Tuesday, March 12, 2013

Jobs vs. Arrests



In October 2012, the FBI published their annual Uniform Crime Reports for 2011. According to the report, there were about 12.4 million arrests across the country in 2011 (see arrest statistics here).

The American economy, meanwhile, created about 1.4 million jobs in 2011.

For every job created there were about 9 arrests.

America has the highest incarceration rate in the world, far surpassing countries like Rwanda, Cuba, and Iran. America's incarceration rate is 7.5 times higher than Ireland's and 13 times higher than Japan's.

New Deal work programs like the WPA and CCC were created (among other reasons) to provide the jobless with useful things to do; to have an opportunity to earn some money while working, instead of wandering about aimless & broke, or getting into trouble. These voluntary-to-join work programs gave the unemployed hope, and the unemployed, in turn, gave America a massive amount of modernized infrastructure.

Today, we have no WPA or CCC. Today, there are about 27 million Americans who would like a full-time job but can't find one (see http://www.njfac.org/).

(Image above courtesy of http://123freevectors.com/)

No comments:

Post a Comment