Grasping Reality on TypePad, by Brad DeLong

In response to my question:

What Do We Know About Policies to Successfully Move the Long-Term Unemployed Back to Where They Ought to Be?

Duncan Black writes:

We Could Hire Them To Dig Holes And Fill Them Up Again: I'm kidding, just, but the way to get people working is to hire them. The way to do that is not to set up a program, or a subsidy, or a grant, which is administered through some office, which is then used by some business or nonprofit, which maybe eventually one day filter down into someone's paycheck. The way to do it is to have the government hire people to do stuff. Inevitably not all of that stuff will be tremendously productive, but plenty of it will be.