That raises the US poverty rate from around 14% to around 16%.
Perhaps any steps we take to help the newly impoverished could also be extended to help the 45 million Americans who were living in poverty before COVID?
Nearly 8M Americans have fallen into poverty since summer
171–180 of 273 posts
Re: Nearly 8M Americans have fallen into poverty since summer
#172Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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 me…
> The solution doesn't have to be perfect. It can be quick and dirty now, and perfected later
Quick and dirty IT solutions often reduce efficiency compared to not having them, and that's more likely the less involvement and validation with the target workers you have in the course of building it.
Plus, again, this is something hospitals already have and use and which already is factored into staffing requirements, and you are responding only to the theoretical problem that would exist if it actually was a new innovation being developed.
Re: Nearly 8M Americans have fallen into poverty since summer
#173Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yours is a Randian analysis and it has been the sole argument from Republicans for not giving people UBI. What do you think about the concept of "trickle-up economics"?
>Yours is a Randian analysis and it has been the sole argument from Republicans for not giving people UBI. >What do you think about the concept of "trickle-up economics"? I'd argue that significantly enhancing the social safety net, significantly increasing minimum wages and, most importantly, providing strong incentives toward reduced incomes at the very high end, would provides significant long term economic advant…
I guess I'm not seeing the difference between "the social safety net" and "money in people's hands." Technocratic means-tested programs are no substitute for giving people money and letting them spend it organically. Isn't that the point of a "free market" anyway? To let the market decide what is valuable? It's hard to accept any claim that constructing barriers makes social safety nets more effective.
Giving people money and raising minimum wages is indistinguishable to me. The only way they can be different is if you think economic output would be significantly different if people weren't "forced" to work by making wages the only avenue of income. That is the Randian perspective I am referring to.
Re: Nearly 8M Americans have fallen into poverty since summer
#174Earlier quoted context omitted.
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. Stat…
Where in my comment did I say the federal government should have enacted a national lockdown? My complaint was the lack of a real plan. They left the states to fend for themselves without the level of guidance, coordination, or financial support that was needed for a proper response. >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…
> Most states are run on a deficit
This is not true. All the states except Vermont have a legal requirement of a balanced budget.
https://www.ncsl.org/research/fiscal-policy/state-balanced-b...
Re: Nearly 8M Americans have fallen into poverty since summer
#175Earlier quoted context omitted.
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. Stat…
Where in my comment did I say the federal government should have enacted a national lockdown? My complaint was the lack of a real plan. They left the states to fend for themselves without the level of guidance, coordination, or financial support that was needed for a proper response. >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…
>Most states are run on a deficit and several states are already near bankruptcy.
The first isn't true at all. Most US States are forbidden to run deficits[0].
Which is why many states are already cutting services and laying off workers.
What's more, there are significant restrictions in most states on when and how they can raise money by issuing debt obligations (bonds).
With sales and income tax revenues plummeting in many states, that leaves them with few options other than cutting services, laying off workers and slashing public programs.
Without Federal assistance, things are going to get much worse before they get better.
[0] https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/briefing-book/what-are-state...
Re: Nearly 8M Americans have fallen into poverty since summer
#176Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is it? Why is that so important that it's worth not aiding millions of people who are dropping into poverty?
I can't tell if this is a question posed in earnest, because I wouldn't expect a reaction like that to "corporations are designing and feeding Congress a liability shield so that they don't have to spend money protecting their workers." The "aid" is a red herring if you are setting up those same people for dangerous situations with zero accountability from the people who are forcing them to put themselves in hazard's…
The standard is OSHA writing rules that govern workplace safety. What we have now is a bunch of soft "when feasible" and "if possible" recommendations and no rules save for what each state/county give on their own, which are usually also pretty squishy.
Absent a written standard from the government body in charge of these things, it's a free-for-all of liability. So I open my restaurant following local standards and a customer gets COVID and sues me because I used disinfectant X when I should have used Y, or the staff was wearing mask A instead of mask B, or whatever.
I don't think its unreasonable whatsoever to - again, absent the proper rules - ask for protection in this case. Folks like to characterize this as "protecting big corporations" but if you read the proposal it protects school, universities, hospitals, and so forth as well.
Re: Nearly 8M Americans have fallen into poverty since summer
#177Earlier quoted context omitted.
Most socialist Scandinavian countries are doing better than the US by most measures of societal wellness (life expectancy, divorce rates, crime, etc).
Which Scandinavian countries are socialist? The workers don't own the means of production. In general the Scandinavian countries are capitalist with strong safety nets.
> Which Scandinavian countries are socialist? The workers don't own the means of production. In general the Scandinavian countries are capitalist with strong safety nets.
That's what we're calling socialism nowadays (e.g. pretty much anything that's not laissez faire capitalism). That mushiness is what leads some people to think they can condemn social democracy with the example of Soviet central planning.
Re: Nearly 8M Americans have fallen into poverty since summer
#178Earlier quoted context omitted.
A very frustrating thing with this statement is that it's very arguable that financing the survival of this country's citizens during a lockdown is _exactly_ the sort of thing the government should be doing, as well as minimizing the duration of the lockdown. It enables the status quo to return quickly and minimizes the change to the social fabric. Those are things I would have imagined conservatives would want: stab…
As I understand it, we have no saved money, we are just going deeper into debt. In 2020 alone we took on at least 4T of debt when in past years we only take on ~1T debt per year. And all we have to show for 2T was a "woefully inadequate" $1000 check. In order to pay everyone's rent for a year, we would need at least 12x as much, in other words a cool 24 Trillion which would more than double the entire debt the US cur…
> To save a few lives, the majority of whom will be dead before 2030 anyway?
The majority of whom were already older than the average life expectancy. We'll see excess deaths this year, but are going to see a shortfall for the next few after that.
Re: Nearly 8M Americans have fallen into poverty since summer
#179Earlier quoted context omitted.
You are that saying herd immunity would be the only option?
It's not like that's the only solution that's been floated. Stimulus checks would have kept people out of poverty too.
> It's not like that's the only solution that's been floated. Stimulus checks would have kept people out of poverty too.
You're right, but the implications of the GGP comment's phrasing imply they wouldn't have liked that solution.
IMHO, in some quarters, the weeping and gnashing of teeth about the costs mandatory social distancing (up to and including stay at home orders) directly flows from the rejection of government relief as a solution to anything. If you take that off the table, you're left with a false choice between pandemic destruction and economic destruction.
Re: Nearly 8M Americans have fallen into poverty since summer
#180Earlier quoted context omitted.
Whatever the US did was not near permanent lockdowns, what is allowed to continue and be opened is more lenient than almost every country. The only countries with less restrictions than the US are opened exactly because they did a lockdown and kept the virus at bay. What kills the US economy is the virus being out there and making people afraid to get together into public settings.
I really don’t think many people are afraid to go into public settings. Maybe not into a crowd, sure, but a restaurant? The holdup there is from the government, not the public.
I would be nervous going to a restaurant if it was the same set up as before. i.e. a lot of tables packed next to each other. With the reduced indoors capacity or outdoor seating that's some what spaced out I'm less nervous about it.