Enact GI Bill for workers
Here’s a thought from the DeMoines Register: Its time for America to enact another GI Bill – to give free education to “veterans”, to upskill them for a new economic reality. The previous time this was done was for veterans of World War II, who needed to be upskilled after the war. Most of them fuelled the emerging Information era over the following decades.
Now that the Information Age is giving way to globalised Connection Economy, maybe its time to do this again. Or so this particular report urges. Read the article here.
“What’s needed is a new GI Bill of Rights for a new century. It wouldn’t be just for veterans, but for any American worker who loses a job or simply wants to upgrade skills to get a better job. The concept has been called a GI Bill for workers. Any American who spends a given number of years in the workforce would be eligible…. Whatever the source of funds, retraining should be regarded as an entitlement that can pay for itself. That’s what happened with the original GI Bill.”
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Great idea Graeme! The middle section of Thomas Friedmans book “The World is Flat” discusses the need for and direction of Americas education echoing your point of the need for upgrading Americas “hard drive and software”. A GI Bill would help…especially due to the fact that America needs more engineers and scientists because interest in these areas has waned in the past few years.
Here is another proposal…it is called “wage insurance”. Wage insurance would benefit workers by ensuring that they could keep the same wages if and when they were forced to change jobs and/or skills due to the enormous amount of outsourcing and manufacturing that is leaving America. Helping people maintain current levels of income when they are forced to change jobs or skills would give people incentive to become “lifelong learners.” This would of course need strict regulation to make it work properly, but I am all for exploring these ideas…especially the new GI Bill that essentially would educate the workforce coming home from America’s “War on Terror” (whatever that is).
I had an interesting experience the other day. I purchased a vehicle from a local dealership and upon talking to one of the car lot salesman it turned out he had just returned from Iraq. He went from toting guns through Mosques leading a team of over 40 soldiers, managing major technology, and living through 120 degree heat and sandstorms to return to the US to sit in a car lot and sell Nissans (and you think you have it bad). He talked to me about his readjustment period and how he was trying to do anything to keep his mind positive. My feeling is that a GI Bill would be a big help a talented person like this who gets stuck in an uninteresting job.