August 26, 2018
The headline of an NYT article on the Trump administration’s plan to overhaul the Jobs Corps program told readers that the program cost $1.7 billion. Since almost none of the NYT’s readers has any idea of the size of the federal budget, this headline was really providing no information whatsoever.
In fact, since $1.7 billion is a very large amount of money to people who are not Bill Gates or Jeff Bezos, it likely misled many readers into believing that this program is a major expenditure for the federal government. In fact, the program comes to roughly 0.04 percent of total federal spending. The fact that it is not a large share of the budget is not a reason to support a program that is wasteful or to not try to have it run better, but it is wrong to think that the federal government has a major commitment to job training or that such spending is a big part of people’s tax bills.
Addendum:
As was pointed out to me, this piece also includes some serious mind reading. We are told, “Progressives see it as an enduring commitment to the poor rooted in a golden age of liberalism. Conservative lawmakers support Job Corps because it encourages low-income young people to work hard.” It would be simple enough to say that the program enjoys support across the political spectrum, noting that progressives “say” they value the commitment to the poor, while conservatives “say” they like the fact that it encourages hard work.
As the piece points out, the actual payments are made to contractors, many of whom are politically connected. This is a plausible alternative explanation for support.
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