Job Subsidies Also Provide Help for Private Sector

States, cities and local companies have been among the biggest advocates for extending the program beyond September. Small businesses benefit in particular since having an additional worker can make a bigger difference to a company with a small staff. Getting a worker at no cost can also free up cash for other types of investments.

“We have been saying to small businesses, ‘This, finally, is the bailout program designed for you,’ ” says James Whelly, deputy director of work force development at the San Francisco Human Services Agency.

Gallery Guichard, which sells paintings and sculptures of the African diaspora on Chicago’s South Side, has hired five employees, who are all college educated or are enrolled in college, through the Illinois program. While only one had any experience in fine arts, the gallery owners gush about the group’s value to the company.

“But not for Put Illinois to Work, we would not have been able to get this injection of young new talent and start to expand again,” said André Guichard, one of the owners.

Gallery revenues fell by 40 to 60 percent last year, Mr. Guichard said, as collectors stopped buying its works (generally, at least $1,000 a painting) and stalled on payment plans. As a result, the gallery began cutting its hours from seven days a week to six days a week to, begrudgingly, by appointment only.

More worrisome, it had fewer exhibit openings and other events, which Mr. Guichard says are the source of most sales.

Since bringing in the new workers, he says, the gallery has had more major events than ever, including back-to-back openings in July.

The business has been expanding in other ways, too. Mr. Guichard’s wife and business partner, Frances, is starting a sales program tailored to corporate buyers. And the couple is traveling to South Africa this week to hunt for undiscovered artists, something they have never done outside of the United States. This is possible, they say, not only because they have saved enough money on labor costs to afford the trip, but also because they now have sufficient staff to run the gallery in their absence.

Assessing the success of these subsidies, and the sustainability of the jobs they create, is complicated.

Mr. Guichard said he expected to keep three of the five new workers after the program ends. But the month before it began using the program, the gallery had four employees on its payroll (in addition to a few who worked hours as needed); none of these workers are still there. Three left on their own, said Mr. Guichard, in part because they were frustrated after their hours were cut and their income fluctuated.

But one — Mr. Guichard’s cousin Juan Rodriguez — was laid off.

Mr. Guichard said he wanted to keep Mr. Rodriguez, a 24-year-old, precocious curator and a “hard worker,” but decided not to because Mr. Rodriguez did not qualify for Put Illinois to Work.

Instead, Mr. Guichard hired Mr. Rodriguez’s younger brother, Patrick, whom the gallery now can employ free.

The older brother is pondering a move to Atlanta, where he hopes to find more job opportunities. Because the program has helped his younger brother, who had been out of work a year, he tries not to harbor a grudge.

“I think it’s basically a good program, but it needs to be somewhat less restrictive basically,” Juan Rodriguez said. “Still, the whole idea is to put people to work, but it’s a situation where it’s actually put me out of work instead.”