Stimulus-subsidized jobs in jeopardy, By Alexandra Zavis and Rong-Gong Lin II, September 29, 2010, Los Angeles Times: “Michael Beightol has 12 years of retail experience, but that was no help when he was looking for a job earlier this year. ‘I must have put in 1,000 applications or more, and no one was hiring because of the economy,’ said the 34-year-old Covina resident, who is raising an 8-year-old daughter on his own. His luck changed when Los Angeles County offered to pay his salary at Americal Contractors Corp., a small, veteran-owned painting firm in Pomona that is teaching him a new career as an estimator. ‘I’m so happy that they had this program, because I feel like I am being a productive part of society instead of sitting at home doing nothing,’ Beightol said. Using funding from last year’s $787-billion stimulus bill, California counties have put to work more than 35,000 people by subsidizing their employment for up to a year, according to figures from July. Many of those jobs are now in jeopardy unless Congress extends the funding beyond Thursday, the end of the fiscal year…”
Poverty-related issues in the news, from the Institute for Research on Poverty