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Long Covid is keeping significant numbers of people out of work, study finds

nytimes.com

171–180 of 182 posts

Re: Long Covid is keeping significant numbers of people out of work, study finds

#171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's completely separate jobs. To give UBI you just need to know if the guy has pulse and what is his chosen bank account. You can delegate both of those tasks to banks. Heck, you can delegate paying the guy to banks as well. They can just credit his account out of a thin air, the way they currently do when they give loans. You can destroy equivalent amount of money that you gathered from tax to keep things in balanc…

> I think reply link is not visible for a while after creating a post It's the depth/flamewar metric. > you need to find out what properties this guy has...and inform him about how much he needs to pay Right. You need to do this. So, at this point, you know whether or not he needs the original benefit.

Yeah, but you'd have to treat him differently and that unnecessary work. In software it's good to keep separate the things that don't need to be combined. UBI is universal so even the richest guy in a country should get it. Reducing one (some?) of his taxes and remebering to not pay him UBI is more work than just keeping those things separate.

Re: Long Covid is keeping significant numbers of people out of work, study finds

#172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems highly unlikely that millions of people get a depression right after an infection with covid.

It seems more likely that the significant lockdowns and deep isolation that came with it had these same effects. When you can't see friends for months, can't do anything but stay home and watch tv/play video games, and are constantly exposed to news of a depressing, ill world - what else do you feel? You don't need covid to feel "Long Covid" after the life we've lived in the last 2 years.

That's testable. It should be possible to compare the rate of "long covid" issues between people who tested positive for covid at some point, and people who didn't. Break it down by area so you're comparing populations with the same isolation rules.

This would be an especially good comparison since it's unlikely that people who caught covid were more isolated on average.

Re: Long Covid is keeping significant numbers of people out of work, study finds

#173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just so I understand...two stimmy checks are to blame for inflation and product shortages? I know this is a popular talking point, but there needs to be some facts to back this up. Supply chains were wrecked by shipping container shortages due to bottlenecking at ports as well as factory shutdowns. There are proven instances where businesses increased prices just because they could.

At the start of the pandemic, between March 29 and July 25 2020, everyone claiming unemployment benefits got an extra $600/week on top of their normal payment. Later between December 27 2020, and September 4 2021, everyone was paid an extra $300/week for 9 months. For reference, the maximum unemployment benefit previously was $450/week. This is all on top of the checks, of which there were 3. Assuming you claimed une…

I never got unemployment compensation even though I was unemployed, I fell through the cracks, and couldn't focus on it (because of long COVID) enough to get it done.

Re: Long Covid is keeping significant numbers of people out of work, study finds

#174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everybody wants a government handout. Nobody wants to pay the taxes to fund it.

That's a fairly North American Continent point of view I think. Not everyone classifies government spending as a handout. Many countries have some sort of "Labour party" that tends to want to have high taxes, and over time such parties get plenty of votes.

Is it? Or is is mainly US? My impression is that Canada is a much more like Europe in this respect, and Mexico doesn't seem aligned with this either?

Re: Long Covid is keeping significant numbers of people out of work, study finds

#175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

UBI plus Medicare for All (not just Medicare for elders) is the way. "Welfare" beyond that can and should be discussed and considered - I'm not advocating for taking away any of the welfare state as a trade for implementing UBI, personally. Everyone receives it, everyone pays taxes accordingly, those with enough tax liability end up netting $0 or less in UBI for the period.

> UBI plus Medicare for All (not just Medicare for elders) is the way. Note that, given the actual structure of Medicare (partially publicly subsized private insurance with a public default and minimum-benefit option which still has premiums, part of which is waived for Social Security and Railroad Retirement beneficiaries), the ACA is almost Medicare for all, and with a default public option (even with premiums for…

Thank you for clarifying, I support a universal, premium free, public insurance plan.

Re: Long Covid is keeping significant numbers of people out of work, study finds

#176
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems like if our society had UBI (Universal Basic Income) we wouldn't have to worry so much over cases like this - people would be able to get by, it wouldn't be a crisis for so many individuals.

Our Covid response really hurt the case for UBI. It turns out, when people are paid to stay at home and not work, even for a short period of time, we get high inflation and product shortages.

The product shortages are due to piss poor profit centric “just in time” inventory schemes. Corporations failing are always corporations fault.

This marketing that redirects blame onto “inflation”(a gov failure) or “people being at home” or “shortages” only serves to distract while corporations post profits, layoff while kicking back to shareholders, and continue to pay as little as possible for the labor.

Re: Long Covid is keeping significant numbers of people out of work, study finds

#177
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's unlikely vaccine will help you at this point, although there've been some anecdotal reports of vaccination reducing symptoms of long covid.

The problem is what even is "long covid"? I've had a doctor tell me it doesn't actually exist, and other people tell me it's to blame for basically everything. Has the definition been consolidated now that covid is (seemingly) a little less political?

There are quite a lot of studies that conclude long covid is definitely a thing.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8875269/ https://www.thelancet.com/journals/eclinm/article/PIIS2589-5...

Re: Long Covid is keeping significant numbers of people out of work, study finds

#178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our Covid response really hurt the case for UBI. It turns out, when people are paid to stay at home and not work, even for a short period of time, we get high inflation and product shortages.

We had supply shortages because all the slack has been taken out of systems to "improve efficiency", which was an entirely predictable, but accepted trade-off of those decisions. High inflation isn't the fault of people barely scraping by, its a reaction to supply disruptions worldwide. I expect 10% inflation for the next decade, because of demographic shifts and deglobalization, in the US. The rest of the world will…

Inflation is already falling well below that 10% threshold, even in nations with higher inflation than the US (e.g. the UK and Europe).

That said, a decade of 10% inflation would be an awfully cruel joke for millennials, who experienced the worst recession since the Depression around the time they graduated university, a decade of stagnant wages, another recession and global pandemic, and then, even if they managed to find themselves financially stable (e.g., tech employees), still hard-pressed to save for retirement under the weight of inflation.

Re: Long Covid is keeping significant numbers of people out of work, study finds

#179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a fairly North American Continent point of view I think. Not everyone classifies government spending as a handout. Many countries have some sort of "Labour party" that tends to want to have high taxes, and over time such parties get plenty of votes.

Is it? Or is is mainly US? My impression is that Canada is a much more like Europe in this respect, and Mexico doesn't seem aligned with this either?

Canada is pretty much in the middle of Europe and the US in terms of overall tax burden, but still taxes less than pretty much any developed European country besides Switzerland (and Ireland, but Irish GDP is a warped figure).

Mexico taxes significantly less than the US does, the US is closer to other Anglosphere countries than it is to Mexico.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_by_ta...

Re: Long Covid is keeping significant numbers of people out of work, study finds

#180
post #53
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems like if our society had UBI (Universal Basic Income) we wouldn't have to worry so much over cases like this - people would be able to get by, it wouldn't be a crisis for so many individuals.

We have Social Security disability payments available to those who are legitimately unable to work (I do recognize that it can be difficult for some people to navigate the application process). But I am absolutely unwilling to pay higher taxes into a UBI scheme to support people who are capable of working but choose not to.

Higher taxes would be imposed progressively. Currently the most wealthy / highest income people on average pay the least as a % of their income. Furthermore: how about a wealth tax (maybe call it a "hoarding tax" to describe the behavior better).
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