N.Y. Sees Error of Its Ways With Phone ‘Psychics’
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NEW YORK — They should have seen it coming.
New York City officials have pulled the plug on part of a welfare-to-work program that placed unemployed women in jobs as telephone psychics.
For the last nine months, New York City welfare recipients have been hired for $10 an hour plus bonuses to dispense advice and otherwise minister to people calling a $4.99-a-minute psychic hotline.
The otherworldly aspect of Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani’s program, set up in 1995 to employ out-of-work mothers who must stay home because they have young children, came to light in a report by the New York Times.
At least 15 women who had been on welfare were hired by a company called Psychic Network to work at home as telephone clairvoyants, the city’s welfare department said.
Women on public assistance with a high school degree, a “caring and compassionate personality” who can “read, write and speak English” could apply for the job according to a city brochure.
Psychic ability was not required.
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