July 27, 2009 - Taking inspiration from a Depression-era program that put millions of people to work in the 1930’s, one Tennessee county is using federal stimulus money to rescue a local economy where unemployment topped 27 percent.
As told in a recent New York Times profile, Tennessee state officials employed a New Deal model of putting people directly to work as quickly as possible, rather than waiting for big projects or for tax cuts to trickle through the economy.
The state plans to use $3 to $5 million from the federal stimulus package to subsidize 300 new jobs with employers that range from the state Transportation Department to the milkshake place near the high school.
The effort is already showing results; the June unemployment rate, which does not yet include all the new jobs, dropped from above 25 percent to 22.1 percent.
