French  President Emmanuel Macron announced last week an eight-billion-euro ($9.3-billion) program to tackle poverty  in his country. It is focused on getting people into work and helping the young  get better education to help them get better employment when the time comes. “I don’t want a plan that leaves the poor living in poverty, only more comfortably,”  he said in  a  speech at the Museum of Mankind in Paris. “I want them to be given the choice  -- and the possibility—not to be poor any more.” The four-year plan  calls for providing help to unemployed people to get back to work rather than financial aid only. It calls for better education for poor children so when the time comes, they will have greater  opportunities to get better employment. The program includes places for children in nurseries so their parents can go to work  or to training school,   and compulsory job training for school leavers under 18.  The program will run for the next four years. In  the last year of his administration, United States President Barack Obama  had a similar program to help unemployed people in the US.  His American Jobs Act  had several  key components – tax cuts to help small business grow  and thus hire more people, putting workers back to work while modernizing America, more money in the pockets of every American worker.  One component of the plan specifically called for “pathways  back to work for Americans looking for jobs.” If  the US in the final year of President Obama’s  administration and France under its new President Macron saw the need for programs directly aimed at providing employment for jobless people, a country like the Philippines is in even greater need for such a government effort. For unemployment continues to be a major problem for us; it is at the core of the widespread poverty in the nation. We  have had many programs to help the poor, but they have largely been aid projects – food and shelter for typhoon victims, monthly allowances via the Conditional Cash  Transfer program, low-priced rice through the National Food Authority, etc. The recent  TRAIN law lowered personal income tax rates, which benefited income earners, but it imposed a tariff on diesel and other fuels, which raised consumer prices, and the unemployed suffered the most. The administration has embarked on a “Build, Build, Build” program which will construct public buildings, airports, seaports, roads and bridges. This will provide a many construction jobs and after the projects are finished, the  resulting economic activities should provide additional jobs. The  jobs are  a    result of the construction program. The programs  announced last week by President Macron of France and in 2001 by President Obama of the US were specifically aimed at providing employment for jobless people. More than economic development programs for the nation as a whole, they were specifically designed for people. They sought to provide jobs for  jobless citizens, rather than build structures for economic growth. The nation’s poor –and they are poor largely because they cannot find work – would welcome and appreciate  program  that is directly planned with them in mind.