Hazard pay in focus as essential workers earn less than the jobless • Hacker News Board

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

#41

Post by jfengel » Thu, Jul 02, 2020, 1:57 PM UTC

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…

That's thinking like an economist. As opposed to an Internet "economist", who got through the first two weeks of Econ 101 (where everything is perfectly elastic) and stopped there.

Real economists use more complicated models -- about which there is genuine debate and enormous uncertainty. So they don't make simple, confident statements.

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

#42

Post by repeek » Thu, Jul 02, 2020, 1:59 PM UTC

dahfizz wrote: post #25

throwaway_USD wrote: post #12

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 thin…

> 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. Everyone I know would choose their entire retirement fund over a one time check of $18,000 . I understand your sentiment, and it does feel like we got less that we deserve, but stimulating the stock market was absolutely the right move.…

> and a majority of Americans have a 401k

Source?

According to the 2017 US Census, only 32% are saving in a 401k. [1]

[1] https://www.fool.com/retirement/2017/06/19/does-the-average-...

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

#43

Post by yalogin » Thu, Jul 02, 2020, 2:00 PM UTC

dahfizz wrote: post #25

throwaway_USD wrote: post #12

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 thin…

> 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. Everyone I know would choose their entire retirement fund over a one time check of $18,000 . I understand your sentiment, and it does feel like we got less that we deserve, but stimulating the stock market was absolutely the right move.…

If everyone got 18000 a lot of the money we spent on the top half of the economy becomes unnecessary. For example, there will be no evictions and so that sector doesn’t need propping up.

More importantly people would have stayed home and so we could have tamed the virus which would mean the economy opens up quicker and safer.

This is a people issue and not an economic issue. Dealing it like that would have saved the economy better IMO. Our politicians and companies would never let a good crisis go wasted without appropriating money for themselves.

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

#44

Post by BurningFrog » Thu, Jul 02, 2020, 2:00 PM UTC

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…

> this is actually very expensive for the taxpayers

Uncle Sam has long since stopped paying for things with tax money. Any new expense is handled by borrowing or printing money.

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

#45

Post by greesil » Thu, Jul 02, 2020, 2:01 PM UTC

eanzenberg wrote: post #40

[flagged]

Could you elaborate on how keeping people from starving is communism, or any other ideology?

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

#46

Post by bradstewart » Thu, Jul 02, 2020, 2:01 PM UTC

hobs wrote: post #30

packetlost wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because bailouts (usually) make the government money in the long run. They're in the form of low-interest loans, they aren't just handing out money to corporations.

Do you think subsidizing the poor enough so our economy doesn't have to choose between immediately collapsing and killing the poor wouldn't save us an enormous set of costs?

I absolutely think we should do that. The problem is it's extremely hard to quantify that cost/gain, while its extremely easy to quantity the cost/gain of low-interest loans.

Not to say its impossible, or that we shouldn't try--we should. But when you have a bunch of senators arguing, it's easier to point to the easy numbers.

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

#47

Post by brightball » Thu, Jul 02, 2020, 2:02 PM UTC

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…

And the bigger issue is that correcting this is going to be a new political hammer to hit people with.

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

#48

Post by TheSoftwareGuy » Thu, Jul 02, 2020, 2:03 PM UTC

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #34

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…

> they didn’t index the unemployment to the person’s earnings...we didn’t have an easy way to implement a more complex unemployment system at a national level This wasn't an oversight or logistical concern [1]. [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/03/26/coronavirus...

From your own article: >President Trump and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin worked to convince those senators that the universal $600 unemployment boost would be more efficient than varying supplements by income because that would require the federal government to administer funds through a patchwork of state-run unemployment programs, The Washington Post reported.

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

#49

Post by Nightshaxx » Thu, Jul 02, 2020, 2:04 PM UTC

> "You feel like, you guys [the government] never have money for people that really need it, and all of a sudden you have money for everybody,"

The government doesn't have this money, they are borrowing it. Debt levels are increasing like we are in wartime [1] but there is a massive negative impact on jobs, not a positive one like in a war. I have seen more than one person echo this sentiment and I wish people acctually understood where this money is coming from before complaining.

(Yes I know the quote also talks about essential workers not getting more, which I can agree the distribution is skewed incorrectly)

[1] https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/03/economy/coronavirus-debt-defi...

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

#50

Post by packetlost » Thu, Jul 02, 2020, 2:05 PM UTC

hobs wrote: post #30

packetlost wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because bailouts (usually) make the government money in the long run. They're in the form of low-interest loans, they aren't just handing out money to corporations.

Do you think subsidizing the poor enough so our economy doesn't have to choose between immediately collapsing and killing the poor wouldn't save us an enormous set of costs?

It probably would. But solving that problem is significantly harder than putting out loans to large companies that employ thousands of people. If the airline industry collapsed, many other things would've followed. Certain industries are absolutely essential infrastructure to the economy and cataclysmic events can have massive ripple effects.