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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]

#371

Post by blaser-waffle »

globular-toast wrote: post #200
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #31

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…

$600/week after tax is surely a massive amount and enough to give a family a very comfortable lifestyle. I always thought it was cheaper to live in the US than in the UK. That amount here would give you a luxurious lifestyle. What am I missing?

600 USD per week is just under £500 quid GBP per week, or about 2000 pounds a month, or 24K GBP a year.

Quick google search shows that the median income for the UK is £585 per week, which works out at around £30,420 a year (or $37,647.03 USD).

Hardly luxurious in the UK or US. Probably enough to get by, but nothing amazing.

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

#372

Post by closeparen »

jasonv wrote: post #363
hoorayimhelping wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know those signs we memed the hell out of last decade? They're so cliched that they don't mean anything anymore, but think of those. Keep calm and carry on You should relax. We're not the first humans to see some hardship. Everything isn't going to fall apart because the economy has a downturn. Society isn't going to collapse because of this. It didn't happen in the 1600s, nor the 1700s, nor the 1800s, nor the 19…

So you're saying -- if things now return to conditions that were present during "Two global wars, the use of nuclear weapons" of last century... no cause for alarm?

Civilization can withstand alarming situations.

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

#373

Post by s1artibartfast »

7777fps wrote: post #352
meddlepal wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Context and audience matter. If you're getting up in front of a bunch of people and advising them that it's "just like the Flu" you're doing damage. If you're invoking the flu as a parallel for illustrative purposes with an informed audience then it's pedantic to call it out.

1. HN is not "an informed audience", it's literally the public. And it's common for software developers to mistake themselves for domain experts on any domain but they aren't. 2. It's not an informed audience if misinformation is not challenged, it's a misinformed audience. 3. The flu is a bad parallel. The flu, while annually killing lots of people, does not overwhelm hospitals like a novel virus does. At best it ma…

Regarding 3, upper estimates for the 2009 swine flu are north of 500k deaths and the 1918 Spanish flu is 50 million.

Flus can be very deadly and the poster obviously did not intend to use the word in a diminutive way. You added that interpretation, knowing it is wrong, and then challenged it.

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

#374

Post by abfan1127 »

glouwbug wrote: post #349
7777fps wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not pedantic, a lot of people will die because people were saying, "It's just a flu" and not properly preparing or isolating.

This is juxtaposition, a form of literary style. He is sarcastically downplaying the _flu_ in comparison to the world wars because the _flu_ is already significantly lesser than the holocaust or an atomic bomb landing in Japan.

except the Spanish Flu killed more than World War 1 and 2 combined (est. 50 million dead from Spanish Flu)...

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

#375

Post by stevenwoo »

op03 wrote: post #344
japhyr wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have any reason to think we're not going to see the situation in NYC play out in numerous other US cities over the coming weeks and months?

Not really. I have been thinking its going to play out like China, Italy, Spain etc where certain regions take disproportionate hits. Texas and California don't seem to have been hit as hard as NY-NJ. So was just wondering if the unemployment filings have jumped equally in all 3.

Everything that is non essential in California is closed and only companies that can function with only working from home are still operating AFAIK. It doesn't matter how bad the outbreak is here, we've been on a shutdown for longer than anywhere in the USA, at least here in Northern California. Many restaurants have closed, only some are open for take out, but that probably depends on area. This last week they finally told many construction/lawn maintenance workers to stay home as well, depending upon circumstances.

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

#376

Post by _curious_ »

withinboredom wrote: post #332
_curious_ wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"2. You already “pay” for your unemployment several times over during your career through unemployment insurance. Your employer pays this, but they could have paid you more if they didn’t have to." Do you have any data on this assertion?

If you assume a 1.55% tax rate for UI, you will contribute about a week of unemployment per year of work (at least in S.C.) at 70k taxable income after a modest administrative overhead of 60%. If you manage to work from 25 to 65 at an average of $70k per year, that’s almost a year worth of unemployment.

OK going with your assumptions, I wonder what % of people collecting unemployment benefits have worked for 40 years at an average of $70k/yr? I am not aware of a single individual, but maybe just don't know the right people.

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

#377

Post by Frost1x »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #319
MiroF wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Our concern is a supply chain meltdown when you have millions infected and sick. This is an absurdist prediction - we are looking at maximum 2 million 75+ year olds dying with some much smaller number of people of different ages. This is the group least likely to be involved in the day-to-day functioning of our supply chains. Honestly, where are people coming up with these doomsday predictions?

Have you watched the supply chains? Spikes in demand followed by demand collapse have already wreaked havoc. From what I read from people from that business, there's total chaos. And even if the elderly bear most of the risk, countries are shutting down completely for their sake - and that means companies stopping operations, leading to further disruptions. Also this article: US already has 10 million unemployed, and…

If you were to value all human lives equally, the Cold War potential threat was far greater than this. The actual realized causality count is of course orders of magnitude lower for the Cold War.

In terms of being an existential threat to human life, this virus as we currently understand it (ignoring all the unknowns) isn't a real Doomsday. Historically it's merely a blip on the radar of awful things humanity has went through, endured, and survived leading to where we are now. People survived the bubonic plague and continued on. It was awful and they lacked much of the knowledge and understanding we now have to better curb these threats.

The vast majority of the population is going to be fine, healthy, and moving along. There may be economic restructuring after this (I don't see it as likely though). You're probably going to see a drop in quality/standard of living at large no matter what, but the majority of our infrastructure will still be there and the majority of the people who operate it will still be there. It's not like humans won't be around, infrastructure will be destroyed, our acquired knowledge and skills are lost...

The absolute worst case scenario is that this virus mutates regularly (perhaps with higher mortality rates) and we aren't able to manage it. Each mutation comes with significant risk of death. Although the risk could low for many, multiple exposures to relatively low risk leads to higher more realized unwelcome outcomes. This would absolutely force a complete systematic restructuring of societies, how we interact, how we work, etc. long term.

Based on what we currently know this will be a fairly long decline in productivity that most will be immune to and life will probably continue on mostly as is. It all boils down to questions about who deserves what, who takes the hit on losses, etc. Right now it looks like your average US citizen will see a larger decline in standards of living and our economic system will further consolidate/concentrate wealth and power barring some sort of (hopefully non-violent) social revolution.

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

#378

Post by majormajor »

malandrew wrote: post #244
RIMR wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You fear a revolution towards healthcare, housing, food, etc. as human rights? Personally that revolution can't come fast enough. This country has betrayed its constitutional duties to its people for decades (supporting the general welfare, anyone?). We NEED revolution at this point since it seems both of our two parties are on the same side when it comes to Working Class America.

At no points have the courts ever taken anywhere near as broad an interpretation of the welfare clause as you're suggesting it to be. And such a broad interpretation would be incongruous with the views of its primary authors (Jefferson and Hamilton). The framers would more likely to suggest that we NEED a revolution over the expansion of the federal government beyond their limited enumerated powers. They'd also certa…

I would love to see what they would think of the last 250 years of history. I think it's naive to suggest that they wouldn't have anything to learn. They were writing in one world, and people have found many new ways to abuse their countrymen since then.

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

#379

Post by majormajor »

nck4222 wrote: post #138
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #31

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…

This "economy is paused" idea is getting more and more unjustifiable by the day, weeks, and months. We're not going to emerge from this and just hit the unpause button. Yes some industries will bounce back quickly, but 9 million people over two weeks losing their jobs is an absolutely massive number, and we haven't hit peak yet. There's no way they'll just be simply rehired when this is "done".

Restaurant and event business was shrinking quickly before official shutdowns. You want all those jobs to come back, you have to bring back that demand.

Good luck doing that before this is all over.

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

#380

Post by BurningFrog »

kube-system wrote: post #348
BurningFrog wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was thinking the government could simply pay the hospital bills for every Covid-19 patient. Maybe the most obvious and direct way to help those affected. If that was the intent. Giving cash directly to everyone, sick or poor, is a very different thing. "Expanding Medicare" might help a few.

The most obvious and direct way to help people is to send them cash payments. The IRS is already set up to be capable of doing this, and to do so at the scale required. Paying hospital bills would be exponentially more complex of an operation, and there isn't an organization already set up to administer something like that at this scale.

> ...to help people

Sure, but I was talking about helping the infected people.

Yeah, it's more complex, but if it was a priority, it could be arranged. It's not like it has to be done quickly. Bills can be settled months later.

My cynical explanation is that Covid infected do not have a lobbyist at the table when these things are decided.

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