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Yea I am wondering the same thing. I am REALLY lucky to have saved a lot and be in a good living situation where I can quarantine comfortably. But what the hell

Yea I am wondering the same thing. I am REALLY lucky to have saved a lot and be in a good living situation where I can quarantine comfortably. But what the hell are people doing who were paycheck to paycheck? I would not blame them if they had to start stealing from supermarkets

mynameishere 7y ago
REALLY lucky to have saved a lot Luck might play a role in whether you got a good job, but saving money is mostly a product of willpower. I would not blame them if they had to start stealing from supermarkets Would you blame them if they stole $15/pound steak instead of $0.20/pound bags of flour? Because few people steal bags of flour--that is, few people steal food for purposes of preventing starvation. It's mostly driven by the same impulse as any other form of stealing.
- weq 7y ago
  Desperation? People dont do bad things because they want to be bad or lazy. Thats Nixon era properganda used marginalise the anti-war hippies in favour of the Military Industrial Complex. Conversatives will trumpet this till the cows come home while simultatiously gouging the govenrment with there large businiess for subsidies, discounts, monopolistic laws, on everything they do. You could pay entire swaths of your population unemployment, or you could subsidies the creation of a new oil processing facility and let that company then employ the population. When you subsidise big buisness, that money goes straight into family trusts. When you subsidise people directly, that money goes straight back into the community. As soon as u pay people a basic income, they have the chance todo what they want in life. People dont want to steal. They only start doing that once they are disenfrancised and already marginalised.
gnopgnip 7y ago
CA unemployment is near $1000 a week with the federal stimulus.
- TechBro8615 7y ago
  It’s naive to think this works for everyone. Independent contractors are getting screwed. Small businesses are getting screwed. Sure, there are some solutions on paper, but for a lot of people they have not come to fruition yet. Edit: People downvoting me are proving my point about being naive. I’m giving my input as someone who is in a much different position than most of the privileged commenters here. Feel free to ignore it, it just grows my disdain for the stereotypical tech worker, a well-paid sheep that’s never faced any kind of hardship yet thinks he knows what’s best for people who have. Not everyone fits into a perfect little box of “job” or “no job.” I personally am an independent contractor who’s been burning through (minimal) savings while building a startup that doesn’t exist yet. I’m eligible for the $1200 check, but I have no idea where it is and the IRS website is a blackhole. I haven’t tried for the PPP loan yet but it’s not helpful.
  - gnopgnip 7y ago
    Independent contractor, self employed, and gig workers can get unemployment now because of the stimulus bill even though they aren't normally be eligible. If you are making substantially less than before you can get partial unemployment, and it could make sense to quit working and quarantine given the benefits and your economic prospects. I agree that this won't work for everyone though. The bay area specifically has more people with jumbo loans, and these are not federally backed and part of the forbearance program. The cost of living in the bay area is higher, so this stimulus will not go as far as many places. The cost of healthcare is still a concern if you get sick, even with insurance.
- tomjakubowski 7y ago
  The amount of unemployment benefit scales with income, and $450/wk (plus $600 from the stimulus) is the maximum, to be clear. A full time worker paid $15/hour would receive $300+1000 per week. UI benefits table https://www.edd.ca.gov/pdf_pub_ctr/de1101bt5.pdf https://www.edd.ca.gov/pdf_pub_ctr/de1101bt5.pdf
  - greedo 7y ago
TechBro8615 7y ago
They’re complaining loudly, begging to go back to work. And they’re being shamed for it by people who are in a position like yours.
pmorici 7y ago
There are lots of food pantries in the US and in many of the cities the schools are using the school lunch program money to package food that parents can pick up from the school. There are many avenues for honest people before they have to resort to stealing from a grocery store.
irrational 7y ago
In the old days people were part of families which were part of communities and they would all take care of each other if something like this happened. We've obviously gone far far away from that. I wonder if we will start moving back toward that sort of society?
- chewz 7y ago
  As Margaret Thatcher said - there is no such thing as society, there are only individual people. Seems like over last 50 years many people had been brainwashed to believe it is so. But people are not the largest, quickest or most dangareous species on the planet. Our strongest point had been communicating and working together toward common goals, creating the society and taking care of each other. Saddly in last 50 years this darwinistic vision of getting ahead at all cost at the expense of the others prevailed.

mynameishere 7y ago

REALLY lucky to have saved a lot Luck might play a role in whether you got a good job, but saving money is mostly a product of willpower. I would not blame them if they had to start stealing from supermarkets Would you blame them if they stole $15/pound steak instead of $0.20/pound bags of flour? Because few people steal bags of flour--that is, few people steal food for purposes of preventing starvation. It's mostly driven by the same impulse as any other form of stealing.

weq 7y ago
Desperation? People dont do bad things because they want to be bad or lazy. Thats Nixon era properganda used marginalise the anti-war hippies in favour of the Military Industrial Complex. Conversatives will trumpet this till the cows come home while simultatiously gouging the govenrment with there large businiess for subsidies, discounts, monopolistic laws, on everything they do. You could pay entire swaths of your population unemployment, or you could subsidies the creation of a new oil processing facility and let that company then employ the population. When you subsidise big buisness, that money goes straight into family trusts. When you subsidise people directly, that money goes straight back into the community. As soon as u pay people a basic income, they have the chance todo what they want in life. People dont want to steal. They only start doing that once they are disenfrancised and already marginalised.

gnopgnip 7y ago

CA unemployment is near $1000 a week with the federal stimulus.

TechBro8615 7y ago
It’s naive to think this works for everyone. Independent contractors are getting screwed. Small businesses are getting screwed. Sure, there are some solutions on paper, but for a lot of people they have not come to fruition yet. Edit: People downvoting me are proving my point about being naive. I’m giving my input as someone who is in a much different position than most of the privileged commenters here. Feel free to ignore it, it just grows my disdain for the stereotypical tech worker, a well-paid sheep that’s never faced any kind of hardship yet thinks he knows what’s best for people who have. Not everyone fits into a perfect little box of “job” or “no job.” I personally am an independent contractor who’s been burning through (minimal) savings while building a startup that doesn’t exist yet. I’m eligible for the $1200 check, but I have no idea where it is and the IRS website is a blackhole. I haven’t tried for the PPP loan yet but it’s not helpful.
- gnopgnip 7y ago
  Independent contractor, self employed, and gig workers can get unemployment now because of the stimulus bill even though they aren't normally be eligible. If you are making substantially less than before you can get partial unemployment, and it could make sense to quit working and quarantine given the benefits and your economic prospects. I agree that this won't work for everyone though. The bay area specifically has more people with jumbo loans, and these are not federally backed and part of the forbearance program. The cost of living in the bay area is higher, so this stimulus will not go as far as many places. The cost of healthcare is still a concern if you get sick, even with insurance.
tomjakubowski 7y ago
The amount of unemployment benefit scales with income, and $450/wk (plus $600 from the stimulus) is the maximum, to be clear. A full time worker paid $15/hour would receive $300+1000 per week. UI benefits table https://www.edd.ca.gov/pdf_pub_ctr/de1101bt5.pdf https://www.edd.ca.gov/pdf_pub_ctr/de1101bt5.pdf
- greedo 7y ago

TechBro8615 7y ago

They’re complaining loudly, begging to go back to work. And they’re being shamed for it by people who are in a position like yours.

pmorici 7y ago

There are lots of food pantries in the US and in many of the cities the schools are using the school lunch program money to package food that parents can pick up from the school. There are many avenues for honest people before they have to resort to stealing from a grocery store.

irrational 7y ago

In the old days people were part of families which were part of communities and they would all take care of each other if something like this happened. We've obviously gone far far away from that. I wonder if we will start moving back toward that sort of society?

chewz 7y ago
As Margaret Thatcher said - there is no such thing as society, there are only individual people. Seems like over last 50 years many people had been brainwashed to believe it is so. But people are not the largest, quickest or most dangareous species on the planet. Our strongest point had been communicating and working together toward common goals, creating the society and taking care of each other. Saddly in last 50 years this darwinistic vision of getting ahead at all cost at the expense of the others prevailed.