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More Than 5.2M More U.S. Workers Filed for Unemployment

92 points by uptown 7y ago

zebrafish 7y ago
22MM total out of 157MM working Americans ~14%. More lost than have been added since 2008. Does anyone have a good idea about the actual prospects of a V shaped recovery?
- cjbenedikt 7y ago
  More like an extended W...???
  - joyj2nd 7y ago
    More like WWWL ? Dead cat bounce and then stagflation?
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - Zenbit_UX 7y ago
      In the year of the rat with venus out of alignment you need to look for a reverse-candlestick formation.
- treyfitty 7y ago
  The hypothetical V shape recovery that everyone was touting back in March was baseless- it was under the way out of touch assumption that lock downs would last only a month and business would be allowed to open as if it were an on/off switch. Basically, it assumed 0 secondary effects to recovery.
  - mywittyname 7y ago
    The fact that most people aren't claiming to be worried about this recession makes me worry.
    - ReptileMan 7y ago
      IT-s around me are also pretty secure about their employment chances - so I expect a bloodbath of layoffs there.
      - _curious_ 7y ago
        What is "IT-s"?
        ReptileMan 7y ago
        People working in IT?
    - dsfyu404ed 7y ago
      While it won't magically solve problems people having confidence in a speedy recovery and behaving accordingly is likely going to speed up the recovery. It is certainly not going to slow down recovery. It's like the inverse of getting a recession because people expect a recession and behave accordingly causing a recession.
    - imtringued 7y ago
      It's too late to worry.
      - empath75 7y ago
        No there is plenty to worry about still.
  - zebrafish 7y ago
    So maybe taking a look into capital cost of starting up, capital lost in lockdown, and cash flow and/or financing needed to regain that lost capital? Because, to your point, a restaurant can't just rehire all the chefs and cooks and waitstaff and go buy food and pay all of its overhead on day 1 with out some sort of influx of cash and guarantee of cashflow to service debt. And I'm assuming that model scales to larger industries as well.
    - treyfitty 7y ago
      I’ve owned a restaurant before so I can speak to this: you’re right about chefs- they’re very hard to find. What I imagine happening in the long run is a lot of restaurants shutting their doors 6-12 months from now. Stimulus and PPP will keep them afloat for a big, but the damage will be done, and chefs (who were way underpaid to begin with) will command slightly higher pay when all these restaurants start hiring again.
- dustingetz 7y ago
  V-recovery reporting is fully explained by politicians saying what people want to hear
- rauhl 7y ago
  So there are a few things to think about with respect to the recovery. Disclaimer: I am not an economist. One thing is that to a certain extent an economy is psychological. Yes, certain things are physical realities (such as crop yields) or political realities (e.g. states of war) or legal realities (like regulations against selling homemade beer), but a lot else is purely based on sentiment. And it doesn’t matter how good reality is if people think it’s bad: they won’t act in the market more than they must to survive, and it will actually be a bad market, even if the fundamentals justify a good one — at least for awhile, until enough contrarians seek to take advantage of good prices (a kind of sentiment arbitrage, I suppose). But something I worry about even more is well-intended interventions which make things worse and prolong the poor economy. There’s precedent for this in history: the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act was intended to alleviate the Great Depression but instead exacerbated it. Specifically, I can think of laws against so-called ‘price-gouging’ (which is a myth: no-one in all of human history has ever paid more for something than he felt it was worth to him at the time he bought it, because whenever anyone feels the all-in price for something is more than the all-in value … he doesn’t buy it): by interfering with the price mechanism which is the fundamental method for economic actors to bid for their needs and desires to be met, it will result in less-efficient allocation of resources (capital and labour) across the entire market. This misinvestment will by definition lead to a poorer economy than would otherwise be the case.
  - ip26 7y ago
    ‘price-gouging’ [...] is a myth You're laying on the operating table in the ER with a heart attack. Surgeon says, "OK before we put you under, in compensation I want 70% of your income for the rest of your life, or I'm not doing this. Deal?"
  - pixl97 7y ago
    > (which is a myth: no-one in all of human history has ever paid more for something than he felt it was worth to him at the time he bought it, because whenever anyone feels the all-in price for something is more than the all-in value … he doesn’t buy it) Ah, so you believe that medical care should bankrupt an individual every time they use it because it is priceless.
  - 7y ago
- treis 7y ago
  IMHO, that's not how it works. For better or worse companies are reluctant to fire in good times. There's a lot of people employed at jobs that aren't really needed. Things like the project they got hired for was canceled and they were just stuck somewhere. Projects that accomplish their goal still tend to drag on adding inconsequential features. And, of course, there's just the slackers skating by. When an economic crisis comes along they get canned and the business realizes that they weren't actually needed. When the good times come back they don't hire those employees back. They continue operating with a smaller staff and pocket the extra profit.
- webbruce 7y ago
  Zero. No way such massive companies can swing all of a sudden. - There's not enough tests still - People are scared of doing anything even if stores open up - Most importantly, sales just don't magically appear with the snap of your fingers, takes time to ramp up again - Companies are still heavily on only essential spending, that doesn't change overnight They're talking no public events til 2021 now. I think the realization is that this isn't just a 1-2mo ordeal. It's going to be a 1-2yr shift.
  - pixl97 7y ago
    >I think the realization is that this isn't just a 1-2mo ordeal. This is what happens when captains of the industry ignore pretty much any pandemic model that has been release in the last 50 years. Unless everyone catches it instantly and the whole process is over quick (which leads to massive death and long term economic impact), that it always takes a year or two of massive public change and a vaccine to get beyond the pandemic. Essentially the rest of the world has caught up with where the epidemiologists were in January.
mobilio 7y ago
https://archive.md/QpWki https://archive.md/QpWki
generalpass 7y ago
I received a message from our overlords that staying at home is staying safe. I don't feel safe.
brenden2 7y ago
This is an unpopular opinion, but I think it's worth considering that most of these people are probably hourly wage earners, and so when things open up again, they will probably be hired back very quickly. The people aren't going anywhere, and they haven't been deleted from society. When businesses reopen this number will probably drop substantially. The businesses themselves (restaurants, retail, etc) haven't gone anywhere, they're just not operating. Yes there will be some bankruptcies, but those companies will restructure, assets will be sold, and something else will pop up in place. If someone has a strong case for why this isn't true, I'd love to hear it, but it's my current working thesis and I haven't been convinced otherwise. I know it's unpopular because of politics and such, but I'm optimistic about recovery.
- pxeboot 7y ago
  I am expecting to see record business at the local bars when the lockdowns end. The demand is still there.
  - brenden2 7y ago
    That's funny, but it's something I've been thinking about too. When things open up I want to go see friends and catch up.
  - ashtonkem 7y ago
    Doubtful. There’s not going to be a clear end time to this shut down, and I for one won’t be going to a bar until I’m vaccinated.
    - gpickett00 7y ago
      You’re getting downvoted but I fully agree. Most people are talking as if the virus will be gone in a month or so. The lockdowns are not going away. We are going to have new hotspots popping up every week once lockdowns start releasing.
      - macintux 7y ago
ravenstine 7y ago
And those are just the people who filed for unemployment. Based on my experience of being a young person looking for work around the 2008 crash, I imagine there are millions of young people who want to work but won't find any, so they will simply move in with mom and dad. The total "unemployment" is almost certainly much higher than 14%.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- heavenlyblue 7y ago
  To be fair that is the case pre-vivid, so there shouldn’t be much of a difference for pure number crunchers.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
claudeganon 7y ago
I understand from the perspective of competence why the US wasn’t able to freeze mortgages/rents and absorb payrolls as other countries have, but it really seems like they missed their shot to save Capitalism. Millions upon millions of unemployed people, many watching their friends and family die from disease, a psychotic, entrenched politics, that caters primarily to corrupt elites... Historically, things don’t go very well from here.
- DamnYuppie 7y ago
  Save capitalism? I think that is a great over reaction, the Great Depression, crash of 87, nor of 2008 stopped it. So I am quite certain this will be but a hiccup when we look back 10 years from now.
  - claudeganon 7y ago
    We’re heading beyond Great Depression territory and that was only stabilized by massive social democratic interventions in the form of the New Deal. People like to forget how popular both fascism and communism became in the US during this period.
  - pixl97 7y ago
    >Great Depression > So I am quite certain this will be but a hiccup > ignoring the mass death of WWII It's not about saving capitalism, it's about saving people from terrible outcomes.
  - standardUser 7y ago
    The Great Depression resulted in the welfare state. It forever changed the balance between state and private sectors. It certainly was not a hiccup.
- bitcurious 7y ago
  >freeze mortgages/rents and The CARES Act has a provision regarding mortgage payments that basically requires that federally backed mortgages be frozen for up to 6 months, should the payee request it and claim to be impacted by COVID-19. >absorb payrolls as other countries have CARES Act has $350 Billion set aside for small business payroll expenses. There are separate provisions for Airlines, other specific industries. Furthermore, the CARES Act has extended and expanded unemployment benefits to anyone impacted by COVID, and has temporarily grown the benefit by $600/week, meaning that unemployment benefits are now total wage replacement (or better) for the median American.

92 points by uptown 7y ago

22MM total out of 157MM working Americans ~14%. More lost than have been added since 2008. Does anyone have a good idea about the actual prospects of a V shaped recovery?

cjbenedikt 7y ago
More like an extended W...???
- joyj2nd 7y ago
  More like WWWL ? Dead cat bounce and then stagflation?
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - Zenbit_UX 7y ago
    In the year of the rat with venus out of alignment you need to look for a reverse-candlestick formation.
treyfitty 7y ago
The hypothetical V shape recovery that everyone was touting back in March was baseless- it was under the way out of touch assumption that lock downs would last only a month and business would be allowed to open as if it were an on/off switch. Basically, it assumed 0 secondary effects to recovery.
- mywittyname 7y ago
  The fact that most people aren't claiming to be worried about this recession makes me worry.
  - ReptileMan 7y ago
    IT-s around me are also pretty secure about their employment chances - so I expect a bloodbath of layoffs there.
    - _curious_ 7y ago
      What is "IT-s"?
      - ReptileMan 7y ago
        People working in IT?
  - dsfyu404ed 7y ago
    While it won't magically solve problems people having confidence in a speedy recovery and behaving accordingly is likely going to speed up the recovery. It is certainly not going to slow down recovery. It's like the inverse of getting a recession because people expect a recession and behave accordingly causing a recession.
  - imtringued 7y ago
    It's too late to worry.
    - empath75 7y ago
      No there is plenty to worry about still.
- zebrafish 7y ago
  So maybe taking a look into capital cost of starting up, capital lost in lockdown, and cash flow and/or financing needed to regain that lost capital? Because, to your point, a restaurant can't just rehire all the chefs and cooks and waitstaff and go buy food and pay all of its overhead on day 1 with out some sort of influx of cash and guarantee of cashflow to service debt. And I'm assuming that model scales to larger industries as well.
  - treyfitty 7y ago
    I’ve owned a restaurant before so I can speak to this: you’re right about chefs- they’re very hard to find. What I imagine happening in the long run is a lot of restaurants shutting their doors 6-12 months from now. Stimulus and PPP will keep them afloat for a big, but the damage will be done, and chefs (who were way underpaid to begin with) will command slightly higher pay when all these restaurants start hiring again.
dustingetz 7y ago
V-recovery reporting is fully explained by politicians saying what people want to hear
rauhl 7y ago
So there are a few things to think about with respect to the recovery. Disclaimer: I am not an economist. One thing is that to a certain extent an economy is psychological. Yes, certain things are physical realities (such as crop yields) or political realities (e.g. states of war) or legal realities (like regulations against selling homemade beer), but a lot else is purely based on sentiment. And it doesn’t matter how good reality is if people think it’s bad: they won’t act in the market more than they must to survive, and it will actually be a bad market, even if the fundamentals justify a good one — at least for awhile, until enough contrarians seek to take advantage of good prices (a kind of sentiment arbitrage, I suppose). But something I worry about even more is well-intended interventions which make things worse and prolong the poor economy. There’s precedent for this in history: the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act was intended to alleviate the Great Depression but instead exacerbated it. Specifically, I can think of laws against so-called ‘price-gouging’ (which is a myth: no-one in all of human history has ever paid more for something than he felt it was worth to him at the time he bought it, because whenever anyone feels the all-in price for something is more than the all-in value … he doesn’t buy it): by interfering with the price mechanism which is the fundamental method for economic actors to bid for their needs and desires to be met, it will result in less-efficient allocation of resources (capital and labour) across the entire market. This misinvestment will by definition lead to a poorer economy than would otherwise be the case.
- ip26 7y ago
  ‘price-gouging’ [...] is a myth You're laying on the operating table in the ER with a heart attack. Surgeon says, "OK before we put you under, in compensation I want 70% of your income for the rest of your life, or I'm not doing this. Deal?"
- pixl97 7y ago
  > (which is a myth: no-one in all of human history has ever paid more for something than he felt it was worth to him at the time he bought it, because whenever anyone feels the all-in price for something is more than the all-in value … he doesn’t buy it) Ah, so you believe that medical care should bankrupt an individual every time they use it because it is priceless.
- 7y ago
treis 7y ago
IMHO, that's not how it works. For better or worse companies are reluctant to fire in good times. There's a lot of people employed at jobs that aren't really needed. Things like the project they got hired for was canceled and they were just stuck somewhere. Projects that accomplish their goal still tend to drag on adding inconsequential features. And, of course, there's just the slackers skating by. When an economic crisis comes along they get canned and the business realizes that they weren't actually needed. When the good times come back they don't hire those employees back. They continue operating with a smaller staff and pocket the extra profit.
webbruce 7y ago
Zero. No way such massive companies can swing all of a sudden. - There's not enough tests still - People are scared of doing anything even if stores open up - Most importantly, sales just don't magically appear with the snap of your fingers, takes time to ramp up again - Companies are still heavily on only essential spending, that doesn't change overnight They're talking no public events til 2021 now. I think the realization is that this isn't just a 1-2mo ordeal. It's going to be a 1-2yr shift.
- pixl97 7y ago
  >I think the realization is that this isn't just a 1-2mo ordeal. This is what happens when captains of the industry ignore pretty much any pandemic model that has been release in the last 50 years. Unless everyone catches it instantly and the whole process is over quick (which leads to massive death and long term economic impact), that it always takes a year or two of massive public change and a vaccine to get beyond the pandemic. Essentially the rest of the world has caught up with where the epidemiologists were in January.

mobilio 7y ago

https://archive.md/QpWki https://archive.md/QpWki

generalpass 7y ago

I received a message from our overlords that staying at home is staying safe. I don't feel safe.

brenden2 7y ago

This is an unpopular opinion, but I think it's worth considering that most of these people are probably hourly wage earners, and so when things open up again, they will probably be hired back very quickly. The people aren't going anywhere, and they haven't been deleted from society. When businesses reopen this number will probably drop substantially. The businesses themselves (restaurants, retail, etc) haven't gone anywhere, they're just not operating. Yes there will be some bankruptcies, but those companies will restructure, assets will be sold, and something else will pop up in place. If someone has a strong case for why this isn't true, I'd love to hear it, but it's my current working thesis and I haven't been convinced otherwise. I know it's unpopular because of politics and such, but I'm optimistic about recovery.

pxeboot 7y ago
I am expecting to see record business at the local bars when the lockdowns end. The demand is still there.
- brenden2 7y ago
  That's funny, but it's something I've been thinking about too. When things open up I want to go see friends and catch up.
- ashtonkem 7y ago
  Doubtful. There’s not going to be a clear end time to this shut down, and I for one won’t be going to a bar until I’m vaccinated.
  - gpickett00 7y ago
    You’re getting downvoted but I fully agree. Most people are talking as if the virus will be gone in a month or so. The lockdowns are not going away. We are going to have new hotspots popping up every week once lockdowns start releasing.
    - macintux 7y ago

ravenstine 7y ago

And those are just the people who filed for unemployment. Based on my experience of being a young person looking for work around the 2008 crash, I imagine there are millions of young people who want to work but won't find any, so they will simply move in with mom and dad. The total "unemployment" is almost certainly much higher than 14%.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
heavenlyblue 7y ago
To be fair that is the case pre-vivid, so there shouldn’t be much of a difference for pure number crunchers.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

claudeganon 7y ago

I understand from the perspective of competence why the US wasn’t able to freeze mortgages/rents and absorb payrolls as other countries have, but it really seems like they missed their shot to save Capitalism. Millions upon millions of unemployed people, many watching their friends and family die from disease, a psychotic, entrenched politics, that caters primarily to corrupt elites... Historically, things don’t go very well from here.

DamnYuppie 7y ago
Save capitalism? I think that is a great over reaction, the Great Depression, crash of 87, nor of 2008 stopped it. So I am quite certain this will be but a hiccup when we look back 10 years from now.
- claudeganon 7y ago
  We’re heading beyond Great Depression territory and that was only stabilized by massive social democratic interventions in the form of the New Deal. People like to forget how popular both fascism and communism became in the US during this period.
- pixl97 7y ago
  >Great Depression > So I am quite certain this will be but a hiccup > ignoring the mass death of WWII It's not about saving capitalism, it's about saving people from terrible outcomes.
- standardUser 7y ago
  The Great Depression resulted in the welfare state. It forever changed the balance between state and private sectors. It certainly was not a hiccup.
bitcurious 7y ago
>freeze mortgages/rents and The CARES Act has a provision regarding mortgage payments that basically requires that federally backed mortgages be frozen for up to 6 months, should the payee request it and claim to be impacted by COVID-19. >absorb payrolls as other countries have CARES Act has $350 Billion set aside for small business payroll expenses. There are separate provisions for Airlines, other specific industries. Furthermore, the CARES Act has extended and expanded unemployment benefits to anyone impacted by COVID, and has temporarily grown the benefit by $600/week, meaning that unemployment benefits are now total wage replacement (or better) for the median American.