Little-known program offers business training to jobless that gives them the weekly cash benefit but also trains them to run their own business.

Applicants keep benefits while getting guidance

Until this summer, salesman Jorge Ocampo had always been what he calls a W-2 man. Proof was the Mercedes he bought with cash. But he had always longed to be his own boss.

“Almost every day I thought of it,” the 54-year-old said.

The opportunity came June 2 when he was laid off from a high-tech company. Unlike the millions of people drawing unemployment checks, he enrolled in a little-known program approved by Congress that gives the jobless the weekly cash benefit but also trains them to run their own business.

And the new small-business owner gets to keep the profits, too.

The Self-Employment Assistance Program http://www.ows.doleta.gov/unemploy/self.asp is available in only eight states, mostly along the coasts. In Oregon, the recession brought one of the nation’s highest unemployment rates; about 175,000 are getting jobless benefits. Interest in the program, one of the largest, has jumped by about 75 percent, bringing the yearly total of recipients to nearly 600.

Tim Fought
Associated Press

Full Story: http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2009/sep/08/little-known-program-offers-business-training-to/