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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

#61

Post by Zetaphor »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #21
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…

> and estimated $300B to the people ($1,200) stimulus checks It’s not correct to say that people only received $1200. Everyone qualified for that stimulus (depending on income thresholds, it was phased out for higher incomes), regardless of job loss. Unemployed people receive an additional $600/week from the late-March COVID relief bill through July 31. There are additional measures to extend the duration of regular…

> That amount went to everyone, regardless of job loss.

This is provably false. It only went to people who filed taxes in 2019 and who met the qualifications.

Despite both of those things still being true, and having lost my job as a direct result of COVID-19, I was still told I would not be receiving the benefits. I was not given a reason by the automated system and I have yet to reach a human being to explain my rejection. I am far from an isolated case

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

#62

Post by contravariant »

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.

I'm not an economists, but I don't think that's how it works.

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

#63

Post by dlp211 »

bradstewart wrote: post #46
hobs wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think subsidizing the poor enough so our economy doesn't have to choose between immediately collapsing and killing the poor wouldn't save us an enormous set of costs?

I absolutely think we should do that. The problem is it's extremely hard to quantify that cost/gain, while its extremely easy to quantity the cost/gain of low-interest loans. Not to say its impossible, or that we shouldn't try--we should. But when you have a bunch of senators arguing, it's easier to point to the easy numbers.

Why do we need to quantify it?

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

#64

Post by monocasa »

ceejayoz wrote: post #51
monocasa wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.)

Even then, demand scaling doesn't happen instantly.

Markets aren't perfectly elastic.

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

#65

Post by PragmaticPulp »

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.

> Uncle Sam has long since stopped paying for things with tax money.

That’s very disingenuous. Obviously we all know that spending is financed by debt.

But where do you think we get the money to service that debt? We can’t borrow infinitely.

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

#66

Post by Zetaphor »

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.…

> and a majority of Americans have a 401k

You are living in a confirmation bubble, one easily disproven by data. I'm a career engineer and I don't even have a 401k

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

#67

Post by mitchdoogle »

packetlost wrote: post #50
hobs wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think subsidizing the poor enough so our economy doesn't have to choose between immediately collapsing and killing the poor wouldn't save us an enormous set of costs?

It probably would. But solving that problem is significantly harder than putting out loans to large companies that employ thousands of people. If the airline industry collapsed, many other things would've followed. Certain industries are absolutely essential infrastructure to the economy and cataclysmic events can have massive ripple effects.

The loss of jobs and income is going to have cataclysmic cascading effects, worse than if a few large companies had gone under. It hasn't even started yet.

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

#68

Post by eanzenberg »

greesil wrote: post #45
eanzenberg wrote: post #40

[flagged]

Could you elaborate on how keeping people from starving is communism, or any other ideology?

How are they starving when they’re making more sitting home than they made going to work? Are you implying they were starving before? Are there any starving people in the USA?

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

#69

Post by chasd00 »

tkeAmarktinClss wrote: post #22
hobs wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

The bailout have totally changed my mind on why you should work for a fortune 500 company Individuals will never have political power like a billion dollar corporation. If you can rise up the ranks, you get some of this power. Sure it's a moonshot, but how many self made people make billion dollar companies? You could count them. I think I'm going to pick a major fortune 500 and leach off it. Even if I hang around th…

i've sort of came to this conclusion too. I've spent most of my career in the small biz and startup world. I'm over worrying about the fate of the entire company every hour of the day. I have a family and these days I just want a paycheck that isn't late, a 401k, and PTO. Maybe i'm officially old... or maybe just more wise ha.

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

#70

Post by ceejayoz »

monocasa wrote: post #64
ceejayoz wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.)

Even then, demand scaling doesn't happen instantly. Markets aren't perfectly elastic.

They're not perfectly elastic, but they're not inelastic either.

As an example, NYC was offering $10k/week for travel nurses. It's clear that pay can drive labor supply, even if it's not perfect.

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