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UK government to pay up to 80% of wages for employees not working

bbc.co.uk

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Re: UK government to pay up to 80% of wages for employees not working

#51

Post by pjc50 »

hacker_9 wrote: post #25
pjc50 wrote: post #16

And people keep saying that basic income is impossible. This is an astonishing U-turn, and a very welcome one. I just hope the social distancing isn't too late.

You understand this only helps in the short term right? Yeah we'll live, we'll also be poorer than ever at the end of this, and someone's gonna have to pay back this debt.

.. fortunately, this is being borrowed at 0.1%. And we can go lower. Expect to see negative rates. The irony is it might have to be a Tory government that raises taxes to cover it.

Re: UK government to pay up to 80% of wages for employees not working

#52

Post by Ididntdothis »

SilasX wrote: post #39
Ididntdothis wrote: post #6

This makes more sense for me than sending $1000 checks to people who still have a job.

Because it should penalize anyone who kept working or who was in an essential occupation?

This is about helping people in need and not a gift from government.

Re: UK government to pay up to 80% of wages for employees not working

#53

Post by onetimemanytime »

justsomedude11 wrote: post #19

I will happily pay 45% tax on my salary knowing the Gov has my back in difficult times like these. I'm fortunate enough to still have a job, but I'm happy I live in Europe.

In theory if you saved the difference in taxes...but then we don't generally save, but consume.

max 2500 pounds. Say for 6 months? A Year? That's 15k to 30k. This is not enough to justify "45%" taxes for life...

Re: UK government to pay up to 80% of wages for employees not working

#54

Post by pjc50 »

Alex3917 wrote: post #29
pjc50 wrote: post #16

And people keep saying that basic income is impossible. This is an astonishing U-turn, and a very welcome one. I just hope the social distancing isn't too late.

> And people keep saying that basic income is impossible. It's not impossible, but Americans voted against it overwhelmingly less than two months ago, well after this epidemic had already started.

I thought the election was in November?

Re: UK government to pay up to 80% of wages for employees not working

#55

Post by chrisseaton »

pjc50 wrote: post #16

And people keep saying that basic income is impossible. This is an astonishing U-turn, and a very welcome one. I just hope the social distancing isn't too late.

> This is an astonishing U-turn

A u-turn from what previous position and by whom? Universal basic income hasn't really been debated seriously in the UK, so nobody had a previous position to u-turn against.

Re: UK government to pay up to 80% of wages for employees not working

#56

Post by luckylion »

majc2 wrote: post #43
AntonStratiev wrote: post #24

Has anyone calculated the value of life that we are saving here? The Imperial College report had 510,000 dying in the UK under a no-action scenario. Average age lets say 79 as the virus progresses. 510,000 * (82.5-79) * GBP 30,000 (QALY for the NHS) = 53.5 billion pounds based on the funding methodology used for the NHS. Instead the Uk seems to be willing to throw its entire GDP at this problem, 3 trillion pounds. Th…

> This seems... completely unjustified. Um, no. Firstly, not everything is about rational economics. No sane and functioning democracy is going to allow 500k people to die if it can stop it.

What's the cut-off where it's okay? Like, you can stop all road traffic deaths, just stop driving. Sure, it might cost you a lot etc, but no sane and functioning democracy is going to allow x people to die if it can stop it, right?

Re: UK government to pay up to 80% of wages for employees not working

#57

Post by Ididntdothis »

amf12 wrote: post #38
Ididntdothis wrote: post #6

This makes more sense for me than sending $1000 checks to people who still have a job.

Or payroll tax reduction. While it might help some deserving people, it's also going to benefit people who don't need any help.

payroll tax deduction also hurts social security and Medicare.

Re: UK government to pay up to 80% of wages for employees not working

#58

Post by cm2187 »

crucio wrote: post #7

I do wonder if it would be easier and cheaper to bite the bullet and move to a universal basic income. This situation cold be going on for years.

Dude. This is to make up for the economy being shut down. i.e. no trade happening, no revenues. How are you going to finance UBI in those condition? No economy = no one paying for UBI. This is going to be financed by borrowing.

Re: UK government to pay up to 80% of wages for employees not working

#59

Post by michaelmrose »

AntonStratiev wrote: post #24

Has anyone calculated the value of life that we are saving here? The Imperial College report had 510,000 dying in the UK under a no-action scenario. Average age lets say 79 as the virus progresses. 510,000 * (82.5-79) * GBP 30,000 (QALY for the NHS) = 53.5 billion pounds based on the funding methodology used for the NHS. Instead the Uk seems to be willing to throw its entire GDP at this problem, 3 trillion pounds. Th…

Can you show me how you calculated the 3 trillion dollar cost? Are you for example counting loans to businesses as if none will be paid back? Are we talking about the economic impact or direct costs or both?

To be clear the UK has 29 million workers who make an average of 28k pounds. If 60% of them are off work and can't work from home paying 80% of that wage to 60% of them would appear to cost about 32 billion pounds per month.

The GDP in 2019 was 2.21T pounds. If we had to pay 80% of 60% of the workforce for 6 months this would cost 195B pounds or 9% of the GDP aprox.

This would be about 400k per life saved which is still a lot of money but honestly would you rather the rich have bigger mansions or your fellow vulnerable citizens be alive?

It is deceptive to claim that the only people dying are 80 year olds. Here is a local that just died in my state aged 42.

https://komonews.com/news/coronavirus/breast-cancer-survivor...

Re: UK government to pay up to 80% of wages for employees not working

#60

Post by matthewmacleod »

Jupe wrote: post #17

So, with all these people not working... when do our supplies start to run out? I mean, the stores are getting replenished now; but what happens when the supply chain dries up for a period of time? Will we be able to boot-strap the supply chain to keep the economies of the world rolling?

There is no reason to expect that supplies will start to run out. The people who are not working are broadly not involved in the supply chain for essential goods.
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