In an op-ed featured on www.HuffingtonPost.com, Davis Jenkins of CCRC and Julian L. Alssid of the Workforce Strategy Center comment on the long-term effects of President-elect Barack Obama’s proposed stimulus package. According to the authors,

“In today's global economy, the majority of new jobs - and the vast majority of well-paying jobs - require at least some college education. This doesn't bode well for the nearly half of American adults 25 or older who have no more than a high school education. Or the nearly seven thousand students who drop out of high school every day. For these dropouts and the 40 million American adults who are barely literate, prospects for a living wage were dim long before September 2008. Just getting people jobs building new roads isn't enough.

“According to The Workforce Alliance, U.S. taxpayers spent slightly more than $50 billion in 2006 on federal programs categorized as workforce development and job training. Even with these significant resources, the federal government has neglected to focus on getting workers the postsecondary training needed to succeed in the new economy. The result? The United States is facing a possible shortage of 14 million workers with college-level skills by 2020, according to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Without enough skilled workers, these jobs will disappear or be filled overseas.

“While Obama's proposed stimulus package might, in the short term, prevent an economic meltdown, a return to economic prosperity will require helping workers acquire the skills needed to compete globally. Unless the stimulus can be leveraged to revitalize our outmoded education and workforce systems, the current downturn will likely accelerate the recent trend in which the only good jobs go to those who have training beyond high school.”

--Read this article in its entirety at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/julian-l-alssid-and-davis-jenkins/create-jobs-now-but-build_b_157583.html (registration may be required).