Tax dollars may give superhero capes to jobless
Paid your taxes? You’ll be glad to know part of your hard-earned cash is slated to be spent handing out superhero capes to the unemployed
Your tax dollars hard at work.
The $73,000 program in Florida, dubbed the “Cape-A-Bility Challenge,” also features a cartoon character named “Dr. Evil Unemployment,” according to the Orlando Sentinel article.
Someone sane is trying to pull the plug on the whimsical plan.
“I have serious concerns with the content and approach” of the project, Cynthia Lorenzo, the executive director of Florida’s Agency for Workforce Innovation, wrote to Workforce Central Florida Executive Director Gary J. Earl. “With more than one million Floridians currently out of work, spending any amount of money on collateral materials such as the red capes included in your campaign appears to be insensitive and wasteful.”
The “Cape-A-Bility Challenge” is part of an “Everyday Superheroes” theme the agency has adopted, according to the Sentinel. Workforce Central Florida’s website features videos of employers, job seekers in capes similar to those the agency plans to distribute to the unemployed.
Earl, one of the Einsteins running a federally funded labor development agency that last year received almost $24 million in public money, said “not everyone will agree on creative strategy.”
Just guessing, but I think those who would agree the least are the jobless folks Earl wants to parade around town in one of his colorful capes.
Tell us what you think about the site
Customer Care »
Vacation stops, manage subscriptions and more
AJC Services
Sections
Other Editions
Visitor Agreement | Privacy Statement
© 2013 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
15 comments Add your comment
Old Geezer
April 19th, 2011
7:47 pm
This is like a “scarlett letter” for the unemployed. smart move jack-a$$es.
Old Geezer
April 19th, 2011
7:50 pm
Maybe they could spend some money on rubber boots for the rest of us to symbolize the crap we have to wade through that keeps spewing from their use of our tax money?
Checker
April 19th, 2011
9:40 pm
Instead of the cape maybe a beanie in the shape of a (gold)brick.
ejok
April 19th, 2011
10:19 pm
Haha, this is what happens when marketing lets an “ad agency” put a tired “creative” idea before strategy, with no real insight or consideration of their audience. Way to think it through guys. I guess it’s hard to imagine being unemployed when your fat ad agency executive salaries allow you to sit back and stroke each other’s ego, s*** on those around you, and come up with ideas like this. Look, its a bird, it’s a plane…it’s karma. http://www.evokad.com/work/wfc/
What?
April 20th, 2011
9:12 am
Must be a democrat. They can just raise taxes to pay for it.
sliderule
April 20th, 2011
10:32 am
$73,000 is just the start. What about the salaries of the bozo or bozos that wasted time on this travesty?
Chappy
April 20th, 2011
3:38 pm
$73,000 could have provided some meals to hungry families. WHO came up with this. Too bad that the state cannot demand its money back. It has to have gone to some politicans family member and their “agency”.
El Gato
April 20th, 2011
5:58 pm
Hey, look on the positive side. Some cape makers were employed for a while. Hmm. I wonder if they are any relation to the idiot who thought this up?…..
mud puppy
April 20th, 2011
6:16 pm
This is how the spoiled “haves” see the less educated unemployed as. People that should be ridiculed due to their unemployment.
Elder Flower Child
April 20th, 2011
7:43 pm
How do these stupid ideas get put into action? I just don’t understand why someone with some sense doesn’t stop it before it happens. What a waste of our dollars.