Later today, Sen. Ted Kennedy will introduce his National Service Bill, which aims to recruit 175,000 U.S. workers for health, education, environmental protection and anti-poverty programs.
Story link, posted yesterday afternoon by Susan Milligan in Political Intelligence at the Boston Globe.
The new corps members would be paid modest salaries to spend a year working on specific national problems. Employers would be eligible for tax cuts for giving workers time off to do community service, while a new venture capital fund would also be created to boost the creation of new service organizations.
Co-authored with Oren Hatch, the bill aims to build on existing federal programs and expand the Peace Corps. And...
...the new plan, staffers said on condition of anonymity, would be aimed at people of all ages. While many volunteer programs now attract young college graduates willing to work for low salaries before settling into better-paid job, the Kennedy-Hatch plan would give older Baby Boomers an opportunity to take time off for community service, perhaps transitioning into a second career.
In my 20’s---during the 1970’s---I was a social worker. I ran an alternative services agency for young people---a shelter, with professional counselors to help kids access services like room and board, legal, medical, educational, mental health and even travel (to help ‘runaway’ kids get home). We organized a school that taught ‘survival skills’ like how to manage a checking account, shop for groceries and rent an apartment.
A federal grant paid four salaries (I earned $8,500 a year for four years) and our rent.
What made our agency work were two federal employment programs, WINS (Work Incentive Program, c. 1967), and CETA (Comprehensive Employment and Training Act, created in 1973), and a community service program, VISTA.
I remember one afternoon looking at two program budgets: one with and one without our CETA, WINS and VISTA workers. Without them, we’d have closed down, fab salaries and all.
I know opinions about national service programs are mixed, and I’m sure all public employment programs have some problems, but our "national service" workers were the lifeblood of a program that worked tirelessly (indeed, we staffed 24/7) to help ‘troubled’ kids make their way in a troubled world.
All the ones I knew (I hired maybe 20 over five years?) were dedicated, hard-working and conscientious, and about half of them were working-their-way-through-college students.
Then came the 1980’s.