Obama Speaks on Job Retraining and Community Colleges

If you've been laid off, it may be time to go back to school. That was the message in Obama's announcement this morning.
A small business woman spoke first, saying the recovery act allowed her to hire back workers.
Another woman spoke about being able to keep unemployment insurance in Maine while earning an associates degree in nursing. She introduced Obama, who said the unemployment rate (see below) is still a sobering toll. "We should expect further job losses in the months to come."
There are signs of improvement--construction spending is up, he said. Obama talked of the letters from Americans that he reads every night and mentioned a few.
Obama says we need to boost the skills of our workforce now. "Education is the single best bet we can make."
Obama transitioned to educational training and retraining for people out of work. Now is the time to not only look for a job but to prepare for a new job, he said.
Unemployed workers who want to go back to school may be eligible for Pell grants, he said. Obama says he's going to make it easier for people to get Pell grants.

If you want to get more education or training, you have to give up unemployment benefits. But if you return to school, you don't qualify for federal education grants since, in most cases, your qualification is based on the previous year's income.

The president outlined a plan under which the Department of Education will send colleges legal guidance, encouraging them to increase financial aid packages for the unemployed so they can enroll in educational and training programs while keeping their unemployment benefits. CNN

Arne Duncan and Hilda Solis are on the case: opportunity.gov. So is Jill Biden, who will lead a national effort to help get people to community colleges. Biden teaches at Northern Virginia Community College. By 2020, Obama hopes to have the highest proportion of college graduates in the world.

The NYT calls the jobs report dreadful yet encouraging. Well said:

By any objective standard, this morning’s jobs report was terrible. But it was also pretty encouraging.

Job losses have now been slowing for three straight months. Ever since World War II, a trend like that has been a signal that a recession was in its final months. There are no guarantees, of course. Because of the depth of the financial crisis, this recession is already the scariest since World War II, and it may well have more surprises in store. But this morning’s news was, all things considered, reason for optimism.

The economy shed 539,000 jobs last month — down from 699,000 in March, 681,000 in February and 741,000 in January. Before February, job losses had accelerated for six straight months. Last month’s loss was the smallest since October. Chart 2, on the first page of the Labor Department’s news release, tells the story.

Even the increase in the unemployment rate, to 8.9 percent from 8.5 percent, wasn’t as bad as it sounds. It was nearly all a shift of people from unofficial unemployment — not working and not looking for a job — to official unemployment. The percentage of adults with jobs remained unchanged, at 59.9 percent.
Read the rest at NYT