According to Workforce Management, "the initiative would allocate $3,000 in federal training funds directly to (unemployed) workers each year for (the next) two years."
We then tried to think of the half-full glass side of this equation. (After all, some day when our President is long retired he may be asked to weigh this initiative alongside his landing of that 7.5 pound Bass as to which accomplishment he is most proud of.)

Imagine, for the moment, that your current company gets absorbed next year and, sadly, your project to examine the business case for outsourcing all of staffing is enthusiastically accepted by one and all (despite your best efforts). Surprisingly your new boss (the old one suddenly cashed in his options and took the package) has stopped by with good and bad news. She has just found a great consultant to implement the company's side of the outsourcing project at a fantastic price (about twice your compensation fully loaded) and, your position is eliminated as of the end of the month.

After careful consideration, the firm has decided not to engage outplacement services for any part of the layoff since the new $3000 per year account offered by the administration ought to cover any "career management" needs. (This savings of several million dollars will of course go directly to the bottom line and be available for leadership bonuses minus of course the PAC money to those who voted for the accounts). Since there are still three weeks till the "end of the month" your boss was hoping you could write up your suggestions for how you and the others being laid off can spend the $3000 per year that "we could put in the letter describing our progressive severance assistance and use in the future as part of our staffing brand."

After due deliberation you came up with the following:

1. Pay for a Career Coach from the Outplacement Firm your company would have paid had there been no Career Account program.
2. Pay for a Career Coach to replace the free support you might have gotten from job counselors at the employment office who now are totally swamped (as if they weren't before) or who have now been reassigned to social services.
3. Use the money for Travel expenses to interviews in locations where you never wanted to live with companies you told "I'm relocating to [your town] and available for an interview after next week.”
4. Rent PO Mail Boxes in the locations you are trying to get interviews so you can appear to be local.
5. Pay for cell phones to network with employees you know in target companies to find out why you never get a response when you apply or, to attempt to learn what "a candidate who better matched our qualifications" really means.
6. Pay for printing of lots of a really nice resumes that beautifully fit an 8.5 X 11 parchment quality paper (plus letterhead and business cards).
7. Develop a website whose url, [myname666.com], comes complete with 100 digital pages where you can detail every project and paper you've ever written during the last 10 years, tell stories about your personal life and show pictures of your children. Oh and don’t forget to blog about how you've handled your depression.
8. Acquire untraceable lists from an anonymous "name sourcer" of all the hiring managers, their titles and contact information (including home and cell phone) in your target companies. Now there is a scary thought - but we like it.
9. Take an advanced course from staffing experts and FBI trained "skip tracers" to learn how to uncover the professional associations, local drinking establishments, preferred restaurants, friends, enemies and skeletons in the closets of the hiring managers in the companies you have targeted and whose contact info you now have.
10. Use the money to emigrate to an underdeveloped country. Choose a location near a “Business Zone” where US aid is supplying infrastructure capabilities and broadband access to entrepreneurs who have acquired the projects you used to work on. Check out the local job board. Look for your last job. Don’t worry about the language problem as the jobs all require English speakers. The good news is that you have vastly reduced your cost of living.
11. Take your spouse out to dinner - a really good dinner. Then begin investing in learning another profession- as Greeter.

Hope you enjoyed this. We feel better.