White House rolling out programs to help veterans find jobs - Link.....

[1776Forever]

White House rolling out programs to help veterans find jobs
By Vicki Needham - 11/07/11 10:40 AM

http://thehill.com/blogs/on-the-money/801-economy/192109-white-house-rolling-out-programs-to-help-veterans-find-jobs

The White House is turbo-charging programs to help veterans find work while leaning on the Senate to pass a package this week of tax incentives for businesses that hire unemployed veterans.

The Senate is expected to consider a measure this week that would provide tax breaks President Obama will announce at noon Monday the rolling out a new online job bank for veterans and a "gold card" service that will provide intensive individual help for job-seeking veterans at career centers.

The Senate veterans’ bill melds proposals from Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), chairwoman of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, Rep. Jeff Miller (R-Fla.), chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee and Obama.

The proposal set for consideration this week would provide businesses with a "Returning Heroes" tax credit for 2012-2013, a $2,400 credit for hiring an unemployed veteran who has been unemployed for at least a month. The tax credit would increase to $4,800 for hiring a veteran who has been unemployed six months or longer.

The bill also includes a two-year extension of the "Wounded Warriors" tax credit, which gives companies that hire veterans with service-related disabilities a $4,800 credit. If the veteran has been unemployed for six months of more the tax credit increases to $9,600.

(more at link)

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Here is the Whitehouse site link:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2011/11/07/we-cant-wait-obama-administration-announces-new-initiatives-get-veterans-back-work

The President also announced a series of executive actions that will provide new resources for veterans to translate military experience to the private sector job market, give veterans additional career development support and better identify companies looking to hire veterans. These initiatives include:

Veteran Gold Card:

Effective today, post-9/11 veterans will be able to visit dol.gov/vets/goldcard.html to download the Veteran Gold Card, which entitles them to enhanced services including six months of personalized case management, assessments and counseling, at the roughly 3,000 One-Stop Career Centers located across the country. This should help serve the more than 200,000 unemployed post-9/11 veterans. The President directed the Department of Labor to launch this initiative in his August 4, 2011 speech at the Navy Yard.

My Next Move for Veterans:

The Department of Labor will launch My Next Move for Veterans (mynextmove.org/vets), a new online resource that allows veterans to enter their military occupation code and discover civilian occupations for which they are well qualified. The site will also include information about salaries, apprenticeships, and other related education and training programs.

Creating a Veterans Job Bank:

Today, the Administration launched the Veterans Jobs Bank, at National Resource Directory (NRD.gov), an easy to use tool to help veterans find job postings from companies looking to hire them. It already searches over 500,000 job postings and continues to grow. Additionally, in a few easy steps, companies looking to hire veterans can make sure the job postings on their own websites are part of this Veterans Jobs Bank.

(more at link)

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Thank you President Obama, Michelle, and Vice President Biden and Jill for your dedication to this very important matter! With suicides going up for Veterans it is so very important to push this to the front of the news media and make sure that people see the Republicans only talk about Veterans and do NOT walk the walk!

[Arctic Dave]

1. Nothing says strata like a two tier system of help.

What about the rest of the unemployed?

Here is the problem with joining today's military, it doesn't provide you with employable job skills. Today, most of these skills are contracted out so soldiers can learn to reassemble weapons in the field. Not much demand for that in everyday life.

That is why I try to tell young people to go to a trade school or college. The military isn't a career move were you get to learn a trade like it once was.

[strategery blunder]

6. Yep, watch companies fire existing workers too

Fire existing workers, hire veterans for the tax credit, collect free money from Uncle Sam.

Net job creation: zero

Anything being done to prevent companies from gaming the system like this? Probably not...

[locahungaria]

7. Yes, and "churn" those veterans when their salary reaches the tax credit....

I experienced that with my own eyes working my last job as a cashier in a grocery store - at the new hire process I was asked if I would be willing to complete a brief questionnaire in order for the company to get a tax credit. I figured "what the hell, why not?" The hiring manager put me on the phone with someone in "corporate" and raced through the series of questions. I stated that I was OVER 40 and had been on food stamps in the past 24(?) months. When the person in "corporate" raced through my responses, I caught that she had me listed as UNDER under 40 and a recipient of TANF - I told her that she got that wrong and she in turn told me "Sorry, we'll fix that one."

I didn't think much about it at the time and went on my merry way. But after a couple of months working there, I started noticing a weird trend - other than the first week of the month, employees were routinely being "called off", sent home after a few hours, "harassed" or simply not put on the schedule for one, two, even three weeks at a time. At first I figured that it was just due to slow periods, but then I noticed that even while folks were being called off, at about 2 month intervals, they would put up a sign on the door and advertise over the loudspeaker that they were now hiring and instructed customers to go up to the customer service desk to pick up an application. I will note here that the customer base for this particular grocery chain is lower income - the majority of customers used food stamps for their purchases.

After a while, I did some research and learned about the WOTC: http://www.doleta.gov/business/incentives/opptax/

and was kind of horrified. And sure enough, right around the time my YTD gross pay reached $9000 (it took almost 10 months!), I started getting "harrassed", sent home, "called off", etc.....

I figure it must be pretty easy for even the least "savvy" of employers to figure out how to easily game this system and get almost free labor for as long as they want it!

Google "churning" to learn more if you wish.

Ugh.

[sam11111]

2. EVERY vet hired in four months - WPA for vets

See my post in Vets Forum, please

[1776Forever]

3. Thanks could you please give us the link to your post? Appreciate it:) n/t

[sam11111]

4. link to my longer post is...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=259x30297

PS needed also--
Sheltered workshops for those too disabled to ever hold normal WPA jobs.

Plus Old Soldiers Homes for them ALL later in life.

[1776Forever]

5. Yes and as you see there is not much backing from DU on this measure. It is a shame that more

people didn't rec this post. Thanks!