20 III. ANOTHER LOOK e do not wish to rate the WPA success or failure. But three decades assed since the end of the program, and we have learned much about the manpower, particularly in the last decade. Therefore, it is worth looking back at the WPA from 1971 and seeing what we can learn in of our present criteria. g People to Work he WPA averaged about 2 million people at work throughout its lifeIt proved once and for all if such proof was needed that oyed people can be put to work quickly if the society makes a ment to that goal. Furthermore, judging from the results in terms crete (and esthetic) products, most of them can be put to work ly. Naturally there will be waste, confusion, and occasional ggling. However, many claim that the wastage of having people who > work sit idle is immeasurably greater not only in terms of goods vices not produced, but in terms of the individual frustrations and .ng. tually the time has arrived in this society when it is politically lt to simply let people starve because the economy does not produce We must provide income to the unemployed and to those who depend on r support. Most will agree with President Nixon that "workfare" is better than welfare. e WPA employed men and women above 18 who were in need and able ling to work. For various reasons, including the fact that prewas given to heads of families, about 80 percent of the workers and nearly the same percentage was white. 21 A Statistics have shown (see above) that a majority of people on the WPA had a history of attachment to the workforce. Critics will point out that today's unemployed do not have such a history. However, with the unemployment rate at 6 percent, there are several million unemployed who do have a history of steady employment. those with some attachment to the workforce can rapidly and relatively efficiently be put to work. It has not proved that "hardcore" people can or cannot be put to work. Types of Jobs The WPA has proved that The WPA put most people to work on construction jobs at manual labor. The program had trouble creating and filling white collar jobs. Supervisor), professional, and technical employees generally made up between 5 and 10 percent of the enrollees on WPA projects. At present there is still a need for the construction of buildings and recreation facilities as there was in the 'thirties. At the same time there is a great need for services and technological work in crime, pollution control, transportation, recreation, education, health, and a number of other fields. The WPA proved that the unemployed can be effectively employed on construction projects. Its limited evidence points toward the fact that though such projects are more difficult to administer, the unemployed can be put to work on education projects, white collar projects, and service projects. Above all the WPA was made up of a series of short term projects outside of the normal public administrative system. Although a few of the service projects were transferred directly to local governments as permanent programs, for the most part at the completion of the project, WPA workers were released, although they might be hired again for a similar project. 22 ning Although the WPA did some institutional and worksite training, this not a major emphasis of the program. Some of the programs, including which trained 18,000 domestic servants, are not relevant for the ent. Little effective institutional training was carried out until economy began to pick up in the early 'forties due to the war. Then of the skills learned, such as welding, led to jobs. Naturally a I deal of training took place on the job, but in many cases the new s acquired, such as construction or sewing were not useful in the h for future employment because they were not those which private yers or regular government agencies desired. In some cases unions killed workers complained that previously unskilled workers were t skills on WPA projects and performed skilled jobs while still paid at the unskilled rate while skilled workers who had previously. rmed these jobs were refused employment. Overall, WPA did some training, but it was not a major component of rogram, and it was not very successful in imparting skills which lue in the employment market. In the future if training is a goal ublic employment program, it must be planned as a part of the program, must impart skills which will be enable the trainees to get regular or private jobs. The WPA showed that both institutional and on-the-job ng can impart the skills but that the acquiring of skills does not a job. ent here was usually fairly close liason between the employment services e WPA local projects, but job placement as we know it today was not 23 practiced. Many people left WPA for private employment, but most of these people found their own jobs. Because the projects were independent of state and local government, there was no opportunity simply to move people off a "subsidized" payroll onto the "regular" payroll without changing his employment. Our sophistication about placement in the manpower field, learned in the last ten years, has outstripped anything that was known in the WPA. We can learn that placement is an important component of any public employment program. In this area, too, the WPA's weakness stemmed from the fact that it conceived of itself as a temporary work program outside the regular system. If a program is to have effective links to the normal employment system both public and private it must be planned with that in mind, and if permanent jobs are a goal, placement must be an important component of the program. Wages - then The question of wages was one of the most controversial in the WPA. As mentioned, the program usually attempted to pay "security wages" between welfare and prevailing wages, taking into account both skill involved and differences in prevailing wages around the country. No attempt was made to give supplements for workers with many dependents. Certainly, the WPA has proved that this question will be a controversial one no matter how it is handled. There is certainly little evidence that the wages were too high. Thousands of people transferred off WPA when offered private jobs paying prevailing wages, and despite the numerous complaints there is little evidence that the WPA used up enough of the labor supply in any industry so as to create a shortage. On the other hand there is consid 24 e evidence that the WPA wages were too low in many cases for WPA Some critics presently argue that paying prevailing wages will give is no incentive to get off a work program and into a regular job. In the Congressional demand that anyone who had been more than 18 months PA job should be dropped stemmed from this worry that there was not incentive to leave a work program for a regular job. But fact is ved in the WPA that until there are enough regular jobs for the oyed, incentives are useless. In any case the WPA gives evidence ecurity wages are not large enough to adequately support a family. es no evidence that prevailing wages are too large to prove a disincen o finding a private job. stration he WPA was a separate federal agency. It was not part of any I department or other agency (until the very end when it became E the Federal Works Agency). Except for requiring local "sponsorship" meant the recommendation and planning of a project, the WPA by-passed and local government in administering its projects. Furthermore, all s were temporary and terminated upon completion, at which time whatroduct" that existed belonged to the local jurisdiction which had ed the project. Direct federal administration was the quickest of getting organized and putting people to work in a hurry. int in time it appears unlikely that a program would be directly At |