Hazard pay in focus as essential workers earn less than the jobless • Hacker News Board

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

#81

Post by amscanne » Thu, Jul 02, 2020, 2:22 PM UTC

TheSoftwareGuy wrote: post #48

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they didn’t index the unemployment to the person’s earnings...we didn’t have an easy way to implement a more complex unemployment system at a national level This wasn't an oversight or logistical concern [1]. [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/03/26/coronavirus...

From your own article: >President Trump and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin worked to convince those senators that the universal $600 unemployment boost would be more efficient than varying supplements by income because that would require the federal government to administer funds through a patchwork of state-run unemployment programs, The Washington Post reported.

The point made above is that this was a well-known aspect of the supplement. That the executive had other reasons for pushing the bill anyways doesn’t change that.

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

#82

Post by panzagl » Thu, Jul 02, 2020, 2:23 PM UTC

dlp211 wrote: post #63

bradstewart wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Because we shouldn't spend tax money on solutions that show no gain or make things worse for the country as a whole.

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

#83

Post by jschwartzi » Thu, Jul 02, 2020, 2:24 PM UTC

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…

The medical insurance is typically really good too. When my fiancé quit her job due to the hazards of working retail it turned out that for only 200 more a month we could retain her insurance and shave 12000 off the cost of having a baby. They pay for IVF too if we need it which is normally a six figure procedure.

Having a baby was otherwise so expensive we weren’t sure we could afford it.

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

#84

Post by Sodman » Thu, Jul 02, 2020, 2:25 PM UTC

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #39

clansimus wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That amount went to everyone, regardless of job loss. No, it didn't.

Okay, to be pedantic because your comment didn’t provide full details: The $1200 went to adults who were not dependents of someone else and who earned less than a certain threshold, with the amount prorated depending on your AGI and your tax filing type (single, married, head of household). My point was that everyone qualified for it. It wasn’t dependent on losing your job first. You could keep your job and still rec…

Part of the problem is that many people lost their jobs and were/are unemployed for months, but had a tax filing in a prior year above a threshold disqualified them from receiving the $1200.

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

#85

Post by dfxm12 » Thu, Jul 02, 2020, 2:27 PM UTC

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.

Whatever happened to doing worthwhile things because they're hard? Do you know how hard it is to have to quarantine yourself from your family because you've been deemed an essential worker, while getting seemingly nothing in return? Do you know how hard it is to live with the guilt of even possibly infecting others with COVID?

Clearly, the current administration puts corporate profits over the lives of Americans. Clearly, the current administration is allergic to hard work. Hopefully, Americans can send the message in November that there's no room in our government for people like that.

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

#86

Post by dlp211 » Thu, Jul 02, 2020, 2:27 PM UTC

dahfizz wrote: post #73

repeek wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and a majority of Americans have a 401k Source? According to the 2017 US Census, only 32% are saving in a 401k. [1] [1] https://www.fool.com/retirement/2017/06/19/does-the-average-...

Over 70% of workers have access to an employee retirement plan, and 56% of all workers participate in one[1]. So I did misremember the stats slightly. Its all workers instead of all Americans, and a generic "employer sponsored retirement plan" vs specifically a 401k, but my point still stands. If we exclude children and people who are already retired, only 26% are without retirement savings[2]. The ability of these p…

Great, now how much does the median retiree have saved?

Also, the vast majority of people shouldn't give two licks about keeping the market high today because the vast majority of people are more than a decade out from retirement. What should have been an event that allowed people to build wealth instead became one to preserve the wealth of those who already have it.

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

#87

Post by thebooktocome » Thu, Jul 02, 2020, 2:28 PM UTC

eanzenberg wrote: post #68

greesil wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/ag-and-food-statistic...

About four percent of households have "very low food security", defined as: “Reports of multiple indications of disrupted eating patterns and reduced food intake.”

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

#88

Post by adamsea » Thu, Jul 02, 2020, 2:28 PM UTC

eanzenberg wrote: post #68

greesil wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Yes. Food insecurity is an issue.

https://hungerandhealth.feedingamerica.org/understand-food-i...

About 1 in 9 people -- in the wealthiest nation that ever existed on earth, which as of 2016 had 540 billionaires living in it with with a combined net worth of about 2.3 trillion (via Forbes from a quick google) -- face food insecurity.

Relatedly, access to healthy food (that wont give you diabetes if you eat it all the time, to exaggerate a touch) is also an issue.

http://thefoodtrust.org/uploads/media_items/access-to-health...

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

#89

Post by chasd00 » Thu, Jul 02, 2020, 2:28 PM UTC

onei wrote: post #55

BurningFrog wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

dissertation after dissertation have been written on the subject. To me, it boils down to as long as the world sees value in the US dollar, or there isn't an alternative, the Fed can print as much as they want.

It certainly helps that US debt is denominated in its own currency so debt is as much of a burden on the US as the Fed wants it to be.

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

#90

Post by commandlinefan » Thu, Jul 02, 2020, 2:29 PM UTC

Nightshaxx wrote: post #49

> "You feel like, you guys [the government] never have money for people that really need it, and all of a sudden you have money for everybody," The government doesn't have this money, they are borrowing it. Debt levels are increasing like we are in wartime [1] but there is a massive negative impact on jobs, not a positive one like in a war. I have seen more than one person echo this sentiment and I wish people acctua…

> they are borrowing it

People have been saying that deficit spending will catch up to us since I was a kid, 30+ years ago. Every time deficit spending starts "catching up to us", the government responds with more deficit spending. It seems unsustainable to me, but there are people like Krugman who assure us that this can go on forever.