leaf-raking

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English

Etymology

Sense regarding employment: from the nature of some of the activities of the Civilian Conservation Corps during the Great Depression in the US.

Noun

leaf-raking (uncountable)

  1. The act or process of raking leaves.
  2. (US, usually derogatory) Marginally productive government-financed employment.
    • 1955, Robert L. Heilbroner, The Worldly Philosophers: The Lives, Times, and Ideas of the Great Economists, page 225:
      Relief was essential and began under Hoover; then, under Roosevelt, relief turned into leaf-raking, and leaf-raking turned into constructive enterprise.
    • 1991, Robert Dallek, Lone Star Rising: Lyndon Johnson and His Times, 1908-1960, volume 1:
      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.
    • 2003, Richard Norton Smith, The Colonel: The Life and Legend of Robert R. McCormick, 1880-1955, page 63:
      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.

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