How to create 100,000 good jobs in the Gulf Coast

One of the biggest problems facing residents of the Gulf Coast post-Katrina is finding good jobs. Tackling this problem might not be as hard as Washington is saying. The following comes from the Institute's new report Blueprint for Gulf Renewal.

UPDATE: Scott Meyers-Lipton (see below) sends us this excellent YouTube short on an event they did in San Jose, CA, to promote a Gulf Coast Civic Works project.

Good jobs are hard to find on the Gulf Coast, and the lack of decent work is keeping many residents from getting back on their feet. But a growing chorus of Gulf leaders thinks Washington could swiftly tackle the problem, if they’d only look to a successful chapter in U.S. history.

During the Great Depression, the Works Progress Administration created four million public works jobs—in two months. The “WPA army” built or fixed up 2,500 hospitals, 6,000 schools, 13,000 playgrounds; they even planted three billion trees.

Today, Gulf activists are calling for a similar Gulf Coast Civic Works Project that would give residents good-paying jobs to revive their communities.

“The WPA rebuilt our country in the 1930s,” says Prof. Scott Myers-Lipton, a professor at San Jose State University in California and advocate of a modern-day Gulf WPA. “A similar program can rebuild the Gulf Coast today.” Myers-Lipton estimates it would take only $3.9 billion—half the monthly cost of the Iraq war—to put 100,000 people to work at jobs paying $15 an hour.

It would be the ultimate win-win: Gulf residents would get stable jobs, decent pay and training in needed skills. Businesses would benefit from new workers and new money pumped into the economy. It would also jump-start stalled infrastructure rebuilding projects needed to revive the Gulf.

In New Orleans, community and faith groups like ACORN, All Congregations Together and the Jeremiah Project are actively pushing for the Gulf Civic Works Program. Presidential candidates John Edwards and Sen. Barack Obama have tentatively endorsed the plan.

But the program has gotten little traction in Washington, where lawmakers have opted to outsource the recovery to private contractors and a maze of fragmented agencies.

“Thousands of Katrina survivors have been waiting to return home and shape the future of their communities,” says James Rucker of ColorOfChange.org, a national e-advocacy group. “Finally, a plan exists to make this happen. But it won’t happen without public pressure.”