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Hazard pay in focus as essential workers earn less than the jobless

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Re: Hazard pay in focus as essential workers earn less than the jobless

#11

Post by ceejayoz »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #5

> When she got her unemployment benefits, she realized something unheard of: She was making more money not working. The temporary COVID unemployment bill was so rushed that they didn’t index the unemployment to the person’s earnings. If you lost your job or had your hours reduced, you get an extra $600/week on top of state unemployment. About half of people receiving this are receiving more from the combined unemploy…

Isn't the point to get people to stay home?

"I'm making more doing what I'm supposed to be doing" seems like a good approach, not a side effect of rushed legislation.

Aren't you also not eligible for this unemployment if your work has reopened? You only get unemployment if you're willing to work.

Re: Hazard pay in focus as essential workers earn less than the jobless

#12

Post by throwaway_USD »

From the time Congress passed the $6.2T Bill that gave $4T to the FED to prop up the stock market, $700B in PPP loans; and and estimated $300B to the people ($1,200) stimulus checks, it should have put things in perspective.

Ideally the stock market wouldn't have been propped up and the PPP loan program would have been more legitimate to save real small businesses (just wait until all the fraud comes out of this thing). If all that money instead went to the people/taxpayers they would all have received an $18,000 stimulus check instead of $1,200, I think this would have been the best move possible (and maybe some form of healthcare coverage for the uninsured, being in a pandemic and all instead of pretending providing coverage to the uninsured would be taking away their freedom to be uninsured).

Re: Hazard pay in focus as essential workers earn less than the jobless

#13

Post by dfxm12 »

gboss wrote: post #4
mchusma wrote: post #2

The fact that you could easily earn more on unemployment than not was a bizarre feature of the US COVID response. Most, if not all state unemployment schemes cover part of your wages if unemployed, not more than you made before. It creates a strong incentive to be considered partially or fully laid off. I'm pro basic income, but definitely don't support paying more to be unproductive than productive. This benefit end…

I always thought the point was to keep people home during the pandemic instead of working odd jobs to compensate. Incentivizing people to not work by paying them more to stay at home was a public health policy choice. Of course, the bills were passed really rapidly and maybe weren’t that thought out.

Incentivizing people to stay home was a bug, not a feature. There is absolutely nothing that suggests the federal government is interested in doing this on purpose (and we might see a lot more people outside if the eviction protection measures aren't revisited by the end of the month). Quite the opposite - the message has constantly been that they want to get people out working as soon as possible in deference to "the economy", public health be damned.

Your local government's response and motivations might be different, but I largely doubt it.

Re: Hazard pay in focus as essential workers earn less than the jobless

#14

Post by ceejayoz »

readingnews wrote: post #8
afpx wrote: post #3

If there was an actual shortage of workers, wages would be rising for the essential workers.

I may not be an economist, but I think this does not make sense. If there is a worker shortage, do all of the workers go to work and say "give me more money"? I would also contend there would be no reason for say, walmart to suddenly offer more money just because everyone has been ordered to stay home. If there is an _actual_ shortage, increasing pay does not just fabricate workers. I have relatives who are essential…

> If there is an _actual_ shortage, increasing pay does not just fabricate workers.

Sure it does. For some people, it means switching from stay-at-home parenting to daycare financially sensible. For someone on social security, it might mean temporarily going back to work is more attractive than it was.

People go from not seeking jobs to seeking jobs all the time.

Re: Hazard pay in focus as essential workers earn less than the jobless

#15

Post by save_ferris »

mchusma wrote: post #2

The fact that you could easily earn more on unemployment than not was a bizarre feature of the US COVID response. Most, if not all state unemployment schemes cover part of your wages if unemployed, not more than you made before. It creates a strong incentive to be considered partially or fully laid off. I'm pro basic income, but definitely don't support paying more to be unproductive than productive. This benefit end…

> I’m pro basic income, but definitely don’t support paying more to be unproductive than productive

This problem cuts both ways. The government capitulated largely because they knew pegging stimulus to the minimum wage wasn’t going to be enough and they didn’t want to risk the political fallout of that situation. I see this largely as an admission by our leaders that minimum wages aren’t high enough.

Wages in the US simply haven’t kept up with the cost of living for years now. Employers have been complaining for years that they can’t find qualified candidates for jobs while more and more people leave the workforce and don’t ever return, but the conversation is always framed as a shortage of labor as opposed to a market unwilling to raise wages to attract qualified candidates.

If we had ensured years ago that those working would make enough to meet their basic needs, we wouldn’t be in this situation.

Re: Hazard pay in focus as essential workers earn less than the jobless

#16

Post by rossdavidh »

gboss wrote: post #4
mchusma wrote: post #2

The fact that you could easily earn more on unemployment than not was a bizarre feature of the US COVID response. Most, if not all state unemployment schemes cover part of your wages if unemployed, not more than you made before. It creates a strong incentive to be considered partially or fully laid off. I'm pro basic income, but definitely don't support paying more to be unproductive than productive. This benefit end…

I always thought the point was to keep people home during the pandemic instead of working odd jobs to compensate. Incentivizing people to not work by paying them more to stay at home was a public health policy choice. Of course, the bills were passed really rapidly and maybe weren’t that thought out.

There is some logic to what you say, and it wouldn't be the first time a bug turned out to be a feature, but I think "odd jobs" are typically done in the gray market anyway, and the income not declared, so I don't think it would keep people who are receiving unemployment from taking odd jobs, for the most part. But it may have had an effect at the margins.

Re: Hazard pay in focus as essential workers earn less than the jobless

#18

Post by monocasa »

ceejayoz wrote: post #14
readingnews wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I may not be an economist, but I think this does not make sense. If there is a worker shortage, do all of the workers go to work and say "give me more money"? I would also contend there would be no reason for say, walmart to suddenly offer more money just because everyone has been ordered to stay home. If there is an _actual_ shortage, increasing pay does not just fabricate workers. I have relatives who are essential…

> If there is an _actual_ shortage, increasing pay does not just fabricate workers. Sure it does. For some people, it means switching from stay-at-home parenting to daycare financially sensible. For someone on social security, it might mean temporarily going back to work is more attractive than it was. People go from not seeking jobs to seeking jobs all the time.

Demand scaling doesn't happen instantly.

For instance, how are you going to get new CNAs (even reupped certs) right now when the schools are closed?

Re: Hazard pay in focus as essential workers earn less than the jobless

#19

Post by throwaway_USD »

monocasa wrote: post #9

I think it mainly highlighted an unfortunate part of our economy. The $600/wk thing looks like making sure everyone gets a living wage on unemployment until they thought we'd be able to reopen the economy fully and they'd be able to get a job as normal. But, it just highlighted how many people are working and not earning a living wage in the first place.

>But, it just highlighted how many people are working and not earning a living wage in the first place.

Exactly, we allegedly had the best economy the world has ever seen, record high stock prices/markets, and lowest rate of unemployment.

But the reality the economy was revealed to be weak and not even capitalism (capital based ownership) but some form of debtism (some form of financial servitude, in lieu of ownership). In the best economy ever and 40% of the population couldn't afford a $400 emergency. Our public companies with their record stock prices needed $4T for the FED to "stabilize the market" (political speak for taxpayers are buying these stocks at these overvalued prices). Customized taxpayer bailouts for entire industries that don't have any runway of capital to service their debts.

Re: Hazard pay in focus as essential workers earn less than the jobless

#20

Post by rossdavidh »

afpx wrote: post #3

If there was an actual shortage of workers, wages would be rising for the essential workers.

I can say that in my hometown of Austin, Texas at least, there was (and I think still is) a shortage of workers, with some businesses being slower to open because they couldn't get their employees to come back to work. There are "Now Hiring" signs all over town.

However, wages are a bit sticky, so probably the employers are not willing to, for example, double the wages they pay, just because they wouldn't be able to double their prices and still have any customers.

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