Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

3.28M file for U.S. jobless benefits

wsj.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

221–230 of 711 posts

Re: 3.28M file for U.S. jobless benefits

#221

Post by greedo »

bluedino wrote: post #176
alharith wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My brother is a restaurant owner and reports that despite volume being down, profit is up due to less overhead. Others in the restaurant industry are reporting the same. When we come out on the other side of this, I think a lot of businesses are going to rethink a lot of things they held on to as infallible truths. Sorry as many mentioned, yes the key ingredient is takeout: This is a fast casual italian / pizza resta…

They might be making more money on sales vs staff right now but anyone who has a rent payment isn't going to cover it with takeout alone.

For most major fast food franchises, the drive through constitutes a majority of the food sales. Labor also constitutes the largest line item on a P&L, so if you can work it right, you might be able to make it work. Especially if you're getting assistance (in the form of suspended franchise/royalty fees).

Re: 3.28M file for U.S. jobless benefits

#222

Post by nhumrich »

NamTaf wrote: post #14

3.28 million? Really? With the lockdowns of retail, hospitality, etc. in Australia, a country of 25 million total, we've seen nearly something north of 800,000 unemployed (temporarily or permanently). This can't be an accurate figure, surely!

Your number actually makes the number sound more reasonable. 800k of 25 million is about 3%. 3 million of US population of 300million is 1%.

Re: 3.28M file for U.S. jobless benefits

#223

Post by dpcan »

Being a sole proprietor / contractor right now feels hopeless. Nobody is spending money with me right now, projects on hold, no possible way of filing for unemployment. It's worrisome.

Thankfully my wife is still working - but she's an administrator at a Nursing Home and people there are starting to get tested - and she's panicking. They are days from having no nurses. She's worried about cleaning crews being sick. She's worried about bringing it home. Luckily they have a stockpile of supplies, BUT THIS WHOLE THING IS ABOUT TO BLOW UP!

The problem is that the tests of their employees are taking UP TO 10 DAYS to come back. They are sending home nurses for this long just to wait and see if they are all going to be exposed, their residents too.

Anyone in their facility who may be sick is being sent home for 14 days. There will be nobody left to take care of the elderly, who may also get sick.

People are worried about dying themselves, or the people they care for dying.

I'm confident we are 10 days from hearing about Nursing Homes and Nurses in Nursing Homes everywhere getting sick and dying in massive numbers.

Re: 3.28M file for U.S. jobless benefits

#224

Post by cloverich »

mikorym wrote: post #123
stupandaus wrote: post #24

A few things to note: 1. These figures are only new claims as of 3/21, so the numbers will get worse. 2. This is ~2% of the estimated ~160-165M US Workforce. 3. This is nearly 5x (!) the prior record of 671K new jobless claims from 1982, and redefines the scale for jobless claims. [1] 4. This does not account for the countless gig workers that are part of the modern economy that likely did not file for unemployment s…

Not from the US, so not quite in phase with how things work. What can this tell us about actual unemployment and actual people that won't have a job now (short, medium or forever)?

Most businesses do not have capacity to pay workers and rather than hold out, some are terminating immediately so their employees can claim unemployment benefits. I know for example of Dental offices (which in Texas are mandated closed until April 21st I believe) are doing this, but have every intention of re-hiring the same staff the moment they are allowed to re-open. I'm not sure this is the typical case, but its certainly a subset.

Re: 3.28M file for U.S. jobless benefits

#225

Post by smileysteve »

fallingfrog wrote: post #205

Things that Coronavirus is teaching us: -the people who are actually vital to make the economy are grocery clerks, doctors, nurses, teachers and other carers, but not corporate CEOs, who are ultimately just dead weight. -money is imaginary and they can print as much as they want. -the people in power right now would rather have the stock market crash and watch you and a million other Americans die than give healthcar…

There are 2 policy options I see moving forward:

Public: Healthcare and Unemployment (possibly sick leave)

Private: Forced GAAP accounting for 2-4 weeks of sick leave for all employees (including gig contractors)

These would be paramount to national security; so could potentially receive backing loans or even the defense budget.

Re: 3.28M file for U.S. jobless benefits

#226

Post by rchaud »

NamTaf wrote: post #14

3.28 million? Really? With the lockdowns of retail, hospitality, etc. in Australia, a country of 25 million total, we've seen nearly something north of 800,000 unemployed (temporarily or permanently). This can't be an accurate figure, surely!

> in Australia, a country of 25 million total

The US has 13x-15x the population of Australia, so the numbers will be larger. In any case, these are the claims filed in the past week only, and not a cumulative count of the total number who are currently unemployed.

Re: 3.28M file for U.S. jobless benefits

#227

Post by Demiurge »

JMTQp8lwXL wrote: post #200
Demiurge wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a developer I immediately though of the power of queues. Twenty people trying to submit same form does not work for everyone, but a queue processing one person at a time might allow the twenty people to submit within a short time. It is flattening the curve! If I was contracted to fix this ASAP, I would set up an nginx front-end proxy config that doesn't allow more than X sessions and suggest a time in the future…

Put the web form (plain static assets JS/CSS/HTML) on a globally accessible CDN. Then use SQS intake for each unemployment application form. Then firehouse it out, wherever it needs to go, at a rate which you can realistically deal with it. Queuing access to the form itself and telling someone to wake up at 4:52 AM so they can then merely access the static assets is a less-than-desirable user experience.

It is more desirable than 504, and first thing I would do in 15 minutes with zero context. If I can get more context, of course something like your solution is more desirable, depending on the issue. It would take some time to figure whether it is necessary to bring in AWS or just database connection pooler, or whatever.

Re: 3.28M file for U.S. jobless benefits

#228

Post by danharaj »

bbxxcc wrote: post #195
cjslep wrote: post #32

I grew up with the puritanical mindset of: "Your intrinsic worth as a human is the money you earn; because the money you earn is from how hard you work; and how hard you work is a reflection of your intrinsic Virtue." Thus I grew up in a family that loathes the unemployed. I really hope -- though I have grave doubts -- that this event gets through to them, so that they can have some personal growth, too.

I think loathing the unemployed (especially if it isn't caused by health conditions and isn't temporary, like in this case) is commonplace in any society. There are many studies which show unemployed people are more likely to commit crimes. e.g. [1] Unemployed people, by definition, are net consumers. [2] Unless society as a whole actually produces wealth, there is nothing to tax, and the government doesn't have any…

Landlords are bigger parasites than any NEET.

Re: 3.28M file for U.S. jobless benefits

#229

Post by bitbuilder »

wil421 wrote: post #157
alharith wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My brother is a restaurant owner and reports that despite volume being down, profit is up due to less overhead. Others in the restaurant industry are reporting the same. When we come out on the other side of this, I think a lot of businesses are going to rethink a lot of things they held on to as infallible truths. Sorry as many mentioned, yes the key ingredient is takeout: This is a fast casual italian / pizza resta…

Almost every restaurant owner I know is about to fold or taking emergency loans. From people with several franchised sandwich shops to stand alone restaurants. Who is reporting profits are up?

I'm guessing they're confusing profit and margin. It wouldn't surprise me if margins were higher now, but I have a hard time believing overall profits are up, anywhere.

Especially when you consider a lot of restaurants make a good chunk of their profit on alcohol sales. While many are offering alcohol to go, I think most of us are picking it up from the corner store instead.

Re: 3.28M file for U.S. jobless benefits

#230

Post by switch007 »

PaulRobinson wrote: post #23

A staggering number, and unprecedented in the modern era. I'm not in the US or an America, but my (retired), Father is and for the sake of the people around him and his family I hope this is the point where the American political system - and Republicans in particular - realise that their ideologies are dead. In the UK we saw an Old-Etonian Tory Prime Minister in the space of a couple of weeks: - Effectively national…

> - Renationalise the train industry

That's not quite what's happening. https://www.railwaygazette.com/uk/uk-train-operators-offered...

Post reply on HN