Business executives, labor leaders and academics were among those joining President Obama for a job creation summit in Washington today. Their task is to find ways to reverse the nation's ten percent unemployment rate. Here in Maine a group of Lewiston leaders is worried about the area's underemployment rate, which is higher than that. They're pushing for a community jobs program. But finding Congressional support for the program is likely to be a daunting task.

They envision a jobs creation program similar to the Civilian Conservation Corps created by President Roosevelt in the 1930s as part of the New Deal. Thousands of unemployed young men were recruited to plant three billion trees, fight fires, string telephone lines and build new roads.

Lewiston Mayor Larry Gilbert and others say that could be repeated by putting people to work repairing and rebuilding bridges, roads and other infrastructure. "Our infrastructure throughout this country is hurting, we've let it go, and that's what we need to get going is to invest in people and people working," Gilbert says.

Gilbert says the nation cannot afford not to invest in a community jobs program, which would also provide tax credits to small businesses and release funds for state and local governments to stop the layoffs of teachers, healthcare workers and other public employees.

More than 15 million Americans are out of work. More than a third of them have been looking for more than six months. Supporters say this program could immediately get 2.5 million of them working again. But it would come with a considerable pricetag.

"The cost was estimated at $40 billion a year," says Genevieve Lyson of the Maine People's Alliance. "And some options to pay for the programs would include financial transaction taxes, other taxes like on high income earners, the estate tax and then using unspent TARP funds and others."

But House Republicans have already signaled that they are unlikely to support any kind of job stimulus bill that relies on last year's Troubled Asset Relief Program known as TARP. Instead, they say any unused money should be used to lower the federal budget deficit.

Even Maine Democratic Congressman Mike Michaud, who has said in the past that unused TARP money could be used for infrastructure improvements, has concerns about the cost of a massive community jobs program. Instead, his spokesman says, Michaud is more focused on boosting the highway reauthorization bill.

This is what Michaud said today on the House floor: "We must continue to help those who are unemployed in this country support their families until they're able to find a job, and we must seriously reform and make efforts to reduce our unsustainable debt because we cannot grow our economy on the backs of future generations."

Finding a job has not been easy for 52-year-old Brenda Acres of Lewiston. She has a college degree and has been out of work for more than a year. "I've applied for so many jobs that I've got really burned out on filling applications, because I was on unemployment for a year so I had to do at least three a week. So I've done hundreds of job applications and I got to the point where I have five bags of just paperwork from just trying to keep track of my job search, and I'm overwhelmed by even looking back at it."

Acres says she has applied for everything from jobs at Burger King and Walmart to insurance companies and banks, which she didn't have a background for. She says she's eager to work, but finds that there are too many other people competing for the same jobs.

"That's one thing that's different," she says. "When I was in my 20s, if I wanted a job, I would figure out where I want to work and I would go in there and they would say, 'We're not hiring.' And I would say, 'I want to work here, and I would persuade them to hire me and I'd leave there with a job. But the world has changed."

Acres' personal situation is complicated by the fact that her husband has only a part-time job and they have a ten-year-old son living at home. Between them they can't afford to support the family. This is defined as "underemployed," and according to the Maine Department of Labor, it includes those who are unemployed, those who have become so discouraged they've given up looking for work and those who have part-time jobs.

While Maine's unemployment rate is below the national average of 10 percent, Maine's underemployment rate is about 14 percent, and supporters of the community jobs program say that's something for Congress and the president to consider as they look to create jobs.