What's left of my 2 cents worth (Illinois taxed it down to 1.9 cents) is that money needs to be spent on infrastructure. From my point of view, a vast majority of those under or unemployed are directly or indirectly related to the building industries. Sure, many were related to housing but commercial, industrial, and public infratructure were hit hard as well as all the jobs (professional, materials and manufacturing that supported those sectors). The "shovel-ready" spending was a waste. Who was foolish enough to believe that such a thing existed. Governments don't contract for expensive planning up to the point of construction and then just file those plans and permits away for another day. So, around here, what we got for all that money was alot of asphalt roads re-surfaced. Now, even those guys (pavers, stripers and asphalt supply companies) will be looking for work for a long time to come - as municipal backlogs got pulled into the Now from the the future. Poof, now it's all gone. No staying power.
The wise thing to do would be to fund the design of much needed infrastructure projects - roads, bridges, water and sewer systems, Nuke plants, etc. This would restart the engineering and planning sectors - high paying jobs, and provide the need to build out these projects - which would take years and restart the construction industry - one industry that can't be outsourced t the 3rd world. Then those workers could buy some of the foreclosed houses they were kicked out of and actually have enough money to maybe fix them up - which would help those other sectors/trades. Who knows, maybe they buy a new Ford or Chevy truck too!