The time has probably passed for this, but I did wonder a few years ago if a New Deal style government program would have been worthwhile. Vast unemployment, crumbling infrastructure... those two things could go a ways to fixing each other.
That's what the stimulus package of 2009 was sold as. Then it turned out that seven-eighths of it went to various government cronies or to allow states to put off their pension obligations one more year. There were also, as I recall, complaints that spending on infrastructure projects would unequally benefit men over women.