I would like to see something like that. Not as a replacement for welfare or unemployment compensation, but as a program where anyone who needs a job right now for whatever reason can get one easily.

In the Portland area we have a large park (many square miles) that's being over-run by English ivy, and that's not going to be fixed without a lot of people going out and pulling it up by hand. If the city were to pay a bunch of workers with nothing better to do minimum wage it might be a lot cheaper than paying a team of regular permanent employees, and it could address part of the unemployment (and possibly some of the homelessness) problem.