Meaning

noun work of little or no value done merely to look busy

verb do useless, wasteful, or trivial work

originCoined by American scout leader Robert H. Link in 1929; alternatively “boon doggle”. Compare woggle of similar sense, which is attested in the same period. In the sense of a “wasteful government program”, popularized in 1935 by The New York Times, in reference to New Deal programs which were claimed to feature people making such braids.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 3.0