Georgia Jobs Program Gets Bipartisan Boost

With bipartisan buy-in and no big price tag, a Georgia program pairing job seekers with potential employers for on-the-job training is gaining momentum as President Barack Obama crafts a plan to tackle the nation’s bedeviling unemployment problem.


The fans of Georgia Works run the range of the political spectrum, from civil rights activist Jesse Jackson on the left to GOP leaders in Congress on the right. That would leave little to stand in the way of Obama putting the program on the national agenda. Critics have dismissed Georgia Works as means for employers to exploit people’s desperation to return to work.

Its architect, former Georgia labor commissioner Michael Thurmond, said the program simply empowers out-of-work Americans with a new tool in their quest for employment.
“If you can’t increase or revisit stimulus spending, how can you get Americans working again?” Thurmond said. “I think that’s the opportunity that the Georgia Works strategy presents.”

Georgia Works has been replicated in New Hampshire and won praise from Jackson, former President Bill Clinton and, on Tuesday, House Speaker John Boehner and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor.

In a letter to the president, Boehner and Cantor urged Obama to include the Georgia Works model in the jobs proposal he plans to unveil on Thursday. They reminded Obama that they brought up the program to him twice during talks about the economy in December 2009.
“We stand ready to work with him if there is interest in implementing a similar program on the federal level,” Cantor, R-Va., said last week.
Obama seems warm to the idea. He praised Georgia Works as fresh and creative at an Aug. 17 town hall meeting in Atkinson, Ill., during his bus tour through middle America.