From the Feb. 4, 1908 NYT:

With the unanimous consent in the [New York] Senate to-night, Senator McCall of the Sixteenth District introduced a bill authorizing the Park Board of New York to spend an additional sum of $1,500,000 for the development of parks and driveways.

"Fourteen years ago," he said, "a law was enacted permitting this expenditure for the benefit of the unemployed. The need for such relief is greater now than it was fourteen years ago. It is estimated that 130,000 skilled mechanics and 15,000 men without trades, are without employment in New York today."

Unmentioned is that such an expenditure "for the benefit of the unemployed" came at the expense of the employed (at least to some degree).