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Additional 6.6M File for Initial Unemployment Benefits [pdf]

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Re: Additional 6.6M File for Initial Unemployment Benefits [pdf]

#101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What will the employees, in the US at least, do for health insurance? A pandemic is when you need it. These employees will be strained to pay for COBRA. I fear that we will see revolutions in countries where this is not contained, from either a health or economic perspective. An old saying is that you should buy stocks when there is blood in the streets. I hope that doesn't become literal.

I don’t wish a bad outcome but if it happens, hopefully people realize we need a different system for healthcare.

Already most Americans support Medicare for all – it’s our bought elected officials who don’t.

Re: Additional 6.6M File for Initial Unemployment Benefits [pdf]

#103

Unemployment benefits have been significantly expanded under the Coronavirus aid bill. The benefit amounts will sound small if you're living in an expensive city like SF or Seattle, but $600/week from the federal government and a similar amount from state unemployment insurance means that unemployment benefits can pay up to an equivalent of $50-60K/year right now. That goes a long way in most parts of the country, es…

What will the employees, in the US at least, do for health insurance? A pandemic is when you need it. These employees will be strained to pay for COBRA. I fear that we will see revolutions in countries where this is not contained, from either a health or economic perspective. An old saying is that you should buy stocks when there is blood in the streets. I hope that doesn't become literal.

> What will the employees, in the US at least, do for health insurance?

Struggle under the weight of the debt, become impoverished and many may become homeless. All the while being told to just find a more lucrative job, like say, coding.

Re: Additional 6.6M File for Initial Unemployment Benefits [pdf]

#104
post #79

The odd thing to me about it is that futures seem largely positive. Is it because the CAREs act or dropped labor is supposed to equal money not spent and thus meant to shield companies ( and investors )? I honestly do not get how market interprets it as good news.

Not necessarily interpreted as "good news", probably more like "already priced in".

The market is just currently confused and will soon undoubtedly go down. 6.6m this week is just insane. Hopefully we'll see some good news regarding the virus soon.

Re: Additional 6.6M File for Initial Unemployment Benefits [pdf]

#105

I hope that tech industry employees do not feel immune to this. I encourage you to take a look at your customer base and think very critically about where that money is actually coming from.

I think there's a lot of cognitive dissonance for tech employees partially because tech thrived in the 2008 crisis. Investors looking to make high risk/reward investments had no where else to go but SV. If you aren't old enough to remember the dot-com boom it's understandable you might feel tech is invincible. Tech will not be insulated from this and in general I think we'll see a major contraction of the tech labour…

VCs, possibly. The larger tech companies are selling 1 and 3 year deals for software, which will see some impact, but largely distance them from the deep V because of the length of the terms.

Re: Additional 6.6M File for Initial Unemployment Benefits [pdf]

#106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm also hearing this morning that we've hit the 10% mark. I also heard the same economist say "The economy is collapsing, and it's a global collapse". I don't even need coffee to be alert the rest of the day...

Any speculations on how bad is this going to get? Should I stock up on TP, on food, or on vodka and ammo?

What are you going to shoot? Food or people?

Re: Additional 6.6M File for Initial Unemployment Benefits [pdf]

#107

Unemployment benefits have been significantly expanded under the Coronavirus aid bill. The benefit amounts will sound small if you're living in an expensive city like SF or Seattle, but $600/week from the federal government and a similar amount from state unemployment insurance means that unemployment benefits can pay up to an equivalent of $50-60K/year right now. That goes a long way in most parts of the country, es…

What will the employees, in the US at least, do for health insurance? A pandemic is when you need it. These employees will be strained to pay for COBRA. I fear that we will see revolutions in countries where this is not contained, from either a health or economic perspective. An old saying is that you should buy stocks when there is blood in the streets. I hope that doesn't become literal.

Also I'm not sure if I'm in agreement with the tactic of immediately pushing employees to unemployment. Unemployment is funded by taxes which are largely paid by the same people being laid off. If you're promoting businesses push people to unemployment instead of first trying to cover them during hardship and also taking a loss (as everyone else is), you're pushing for more tax subsidies to businesses indirectly.

Unemployment is a safety net that needs to exist but it shouldn't, IMHO, be the first option to jump to. That's irresponsible unless of course you can't cover your employees at the rate unemployment can--then it's reasonable for everyone's sake.

You should look at supporting employees part time if possible, especially those who have many years association with your business that are valued players. Your first order should be to take care of yourself and those around you, not immediately jump to social safety nets and pass the hardship. Let's re-establish long term employee and employer relationships and get rid if this "everyone's constantly disposable" economic mindset.

If I'm laid off, I'll first look at my savings and hit the job market before I consider driving right into unemployment. I dont want to utilize that unless I need to and my other options fail. I expect businesses to do the same and be responsible contributors to society. If not, let's take a bit more of their stimulus money back and chuck it to other businesses and people that don't run away at the sight of a loss and try to persevere through difficult situations.

Re: Additional 6.6M File for Initial Unemployment Benefits [pdf]

#108

For those living in cities that are locked down, what do yall do about daycare? In NYC, my daycare isn't reimbursing fees, so we're continuing to be charged with a promise of "if insurance pays out, we'll pass it down." With 2 kids, that’s $5,000. Assuming they’re closed for 3 months total, that’s $15,000 down the drain. Now, I get that they're a small business, but their problem is that they can't exactly layoff the…

The best situation all around here possibly is the concept of "Kurzarbeit", or short work system, that exists in Germany (Denmark also has a similar one, I believe). It basically allows employers to reduce hours they pay workers, while the gov't helps cover the shortfall to the employee, up to some maximum amount.

This prevents companies from having to layoff people, and allows them to pickup the slack and rehire everyone again when things get better.

Re: Additional 6.6M File for Initial Unemployment Benefits [pdf]

#110
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To what type of positions ? So like a barber for a random secretary or mail room etc? Or just all up and down the chain

To Software Engineer, lvl 3 support, Data Scientist, etc. Roles that they would almost certainly fail in without previous experience.

If you're going to apply to something for which you have no experience, why not go big? CTO, CEO, VP of Bizdev?
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