15 ms·
Another 1.3M Americans File for Unemployment
- ethanwillis 6y agoOur government has failed in their response at local, state, and federal levels. The other thing we're going to be seeing soon is that these Unemployment programs have failed to do what they're ordained to do. This is an anecdote, but my brother was furloughed and has been waiting on any money (including the first stimulus) for literally months
- claudeganon 6y agoMost unemployment systems in US states were designed with the intention to keep people from getting benefits or getting them off them as soon as possible. Unsurprisingly, such systems are minimally robust when they actually need to be used, en masse. Maybe we will learn a lesson from this, but the number one political priority right now seems to be indemnifying businesses from pandemic-related harm caused to their customers and employees, so I’m not optimistic.
- draw_down 6y agoYes, this is working as ultimately intentioned, though of course not according to its ostensible purpose.
- alexpetralia 6y agoDo you have any sense of how people are managing? I sort of assumed that people _must_ be receiving money because there's no way Americans in the lower deciles of savings would be able to pay their bills consistently without work or stimulus. If there's no stimulus and no work, how are they paying bills? Is it on credit? Was there actually some savings?
- claudeganon 6y agoPeople are coasting on tiny savings, eviction freezes, not paying bills, and moving in with their friends or families. Or at least my friends anyway. The fall/winter is going to be an absolute disaster because you can’t fix anything about the economy without getting the pandemic under control, which a large percentage of our leaders in the US have decided they have no obligation to do.
- option 6y agoPlease remember to vote based on candidates’ record not FB/Youtube ads
- claudeganon 6y agoI don’t know what this is supposed to mean, but this failure extends across both parties in the United States. The refusal by politicians to take on Capital owners is pushing people into homelessness, loss of healthcare, or danger in low wage jobs, all of which further exacerbate the pandemic. The mainstream of the Democratic Party has advanced little that would address any of this, mostly quibbling over means testing income supports and lurching right. And we can just look at that state of the pandemic in the US to know what the other side thinks we should be doing.
- Answerawake 6y agoThis is what boggles my mind. We had progressive candidates running this cycle that were outright commiting to trying something different. Yet the majority of the voter base ran towards people promising the same strategy as previous administrations. Either this crisis is magnified on HN and the majority of the voter base is unaffected by the pandemic or something else is going on.
- claudeganon 6y agoThe Democratic party made the correct bet that they could use their media apparatus to discredit progressive candidates, get away with cheating in Iowa, and use Obama to get the other moderates to concede with promises of internal advancement. It was corrupt and repugnant, but a strategically sound approach to make sure they're headed on the ticket by a center right leader (which their donor base demands).
- nickthegreek 6y agoI know several people who had been furloughed, including my 69 yr old mother and the extra $600 has been a godsend to them. I dont even understand where we would be as a country if that legislation had not passed considering 1 in 3 homeowner/renters missed their payments last month.
- conception 6y agoNot discounting what you said but the 30% thing is bad but a bit of a poor statistic in that usually the number is about 20%. This is because it’s not 30% can’t pay rent but 30% didn’t pay on time. By the end of the month the number who had paid was like 92% vs 96% a year ago. So yes bad but less bad with context and certainly something that is a leading indicator of something very very bad.
- koolba 6y agoMost of this is run at the State level. What State is at fault?
- codegeek 6y agoMost of our "Govt" is busy playing politics and it is shameful that somehow COVID has become political as well. Trump calls masks requirement "political nonsense" which is causing many Americans to follow their President. I don't like masks too but I am happy to put one on when in public. Somehow it has become "but you are infringing on my rights". Our Govt sucks because we continue to let them get away with this. Where are all the Senators and Congress people ? Where are the Governors ? Some are trying but most of too busy politicizing it and still denying the reality that shit has hit the fan. It is only going to get worse. I am about to layoff a couple of employees too since they just cannot work remote and their performance has gone down significantly. As a small business owner, I don't have the margins to keep paying them anymore as we are considered a "non essential" business and cannot go to office yet.
- dominotw 6y ago> any money (including the first stimulus) for literally months I got mine almost immediately. What is the difference between me and your brother, I don't understand.
- ethanwillis 6y agoThis is the same question I have. Other family members and friends have all received theirs. He's much younger than me, working entry level jobs, filed all of his taxes, etc. I just looked up some news about it, apparently about 30-35 million(estimated) checks have not been sent out.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- salmon30salmon 6y agoDo you live in the same state? That is probably the difference :)
- dominotw 6y agowhat do stimulus checks have to do with the state?
- salmon30salmon 6y agoMy mistake, I thought you were referring to the 600/week extra unemployment benefit.
- guenthert 6y agoA buddy of mine got his too within days, I wait since early May. The EDD (California) did process millions of applications (or so they claim), but more than a million are still outstanding. The problem seems to me to be in their mission objective: they view every applicant first and foremost as a potential "wellfare queen" and attempt to prove that as a fact (17 years ago, in the aftermath of the Internet bubble burst, I lost my job as well, applied for unemployment insurance benefit and the phone interview I went though was as bizarre as unpleasant -- I didn't get to the phone interview this time 'round). I wished they would rather operate like the IRS: after preliminary, automated checks using tax records (was the person employed by employer as claimed, is that person now employed?) hand out the money and perform selective, random in-depth audits asynchronously.
- syspec 6y agoThe fact that this is not discussed more, or that congress and the president have already "moved on" is so frustrating. The president should be making distributing this aid, and fixing the unemployment benefits mess his priority for these people. Instead he's doing a photo op with cans of beans in the Oval Office, and another photo op down the street with a bible he holds like an alien artifact
- salmon30salmon 6y agoTrump messed up a ton in this crises, and has a lot to answer for. This is not one of them. Unemployment is almost all within the remit of the individual states. The government approved additional payments to each state, but the state government is responsible for dispersing and managing the unemployment system.
- mindslight 6y agoFiscal and monetary policy are under the purview of the federal government. Individual states are stuck between a rock and a hard place - needing to ramp up spending to respond to the crisis, while receiving much less tax revenue. States can only respond by taking on more debt, further compounding the cause of this financial jam. Hence red states passing the pain downwards by turning the screws on workers. The current response just takes us further into the debt spiral, making the next crisis even worse - if we're lucky enough to have a next one!
- taylodl 6y agoMost states are required to have a balanced budget, which makes sense seeing as how they don't have the monetary tools available to the federal government. The state budget has to be balanced at the end of the current budget cycle. States have different budget cycles - 1 year, 2 year and 3 year. Many states have dipped into their rainy day funds. For states whose budget cycle ends this year - this could get really ugly.
- syspec 6y agoI'm saying he should be using the power of the bully pulpit, to help coordinate the fixing of this issue, not selling beans
- ilamont 6y agoFeds: Absolutely State: Depends on which state you are talking about Local: Depends on the municipality Let's also not forget the international leadership, particularly WHO, for its spectacular early failures such as ignoring warnings from Taiwan (https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-taiwan/taiwan-who-spar-again-over-coronavirus-information-sharing-idUSKCN21T0BA https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-taiwan...) and avoiding any action or statement that would offend China such as calling for a travel ban in January (“In fact, we oppose it,” https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/01/30/275959/the-china-coronavirus-is-officially-an-international-emergency/ https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/01/30/275959/the-china...) Regardless, the U.S. federal leadership's incompetence has made everyone's else's jobs exponentially harder. But I don't think it's fair to blame all states and municipalities for failing.
- x86_64Ubuntu 6y agoThis isn't some faceless government. The failure of these unemployment programs is by ideological design as ordained by the rightward lurch of the country after the Civil Rights Act.
- NiekvdMaas 6y agoMeanwhile the S&P 500 is 5% away from an ATH record. Unemployed people = gambling with stocks + FOMO?
- llamataboot 6y agoI would guess that most unemployed people don't have money in individual stocks in the market. In fact, 85% of all stock is owned by the richest 10% of Americans. While it is true that a slim majority of Americans have some stock, the vast majority of that is in retirement plans, not brokerage accounts.
- kiplkipl 6y agoI've heard the following theory: Most trading volume is algorithmic, so it only takes a small number of real humans doing unusual trading activity for markets to move. I've phrased it like this because I don't have expertise.
- option 6y ago“ only takes a small number of real humans doing unusual trading activity for markets to move” - WHAT? Link? Proof? Obviously false unless “small number of people”=folks like Buffet
- derivagral 6y agoI think the concept is similar to how BTC (and other crypto) have major price fluctuations that get reported and acted on via liquidity from a vanishingly small proportion of the actual total BTC. There's reasons, differences, nuance, etc, but I think that's where the thought starts. If most capital is in rarely-traded funds (I think 90-95% are passive?) then by definition those last 10%-5% active investors are going to set the market, at least in the general day to day.
- SpicyLemonZest 6y agoThe theory's going around, but it doesn't ultimately make much sense. Algorithmic trading is still set up and managed by humans on a day-to-day basis, so it can't by itself explain persistent market highs.
- spuz 6y agoThe source of this figure is here and includes graphs that can help put the numbers in perspective: https://www.dol.gov/ui/data.pdf https://www.dol.gov/ui/data.pdf
- j7ake 6y agoIs this a spike compared to last few months? Where is best place to get the latest chart of unemployment over time for 2020?
- charwalker 6y agoBLS: https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf They release a jobs report on the first friday of each month with asjustements as data from prior months made it in. They survey businesses and process a lot of other data to deliver these reports and have been generally apolitical and data focused though the current administration has tried to influence numbers to their advantage, effectively undermining a critical component of our democracy.
- jcranmer 6y agoYou can get exact numbers in table form here: https://oui.doleta.gov/unemploy/wkclaims/report.asp https://oui.doleta.gov/unemploy/wkclaims/report.asp The latest jobs report, which has a graph of the year's data, is here: https://www.dol.gov/ui/data.pdf https://www.dol.gov/ui/data.pdf The numbers here are basically on an exponential decay curve from ~6M new claims in the last week of March. (FWIW, the pre-2020 record for new weekly claims, seasonally adjusted, was ~700k in 1982--we broke that in March and haven't stopped breaking it since).
- j7ake 6y agoReally great thanks.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago"Government doesn't work. Elect us and we'll prove it!" --One of the two major political parties in the US. We get the government we voted for, so I guess that's the one we deserve.
- ironman1478 6y agoThe majority didn't vote for this government. We do not deserve this.
- roamerz 6y agoThat is by design. I wish our state (Oregon) was of similar design so that all interests are represented. As it is now the populous centers, mostly Portland and Eugene, dictate their values to the rest of the state.
- axaxs 6y agoI've met two 40-50 something ex-Oregoners who've said the same thing. They were extremely libertarian, and truly unlike anyone I'd met before. Almost like they came from some foreign(to me) culture. Both complained about how the population influx of Portland ruined the state, whatever that means, and both left looking for new adventures. I'm really curious what Oregon in the 70's-80's was like. The way they described it almost reminds me of Appalachian culture.
- selimthegrim 6y agoYou will still find those types in Roseburg, Medford, parts of Clackamas county (I'm looking at you, Damascus), etc, where they refuse to pay for things like local libraries. Ask them why Coos Bay is full of drugs and see what sort of look you get from them.
- paulmd 6y agoRural areas are already heavily overrepresented in the american system. We certainly don't need to put the thumb on the scale further. The ultimate problem is that "the rest of the state" (for virtually all states) is empty, hardly anybody lives there, and letting a minority override the will of everybody else is tyranny of the minority. Taken to the extreme, this is ultimately what killed South Africa and Rhodesia and other countries - a relatively small minority imposing their will on the majority, things getting worse and worse with no recourse for the people whose lives were actually affected until things boiled over. At its core, this is ultimately an argument for anti-democratic principles.
- varbhat 6y agoCan UBI(Universal Basic Income) scheme help to overcome Unemployment crisis ?
- imchillyb 6y ago> Can UBI scheme help to overcome Unemployment crisis ? @varbhat You realize that UBI requires monies, right? The US Federal government, and most states, are bankrupt. There is no money for this years bills. There was no money for last years bills, and we keep borrowing at exorbitant interest rates. Our deficit (shortfall for this year) is -more than- 2.7 trillion dollars. Our debt (shortfall for previous years) is -more than- 4 trillion dollars. We can't pay unemployment claims because there's no money... Where the hell is anyone getting monies for UBI?!?!?!
- gilrain 6y agoWe could try taxing the rich a bit more. They're doing just fine.
- saint_abroad 6y ago> You realize that UBI requires monies, right? Like the $1.5trillion tax cut that had "no major impact on businesses' capital investment"? https://www.nbcnews.com/business/economy/1-5-trillion-tax-cut-had-no-major-impact-business-n963411 https://www.nbcnews.com/business/economy/1-5-trillion-tax-cu...
- refurb 6y agoGod damn I hate the media. Nowhere, and I mean nowhere in that article does it clearly state that's $1.5T over 10 years. So in fact, it's a $150B tax cut annually. For a $3.7T budget that's costing about 4%.
- kwhitefoot 6y ago> Where the hell is anyone getting monies for UBI?!?!?! In times of crisis like this you just print it and claw it back through higher tax rates .
- mdorazio 6y agoThis source kind of sucks for good info. To put this number in perspective: - It's almost exactly the same as new claims last week (1.31 million) - Total continuing claims not including this week are at 17.4M (dropping weekly, somehow) It's worth noting that the PPP plan for employers was extended to a 24-week period rather than the initial 8 weeks, which to me has some interesting implications and loopholes. States re-locking down due to surges in cases will probably have a bad impact on employment as well. The supplemental unemployment payments have not yet been renewed and will end at the end of July.
- bitxbit 6y agoAugust will be brutal if unemployment stimulus ends. I don’t think Washington understands the dire nature of the situation.
- hyperbovine 6y agoHalf of it does.
- coronadisaster 6y agoJust keep printing money... Can't wait to see what effect it will have.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]