 months. Most of these people are still getting pay check from Uncle Sam, but are not working. I propose the following.
As reported in the news, these people who are out of work are all smart and very qualified, but there are just no jobs for them. Now we all know that the USA is about dead last when it comes to education of our kids who will have to feed us old people in the future. They will be the ones who will earn so much based on their skills that they can pay off all the debit that we have run up. With me so far? Now if there was some way that our kids who drop out of high school so that only 60% graduate could be taught all the technical things that they will need to know to compete in the next 50 or so years, wouldn't that be great? Here is how.
We take all these smart well qualified people who are now out of work and have them teach kids after school in their own homes. Teaching would keep the minds sharp for those who are out of work and at the same time add knowledge to our kids of the future. Great. These out of work people could teach things like advanced math and computer programming. Out kids really need skills like that. They could teach basic physics and chemistry. I think labs are over rated. Many of the principle could be easily taught in a home kitchen.
Wait, the problem is that 99% of the people who are out of work are no better qualified than our kids. I have been giving this simple test to high school kids and young adults for some time and less than 1% get the right answer. I'll give you the test and see how you do. What is the square root of 2 times the square root of 8? That's it. If you are qualified to graduate from high school in most countries of the world, you can solve this problem in 10 seconds. The problem we have is that 99% of our kids can't!!!
I am sorry, but the people who lose their jobs are normally the worst performers. With this economic down turn, they have been caught up with. Most were never worth what they were being paid. Sorry, but true. It is clear that most don't have any knowledge or skill that is worth passing along to the 40% of our kids who drop out of school or for that matter the 60% who do graduate. We just left the most technical century in human history only to go into a new one that will be even more technical and what kinds of kids have we produced? Remember "new math"? That was a diversion. It wasted our resources and did not contribute anything to our technical advancement.
Back to the original point. What do those who are now out of work have in the way of skills that are competitive or will be competitive in the next 25 to 50 years? Look in the mirror and you will be able to answer that. Doesn't look good does it?
