Expanding National Service to Address Long-Term Unemployment
A new report from the Center for American Progress calls for an expansion of national service programs such as AmeriCorps to address the persistently high long-term unemployment rate. The authors note that Congress already endorsed such an expansion in 2009 by authorizing 250,000 AmeriCorps positions, but subsequently failed to adequately fund the program. They call for a policy that would increase funding for national service when unemployment is high and decrease funding when long-term unemployment rates drop. This policy would have enabled nearly 1.9 million Americans to stay employed in the aftermath of the Great Recession, according to the report.