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Hazard pay in focus as essential workers earn less than the jobless

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Re: Hazard pay in focus as essential workers earn less than the jobless

#51

Post by ceejayoz »

monocasa wrote: post #18
ceejayoz wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If there is an _actual_ shortage, increasing pay does not just fabricate workers. Sure it does. For some people, it means switching from stay-at-home parenting to daycare financially sensible. For someone on social security, it might mean temporarily going back to work is more attractive than it was. People go from not seeking jobs to seeking jobs all the time.

Demand scaling doesn't happen instantly. For instance, how are you going to get new CNAs (even reupped certs) right now when the schools are closed?

Things like CNAs are a small (important, but small) portion of what we're deeming "essential workers" in this pandemic.

The definition includes a vast set of un-credentialed workers; people at meat packing plants, grocery stores, cleaning staff, etc.

(Again, there will be licensed CNAs not working due to the cost of things like daycare. Raising wages changes that calculus, too.)

Re: Hazard pay in focus as essential workers earn less than the jobless

#52

Post by perfect_wave »

dahfizz wrote: post #25
throwaway_USD wrote: post #12

From the time Congress passed the $6.2T Bill that gave $4T to the FED to prop up the stock market, $700B in PPP loans; and and estimated $300B to the people ($1,200) stimulus checks, it should have put things in perspective. Ideally the stock market wouldn't have been propped up and the PPP loan program would have been more legitimate to save real small businesses (just wait until all the fraud comes out of this thin…

> If all that money instead went to the people/taxpayers they would all have received an $18,000 stimulus check instead of $1,200, I think this would have been the best move possible. Everyone I know would choose their entire retirement fund over a one time check of $18,000 . I understand your sentiment, and it does feel like we got less that we deserve, but stimulating the stock market was absolutely the right move.…

I did some searching and seemed to find that the majority of Americans do NOT have a 401k or do not contribute a significant amount.

"The typical household approaching retirement had $135,000 in combined 401(k)/IRA assets. These assets will provide $600 per month in retirement, an amount whose purchasing power will decline over time with inflation. Moreover, only half of house-holds have any 401(k)-related holdings." [1]

[1] http://crr.bc.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/IB_17-18.pdf

Re: Hazard pay in focus as essential workers earn less than the jobless

#53

Post by PragmaticPulp »

hobs wrote: post #10
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #5

> When she got her unemployment benefits, she realized something unheard of: She was making more money not working. The temporary COVID unemployment bill was so rushed that they didn’t index the unemployment to the person’s earnings. If you lost your job or had your hours reduced, you get an extra $600/week on top of state unemployment. About half of people receiving this are receiving more from the combined unemploy…

Our Quantitative easing and corporate bailouts are in the trillions, why would we not pay out significantly less for people who are struggling to find jobs? Why does the till start counting when its normal people affected?

> why would we not pay out significantly less for people who are struggling to find jobs?

The CARES act allocated most of the money to individuals, state and local governments, public health, and education initiatives.

The amount given to large corporations (much in the form of loans that will be paid back) is less than that given to individuals:

NPR has a good breakdown. The idea that corporations are receiving “trillions” in cash payments is a myth. https://www.npr.org/2020/03/26/821457551/whats-inside-the-se... I fully agree that the allocation and lack of oversight around the funds to corporations is not good, but it’s incorrect to suggest that trillions are going to corporations or that more money is going to corporations than individuals under this bill.

Furthermore, you can’t compare loans and measures like quantitative easing to cash payments like that. Giving someone a cash payment and giving a loan to a business have very different actual costs in the long-run, obviously.

Re: Hazard pay in focus as essential workers earn less than the jobless

#54

Post by binarymax »

dahfizz wrote: post #25
throwaway_USD wrote: post #12

From the time Congress passed the $6.2T Bill that gave $4T to the FED to prop up the stock market, $700B in PPP loans; and and estimated $300B to the people ($1,200) stimulus checks, it should have put things in perspective. Ideally the stock market wouldn't have been propped up and the PPP loan program would have been more legitimate to save real small businesses (just wait until all the fraud comes out of this thin…

> If all that money instead went to the people/taxpayers they would all have received an $18,000 stimulus check instead of $1,200, I think this would have been the best move possible. Everyone I know would choose their entire retirement fund over a one time check of $18,000 . I understand your sentiment, and it does feel like we got less that we deserve, but stimulating the stock market was absolutely the right move.…

> stimulating the stock market was absolutely the right move

False. The stock market has zero connection to the health of the actual economy right now, and is only enriching the privileged. Propping up the stock market was a political farce to make it look like the economy is doing fine when it clearly is not.

Re: Hazard pay in focus as essential workers earn less than the jobless

#55

Post by onei »

BurningFrog wrote: post #44
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #5

> When she got her unemployment benefits, she realized something unheard of: She was making more money not working. The temporary COVID unemployment bill was so rushed that they didn’t index the unemployment to the person’s earnings. If you lost your job or had your hours reduced, you get an extra $600/week on top of state unemployment. About half of people receiving this are receiving more from the combined unemploy…

> this is actually very expensive for the taxpayers Uncle Sam has long since stopped paying for things with tax money. Any new expense is handled by borrowing or printing money.

Isn't printing money when you're short risky economically? My high-school history was a long time ago, but this is what Germany did post-WW1 and it ended in people bartering the family silver for the essentials.

Re: Hazard pay in focus as essential workers earn less than the jobless

#56

Post by amscanne »

wolco wrote: post #17

Canada did this but come tax time the double incoming earns will have to pay it back. Is this not possible in the US?

Are you talking about the CERB? Canada didn’t give it to everyone, you had to apply but the CRA essentially approved every application immediately. Then, surprise surprise, there was rampant fraud (8 million Canadians applied and received CERB). So they announced that they will be auditing many applications and asking for it back, potentially adding fines for egregious cases.

Re: Hazard pay in focus as essential workers earn less than the jobless

#58

Post by lucaspm98 »

throwaway_USD wrote: post #19
monocasa wrote: post #9

I think it mainly highlighted an unfortunate part of our economy. The $600/wk thing looks like making sure everyone gets a living wage on unemployment until they thought we'd be able to reopen the economy fully and they'd be able to get a job as normal. But, it just highlighted how many people are working and not earning a living wage in the first place.

>But, it just highlighted how many people are working and not earning a living wage in the first place. Exactly, we allegedly had the best economy the world has ever seen, record high stock prices/markets, and lowest rate of unemployment. But the reality the economy was revealed to be weak and not even capitalism (capital based ownership) but some form of debtism (some form of financial servitude, in lieu of ownershi…

Honestly, the "debtism" as you describe it is more of a cultural issue of consumerism in America. The amount of people buying new $35,000 cars while they're making $40,000 a year is shocking.

It's been hard for me to understand, but from what I've read the Fed isn't buying stocks directly, although that is somewhat pedantic as they are trying to prop up the stock market through other means. I still don't see how that can be a good idea in the long run.

Re: Hazard pay in focus as essential workers earn less than the jobless

#59

Post by andybak »

eanzenberg wrote: post #40

[flagged]

This is where the debate usually starts from and then one thinks about it in a bit more depth and uncovers multiple layers of nuance and complexity. Where you end up probably depends on your general outlook and intellectual integrity but you've only just begun the journey.
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