7 ms·

U.S. Labor Department allows unemployment benefits for coronavirus

155 points by djsumdog 7y ago

thrill 7y ago
You know what else would help? Since the risk curve bends sharply upward at age 60, immediately allow anyone to start drawing full social security payments at age 60, without any sort of penalty. Those companies that value their older workers would now be in the position of making work-from-home a full-fledged option, because the bargaining power would shift to where it belongs - the worker.
- zymhan 7y ago
  That would both put a massive strain on the Social Security trust and not pressure employers at all, since they'd likely be happy to have the most expensive employees retire early.
  - thrill 7y ago
    If we can afford a $1.5 trillion injection into the markets, then we can afford moving the SS retirement age to 60 where the most vulnerable exist.
    - OscarCunningham 7y ago
      The money being "injected into the market" is in exchange for assets. They're not just giving it away.
      - deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - QuesnayJr 7y ago
      The $1.5 trillion injection doesn't actually cost any money. The Fed is making short-term fully-collateralized loans.
      - claudeganon 7y ago
        Yes, just like how poor people can get 1.5 trillion in subsidized payday loans to cover the gap between pay checks...oh wait. It’s absolutely a bailout.
        ivalm 7y ago
        Payday loans are generally not overnight and are typically not collateralized; they are in fact very risky. Repo's are overnight borrowing collateralized by the US Treasuries. Basically it is borrowing to maintain capitalization requirements in these high volatility times. From the perspective of the US government they have literally 0 risk (you are guaranteed to get back either USD denominated money or US treasury).
        SilasX 7y ago
        If you want to use that analogy ... You should compare it to a payday loan that is collateralized [1]. And then where the collateral happens to be insufficient because a glut of that item just came on the market (analogous to the sudden rush of banks needing to convert their Treasurys to cash). For the ordinary person, "Sorry, can't help you, you just have to deal with the fact that everyone else is selling that product too and so it doesn't provide the value you want and you have to take a big loss or an interest rate corresponding to higher risk." For banks, "Omg! You can't sell your bonds at par because everyone else is trying to sell before maturity? You poor thing, let me buy them up for you with new money!" [1] Sometimes referred to as "title loans", as you might e.g. put up your (remaining equity in your) car as the collateral.
        ivalm 7y ago
        Except for they are not using random bonds, they are using Treasuries. This isn't random toxic debt, it's the debt of the US government to itself. More akin to "if banks are insolvent this ensures a certain degree of quantitative easing", which is a good thing since we are undershooting our inflation targets as is.
    - Mountain_Skies 7y ago
      The $1.5 trillion thing is a bit confusing. That came from the Federal Reserve, not the US Treasury so didn't it just essentially chip away a little bit at the value of all dollars in existence instead of adding to the national debt? The Fed just created that money out of thin air (or zooming electrons) as far as I can tell. A small inflationary tax on everyone holding dollars?
      - ComputerGuru 7y ago
        They’re technically short-term loans only (like, overnight) to avoid that issue.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - PeterStuer 7y ago
      You will gt downvoted like there is no tomorrow here, but you are factually correct. Sadly people do not grasp our fiduciary currency based financial system. We create money all in extreme amounts all the time. Money is not some sort of 'ore' which we have to mine out of the planet through hard labor. It's a resource we create at will by simple agreement and at the push of a button in unlimited quantities. The 'downside' is that 'new' money potentially can devalue existing money, as there is just more to go around. Giving the massive amounts of money we create daily to those that need it, for instance to retire after a reasonable lifetime of work, in some twisted logic feels 'bad', where lavishing it on those that do not need it, so they can use it just to hoard, speculate, or buy back their own stock, seems to be accepted as 'fine'.
      - dmix 7y ago
        Comparing fed injections to expanding social security spending is not "factually correct" though, it's a very weak analogy and two very different things. You can be critical of QE, monetary policy, and the general priorities of the government but it doesn't make OP's point a helpful one. Especially considering the lack of centralized control, let alone the various other major differences between it and entitlement spending.
  - rolltiide 7y ago
    Oh right because all of our pensions systems are based on people actually dying after 60, keep forgetting that.
- larrywright 7y ago
  Social security is based on what you paid in, so the earlier you start withdrawing the lower your monthly check is. You couldn’t allow people to receive the full amount starting at 60 without bankrupting the program.
  - dsr_ 7y ago
    Ahem. Social security is not self-funded, it's funded by current payroll tax receipts, plus a 2.6 trillion trust fund, plus about 5 trillion in debt owed to it by the rest of the government.
    - surge 7y ago
      Right, SS is already in a risky position, most millenials question if it'll even be standing when it comes to their turn (especially if population drops since they're having less children who will pay in), what they're suggesting would make it worse.
      - rlt 7y ago
        Well... it's a morbid thought, but if COVID-19 kills a large number of old people quickly, maybe SS will work itself out (FWIW it was my elderly dad who pointed this out to me) Related: according to Twitter, kids are starting to call COVID-19 the "boomer remover" https://twitter.com/BaileyCarlin/status/1238147875143647234 https://twitter.com/BaileyCarlin/status/1238147875143647234
      - thawaway1837 7y ago
        Yeah, except that’s not true at all. SS is not in a risky position. The worst that can happen to it is current SS receipts do not pay out enough money for the current SS recipients to live a reasonable quality of life. SS is a transfer of funds from current earners to current retirees. People trying to scare people about SS talk about the trust fund depleting, but the trust fund is simply a bonus that was created to account for the fact that when the baby boomers started retiring, their numbers would be much greater than the numbers of working people to maintain a healthy SS system. So they set aside some additional money so the large number of baby boomers, who in their prime had to pay for a relatively smaller number of retirees, were paying some money towards their own retirement and so wouldn’t place too much of a burden when they retired.
- gnopgnip 7y ago
  Being able to collect social security early is not as big of a negotiating tool as you would expect. It just doesn't pay enough to be an alternative for a lot of people, and it wasn't designed to be
- onetimemanytime 7y ago
  Maybe a one time payment from the Government, say $3K for 2 months, without changing anything.
  - zymhan 7y ago
    I wonder if the Social Security program is allowed to do something like a one off payment, I've never heard that floated before.
- cameldrv 7y ago
  On the other hand, the whole Coronavirus response is largely the young sacrificing for the old. That's a sacrifice I'm willing to make, but older people should not get special financial consideration.
oxymoran 7y ago
Hopefully all the states implement this as it would help immensely at least in theory. I’d prefer an emergency temporary UBI but bureaucrats gotta bureaucrat.
- lukifer 7y ago
  Though it's obviously a long-shot, Tulsi Gabbard just introduced a UBI COVID-19 relief bill: https://gabbard.house.gov/sites/gabbard.house.gov/files/documents/GABBAR_185_xml.pdf https://gabbard.house.gov/sites/gabbard.house.gov/files/docu...
pkaye 7y ago
Also California just waived the waiting period for unemployment benefits and short term disability as a result of Covid19.
ohithereyou 7y ago
If COVID-19 digs in deep in the US then there is going to be a transformational change in how US citizens think about work, travel, entertainment, security, and the relationship between US citizens and their government. All of these aspects are intertwined: Work: More people will work more time from home and many firms will switch to virtually full time remote with limited physical gathering. This will decrease the cost of office rents and alter the work/life balance. It will affect wages because people can live outside of city centers and still work so companies will pay less. We may be on the cusp of US government guaranteed sick leave. Travel: People will, for the short term, do less travel for pleasure, but the big impact, long term, business trips will decrease. More and more business meetings will be replaced with voice and video conferencing. There was no big driver other than some cost reduction here, but now safety and security will be the big drivers here. Global pandemic concerns (prevention, containment) will complicate travel to varying degrees, and in a way that most US citizens aren't used to - it will affect interstate travel, not just trans-national travel. Entertainment: Many of the sports that have been deferred or canceled will likely be replaced with other forms of entertainment that can be viewed on television or the Internet. Fewer people will go to live performances, both because they can't (cancelled by the government) and reluctant to after COVID clears. This will affect service workers - where most of the lesser skilled jobs have been created in the last three decades. Security: Security will no longer be seen as just a physical access control concern. Business has been preparing over the last two decades for the eventuality of global pandemic - now they can put those plans into action, and the impacts of them will cascade into personal lives. US citizens will be demanding more from their government in disaster preparedness on pandemics - it will affect travel. All of these tie into how US citizens see their relationship with their government, and what they demand from it.
- smacktoward 7y ago
  > Entertainment: Many of the sports that have been deferred or canceled will likely be replaced with other forms of entertainment that can be viewed on television or the Internet. Fewer people will go to live performances, both because they can't (cancelled by the government) and reluctant to after COVID clears. My guess is that you're overstating the long-term effect on this front. People like leaving the house; people like gathering with other people; people have liked these things for as long as there have been people. They're not going to stop liking them because they've been stuck alone indoors for a couple of months. Enforced abstinence for a while may even increase demand for social entertainment, once the dust settles -- "you don't know what you've got until it's gone," etc.
vsareto 7y ago
I bailed on a job just before all of this started because we weren't doing any work for 3 months and I got bored. Biggest mistake ever.
- throw51319 7y ago
  You got bored of collecting an easy paycheck? But do you think tech hiring will really slow down? I feel like there is just too much momentum in the area. We are the force multipliers.
  - vsareto 7y ago
    Yeah I had just switched to pentesting, was eager to get started. Killed some passion. Believe me, I'd still be collecting it if I knew this was going to happen. >But do you think tech hiring will really slow down? We should be good but these are extraordinary times.
    - throw51319 7y ago
      Did you have a solid safety net when you bailed? I considered doing the same a year or so ago. I don't think this is a systemic problem like 2008... so I don't see how it kills off viable tech projects. If you are top 20% skills you will be fine. It's just going to kill off overleveraged entities, and also kill off non-viable business models.
      - vsareto 7y ago
        >Did you have a solid safety net when you bailed? Yeah, took cash positions before leaving.
black_puppydog 7y ago
One of my podcasts recently said something that I found very fitting: Americans really love themselves some socialism when they get it.
- lukifer 7y ago
  We have incredible status quo bias on the subject of public resources and economic infrastructure; if we already have it (schools, libraries, Medicare), it's sacrosanct; but if it's any new idea or initiative, it's scary socialism destined to lead to starvation and gulags. The legendary Craig T. Nelson quote comes to mind: "I've been on food stamps and welfare. Anybody help me out? No."
- refurb 7y ago
  I don't think there are any humans alive on this earth that won't happily accept free money.
  - AnthonyMouse 7y ago
    Especially when it's free money. One of the worst things the government does is take your own money only to give it back with strings attached or in the form of programs they paid more for than it would have cost you to buy in the market. If all they were doing is giving people cash then you could just as easily call it a tax cut. And nobody turns those down either.
- gnopgnip 7y ago
  US government spending is 38% of the GDP. But don't call it socialism, it's economic stimulus.
- djsumdog 7y ago
  Most people don't even remotely understand what socialism is. Every public road, every interstate, every subsidized city train/bus system, every public park, every police department, every fire department, the CDC, the FDA, the EPA .. they are ALL examples of socialism. You cannot have a high income country without a high level of socialism. Socialism is simply the State providing services for its people.
batmaniam 7y ago
So where can one apply?
devreps 7y ago
Here's a free guide on managing remote teams: https://knowyourteam.com/m/managing_remote_teams https://knowyourteam.com/m/managing_remote_teams
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
epicureanideal 7y ago
I wonder if people who don't have regular jobs would be able to use these services in any way? As far as I know, self employed people don't qualify for these for example. I'm not an expert, but that's what it looked like last time I checked.
- jeh993 7y ago
  Being self-employed and having lost a lot of business due to the cancellation of conferences and sporting events, I've looked into it and as far as I am aware, I am not eligible for any sort of unemployment benefit.
gentleman11 7y ago
Helpful, but not much good if somebody was coincidentally between jobs before this started. I bet not a lot of hiring is going in (although the linkedin recruiter spam hasn’t stopped)

155 points by djsumdog 7y ago

You know what else would help? Since the risk curve bends sharply upward at age 60, immediately allow anyone to start drawing full social security payments at age 60, without any sort of penalty. Those companies that value their older workers would now be in the position of making work-from-home a full-fledged option, because the bargaining power would shift to where it belongs - the worker.

zymhan 7y ago
That would both put a massive strain on the Social Security trust and not pressure employers at all, since they'd likely be happy to have the most expensive employees retire early.
- thrill 7y ago
  If we can afford a $1.5 trillion injection into the markets, then we can afford moving the SS retirement age to 60 where the most vulnerable exist.
  - OscarCunningham 7y ago
    The money being "injected into the market" is in exchange for assets. They're not just giving it away.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - QuesnayJr 7y ago
    The $1.5 trillion injection doesn't actually cost any money. The Fed is making short-term fully-collateralized loans.
    - claudeganon 7y ago
      Yes, just like how poor people can get 1.5 trillion in subsidized payday loans to cover the gap between pay checks...oh wait. It’s absolutely a bailout.
      - ivalm 7y ago
        Payday loans are generally not overnight and are typically not collateralized; they are in fact very risky. Repo's are overnight borrowing collateralized by the US Treasuries. Basically it is borrowing to maintain capitalization requirements in these high volatility times. From the perspective of the US government they have literally 0 risk (you are guaranteed to get back either USD denominated money or US treasury).
        SilasX 7y ago
        If you want to use that analogy ... You should compare it to a payday loan that is collateralized [1]. And then where the collateral happens to be insufficient because a glut of that item just came on the market (analogous to the sudden rush of banks needing to convert their Treasurys to cash). For the ordinary person, "Sorry, can't help you, you just have to deal with the fact that everyone else is selling that product too and so it doesn't provide the value you want and you have to take a big loss or an interest rate corresponding to higher risk." For banks, "Omg! You can't sell your bonds at par because everyone else is trying to sell before maturity? You poor thing, let me buy them up for you with new money!" [1] Sometimes referred to as "title loans", as you might e.g. put up your (remaining equity in your) car as the collateral.
        ivalm 7y ago
        Except for they are not using random bonds, they are using Treasuries. This isn't random toxic debt, it's the debt of the US government to itself. More akin to "if banks are insolvent this ensures a certain degree of quantitative easing", which is a good thing since we are undershooting our inflation targets as is.
  - Mountain_Skies 7y ago
    The $1.5 trillion thing is a bit confusing. That came from the Federal Reserve, not the US Treasury so didn't it just essentially chip away a little bit at the value of all dollars in existence instead of adding to the national debt? The Fed just created that money out of thin air (or zooming electrons) as far as I can tell. A small inflationary tax on everyone holding dollars?
    - ComputerGuru 7y ago
      They’re technically short-term loans only (like, overnight) to avoid that issue.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - PeterStuer 7y ago
    You will gt downvoted like there is no tomorrow here, but you are factually correct. Sadly people do not grasp our fiduciary currency based financial system. We create money all in extreme amounts all the time. Money is not some sort of 'ore' which we have to mine out of the planet through hard labor. It's a resource we create at will by simple agreement and at the push of a button in unlimited quantities. The 'downside' is that 'new' money potentially can devalue existing money, as there is just more to go around. Giving the massive amounts of money we create daily to those that need it, for instance to retire after a reasonable lifetime of work, in some twisted logic feels 'bad', where lavishing it on those that do not need it, so they can use it just to hoard, speculate, or buy back their own stock, seems to be accepted as 'fine'.
    - dmix 7y ago
      Comparing fed injections to expanding social security spending is not "factually correct" though, it's a very weak analogy and two very different things. You can be critical of QE, monetary policy, and the general priorities of the government but it doesn't make OP's point a helpful one. Especially considering the lack of centralized control, let alone the various other major differences between it and entitlement spending.
- rolltiide 7y ago
  Oh right because all of our pensions systems are based on people actually dying after 60, keep forgetting that.
larrywright 7y ago
Social security is based on what you paid in, so the earlier you start withdrawing the lower your monthly check is. You couldn’t allow people to receive the full amount starting at 60 without bankrupting the program.
- dsr_ 7y ago
  Ahem. Social security is not self-funded, it's funded by current payroll tax receipts, plus a 2.6 trillion trust fund, plus about 5 trillion in debt owed to it by the rest of the government.
  - surge 7y ago
    Right, SS is already in a risky position, most millenials question if it'll even be standing when it comes to their turn (especially if population drops since they're having less children who will pay in), what they're suggesting would make it worse.
    - rlt 7y ago
      Well... it's a morbid thought, but if COVID-19 kills a large number of old people quickly, maybe SS will work itself out (FWIW it was my elderly dad who pointed this out to me) Related: according to Twitter, kids are starting to call COVID-19 the "boomer remover" https://twitter.com/BaileyCarlin/status/1238147875143647234 https://twitter.com/BaileyCarlin/status/1238147875143647234
    - thawaway1837 7y ago
      Yeah, except that’s not true at all. SS is not in a risky position. The worst that can happen to it is current SS receipts do not pay out enough money for the current SS recipients to live a reasonable quality of life. SS is a transfer of funds from current earners to current retirees. People trying to scare people about SS talk about the trust fund depleting, but the trust fund is simply a bonus that was created to account for the fact that when the baby boomers started retiring, their numbers would be much greater than the numbers of working people to maintain a healthy SS system. So they set aside some additional money so the large number of baby boomers, who in their prime had to pay for a relatively smaller number of retirees, were paying some money towards their own retirement and so wouldn’t place too much of a burden when they retired.
gnopgnip 7y ago
Being able to collect social security early is not as big of a negotiating tool as you would expect. It just doesn't pay enough to be an alternative for a lot of people, and it wasn't designed to be
onetimemanytime 7y ago
Maybe a one time payment from the Government, say $3K for 2 months, without changing anything.
- zymhan 7y ago
  I wonder if the Social Security program is allowed to do something like a one off payment, I've never heard that floated before.
cameldrv 7y ago
On the other hand, the whole Coronavirus response is largely the young sacrificing for the old. That's a sacrifice I'm willing to make, but older people should not get special financial consideration.

oxymoran 7y ago

Hopefully all the states implement this as it would help immensely at least in theory. I’d prefer an emergency temporary UBI but bureaucrats gotta bureaucrat.

lukifer 7y ago
Though it's obviously a long-shot, Tulsi Gabbard just introduced a UBI COVID-19 relief bill: https://gabbard.house.gov/sites/gabbard.house.gov/files/documents/GABBAR_185_xml.pdf https://gabbard.house.gov/sites/gabbard.house.gov/files/docu...

pkaye 7y ago

Also California just waived the waiting period for unemployment benefits and short term disability as a result of Covid19.

ohithereyou 7y ago

If COVID-19 digs in deep in the US then there is going to be a transformational change in how US citizens think about work, travel, entertainment, security, and the relationship between US citizens and their government. All of these aspects are intertwined: Work: More people will work more time from home and many firms will switch to virtually full time remote with limited physical gathering. This will decrease the cost of office rents and alter the work/life balance. It will affect wages because people can live outside of city centers and still work so companies will pay less. We may be on the cusp of US government guaranteed sick leave. Travel: People will, for the short term, do less travel for pleasure, but the big impact, long term, business trips will decrease. More and more business meetings will be replaced with voice and video conferencing. There was no big driver other than some cost reduction here, but now safety and security will be the big drivers here. Global pandemic concerns (prevention, containment) will complicate travel to varying degrees, and in a way that most US citizens aren't used to - it will affect interstate travel, not just trans-national travel. Entertainment: Many of the sports that have been deferred or canceled will likely be replaced with other forms of entertainment that can be viewed on television or the Internet. Fewer people will go to live performances, both because they can't (cancelled by the government) and reluctant to after COVID clears. This will affect service workers - where most of the lesser skilled jobs have been created in the last three decades. Security: Security will no longer be seen as just a physical access control concern. Business has been preparing over the last two decades for the eventuality of global pandemic - now they can put those plans into action, and the impacts of them will cascade into personal lives. US citizens will be demanding more from their government in disaster preparedness on pandemics - it will affect travel. All of these tie into how US citizens see their relationship with their government, and what they demand from it.

smacktoward 7y ago
> Entertainment: Many of the sports that have been deferred or canceled will likely be replaced with other forms of entertainment that can be viewed on television or the Internet. Fewer people will go to live performances, both because they can't (cancelled by the government) and reluctant to after COVID clears. My guess is that you're overstating the long-term effect on this front. People like leaving the house; people like gathering with other people; people have liked these things for as long as there have been people. They're not going to stop liking them because they've been stuck alone indoors for a couple of months. Enforced abstinence for a while may even increase demand for social entertainment, once the dust settles -- "you don't know what you've got until it's gone," etc.

vsareto 7y ago

I bailed on a job just before all of this started because we weren't doing any work for 3 months and I got bored. Biggest mistake ever.

throw51319 7y ago
You got bored of collecting an easy paycheck? But do you think tech hiring will really slow down? I feel like there is just too much momentum in the area. We are the force multipliers.
- vsareto 7y ago
  Yeah I had just switched to pentesting, was eager to get started. Killed some passion. Believe me, I'd still be collecting it if I knew this was going to happen. >But do you think tech hiring will really slow down? We should be good but these are extraordinary times.
  - throw51319 7y ago
    Did you have a solid safety net when you bailed? I considered doing the same a year or so ago. I don't think this is a systemic problem like 2008... so I don't see how it kills off viable tech projects. If you are top 20% skills you will be fine. It's just going to kill off overleveraged entities, and also kill off non-viable business models.
    - vsareto 7y ago
      >Did you have a solid safety net when you bailed? Yeah, took cash positions before leaving.

black_puppydog 7y ago

One of my podcasts recently said something that I found very fitting: Americans really love themselves some socialism when they get it.

lukifer 7y ago
We have incredible status quo bias on the subject of public resources and economic infrastructure; if we already have it (schools, libraries, Medicare), it's sacrosanct; but if it's any new idea or initiative, it's scary socialism destined to lead to starvation and gulags. The legendary Craig T. Nelson quote comes to mind: "I've been on food stamps and welfare. Anybody help me out? No."
refurb 7y ago
I don't think there are any humans alive on this earth that won't happily accept free money.
- AnthonyMouse 7y ago
  Especially when it's free money. One of the worst things the government does is take your own money only to give it back with strings attached or in the form of programs they paid more for than it would have cost you to buy in the market. If all they were doing is giving people cash then you could just as easily call it a tax cut. And nobody turns those down either.
gnopgnip 7y ago
US government spending is 38% of the GDP. But don't call it socialism, it's economic stimulus.
djsumdog 7y ago
Most people don't even remotely understand what socialism is. Every public road, every interstate, every subsidized city train/bus system, every public park, every police department, every fire department, the CDC, the FDA, the EPA .. they are ALL examples of socialism. You cannot have a high income country without a high level of socialism. Socialism is simply the State providing services for its people.

batmaniam 7y ago

So where can one apply?

devreps 7y ago

Here's a free guide on managing remote teams: https://knowyourteam.com/m/managing_remote_teams https://knowyourteam.com/m/managing_remote_teams

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

epicureanideal 7y ago

I wonder if people who don't have regular jobs would be able to use these services in any way? As far as I know, self employed people don't qualify for these for example. I'm not an expert, but that's what it looked like last time I checked.

jeh993 7y ago
Being self-employed and having lost a lot of business due to the cancellation of conferences and sporting events, I've looked into it and as far as I am aware, I am not eligible for any sort of unemployment benefit.

gentleman11 7y ago

Helpful, but not much good if somebody was coincidentally between jobs before this started. I bet not a lot of hiring is going in (although the linkedin recruiter spam hasn’t stopped)