Live data from Hacker News

Additional 6.6M File for Initial Unemployment Benefits [pdf]

dol.gov

31–40 of 563 posts

Re: Additional 6.6M File for Initial Unemployment Benefits [pdf]

#31
Unemployment benefits have been significantly expanded under the Coronavirus aid bill. The benefit amounts will sound small if you're living in an expensive city like SF or Seattle, but $600/week from the federal government and a similar amount from state unemployment insurance means that unemployment benefits can pay up to an equivalent of $50-60K/year right now. That goes a long way in most parts of the country, especially when you're stuck at home. Of course companies are going to opt to shift people to unemployment benefits while they're forced into downtime.

In some situations, people can actually earn more from unemployment benefits by being laid off due to some hasty oversights in the aid package (Reference: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/27/how-unemployed-workers-could... ). This doesn't account for lost benefits or the risk involved in losing a job, but it could disincentivize people returning to work if it means their income will go down.

Of the many people I know who have been “laid off”, all of them have been told they’ll be first in line to be re-hired the moment quarantine ends.

If a business can’t make money, it makes more sense for them to let employees collect unemployment during the downtime than to overextend the business’s balance sheet. During normal times, this is a common tactic for seasonal businesses. I have friends in seasonal tourism industries who received training on applying for unemployment benefits during their annual off-season layoffs each year. They even have an explicit system for tracking seniority in the re-hires.

Of course, the longer this quarantine lasts, the more likely their businesses are to disappear before they can re-open. Unfortunately we won’t know this number for many months. For now, the initial unemployment claims number can't discriminate between jobs that have been temporarily paused and jobs that have been eliminated.

Re: Additional 6.6M File for Initial Unemployment Benefits [pdf]

#32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm also hearing this morning that we've hit the 10% mark. I also heard the same economist say "The economy is collapsing, and it's a global collapse". I don't even need coffee to be alert the rest of the day...

And all this for a virus that kills around 1% of the people who get it, and the majority of them are retired. Future generations will look at us and wonder how we were this stupid.

Which of your family members do you volunteer to kill to help out the stock market?

Re: Additional 6.6M File for Initial Unemployment Benefits [pdf]

#33

I hope that tech industry employees do not feel immune to this. I encourage you to take a look at your customer base and think very critically about where that money is actually coming from.

Yep, our business requires other business. Without users, servers are complicated heaters that require cooling.

Re: Additional 6.6M File for Initial Unemployment Benefits [pdf]

#34

Building on my analysis from last week: 1. This week's 6.6M new jobless claims represents ~4% of the estimated ~160-165M US Workforce. 2. This is incremental to the 3.3M new jobless claims filed week ending 3/21, totaling ~10M total jobless claims in the past 2 weeks. 3. The US unemployment rate was ~3.5% as of EOM February [1], so cumulatively that means we've hit ~10% unemployment as of EOW 3/28 (~10M incremental j…

I'm also hearing this morning that we've hit the 10% mark. I also heard the same economist say "The economy is collapsing, and it's a global collapse". I don't even need coffee to be alert the rest of the day...

Any speculations on how bad is this going to get? Should I stock up on TP, on food, or on vodka and ammo?

Re: Additional 6.6M File for Initial Unemployment Benefits [pdf]

#35
I've seen a lot of small businesses do the math, and realize that with the additional $600 provided by the stimulus bill, it actually works out better for some lower paid workers to lay them off (and presumably rehire later). I wonder if this might explain higher than expected numbers.

Re: Additional 6.6M File for Initial Unemployment Benefits [pdf]

#36
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And they want us to believe that it will be ok because of a $1200 check and state unemployment benefits....

> And they want us to believe that it will be ok because of a $1200 check and state unemployment benefits.... Not true. The unemployment benefits have also been augmented by up to $600/week above state unemployment benefits. This amount applies even if your state benefits have been exhausted. The $1200 is an extra stimulus check for people whether or not they’re still employed. Not to be confused with the unemploymen…

Yes, the federal government is providing more stimulus juice (one time cash payment and unemployment top up), but no, it is absolutely not going to be enough for the economic challenge we're facing.

Re: Additional 6.6M File for Initial Unemployment Benefits [pdf]

#37

Building on my analysis from last week: 1. This week's 6.6M new jobless claims represents ~4% of the estimated ~160-165M US Workforce. 2. This is incremental to the 3.3M new jobless claims filed week ending 3/21, totaling ~10M total jobless claims in the past 2 weeks. 3. The US unemployment rate was ~3.5% as of EOM February [1], so cumulatively that means we've hit ~10% unemployment as of EOW 3/28 (~10M incremental j…

Data released in New York alone is that they are getting 250-300k successful initial claim calls per day, and many people are not successful.

This is going to be the most profund economic event of our lives. Hopefully more like 1893 than 1929.

Re: Additional 6.6M File for Initial Unemployment Benefits [pdf]

#38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And all this for a virus that kills around 1% of the people who get it, and the majority of them are retired. Future generations will look at us and wonder how we were this stupid.

You should check the numbers coming out of Italy. It’s not 1% if the medical system is overwhelmed. Moreover, you do realize that’s 3 million dead in the US alone?

It's also not the reported number in Italy. The sources of error in the data are enough to make the data fairly meaningless.

  1. We have no idea how many people were infected
  2. We have no idea how many people who have died died from Covid 19
  3. The population pyramid in Italy is extremely disparate from the rest of the world.
The medical system being overwhelmed is a portion of the contribution, and what it means to be 'overwhelmed' is about as clear as what it means to have an error in your application. Are you overwhelmed due to lack of beds? Lack of ventilator access? Lack of doctors? What are the numbers for these in the remainder of the world?

Treating any modeling we have of the impact of Covid 19 as reliable is an exercise in insanity.

EDIT: To be clear this isn't to say that the responses are unwarranted. It's just to say that they are conservative and acting on knowingly incorrect information. If they were the right decisions remains to be seen. The impact of global financial collapse isn't just 'stocks down', but has tangible impacts on life expectancy, healthcare quality, and quality of life globally. Time will tell.

Re: Additional 6.6M File for Initial Unemployment Benefits [pdf]

#39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm also hearing this morning that we've hit the 10% mark. I also heard the same economist say "The economy is collapsing, and it's a global collapse". I don't even need coffee to be alert the rest of the day...

And all this for a virus that kills around 1% of the people who get it, and the majority of them are retired. Future generations will look at us and wonder how we were this stupid.

According to the WHO, around 14% of cases require hospitalization. Is 14% a big enough number for you?

https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/clinica...

Re: Additional 6.6M File for Initial Unemployment Benefits [pdf]

#40

I hope that tech industry employees do not feel immune to this. I encourage you to take a look at your customer base and think very critically about where that money is actually coming from.

I think there's a lot of cognitive dissonance for tech employees partially because tech thrived in the 2008 crisis. Investors looking to make high risk/reward investments had no where else to go but SV. If you aren't old enough to remember the dot-com boom it's understandable you might feel tech is invincible.

Tech will not be insulated from this and in general I think we'll see a major contraction of the tech labour force. There are so many non-tech companies that want in on the VC and other investor money so they are rapidly building out expensive tech teams to create illusion that they are the next tech giant.

Not to mention the other weakness in tech: RSUs as the main factor of total comp. If the market continues to drop, especially if it hits hards, a huge number of SV workers will be getting automatic pay cuts due to rapidly decreased values in RSU. A lot of expensive real estate in SV is paid for by RSUs.

This crisis is going to be insane.

Post reply on HN