So these were some of the "created" jobs?

What was the point of these jobs? About the only thing that these jobs did was keep people from getting more useful jobs. Shouldn't these "jobs" for adults simply have been classified as "unemployment insurance"? This is part of the chaos generated in the labor market created by the stimulus that I have written about. People take these temporary "jobs" and then have to go back in and look for new jobs all over again. For the Democrats at least the timing of when this program ends assures that it won't show up in the unemployment numbers until after the election.

Tens of thousands of low-income workers lost their jobs Thursday as a stimulus-subsidized employment program came to an end.

About a quarter of a million people in 37 states were placed in short-term jobs thanks to a $5 billion boost to the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. States used about $1 billion to provide subsidized employment, with the remaining funds going to cash grants, food programs, housing assistance and other aid.

About half the jobs were summer employment for youth and the rest were for disadvantaged parents. Each state configured its initiative differently. Some covered all the workers' wages for a few months, while others paid for a portion of their salary.

With the program expiring, many of the adults have been told not to report to work anymore. And it won't be easy for them to find a new position at time when the unemployment rate continues to hover at 9.6%

"They are just joining the millions of other people looking for permanent work," said Elizabeth Lower-Basch, senior policy analyst at the Center for Law and Social Policy, an advocacy group known as CLASP.

The TANF jobs initiative was one of several stimulus initiatives that ended Thursday. Also running out are a $2 billion subsidized child care program and a $2.1 billion boost for Head Start, an early learning program for needy children. . . .

The UK has at least learned what happens with these very long unemployment benefits. This will do more than a lot of things to reduce the UK's unemployment rate, though it could go even much farther.

U.K. Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne Monday announced a major shake-up of the welfare system saying there will be an absolute cap on the amount of benefits any one family can receive.

Speaking at the Conservative Party conference in Birmingham, Osborne vowed to put an end to what he called the "open-ended chequebook" of welfare benefits.

He said money will still go to families in need, but that no one family could receive benefits worth more than the average family wage.

Osborne also said he would end child-benefits welfare payments for wealthier families.

From 2013 the policy change will affect families with someone earning more than about GBP44,000 a year, he said. . . .

"We have to sort out public finances because any other road leads to ruin," he said.

A delay in tackling the deficit--as the opposition Labour Party proposes--would cripple the recovery and lead to a "decade lost to debt," he said. . . .