leaf-raking
nounEtymology Sense regarding employment: from the nature of some of the activities of the Civilian Conservation Corps during the Great Depression in the US.
1
The act or process of raking leaves.
2
US, Derogatory, Usually Marginally productive government-financed employment.
- Relief was essential and began under Hoover; then, under Roosevelt, relief turned into leaf-raking, and leaf-raking turned into constructive enterprise.1955, Robert L. Heilbroner, The Worldly Philosophers: The Lives, Times, and Ideas of the Great Economists, page 225:
- public agencies were to plan building programs that would do the job and preserve communities from “the necessity of feeding hungry men through the expediency of 'leaf-raking' projects or the dole or soup lines.1991, Robert Dallek, Lone Star Rising: Lyndon Johnson and His Times, 1908-1960, volume 1:
1 more example
- Yet neither man came close to realizing his early political promise, or to forgiving the tendency of the average voter to sell his birthright for a leaf-raking job or Social Security card.2003, Richard Norton Smith, The Colonel: The Life and Legend of Robert R. McCormick, 1880-1955, page 63: