If you guessed help find unemployed workers jobs through federal programs, then you would be correct!
This post can practically write itself and I’m just going to copy and paste excerpts from an employment and training programs report released by the Government Accountability Office (GAO):
“…little is known about the effectiveness of most programs. In fiscal year 2009, 9 federal agencies spent approximately $18 billion to administer 47 programs….Nearly all programs track multiple outcome measures, but only five programs have had an impact study completed since 2004 to assess whether outcomes resulted from the program and not some other cause”
So just what did the 5 impact studies find, according to the GAO:
“The five impact studies generally found that the effects of participation were not consistent across programs, with only some demonstrating positive impacts that tended to be small, inconclusive, or restricted to short-term impacts.”
To summarize, 9 agencies, spent $18,000,000,000, on 47 programs, which their own studies have shown have little if any positive impact.
I get that the government wants to say its helping the unemployed find jobs and these programs, at least, on the surface, seem well-intended. But how can we justify billions being spent on any program that doesn’t even work. When we decide to spend billions in the first place, shouldn’t effectiveness be a minimum requirement? This is a lose-lose situation for everyone – the unemployed aren’t actually being helped and taxpayer money is being virtually thrown away.
Well we definitely need an administration that is effective.
You would hope with that much money being spent that some good would result.
Exactly – and one thing that isn’t even addressed here is that we have 47 programs and all but 3 of them overlap with atleast one other program. Its very indicative of how many of these types of programs are run – in this case the program in general is ineffective but even programs that may be doing some good are being run inefficiently.