Posts Tagged: city of Chicago

It’s a Bird, It’s a Plane, It’s Partial Funding For Two New Runways

The federal Dept. of Transportation has made the “largest financial commitment ever” to one airport project at Chicago’s O’Hare airport, reports the Chicago Tribune’s Monique Garcia. And it’s still not nearly enough money to complete the latest phase in O’Hare expansion. Transportation Sec. Ray LaHood, a former Illinois Congressman, announced a $410 million award yesterday for the city of Chicago to build two new O’Hare runways. But the cost of the runway project is $3.2 billion. The city tentatively plans to borrow about $1.8 billion toward completing the runways. (more…)

CRUEL SUMMER: THE NATION’S SIX-WEEK SUMMER FLING WITH EMPLOYING ITS MOST VULNERABLE

The White House Council on Economic Advisers issued a report Sep. 11 claiming that the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act, better known as the stimulus bill, has created up to 1.1 million jobs. But all stimulus jobs are not created equal – 227,000 are summer-only employment for poor or otherwise disadvantaged people, ages 14-24. These jobs were for 20-30 hours a week, paid the minimum wage, and ended after 6-10 weeks. Summer is over – and so are these 227,000 jobs.

About $1.2 billion of the stimulus bill went toward bringing back the summer-only employment program, a part of the Workforce Investment Act youth program that runs out of the Labor Department. The mission of summer employment programs for disadvantaged youth is both vague and tantalizing – they’re supposed to spur consumer spending, provide for poor families, teach job skills, and open a world of possibilities for often ghettoized young people. The experience here in Chicago and across the country is that summer youth jobs begin to accomplish some of these goals. But summer jobs do not give disadvantaged young people what they really need – a year-round program to put them on track toward permanent employment.

Summer Stimulus

Summer youth jobs are the quintessential social program – conditionally funded by Democrats and reflexively opposed by Republicans. (more…)