Live data from Hacker News

Nearly 8M Americans have fallen into poverty since summer

washingtonpost.com

161–170 of 273 posts

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

#161
post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Train temporary workers to man the temporary hospitals. Teach them how to know when to defer to a medical professional. Normal hospitals are already staffed at pretty close to the maximum rate of less qualified to more expert staff for their caseload, and the easy caseload that requires less expert share of time is pushed out of hospitals entirely by the crisis. Surging additional minimally trained staff doesn't he…

Ok, then use technology to help the current staff do more. How many inefficiencies are preventing nurses and doctors from servicing more patients? Build a dashboard with the vitals of dozens of covid patients that a single qualified nurse can monitor instead of making a half dozen nurses all walk around to all the different beds and manually check everything

> How many inefficiencies are preventing nurses and doctors from servicing more patients? Build a dashboard with the vitals of dozens of covid patients that a single qualified nurse can monitor instead of making a half dozen nurses all walk around to all the different beds and manually check everything

I believe ICU nursing stations already use such dashboards routinely.

If they didn't, developing and testing new software to a level where it was reliable enough for such use without being checked up around, and training staff and adapting processes for it, would not be a quick process and, perhaps more importantly, would take staff time of clinical staff to participate in consultation and validation instead of clinical duties while it progressed.

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

#162
post #157
post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think the math is quite right on this. Assuming there are 200,000,000 people in the US over the age of 18, and assuming that each of them gets $1000/month for 12 months, we have 200,000,000 * 1000 * 12 = 2.4 Trillion, which is similar to what we actually spent. The problem is, instead of uniformly distributing that 2.4 trillion among our citizens, we added complexity (and waste due to overhead) by giving mone…

Yeah, I just multiplied CARES by 12 to get my number. I'm assuming you don't want to just let all the airline companies crash and burn along with all the restaurants, gyms, etc. Because then after the 12 months are up you find that millions are out of jobs and need another 12 months of rent while they look for new jobs, etc.

This pandemic is getting to all of us, for sure; and, I'm definitely one of the first to notice in myself when I'm being this way, but is there a way this could be reworded so it doesn't have the bite to it that I'm perceiving in it?

I perceive the "I'm assuming you don't want ..." part as incredibly sarcastic and belittling, as though you're putting yourself on a pedestal of knowledge and belittling your fellows having a conversation.

I know I've not been the most polite in many of these conversations; and I need to work on that, too; but, perhaps you haven't noticed it and I wanted to bring it to your attention so you don't snap at people and in conversations that actually matter.

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

#163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Class warfare is pointless. The position of the capitalist class, built on successful class warfare first against the pre-capitalist aristocracy and then against the working classes within capitalism, proves this to be false. As, for that matter, does the (arguably modest, but still very real) progress of the working class from the height of the system first described as “capitalism” in the late 19th and early 20th…

>The position of the capitalist class, built on successful class warfare first against the pre-capitalist aristocracy and then against the working classes within capitalism, proves this to be false. Name me a socialist/communist gov that did any better. Each implementation grew the class divides even more. So far China, I would say, is the most economically viable model due to their opening to international market pr…

[deleted]

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

#164
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…

The established death rate in the US is nowhere near 1.5%. Best current population IFR estimate is somewhere in the 0.6% range. That's bad enough, no need to exaggerate. https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.12.11.20209627v...

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

#165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Class warfare is pointless. Businesses are shuttering. Sure, make accusations of fraud (do you have any proof?) - but those expenses can't be frivolous unless you want a huge issue with the IRS. Should relief be so strict and policed (its own cost) or should it be flexible for businesses that may have had to build outdoor accomodations?

Sure, make accusations of fraud The OP didn't allege fraud. He stated two facts... relief loans were not required to cover wages. Loans I don't think it's unreasonable to require some % of the loans to cover wages of employee's whose hours were cut or were furloughed completely. That said, a better option would have been direct payments to employees from the government. The $1200 check model but on a larger scale (ie…

There were several months of direct Federal payments made to people collecting state unemployment.

In May and June, many of the people hot to open things back up were partly motivated by unemployment, they didn't want states making the payments.

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

#166
post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I just multiplied CARES by 12 to get my number. I'm assuming you don't want to just let all the airline companies crash and burn along with all the restaurants, gyms, etc. Because then after the 12 months are up you find that millions are out of jobs and need another 12 months of rent while they look for new jobs, etc.

This pandemic is getting to all of us, for sure; and, I'm definitely one of the first to notice in myself when I'm being this way, but is there a way this could be reworded so it doesn't have the bite to it that I'm perceiving in it? I perceive the "I'm assuming you don't want ..." part as incredibly sarcastic and belittling, as though you're putting yourself on a pedestal of knowledge and belittling your fellows hav…

Didn't intend to be sarcastic or biting at all. "I assume you don't want" was meant to mean "I'm assume we (collectively) don't want...". Basically, was just trying to say if we only give people rent money and ignore all businesses/let them crash and burn then that 2.4T will not be enough because now all the people that used to work for the companies that are now gone have no work.

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

#167
post #5

I heard this on NPR recently and was really moved by it [1]. Recommend reading the whole thing. > You know me. I'm in your friendship circle, hidden in plain sight. My clothes are still impeccable, bought in the good years when I was still making money. To look at me, you would not know that my electricity was cut off last week for non-payment or that I meet the eligibility requirements for food stamps. But if you pa…

I always find myself surprised that people respond to this kind of writing. What part resonates with you? When I read this, I just roll my eyes at an author unabashedly looking to tug at heartstrings.

I would be moved by a real person's story, but this not only is pure fantasy, it even creates a stereotype that all poor people are timid and frail. And again, I know some people do become broken by poverty, so why not share their real story?

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

#168
post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> what more have the "lockdowns" in the US been than "masks and social distancing"? Destruction of the service industries? Educational handicaps on multiple generations of students? My point is that it's cheap to wear a mask and socially distance yourself while otherwise carrying on with life. It's extremely expensive on society to force everyone to stay home as much as possible and avoid certain businesses. It's exp…

I would put schools under "places you can't reasonably social distance". That's why online school has been such a common thing; but, the United States isn't very good at it, and we haven't built out the appropriate social support structures and patterns (and have gone against those patterns in many cases), so it hasn't been especially viable. Remote learning was considered better than cancelling school altogether; bu…

> Remote learning was considered better than cancelling school altogether

But did we give enough thought to the third possibility? Just sending them to school normally with masks, periodically testing everyone, and contact tracing anyone who tests positive? Young people are surprisingly resilient to the disease, really just the teachers need to take extra precautions.

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

#169
post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, then use technology to help the current staff do more. How many inefficiencies are preventing nurses and doctors from servicing more patients? Build a dashboard with the vitals of dozens of covid patients that a single qualified nurse can monitor instead of making a half dozen nurses all walk around to all the different beds and manually check everything

> How many inefficiencies are preventing nurses and doctors from servicing more patients? Build a dashboard with the vitals of dozens of covid patients that a single qualified nurse can monitor instead of making a half dozen nurses all walk around to all the different beds and manually check everything I believe ICU nursing stations already use such dashboards routinely. If they didn't, developing and testing new sof…

> If they didn't, developing and testing new software to a level where it was reliable enough for such use without being checked up around, and training staff and adapting processes for it, would not be a quick process and, perhaps more importantly would take staff time of clinical staff to participate in consultation and validation instead of clinical duties while it progressed.

Desperate times call for desperate measures. The solution doesn't have to be perfect. It can be quick and dirty now, and perfected later. It might be worth it, given the current solution is pushing hundreds of millions into poverty among other disastrous consequences.

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

#170
post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would put schools under "places you can't reasonably social distance". That's why online school has been such a common thing; but, the United States isn't very good at it, and we haven't built out the appropriate social support structures and patterns (and have gone against those patterns in many cases), so it hasn't been especially viable. Remote learning was considered better than cancelling school altogether; bu…

> Remote learning was considered better than cancelling school altogether But did we give enough thought to the third possibility? Just sending them to school normally with masks, periodically testing everyone, and contact tracing anyone who tests positive? Young people are surprisingly resilient to the disease, really just the teachers need to take extra precautions.

I admit that I know a teacher in that predicament in a school district that's been actively hiding their covid infection rate (fake testing, ignoring symptomatic children, etc) and several other of my family members are teachers working in hybrid situations, so I'm having a bit of trouble responding to this usefully as I know and hear from a teacher actively in harm's way.
Post reply on HN