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Nearly 8M Americans have fallen into poverty since summer

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Nearly 8M Americans have fallen into poverty since summer

#61

Post by nradov »

slg wrote: post #30
nradov wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The blame for the situation lies squarely at the feet of the state and local governments. The federal government didn't force any businesses to close. There is a huge variance between states in pandemic control measures. If businesses are still open in Florida then why should Floridians pay federal income taxes to subsidize closed businesses in California? And states do have options for funding relief at the state le…

>The blame for the situation lies squarely at the feet of the state and local governments. The federal government didn't force any businesses to close. The state and local government had to act entirely because the federal government had no real plan. Someone is going to fill the decision making vacuum, but it is a problem when the people making the decisions don't have the financial power to make the right decision.…

You appear to be laboring under a misconception. The responsibility to act on public health measures has always been primarily at the state and local levels. Under our federal system, the federal government doesn't even really have legal authority to order lockdown measures. Granted the federal response has been an appalling mix of corruption and incompetence, but the federal role is mostly just advisory anyway.

State governments have the power to pay people to stay home. They might have to shift funding from other areas or raise taxes in order to do so.

Re: Nearly 8M Americans have fallen into poverty since summer

#62

Post by neuland »

uoaei wrote: post #55
neuland wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet they didn't stop the lockdowns once it was clear the stimulus was not going to happen.

I don't see how that would be a reason to stop the lockdowns. Remember that there is a severe respiratory contagion going around that spreads from breathing the same air as infected folks.

Florida, Texas, and Sweden seem to be doing fine enough.

Re: Nearly 8M Americans have fallen into poverty since summer

#63

Post by neuland »

t-writescode wrote: post #51
neuland wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet they didn't stop the lockdowns once it was clear the stimulus was not going to happen.

Given a virus that requires hospitalization at a certain rate, there is a certain point where the hospitals end up overrun for all other activities. In an effort to stave off that danger, local governments enacted lockdowns with the intent of reducing the spread of the virus. The virus, in the United States, has an established death rate of around 1.5% and a hospitalization rate higher than that. It also experiences…

Florida, Texas, and Sweden seem to be doing fine.

Edit: also, the military, FEMA, and non-profits built temporary hospitals in spring, but they weren't needed.

Re: Nearly 8M Americans have fallen into poverty since summer

#64

Post by TheBlight »

NicoJuicy wrote: post #56
TheBlight wrote: post #42

I sure do hate it when I slip and fall into poverty as if it were some silly accident of my own making and not entirely caused by the actions of state and local governments.

You are that saying herd immunity would be the only option?

Herd immunity is the end-state (with or without a vaccine) not some policy option to pursue. It is what will eventually happen. The trick is getting to that end-state with the least amount of damage incurred. I would've advocated for something more closely resembling: https://gbdeclaration.org/focused-protection/

Re: Nearly 8M Americans have fallen into poverty since summer

#65

Post by aweiland »

just-juan-post wrote: post #34
dopylitty wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue is that the US government has refused to help people during a time when they should absolutely not be forced to work face to face jobs to pay the bills. Instead Republicans have held aid hostage in exchange for legislation allowing businesses to force employees to work in unsafe environments with no recourse[1]. Even so far as a measure that would allow the US attorney general to penalized employees up to $…

Wrong. A reminder that Nancy Pelosi turned down not one but two $1 trillion+ stimulus offer from the White House before the election. Trump makes $1.8 trillion economic relief offer, but deal with Pelosi remains elusive (Oct 09 2020) https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2020/10/09/trump-ec... Nancy Pelosi blasts the White House's $1.6 trillion stimulus plan, saying it's not even 'half a loaf' (Oct 01 2020) https:…

Those bills were DOA in the Senate. This was all posturing on both sides.

Re: Nearly 8M Americans have fallen into poverty since summer

#67

Post by dragonwriter »

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #47
purple_ferret wrote: post #29

Yet the rich get richer as Congress passes 'relief' plans that allow the wealthy to sneak massive chunks of cash directly into their pockets. Here's just one example: "According to the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB), about 85% of all the approved Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans were for less than $150,000...The bipartisan bill holds the intention of automatically forgiving loans of less th…

It seems correct as a matter of policy to not earmark PPP loans directly to employee wages. We don't want to set up a scenario where a bunch of small businesses fail the instant the PPP ends because they haven't been paying the bills.

> It seems correct as a matter of policy to not earmark PPP loans directly to employee wages.

At a minimum, it should be tied to maintenance of payroll, since that's the entire theory of the Paycheck Protection Program.

Alternatively, it should just not have existed, and direct individual aid should have been increased instead.

> We don't want to set up a scenario where a bunch of small businesses fail the instant the PPP ends because they haven't been paying the bills.

The fungibility of money means that earmarked funds for payroll frees up any other funds for other uses. It might make sense to earmark less than 100% for paychecks, or to have a separate relief mechanism, to account for ongoing fixed costs. If business is reduced so that revenue is not available for marginal costs, than those marginal costs should also not exist.

Re: Nearly 8M Americans have fallen into poverty since summer

#68

Post by ceilingcorner »

Meanwhile, some of the strongest voices calling for near-permanent lockdowns came from the well-paid professional classes, who could afford to order Uber Eats twice a day and had zero chance of losing their over-inflated incomes.

The continuing erosion of the middle class isn’t a good thing. Expect populist political rhetoric to continue growing.

Re: Nearly 8M Americans have fallen into poverty since summer

#69

Post by mindslight »

djsumdog wrote: post #32
OminousWeapons wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The blame for the situation lies squarely at the feet of the federal government. If you are going to shutter businesses and put people out of work, you need to pay the business owners and the employees who you have affected. Staying economically viable vs staying medically viable should have never been a tradeoff people had to make here, and Americans should all remember that when the next election rolls around.

> The blame for the situation lies squarely at the feet of the federal government It's more complex than that. The UK is keeping things stable/frozen, but with nothing being produced, the value of their money is shifting. You cannot keep paying people to do nothing. You have people in jobs where they are still employed, saving tons (because there's nothing to spend it on) and record buying of future e-waste (Going ba…

What has been gradually removing personal agency from the masses is this ever-growing debt black hole, accumulating for decades.

Small business owners aren't feeling some pressing desire to continue their craft during the pandemic, beyond that of anyone with a passion. What's really driving their desperation is needing to pay rent, as the banks continue operating as normal, demanding their periodic tribute, and threatening to confiscate businesses if they don't find some way to pay up.

You said "people with their small businesses don't want handouts". The problem is that they've internalized rent as some inherent fact of life, while viewing anything that could mitigate rent as a "government handout" - despite decades of government financial meddling being responsible for this jam!

The direct solution was/is to suspend all rent/mortgages denominated in USD, and let the pain accrue to those who are usually benefiting from vacuum-up economics. Instead, as always, disinvolved capital was given a pass (along with a huge bailout!) while the political machine went to work dividing the productive members of society to distract from their real enemy.

Re: Nearly 8M Americans have fallen into poverty since summer

#70

Post by uoaei »

anovikov wrote: post #53

I wonder how anyone at all expected this to turn out. So, businesses had to stop operating. GDP and income earned and spent, dropped. This by definition results in someone becoming poor - with or without bailout - the government does not have any of "its own" money - all money it can possibly distribute is taken from taxpayer's pockets. Call me cynical, but people working in the service industry were the safest ones…

> the government does not have any of "its own" money - all money it can possibly distribute is taken from taxpayer's pockets

This is absolutely not the case. The government owns and operates a mint, and we haven't been on the gold standard since Nixon. There is no zero-sum double-entry accounting when it comes to sovereign fiat currencies.

If you analyze the monetary policy of the federal government like it's a family balancing a checkbook, you are buying right into the rhetoric that keeps the peanut gallery shrieking "but the deficit!" and prevents us from actually investing in the public's health and needs.

Federal deficit is public surplus. It is the federal government investing in its citizens in the most literal way possible.

> Call me cynical, but people working in the service industry were the safest ones to let fail without causing domino effect - they are already poor so they don't have mortgages to default onto - they can't afford even in good times - and that avoids a major risk of repeating 2008.

That's not cynical, that's sociopathic.

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