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This is painfully true. This is pretty well captured by the completely out of touch sentiments in [0], written by the folks at Crooked Media (generally Democrat

by wycy 7y ago

This is painfully true. This is pretty well captured by the completely out of touch sentiments in [0], written by the folks at Crooked Media (generally Democratic establishment people). The wealthy upper middle class sees the coronavirus quarantine as just a chill time to work from home on a laptop and drink wine. These people are not ignoring the plights of the poorer working class; they are altogether completely blind of it. They know that 3 million people just filed for unemployment, but they only know about it as an abstract statistic. The human cost is entirely lost on them. [0] https://crooked.com/articles/we-are-doing-fine-coronavirus/ https://crooked.com/articles/we-are-doing-fine-coronavirus/

reggieband 7y ago
> They know that 3 million people just filed for unemployment, but they only know about it as an abstract statistic. In a thread on HN someone commented that the 3m unemployment figure was only 1% of the population. I had to take a moment to let that sink in. It makes me worried about a future dominated by technocrats.
- jmole 7y ago
  a better percentage to use would be the delta in unemployment rate, e.g. 3M / (# of people who want to work). This would be approximately 3M / 158M [0], or a 1.8% rise in the unemployment rate. In the 2008 recession, we saw a total unemployment rate of almost 10%, so we'd have to lose an additional 7-8M jobs to get to that level. [0] https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t08.htm https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t08.htm
  - wycy 7y ago
    Considering the fed is warning about the possibility of 30% unemployment [0], an additional 7M could come next week. [0] https://www.usnews.com/news/economy/articles/2020-03-23/fed-official-unemployment-could-hit-30-as-coronavirus-slams-economy https://www.usnews.com/news/economy/articles/2020-03-23/fed-...
    - jmole 7y ago
      yes - I didn't mention it explicitly in my comment - but this much unemployment, coming this fast, is unprecedented in US history.
  - aabeshou 7y ago
    let's be clear - it's a 1.8% percentage point increase, relative to the entire US population. but data from the U.S. Dept of Labor (graphed in The Guardian [0]) shows weekly unemployment claims just shot up from around 250k to around 3.25 million, which is a 1300% increase [0] https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/mar/26/us-unemployment-rate-coronavirus-business https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/mar/26/us-unemploy...
- csallen 7y ago
  I think that's an extreme position, not a common one. I've also heard similar from a few on the right. "Only 1% of the population would die. That's not worth risking the economy over." And another gem: "People die every year, but what we are going to do about people losing their jobs?" There's nothing uniquely non-empathetic about technocrats.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
kirrent 7y ago
That seems like a little bit of a cherry picked article to support your point. Scrolling through the front page of that website the top article is an opinion piece by Joe Biden which writes about the importance of supporting young people and those out of work: "So we need to make sure that our economic recovery does not come at the expense of those who can least afford it or who are just getting started in life: Hard-working young people in service industries and retail that are being decimated by layoffs; all those who are hustling to make a living in the gig economy, and those who were already struggling to get by before this crisis, who are drowning in credit card debt or student loans, and who now are in even greater need of a lifeline." When I scroll further down the page I can see a fundraiser for readers to support "people and communities who are more vulnerable and need extra support during this time" including the National Domestic Workers Alliance, Restaurant Workers Community Foundation, and One Fair Wage. Apparently readers and podcast listeners have contributed about $650 000 which at least from an Australian perspective seems non-trivial. Finally, one of their most recent articles (I'm going through the articles because I'm not going to listen to the podcasts) on the politics of a pandemic titled "How Democrats Should Navigate Pandemic Politics" talks about the importance of directly supporting workers including with "paid-leave provision that’s much bigger than the one the White House watered down in the initial House bill, along with a broad Emergency Unemployment Insurance provision". I can't reconcile all this stuff with being blind to it. It looks like the founders of this site were in the white house while the medicaid expansion was passed which, at least from an outside perspective, seems to be the most important legislation of the past few decades for the poorer working class. Even that article you linked to doesn't seem like a damning indictment. If you read it a bit more closely it's at least partially a joke article where the writer talks about the resilience of the human spirit while writing on the walls in lipstick, getting gum in her hair, and napping in the middle of sentences. If it was a manifesto of values I'd agree with you that a lack of focus on unemployed people undergoing hardship would be notable, but it's not. It's just a joke.

by wycy 7y ago

reggieband 7y ago

> They know that 3 million people just filed for unemployment, but they only know about it as an abstract statistic. In a thread on HN someone commented that the 3m unemployment figure was only 1% of the population. I had to take a moment to let that sink in. It makes me worried about a future dominated by technocrats.

jmole 7y ago
a better percentage to use would be the delta in unemployment rate, e.g. 3M / (# of people who want to work). This would be approximately 3M / 158M [0], or a 1.8% rise in the unemployment rate. In the 2008 recession, we saw a total unemployment rate of almost 10%, so we'd have to lose an additional 7-8M jobs to get to that level. [0] https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t08.htm https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t08.htm
- wycy 7y ago
  Considering the fed is warning about the possibility of 30% unemployment [0], an additional 7M could come next week. [0] https://www.usnews.com/news/economy/articles/2020-03-23/fed-official-unemployment-could-hit-30-as-coronavirus-slams-economy https://www.usnews.com/news/economy/articles/2020-03-23/fed-...
  - jmole 7y ago
    yes - I didn't mention it explicitly in my comment - but this much unemployment, coming this fast, is unprecedented in US history.
- aabeshou 7y ago
  let's be clear - it's a 1.8% percentage point increase, relative to the entire US population. but data from the U.S. Dept of Labor (graphed in The Guardian [0]) shows weekly unemployment claims just shot up from around 250k to around 3.25 million, which is a 1300% increase [0] https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/mar/26/us-unemployment-rate-coronavirus-business https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/mar/26/us-unemploy...
csallen 7y ago
I think that's an extreme position, not a common one. I've also heard similar from a few on the right. "Only 1% of the population would die. That's not worth risking the economy over." And another gem: "People die every year, but what we are going to do about people losing their jobs?" There's nothing uniquely non-empathetic about technocrats.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

kirrent 7y ago

That seems like a little bit of a cherry picked article to support your point. Scrolling through the front page of that website the top article is an opinion piece by Joe Biden which writes about the importance of supporting young people and those out of work: "So we need to make sure that our economic recovery does not come at the expense of those who can least afford it or who are just getting started in life: Hard-working young people in service industries and retail that are being decimated by layoffs; all those who are hustling to make a living in the gig economy, and those who were already struggling to get by before this crisis, who are drowning in credit card debt or student loans, and who now are in even greater need of a lifeline." When I scroll further down the page I can see a fundraiser for readers to support "people and communities who are more vulnerable and need extra support during this time" including the National Domestic Workers Alliance, Restaurant Workers Community Foundation, and One Fair Wage. Apparently readers and podcast listeners have contributed about $650 000 which at least from an Australian perspective seems non-trivial. Finally, one of their most recent articles (I'm going through the articles because I'm not going to listen to the podcasts) on the politics of a pandemic titled "How Democrats Should Navigate Pandemic Politics" talks about the importance of directly supporting workers including with "paid-leave provision that’s much bigger than the one the White House watered down in the initial House bill, along with a broad Emergency Unemployment Insurance provision". I can't reconcile all this stuff with being blind to it. It looks like the founders of this site were in the white house while the medicaid expansion was passed which, at least from an outside perspective, seems to be the most important legislation of the past few decades for the poorer working class. Even that article you linked to doesn't seem like a damning indictment. If you read it a bit more closely it's at least partially a joke article where the writer talks about the resilience of the human spirit while writing on the walls in lipstick, getting gum in her hair, and napping in the middle of sentences. If it was a manifesto of values I'd agree with you that a lack of focus on unemployed people undergoing hardship would be notable, but it's not. It's just a joke.