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Coronavirus: 18% of U.S. workers have lost jobs or hours, poll finds
- BubRoss 7y agoIn related news, 90% have either coughed or died suddenly. Losing hours and losing jobs are two very different things, conflating statistics like this is counterproductive to understanding.
- dangus 7y agoNo, they’re talking about just one thing - not receiving pay.
- amiga_500 7y agoFirst paragraph (and headline): > Some 18% of adults reported that they had been laid off or that their work hours had been cut
- elicash 7y agoI think the person you responded to was saying was that both of those things (being laid off and having hours cut) involve not receiving some amount of pay. And that that's the reason they were grouped together. Basically that it was answering one specific question: How many had pay impacted. But that it doesn't answer these other questions that yes would in fact be very useful, including a breakdown.
- amiga_500 7y agoPerhaps, but the data is merged and too much information is lost. Did I prick my finger or lose 4 pints of blood! == Less overtime or fired.
- elicash 7y agoI don't think that's a fair comparison, personally. Getting your hours cut is a big deal and might mean you can't pay your bills. Like I said, I think it's great to split them out if you can, but let's not minimize actual pain people are going to be going through right now. Especially on a site where the average income is so much higher than most.
- simondw 7y agoGrouping related things together isn't necessarily conflating. I don't think the article is trying to say "18% of workers have basically lost their jobs!!!", but rather to give a sense of how many people's incomes are impacted.
- WillPostForFood 7y agoIf they weren't trying to conflate them the headline would have been "Coronavirus: 18% of U.S. workers have reduced our or lost jobs"
- Tallasatree 7y agoAgreed, losing a job is very different than getting hours cut. Both suck, one sucks much much more.
- IanDrake 7y agoFor many, losing a job maybe preferable so they can collect unemployment. Edit for what I thought was obvious context: If you had a full-time job and where forced to go to meager part-time hours, it might be better to just get laid off and collect. I had a friend in this situation. It would have been better for him to have been laid off.
- dangus 7y agoHow? Unemployment is limited to half your pay.
- owenmarshall 7y agoMy charitable read would be to append: "... so they don't have to risk being infected at this time." A less charitable read is also quite possible.
- lkbm 7y agoMany service workers are getting a lot less money per hour worked than before because they're tip-based. A lot of employees also just lost their childcare as schools and day-cares closed. Getting half-pay and being free to take care of your children could be preferable to getting half- or even 80%-pay while having to find and pay a babysitter for the time you're still working. Also, to add to your point, most service workers don't get sick leave, so it's not just the risk of being infected -- if you get sick, you don't get paid. Unemployment still pays sick people.
- ilikehurdles 7y agoNot necessarily. Colorado's is something like 80% of your weekly compensation (I think the math looks at the average of the last 20 weeks of employment).
- dangus 7y agoHm, true, I guess I neglected to remember that unemployment is a state-managed program.
- amiga_500 7y agoWhy not break this into: N% have lost jobs N% have lost hours We don't have N% have dead or infected with cv, do we?
- Wohlf 7y agoBecause they want you to think the worst, i.e. 18% have lost jobs, because the title is clickbait.
- amiga_500 7y agoIf cv is very bad ( I really hope it is not ) many boomers will pass away. Who then will read newspapers? They are just utter garbage now. This is one of many changes CV will bring, IMHO.
- hinkley 7y agoThis year, over 20% of Americans have suffered death or tooth decay. Click here to find out how to protect your family.
- nerdponx 7y agoHow about total dollar value of reduced wages across the USA?
- erentz 7y agoThat’s not useful either. What does lost hours mean? Is that 10% of your hours or 90% of your hours. One friend has lost 100% of her hours but somehow is still employed. Is she “lost hours” or “lost jobs”?
- r00fus 7y agoHow about which N% will likely miss their rent payment? Because that's the key - those missed payments on 4/1 will have massive impacts to the economy.
- lsllc 7y agoSome fraction of that N% represents landlords who now may not be able to make their mortgage payment.
- baron816 7y agoBLS data is going to look crazy. Surely, there’ll be a jobs report where unemployment jumps from <4% to >10%. And then in a few months, it’ll jump back down again.
- nugget 7y agoHow far will it jump back down? A lot of small and medium sized businesses are pretty marginally profitable and exist because of legacy momentum. I'm starting to think that a lot of these businesses will never re-start after the pandemic ends.
- legohead 7y agowife's job is "firing" people so they can collect unemployment, and will rehire them later. I don't know the legalities around this, it's definitely odd. and you have to take the business' word for it...
- unlinked_dll 7y agoIt's not odd, that's pretty standard practice in dire situations like this. The company doesn't have the money to pay your wife or her colleagues, and since the government hasn't done anything special (yet) to help out businesses the only way they can guarantee she gets a portion of her salary is through layoffs. If they furloughed your wife instead, she would not get paid anything by anyone until the government decides what the relief effort looks like.
- gruez 7y agoAren't you also eligible for unemployment if you're laid off?
- edoceo 7y agoIf you terminate for cause then the employee can't get unemployment. So you "lay off" of "lose budget" then the employee can get benefits. (USA/WA interpretation)
- taylodl 7y agoConstruction companies do it annually - at least here where it gets cold in the Winter. I know people who get laid off every year and then re-hired once the Spring work picks back up. Thing is they know this so they're prepared and plan for it.
- sub7 7y agoSince 2008, most of the jobs created have been service jobs. The low unemployment everyone keeps on about is covering up the fact that the people who got employed got shittier jobs. This thing is going to be a bloodbath in the US. We'll probably see a Democratic wave in November.
- canada_dry 7y ago> We'll probably see a Democratic wave in November. I'm still on the fence about this. It's certainly conceivable that the Trump Whitehouse will throw excessive amounts of money at the problem - i.e. going downright socialist by giving millions of citizens $1,000 to $2,500/mnth welfare cheque through the spring. The almost certainty is that Trump (GOP et al) will do anything possibly to remain in power come November.
- tj-teej 7y agoI think this is a very interesting analysis. I think it's more apt to say there could be a Populist wave in Nov, which could be very positive for whichever party adopts a populist stance. Looking at the current state of the Democratic Primary it doesn't appear it will be the Dems which push that agenda.
- dluan 7y agoThis has been a big fear of the left - that if the GOP takes up the socialist plank for the working class before the DNC does, it would be a death knell for the resurgent American left. Throw in climate fear after this recession and there's been a lot of worry of ecofascism surging.
- r00fus 7y ago> We'll probably see a Democratic wave in November. Not if Republicans seize the opportunity to go populist and outflank the Democrats. Right now 2 major US Senators are calling for more populist relief than proposed by Democrats. [1] https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/16/politics/coronavirus-romney-proposal/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/16/politics/coronavirus-romney-p... [2] https://www.foxnews.com/media/tom-cotton-coronavirus-house-bill-cash-americans https://www.foxnews.com/media/tom-cotton-coronavirus-house-b...
- unlinked_dll 7y agoI'm hearing that companies are facing sudden cash flow problems, where due to the outbreak orders are cancelled last minute en masse. these companies guarantee 50-100% refunds no matter when you cancel, so orders are sitting on loading docks that have been paid for with no one to go, and the revenue has suddenly turned into costs. I have no idea why markets turned higher today. Shit is hitting the fan. Work is being stopped, layoffs are going on across small margin businesses, and people are not going to have money to pay their rent or mortgage in two weeks. And the only thing I've seen from the Government is talk - zero policy, zero decisions. And this isn't just your neighborhood cafes laying people off. It's companies up and down the supply chains and B2B manufacturers that don't operate on high margins and don't have vast reserves of cash. When the quarantines and shutdowns half, it's going to be a bloodbath of consolidation.
- RickJWagner 7y agoIf there's any saving grace, it might be that this is spring-break time. Perhaps some workers were planning on spending cash on a vacation, that money can be used for essentials. Wishful thinking, probably. But I'm really looking for ways this will all work out. (As it inevitably will.)