We need to fund a Federal Jobs Guarantee program in order to train and position Americans for a robust new economy that will grow from our needed transition from fossil fuels to renewables and from polluting energy to clean energy, all with the goal of saving our planet.
Establishing a new Works Progress Administration (WPA) would help to accomplish that goal.
We need to:
- Train and hire Americans to repair roads, bridges, dams, schools, parks and myriad other crumbling national infrastructure projects.
- Give them the same benefits earned by veterans.
- Provide work to actors, musicians and and other artists to make sure American citizens in every part of our country have access to the arts.
- Invest in historians, archeologists and other scholars to do the important work of preserving and documenting America’s story.
- Establish a youth program for national service like the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) for reforestation and natural rehabilitation.
Science tells us we only have a decade to transition from our current polluting energy, construction, and transportation systems––and the economies surrounding them––to keep the planet habitable. The scope of that crisis requires a federal jobs program like the WPA and the CCC.
