GREENWOOD VILLAGE, Colo.—When national Democrats talk about jobs, they’re talking about folks like Penny Jesser.
Out of work, behind in her mortgage and wondering how she’ll feed her two young sons, the newly single former administrative assistant from Aurora gets up every morning to spend eight hours at a government office looking for jobs that don’t exist.
So when President Barack Obama says his plan will create millions of jobs, and Colorado Democrats say that up to 60,000 jobs in the state will be saved or created by the $787 billion economic recovery law, Penny Jesser is interested. Very interested.
But ask her how she thinks the stimulus package might help her retrain for a new job after three years out of the work force to care for her youngest son, and Jesser, 43, throws her head back and laughs.
“Oh,” she chuckles. “I thought you were going to tell me about the stimulus stuff. I don’t know.”
Jobs are on everyone’s lips when talking about the worsening recession and the stimulus money coming to Colorado, some $2 billion in direct spending, plus more in tax cuts and competitive grants. But even state officials are circumspect about chances the money will help jobseekers like Jesser in the short term.
“Well, we don’t have a final figure yet” on how much will help the unemployed, conceded Don Mares, executive director of Colorado’s Department of Labor and Employment. He tempers his thoughts with optimism: “We are pretty sure that our department that specializes in work force programs will receive a significant amount of money.”
The needs are great. Colorado’s unemployment rate hit a five-year high of 6.1 percent in December. That was below the national jobless rate but much higher than the year before, when less than 4 percent of Coloradans couldn’t find a job.
Unemployment offices in Colorado that took 2,900 claims a week a year ago are scrambling to process 6,000 a week today. Sixty state offices across the state are swamped with jobseekers looking to polish resumes, sign up for job training and skim anemic jobs listings.
At the Greenwood Village office, where Jesser was looking through online job postings, a new sign taped to the front door warned jobseekers that a two-hour parking time limit is now being strictly enforced. There are simply more people seeking services than available parking spaces.
“Our whole system is under siege,” Mares said.
Help is on the way, politicians assure the unemployed.
According to estimates by the Center for American Progress, Colorado’s aid includes $248 million to extend unemployment benefits beyond the 26-week limit in state law (though that limit has already been extended on a temporary basis by Congress).
Colorado is also due $85 million in increased unemployment benefits. Those figures don’t include $25 billion set aside in the national plan to give unemployed workers reduced-cost health insurance for nine months, or money for jobs training through college scholarships.
The plan is not to start new programs, Mares said, but to gird existing resources so that people seeking government help after losing a job don’t get busy signals and long waits for training.
“Clearly we’re in a whole different place than we were 12 months ago,” Mares said.
Though it’s too soon to say exactly how Colorado will spend its money, Mares said the priorities will be training people for jobs in the energy sector and additional training for jobs that already exist.
The Department of Labor and Employment plans to ask state lawmakers for money to update its computer system, an investment that would make Colorado eligible for millions more in unemployment aid.
There will be plenty of attention on how that money is spent. With Washington politicians talking ceaselessly about the need to create jobs, and supporters of the stimulus spending promising it will put people to work, employment assistance might prove the most closely watched sliver of the law.
So far, public officials aren’t even sure how they’ll measure what jobs are created.
“People are very concerned about the ability to measure job creation,” said Andre Pettigrew, director of the Denver Office of Economic Development. Pettigrew was talking at the first meeting of a 12-member board set up by Democratic Gov. Bill Ritter to make sure stimulus dollars are spent properly.
“The community is very interested in seeing how well this is doing,” Pettigrew added.
Amid an onslaught of bad economic news, and few jobs to go around, the unemployed are skeptical they’ll see those promised jobs in time to avoid losing homes or needing public assistance.
“I just think it’s baloney,” said a frustrated Amanda Lackey, 21, a former pizza parlor manager looking for jobs at the Greenwood Village center. “They say they’re spending all this money to help people here instead of sending overseas to Iraq or wherever, but it’s baloney. I’ll believe it when I see it.”
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