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3.28M file for U.S. jobless benefits

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431–440 of 711 posts

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

#431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A bunch of armchair developers seem to have been summoned to tell the Federal government how to handle form submissions for an extremely security and privacy intense application using their fancy modern techniques. You are talking about comparing a basic web form with an application for unemployment benefits which must go into a federal tax database and be processed using a what I assume is a garbage mainframe system…

Unemployment benefits are handled by the states, not by the federal government.

In Canada, it isn't. The parent's username suggests they talkin about the CAN.

https://www.canada.ca/en/services/benefits/ei.html

In the US, though, it's by-state.

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

#432

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They won't take back those jobs, they'll push for agreements that guarantee a safety net. This event forcing America to adopt more progressive policies after experiencing suffering without them wouldn’t be a bad thing. Sometimes things must get worse for them to get better.

Time will tell. In a year, we'll actually have much better evidence about how different systems fared. Right now, both the market-based US system and the public systems in Europe are being put to the test. I suspect that they will both have failures and successes that will largely be localized and that we'll find out that those features that made a healthcare system robust don't correlate that much with being a publi…

All systems have capacity limits. This is even a compsci problem: queues. Whether your system is public, private, or a combination of both, under extreme demand that exceeds your workload capacity, you'll either be overwhelmed (and drop work) or apply back pressure (both which will appear as rationing of healthcare; you have no choice but to ration when supply is limited). There are only so many doctors, nurses, ICU beds, and ventilators.

Note that in Italy and Spain, reverse triage is being done based on your at risk status, age, and other complications. If you're young and healthy, you take priority. I imagine the same will be done in the US, and those who are more likely to survive will be provided with ventilators and other medical equipment to survive, not those who can pay or with insurance; medical practitioners are making the call, not the chargemaster and CFO.

Public healthcare systems won't need a bailout, they're already government supported. We'll move money around on the nation state balance sheet and move on. Private systems though may not survive. That's culture though, so perhaps you're right.

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

#433
post #88

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…

Further, unemployment benefits are managed by the states, and those states are running web services which typically see a few hundred hits a day. They are now trying to process tens of thousands of new records each day, and at least in MI the service is absolutely not up to the task. My wife managed to get her filing completed a little after 1am this morning. She was the only one of her 20 coworkers to successfully f…

They also tend to have some... interesting features dictated by the state UI office. When I'd applied in Wisconsin about 6 years back the site stopped accepting form submissions outside business hours.

I assume some less computer-literate higher up thought that someone needed to be around to actually accept the form, same as in-person submissions.

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

#434
post #390
post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He might very well still be alive if the Chinese government hadn't lied about and covered up the existence of the virus.

That's not killing. It's negligent and reprehensible, just like the trivialization of the disease's seriousness by the US president was negligent and reprehensible. There will be many unnecessary deaths as a result of both leaders' inaction. That doesn't make it murder on either of their parts. In the US at least, the dismantling of the public health systems in the name of efficiency is something that occurred in sev…

And what if POTUS was listening to the WHO experts who were parroting the lies of the CCP that human transmission wasn't happening, and then that even if it was an epidemic it wasn't a pandemic?

Furthermore in what way was the US public health system dismantled? The US was best suited to take on Coronavirus because of its significant number of ICU beds and the number of ventilators compared to the rest of the West. The unfortunate fact is that CDC's tests failed and that left the US flat-footed when it was otherwise better positioned to tackle the crisis than most.

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

#435
post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is that backend pain shouldn't stop you from accepting it on the front end and putting it into a queue. Making the problem of getting the application through backend systems the states' to deal with, not the applicants'.

So are you applying for the 44k/yr job to fix it? No, most of are not.

Yeah, even in the SF/SJ locality which has the highest Locality Pay Adjustment (at 41.44%)[1], the position would likely have to be GS-12/GS/13 to start being competitive.

There is the option of going to some area with a much lower cost of living and trying to hire there, but the problem might be getting enough people together to form a team. If you can easily get enough people with skill and experience, the area probably has jobs for them that pay better, and if those jobs don't exist, it might be hard to find the people.

1: https://www.federalpay.org/gs/locality/san-francisco

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

#436
post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The government is passing relief package of 18,000 dollars for every citizen of the USA. That's more than enough money to tide things over if it's distributed well, in a way that incentivizes the right things. Unforunately, a very small portion of that money will go to individuals who have lost their jobs, and a very large portion will go to companies that were run on razor-thin balance sheets, ready to topple at the…

I’ve heard this point made a lot, that these “bailouts” are in any way equivalent to previous bailouts based on poor management and immoral business practices. These aren’t the same. This shutdown (however justified) is because of the govt. If the government demands you shut down your business, or that you can’t go to work, you deserve to be compensated for that. If the government hadn’t mandated it, young people wou…

[deleted]

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

#437
post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The government is passing relief package of 18,000 dollars for every citizen of the USA. That's more than enough money to tide things over if it's distributed well, in a way that incentivizes the right things. Unforunately, a very small portion of that money will go to individuals who have lost their jobs, and a very large portion will go to companies that were run on razor-thin balance sheets, ready to topple at the…

I’ve heard this point made a lot, that these “bailouts” are in any way equivalent to previous bailouts based on poor management and immoral business practices. These aren’t the same. This shutdown (however justified) is because of the govt. If the government demands you shut down your business, or that you can’t go to work, you deserve to be compensated for that. If the government hadn’t mandated it, young people wou…

The other thing is that half of the cost is in the form of low interest loans and loan guarantees, and presumably most of those will not default if this doesn’t go on too long and thus won’t actually be real costs

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

#438
post #223

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. S…

> 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.

Please don't take this as me being captain hindsight here, but I think that this pandemic has reallllly shown the need for an emergency fund. IMO if you're sole prop or contractor, you owe it to yourself to have a bigger emergency fund for this exact scenario.

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

#439
post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what is the reasoning (genuinely curious). Are democrats somehow failing America re: COVID-19?

Not Democrats as a whole. Nancy Pelosi and one or two other congress people in particular. As I understand it from various sources spanning the political spectrum, both the Republicans and Democrats that were in Washington DC had productive bipartisan talks over the weekend and had largely hashed out a bill that both sides agreed on. Then Nancy Pelosi flew back from California and injected several additional things i…

I think it's weird to point at Nancy Pelosi given the current state of politics. McConnell and the republicans denounce any Democratic bill that is passed as partisan, so why would this be any different? And you feel that Steve Mnuchin and his $500B corporate bailout slush fund meet the criteria laid out for crisis spending? Give me a break.

The Democrats are trying to include things like vote-by-mail, since this crisis is already affecting elections and will likely have an impact on the ability to conduct a fair election in November. They want better unemployment and healthcare to make us resilient against this exact situation. These are all good things, and the Democrats would be fools to waste an opportunity to do the right thing for the country.

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

#440
post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not killing. It's negligent and reprehensible, just like the trivialization of the disease's seriousness by the US president was negligent and reprehensible. There will be many unnecessary deaths as a result of both leaders' inaction. That doesn't make it murder on either of their parts. In the US at least, the dismantling of the public health systems in the name of efficiency is something that occurred in sev…

And what if POTUS was listening to the WHO experts who were parroting the lies of the CCP that human transmission wasn't happening, and then that even if it was an epidemic it wasn't a pandemic? Furthermore in what way was the US public health system dismantled? The US was best suited to take on Coronavirus because of its significant number of ICU beds and the number of ventilators compared to the rest of the West. T…

It wasn't that he was listening to the WHO, it was that he was outright denying the severity and spreading misinformation implying the imminent availability of a vaccine. He's hasn't been a benign pass-through in the development of the situation:

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/timeline-trump-covid19-res...

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