7 ms·

71 Percent of jobless Americans did not recieve their March unemployment benefit

94 points by grecy 7y ago

mensetmanusman 7y ago
If we had a small percentage of our best and brightest working on getting our poorest workers access to the most basic forms of fintech, this would not have happened.
- eli_gottlieb 7y ago
  Our poorest workers wouldn't be our poorest workers if they didn't lack "access to the most basic forms of fintech". They are poor because they are exploited: by "businesspeople" who can't pay the daily maintenance costs of their own workers and rely on public subsidies to make up the difference, by banks and payday lenders who scrape fees and interest off meager paychecks, by politicians who misdirect their outrage at college graduates.
  - mywittyname 7y ago
    It's expensive to be poor in the US. And, unless you've been poor, it can be hard to empathize with because poor problems are largely solved by having more money. Example: people who receive their paycheck on, effectively, a visa gift card need to pay relatively high fees in order to access that money. A solution would be to suggest a bank account, but those are also expensive when you're poor as banks often make a healthy chunk of profit from fees that hit poor people the most. Practically every solution to this problem is some variation on, "just [have more money]." Which is why these people still face exploitation in the wealthiest country in the world.
    - milkytron 7y ago
      Pardon my ignorance, but is getting paid in visa gift cards a common occurrence for the poor in the US?
      - eli_gottlieb 7y ago
        Not usually Visa gift cards, but getting paid via debit card has become somewhat common for low-wage workers. https://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/01/business/as-pay-cards-replace-paychecks-bank-fees-hurt-workers.html https://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/01/business/as-pay-cards-rep...
      - mywittyname 7y ago
        Not literally a Visa gift card. The reason I say, "effectively, a visa gift card" is because they are functionally the same and people here understand how annoying they are to use. And it's very common for people without bank accounts to get their paychecks on a Visa Payroll Card (or similar). It's a good way for companies to offload the cost of accounting onto the employee.
    - craftinator 7y ago
      > It's expensive to be poor in the US. And, unless you've been poor, it can be hard to empathize with because poor problems are largely solved by having more money. This is a great summary of the major issue with being poor. I know people who live in Italy and Denmark who take home about the same percentage below the poverty line there that I did when I was quite poor. They always had food on the table, always had medical care, and didn't miss rent payments. We just cut poor people loose here.
  - lotsofpulp 7y ago
    They’re exploited by voters who keep voting against taxpayer funded social safety nets. The unemployment systems don’t work because the voters intentionally vote for politicians that don’t want them to work. Out of ire against those that receive benefits.
    - samdamsamm 7y ago
      The media industry makes it extremely difficult to reach useful information and verify it’s integrity. Sure, you can find a bunch of journalist blogs online through Reddit and Twitter, but which do you trust? That takes a lot of work, so most working people end up accepting the mainstream corporate news, which conveniently does not offer the information working people need.
      - lotsofpulp 7y ago
        I’m not willing to give people that benefit of the doubt. There is a very large portion of US voters that philosophically do not believe in helping others outside their tribe, and will punish politicians for any broad measure to assist the bottom rungs in any meaningful way. They will support certain charities, support extremely means tested and convoluted benefits, but they know any real help will increase their taxes and result in wealth redistribution, so they will vote against it no matter what. Easy proof is the complete lack of parental support, or the laughably outdated minimum wage. The funny thing is that from what I can observe, most of the opposition to social safety net benefits comes from people who barely have any wealth that could be redistributed from them anyway. They just don’t like the idea of other tribes getting help!
- reilly3000 7y ago
  Think about this: some of our best and brightest in this country are our poorest workers.
  - bagacrap 7y ago
    ... are they? The US has great upwards mobility. Yes, some people are privileged and some are disadvantaged, but the worst disadvantages are generally not enough to deter our best and brightest.
    - reilly3000 7y ago
      The data disagrees: https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/02_economic_mobility_sawhill_ch3.pdf https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/02_econ... US upward mobility is certainly not the best in the world, and perception of it outweighs reality by a wide margin. Do you honestly believe that people are poor because they are stupid?
twoquestions 7y ago
Even aside from the economic fallout which on its own keeps me up at night, I'm really terrified of the social consequences of this. The United States by and large is not a very compassionate society to begin with, and our hatred for the poor and unemployed is among the highest in the world. It was already bad enough in normal conditions, but when our collective fury is unleashed on 20something million people, and likely more before this is all said and done, I'm afraid of what the short-term and long-term effects are going to be. I'm afraid to even speculate on this.
- erentz 7y ago
  I think it’s important to distinguish between what the American people want and what the system produces. The majority of Americans support policies that would make a more compassionate society.[1] But these policies don’t get traction or passed due to a corrupt system that fails to represent people. [1] E.g. the latest Medicare for All poll shows overall 69% of Americans support it, rising to 88% of Dems support it. So overall the population wants it yet it doesn’t happen. You also see similar disconnect between what people support and what we have with other policies that would make American society more compassionate one. (https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/04/25/poll-shows-nearly-90-democratic-support-biden-told-hostility-medicare-all-no-longer https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/04/25/poll-shows-near...)
  - eli_gottlieb 7y ago
    >E.g. the latest Medicare for All poll shows overall 69% of Americans support it, rising to 88% of Dems support it. So overall the population wants it yet it doesn’t happen. It's important to note that, with the Democratic primary having wound down, most of these 88% of Dems seem to have voted for an imagined version of Joe Biden who was, at the least, not explicitly against Medicare For All.
    - samdamsamm 7y ago
      Right. It’s pretty unbelievable and very sad that the media has been able to somehow convince so many Americans that Joe Biden is some kind of New Deal Democrat. He was a pioneer of the policies we now know as actually existing neoliberalism. Yet again, it is even more obvious than before that the United States is an oligarchy without exception.

94 points by grecy 7y ago

If we had a small percentage of our best and brightest working on getting our poorest workers access to the most basic forms of fintech, this would not have happened.

eli_gottlieb 7y ago
Our poorest workers wouldn't be our poorest workers if they didn't lack "access to the most basic forms of fintech". They are poor because they are exploited: by "businesspeople" who can't pay the daily maintenance costs of their own workers and rely on public subsidies to make up the difference, by banks and payday lenders who scrape fees and interest off meager paychecks, by politicians who misdirect their outrage at college graduates.
- mywittyname 7y ago
  It's expensive to be poor in the US. And, unless you've been poor, it can be hard to empathize with because poor problems are largely solved by having more money. Example: people who receive their paycheck on, effectively, a visa gift card need to pay relatively high fees in order to access that money. A solution would be to suggest a bank account, but those are also expensive when you're poor as banks often make a healthy chunk of profit from fees that hit poor people the most. Practically every solution to this problem is some variation on, "just [have more money]." Which is why these people still face exploitation in the wealthiest country in the world.
  - milkytron 7y ago
    Pardon my ignorance, but is getting paid in visa gift cards a common occurrence for the poor in the US?
    - eli_gottlieb 7y ago
      Not usually Visa gift cards, but getting paid via debit card has become somewhat common for low-wage workers. https://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/01/business/as-pay-cards-replace-paychecks-bank-fees-hurt-workers.html https://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/01/business/as-pay-cards-rep...
    - mywittyname 7y ago
      Not literally a Visa gift card. The reason I say, "effectively, a visa gift card" is because they are functionally the same and people here understand how annoying they are to use. And it's very common for people without bank accounts to get their paychecks on a Visa Payroll Card (or similar). It's a good way for companies to offload the cost of accounting onto the employee.
  - craftinator 7y ago
    > It's expensive to be poor in the US. And, unless you've been poor, it can be hard to empathize with because poor problems are largely solved by having more money. This is a great summary of the major issue with being poor. I know people who live in Italy and Denmark who take home about the same percentage below the poverty line there that I did when I was quite poor. They always had food on the table, always had medical care, and didn't miss rent payments. We just cut poor people loose here.
- lotsofpulp 7y ago
  They’re exploited by voters who keep voting against taxpayer funded social safety nets. The unemployment systems don’t work because the voters intentionally vote for politicians that don’t want them to work. Out of ire against those that receive benefits.
  - samdamsamm 7y ago
    The media industry makes it extremely difficult to reach useful information and verify it’s integrity. Sure, you can find a bunch of journalist blogs online through Reddit and Twitter, but which do you trust? That takes a lot of work, so most working people end up accepting the mainstream corporate news, which conveniently does not offer the information working people need.
    - lotsofpulp 7y ago
      I’m not willing to give people that benefit of the doubt. There is a very large portion of US voters that philosophically do not believe in helping others outside their tribe, and will punish politicians for any broad measure to assist the bottom rungs in any meaningful way. They will support certain charities, support extremely means tested and convoluted benefits, but they know any real help will increase their taxes and result in wealth redistribution, so they will vote against it no matter what. Easy proof is the complete lack of parental support, or the laughably outdated minimum wage. The funny thing is that from what I can observe, most of the opposition to social safety net benefits comes from people who barely have any wealth that could be redistributed from them anyway. They just don’t like the idea of other tribes getting help!
reilly3000 7y ago
Think about this: some of our best and brightest in this country are our poorest workers.
- bagacrap 7y ago
  ... are they? The US has great upwards mobility. Yes, some people are privileged and some are disadvantaged, but the worst disadvantages are generally not enough to deter our best and brightest.
  - reilly3000 7y ago
    The data disagrees: https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/02_economic_mobility_sawhill_ch3.pdf https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/02_econ... US upward mobility is certainly not the best in the world, and perception of it outweighs reality by a wide margin. Do you honestly believe that people are poor because they are stupid?

twoquestions 7y ago

Even aside from the economic fallout which on its own keeps me up at night, I'm really terrified of the social consequences of this. The United States by and large is not a very compassionate society to begin with, and our hatred for the poor and unemployed is among the highest in the world. It was already bad enough in normal conditions, but when our collective fury is unleashed on 20something million people, and likely more before this is all said and done, I'm afraid of what the short-term and long-term effects are going to be. I'm afraid to even speculate on this.

erentz 7y ago
I think it’s important to distinguish between what the American people want and what the system produces. The majority of Americans support policies that would make a more compassionate society.[1] But these policies don’t get traction or passed due to a corrupt system that fails to represent people. [1] E.g. the latest Medicare for All poll shows overall 69% of Americans support it, rising to 88% of Dems support it. So overall the population wants it yet it doesn’t happen. You also see similar disconnect between what people support and what we have with other policies that would make American society more compassionate one. (https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/04/25/poll-shows-nearly-90-democratic-support-biden-told-hostility-medicare-all-no-longer https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/04/25/poll-shows-near...)
- eli_gottlieb 7y ago
  >E.g. the latest Medicare for All poll shows overall 69% of Americans support it, rising to 88% of Dems support it. So overall the population wants it yet it doesn’t happen. It's important to note that, with the Democratic primary having wound down, most of these 88% of Dems seem to have voted for an imagined version of Joe Biden who was, at the least, not explicitly against Medicare For All.
  - samdamsamm 7y ago
    Right. It’s pretty unbelievable and very sad that the media has been able to somehow convince so many Americans that Joe Biden is some kind of New Deal Democrat. He was a pioneer of the policies we now know as actually existing neoliberalism. Yet again, it is even more obvious than before that the United States is an oligarchy without exception.