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The fact that you could easily earn more on unemployment than not was a bizarre feature of the US COVID response. Most, if not all state unemployment schemes co

The fact that you could easily earn more on unemployment than not was a bizarre feature of the US COVID response. Most, if not all state unemployment schemes cover part of your wages if unemployed, not more than you made before. It creates a strong incentive to be considered partially or fully laid off. I'm pro basic income, but definitely don't support paying more to be unproductive than productive. This benefit ends this month (July), so that is good.

gboss 6y ago
I always thought the point was to keep people home during the pandemic instead of working odd jobs to compensate. Incentivizing people to not work by paying them more to stay at home was a public health policy choice. Of course, the bills were passed really rapidly and maybe weren’t that thought out.
- dfxm12 6y ago
  Incentivizing people to stay home was a bug, not a feature. There is absolutely nothing that suggests the federal government is interested in doing this on purpose (and we might see a lot more people outside if the eviction protection measures aren't revisited by the end of the month). Quite the opposite - the message has constantly been that they want to get people out working as soon as possible in deference to "the economy", public health be damned. Your local government's response and motivations might be different, but I largely doubt it.
  - gboss 6y ago
    The federal government is made up of many different actors with different goals. The $600 unemployment pandemic bonus was only added to the relief package because of the house democrats insistence. I think it’s hard to believe that was not their goal.
  - danaris 6y ago
    > Incentivizing people to stay home was a bug, not a feature. > There is absolutely nothing that suggests the federal government is interested in doing this on purpose These are two separate statements, that do not necessarily correlate. That the government may not have intended the benefit to incentivize people to stay home (thus improving public health) does not mean that people staying home and improving public health is not a feature for the vast majority of people.
- rossdavidh 6y ago
  There is some logic to what you say, and it wouldn't be the first time a bug turned out to be a feature, but I think "odd jobs" are typically done in the gray market anyway, and the income not declared, so I don't think it would keep people who are receiving unemployment from taking odd jobs, for the most part. But it may have had an effect at the margins.
save_ferris 6y ago
> I’m pro basic income, but definitely don’t support paying more to be unproductive than productive This problem cuts both ways. The government capitulated largely because they knew pegging stimulus to the minimum wage wasn’t going to be enough and they didn’t want to risk the political fallout of that situation. I see this largely as an admission by our leaders that minimum wages aren’t high enough. Wages in the US simply haven’t kept up with the cost of living for years now. Employers have been complaining for years that they can’t find qualified candidates for jobs while more and more people leave the workforce and don’t ever return, but the conversation is always framed as a shortage of labor as opposed to a market unwilling to raise wages to attract qualified candidates. If we had ensured years ago that those working would make enough to meet their basic needs, we wouldn’t be in this situation.
- eli_gottlieb 6y ago
  >the conversation is always framed as a shortage of labor as opposed to a market unwilling to raise wages to attract qualified candidates. I had sorta thought it was Microecon 101 that these two things are mathematically equivalent. If the labor market doesn't clear due to a "shortage", you're either in the immediate aftermath of a war, or you need to raise wages.
minikites 6y ago
>I'm pro basic income, but definitely don't support paying more to be unproductive than productive. Why does this imply that unproductive people should receive fewer benefits? Why shouldn't productive people be paid more? Wages have stagnated for 50 years and the meager COVID bailout meaningfully improved the lives of millions. Shouldn't that be a sign that we need an overhaul of wage laws?
protonimitate 6y ago
> I'm pro basic income, but definitely don't support paying more to be unproductive than productive. And if COVID has proven anything, its that the most productive workers are the ones who didn't even get a chance to earn the additional $600. The essential employees, the ones that keep the country running, are forced to continue making a less-than-livable wage. It's a very outdated notion that there is a linear correlation between "productivity" and pay.
- banads 6y ago
  >It's a very outdated notion that there is a linear correlation between "productivity" and pay. This graph clearly shows how productivity and wages were decoupled in the US in the 1970s, even as productivity skyrocketed: https://www.epi.org/productivity-pay-gap/ https://www.epi.org/productivity-pay-gap/
bendergarcia 6y ago
You’re assumption that people are unproductive when they are paid more when not working highlights your view of humans. You believe that it people are paid enough to do nothing they’ll sit around and do nothing. I have seen friends who went on unemployment and made more than they were making employed. They were not unproductive, in fact they were more productive than when they just checked people in to a airline. If you were, today, paid more to not have a job would you sit and do nothing? My guess is your answer is no, so why are you the exception but people who are actually in the position to be paid more to not work, expected to be lazy and unproductive?
makomk 6y ago
Yup. Even, for example, the UK furlough scheme only paid something like 80% of people's normal wages. The American media kept very quiet about that detail when going on about how much better it is than the American approach and about how the government there had failed people by not implementing something like that.
zwkrt 6y ago
> I'm pro basic income, but definitely don't support paying more to be unproductive than productive. I never understand this perspective. Supporting UBI is a statement that all people deserve a bare-minimum existence, even if they don't or can't work. I would expect that UBI would create a less productive workforce in the same way that 40 hour work weeks and environmental protections make a less productive workforce. If you think the only path to righteousness is through a lifetime of toil, then it /might/ make sense to judge poor people's merit as a function of their 'productivity' (i.e., ability to make someone else money), but that is a pretty old-school stance in my opinion.
- mennis16 6y ago
  I think you're misreading the comment? He isn't judging poor people. He is criticizing a system where you only get UBI if you don't work (i.e. not UBI). Such a system means that lower skilled workers actually gain nothing from working. That is a shitty situation to be in. Most people want to feel like they are contributing. And they absolutely do contribute through their roles, even if they are also "making someone else money". They should be rewarded on top of the "bare-minimum existence" for doing so. I don't see at all how you can jump from "I don't support people getting paid more to not work than to work" to "the only path to righteousness is through a lifetime of toil".

gboss 6y ago

I always thought the point was to keep people home during the pandemic instead of working odd jobs to compensate. Incentivizing people to not work by paying them more to stay at home was a public health policy choice. Of course, the bills were passed really rapidly and maybe weren’t that thought out.

dfxm12 6y ago
Incentivizing people to stay home was a bug, not a feature. There is absolutely nothing that suggests the federal government is interested in doing this on purpose (and we might see a lot more people outside if the eviction protection measures aren't revisited by the end of the month). Quite the opposite - the message has constantly been that they want to get people out working as soon as possible in deference to "the economy", public health be damned. Your local government's response and motivations might be different, but I largely doubt it.
- gboss 6y ago
  The federal government is made up of many different actors with different goals. The $600 unemployment pandemic bonus was only added to the relief package because of the house democrats insistence. I think it’s hard to believe that was not their goal.
- danaris 6y ago
  > Incentivizing people to stay home was a bug, not a feature. > There is absolutely nothing that suggests the federal government is interested in doing this on purpose These are two separate statements, that do not necessarily correlate. That the government may not have intended the benefit to incentivize people to stay home (thus improving public health) does not mean that people staying home and improving public health is not a feature for the vast majority of people.
rossdavidh 6y ago
There is some logic to what you say, and it wouldn't be the first time a bug turned out to be a feature, but I think "odd jobs" are typically done in the gray market anyway, and the income not declared, so I don't think it would keep people who are receiving unemployment from taking odd jobs, for the most part. But it may have had an effect at the margins.

save_ferris 6y ago

> I’m pro basic income, but definitely don’t support paying more to be unproductive than productive This problem cuts both ways. The government capitulated largely because they knew pegging stimulus to the minimum wage wasn’t going to be enough and they didn’t want to risk the political fallout of that situation. I see this largely as an admission by our leaders that minimum wages aren’t high enough. Wages in the US simply haven’t kept up with the cost of living for years now. Employers have been complaining for years that they can’t find qualified candidates for jobs while more and more people leave the workforce and don’t ever return, but the conversation is always framed as a shortage of labor as opposed to a market unwilling to raise wages to attract qualified candidates. If we had ensured years ago that those working would make enough to meet their basic needs, we wouldn’t be in this situation.

eli_gottlieb 6y ago
>the conversation is always framed as a shortage of labor as opposed to a market unwilling to raise wages to attract qualified candidates. I had sorta thought it was Microecon 101 that these two things are mathematically equivalent. If the labor market doesn't clear due to a "shortage", you're either in the immediate aftermath of a war, or you need to raise wages.

minikites 6y ago

>I'm pro basic income, but definitely don't support paying more to be unproductive than productive. Why does this imply that unproductive people should receive fewer benefits? Why shouldn't productive people be paid more? Wages have stagnated for 50 years and the meager COVID bailout meaningfully improved the lives of millions. Shouldn't that be a sign that we need an overhaul of wage laws?

protonimitate 6y ago

> I'm pro basic income, but definitely don't support paying more to be unproductive than productive. And if COVID has proven anything, its that the most productive workers are the ones who didn't even get a chance to earn the additional $600. The essential employees, the ones that keep the country running, are forced to continue making a less-than-livable wage. It's a very outdated notion that there is a linear correlation between "productivity" and pay.

banads 6y ago
>It's a very outdated notion that there is a linear correlation between "productivity" and pay. This graph clearly shows how productivity and wages were decoupled in the US in the 1970s, even as productivity skyrocketed: https://www.epi.org/productivity-pay-gap/ https://www.epi.org/productivity-pay-gap/

bendergarcia 6y ago

You’re assumption that people are unproductive when they are paid more when not working highlights your view of humans. You believe that it people are paid enough to do nothing they’ll sit around and do nothing. I have seen friends who went on unemployment and made more than they were making employed. They were not unproductive, in fact they were more productive than when they just checked people in to a airline. If you were, today, paid more to not have a job would you sit and do nothing? My guess is your answer is no, so why are you the exception but people who are actually in the position to be paid more to not work, expected to be lazy and unproductive?

makomk 6y ago

Yup. Even, for example, the UK furlough scheme only paid something like 80% of people's normal wages. The American media kept very quiet about that detail when going on about how much better it is than the American approach and about how the government there had failed people by not implementing something like that.

zwkrt 6y ago

> I'm pro basic income, but definitely don't support paying more to be unproductive than productive. I never understand this perspective. Supporting UBI is a statement that all people deserve a bare-minimum existence, even if they don't or can't work. I would expect that UBI would create a less productive workforce in the same way that 40 hour work weeks and environmental protections make a less productive workforce. If you think the only path to righteousness is through a lifetime of toil, then it /might/ make sense to judge poor people's merit as a function of their 'productivity' (i.e., ability to make someone else money), but that is a pretty old-school stance in my opinion.

mennis16 6y ago
I think you're misreading the comment? He isn't judging poor people. He is criticizing a system where you only get UBI if you don't work (i.e. not UBI). Such a system means that lower skilled workers actually gain nothing from working. That is a shitty situation to be in. Most people want to feel like they are contributing. And they absolutely do contribute through their roles, even if they are also "making someone else money". They should be rewarded on top of the "bare-minimum existence" for doing so. I don't see at all how you can jump from "I don't support people getting paid more to not work than to work" to "the only path to righteousness is through a lifetime of toil".