8 ms·

I don't see how having only 50% make more is any less ludicrous. Should anyone ever make more money while unemployed than when employed? Won't that completely

I don't see how having only 50% make more is any less ludicrous. Should anyone ever make more money while unemployed than when employed? Won't that completely alter the valuation of work and with that the proper functioning of the economy? PS I know people that own businesses that can't reopen because people that usually would work for them don't want to come back as the salary he pays is less than the unemployment benefit.

kingkawn 6y ago
It just means that they’ve all been wildly underpaid, not that unemployment is overpaying
- glofish 6y ago
  How did everyone miss this ingenious policy that immediately solves poverty. You can't have a low salary if everyone, by default gets a high salary. All the worlds problems instantly solved.
  - happytoexplain 6y ago
    This seems like a flawed, and emotional, interpretation. Edit: I say flawed because, of course, the point stands regardless of how difficult it is to raise wages.
  - anthony_doan 6y ago
    Salary aren't dichotomous to high and low.
    - kingkawn 6y ago
      They are when you’re making under $600 a week in America
  - Jweb_Guru 6y ago
    $600 / week is $15 / hour. I'm not sure why you are saying that's a high paying job when it's a long overdue proposal for a minimum wage.
  - kingkawn 6y ago
    They missed it because they were too busy enriching themselves at the expense of the poor while patting themselves on the back and calling it rationality.
TAForObvReasons 6y ago
The more interesting question is whether wages were too low to begin with. Plenty of evidence points to wage stagnation in the lower-wage jobs starting in the 1980s and continuing to today. A huge number of americans collecting SNAP benefits actually work at companies like Walmart and Amazon. Is it possible the answer to the question is "we should pay workers more"?
- glofish 6y ago
  consider what you are saying, that the economic policy for raising salaries is to introduce an artificially highly set unemployment benefit
  - throwanem 6y ago
    No, the economic policy for keeping our economy from entirely imploding, instead of just partially imploding as it actually has done, has been to introduce an unusually high unemployment benefit. Raising wages has been a beneficial side effect. I say "has been" because, again, the CARES Act supplementary benefit expired today, with no clear replacement plan in sight, and no equivalent replacement plan anywhere on the horizon.
    - glofish 6y ago
      think about what you are saying artificially raising salaries in an imploding economy with high unemployment is beneficial uh, no, it is a recipe for economic disaster.
      - throwanem 6y ago
        I'm not unsympathetic, although I admit I've sounded that way just now. Terror will have that effect on a person, I suppose. Glibness aside, I spent enough years working in a company with three total employees counting myself and the owner to have a sense of what things must be like for someone trying to operate on a shoestring in this kind of environment. In a word: desperate. I'd imagine it's a familiar feeling to people who have been paid so poorly in the recent past that they find $15 an hour a step up. Ideally, you'd see living-wage unemployment in a situation like this one matched by the kind of substantial, ongoing supplemental loans to small business owners that'd enable them to pay a living wage directly, and thus successfully compete in the labor market. But our shitshow excuse for a government - and that's not partisan; I'm indicting all sides equally here - has been no more successful at that than it has at supporting workers. And now it looks very much as if we're going to have an economic disaster no matter what anyone does. Well. Judging by yesterday's GDP figures, I suppose I should say more of an economic disaster.
throwanem 6y ago
So, what I hear you saying is that he can't compete in a seller's market for labor.
- glofish 6y ago
  are you serious? obviously he can't compete against the government's pocket
  - throwanem 6y ago
    Good news for him, then! Starting Monday he doesn't have to. Give it a couple of months and he can probably hire at $2 an hour, or maybe just room and board. There's a whole lot of people about to get evicted, after all. He might have a bit of a hard time getting customers, what with everyone being either broke or terrified into hoarding whatever they've got or both, but what the hell, right? They say a rising tide lifts all boats. What do you think happens when the tide goes out and stays out? If you're not scared shitless, I have to assume you cannot possibly be paying attention.
    - glofish 6y ago
      you talk exactly like someone that has no idea what it is like to run a small business that serves a community around them. you are jumping to conclusions that he must have been exploiting his staff etc. and you are disregarding the fact that you are punishing the most entrepreneurial, whose entire livelihood depends on this. He built the business for 20 years, has 8 trucks, garages, equipment, loans etc all goes sideways if he has to double his prices especially in this environment. He now has to compete against an unrealistic, government set salary that ironically, is paid partially from taxes imposed on him. Maybe he should go on unemployment, and ta-da all is solved, he is now making a good salary
      - throwanem 6y ago
        See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24015210 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24015210 - our replies crossed.
landryraccoon 6y ago
Isn't the ultimate goal of technology for no one to have to work unless they want to, while providing utopian material abundance to everyone regardless of whether they work? Of course this isn't possible with our current level of technology, but isn't that what we are striving towards? I mean, what's the point of building AI and robots and advanced energy sources and bio engineering if they don't fundamentally improve the quality of life for everyone? I certainly don't think there's some moral requirement to force everyone to work.
- dry_soup 6y ago
  Under capitalism, no, that's not what anyone is working towards.
  - happytoexplain 6y ago
    America isn't strictly, for all time, and to the absolute exclusion of all other systems, capitalistic. No society is, for any system.
  - duckMuppet 6y ago
    Which is a primary reason for the push against capitalism
- WalterBright 6y ago
  People thrive when they have a purpose in life and problems to solve. Take away their problems and purpose and: 1. they'll invent problems I.e. "first world problems". We (in America, anyway) live in an incredible utopia by any historical standard. But I read on the news every day about an endless series of phony crises. (The coronavirus thing is a real crisis, but even so, by historical epidemics it is not that bad. The bubonic plague, for example, killed something like 35%.) 2. they'll be miserable and self-destructive This is a well known problem with the offspring of very wealthy people who never had to try at anything. 3. they die People often die shortly after their retirement. They don't survive the loss of purpose.
  - 6y ago
arcticbull 6y ago
No, nobody should ever make more unemployed than unemployed, and that just shows that we need to raise the minimum wage -- not lower unemployment benefits.
- glofish 6y ago
  if everyone's salary is raised by $600 what do you think happens? I'll tell you, $600 is the new zero that gets you nothing.
  - recursive 6y ago
    How does arithmetic work under this system? If $600 gets you nothing, then what does 2 * $600 get you?
  - arcticbull 6y ago
    That isn't actually how that works, for a lot of interesting reasons, but the most objective answer I can give you is this. Since the 1970s, the M2 money supply has 15X'd, but inflation has only divided value by 7. Just increasing the supply of money in an economy doesn't cause inflation on a 1:1 scale. If everyone made an extra $600, they would more than likely obtain an additional $280 in added welfare. I think it's not an unrealistic way of looking at it to say that our floor is $280, and in reality, we could see up to $600 or more in net welfare added. What you're actually doing is bringing the poor and the wealthy closer together, reducing inequality. In places with a $15 minimum wage, standard of living actually goes up for the poorest citizens.
    - glofish 6y ago
      Ok I'll bite. How much do you think would entice someone to be a cashier and work 8 hours a day when someone on unemployment in the current system gets say $3600/month. Imagine a poorer state where you can easily make do with $3.6K per month. My question is pretty much what would you have to pay someone to show up for a somewhat unpleasant workplace when they don't need an income for a decent life already? (and they would lose their previous income if they did work) I think the math is not so simple there.
happytoexplain 6y ago
>Should anyone ever make more money while unemployed than when employed? No, but of course the fault lies somewhere between unemployment being too high and wages being too low.
skwb 6y ago
Because we don't have any efficient way for states to figure out exactly how much people were making before. Lawmakers have been on a campaign to defund, stifle, and keep unemployment insurance hard to access. This has resulted in ancient systems (even by government standards) that makes it very hard to figure out how much people make. I cannot find the specific reference for it, but I believe I heard people saying some of these systems were having a hard time paying out over $1,000 a month because they were so old and outdated. This is the case of "don't let the enemy of the perfect be the enemy of the good" that is repeated a lot in policy making. Sure, we could create a more perfect solution, but what are the costs associated with crafting that perfect solution under the specified given time frame? https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/19/outdated-technology-may-slow-any-solution-to-extend-unemployment-benefits.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/19/outdated-technology-may-slow... https://www.marketplace.org/2020/06/05/when-does-the-expanded-covid-19-unemployment-insurance-run-out/ https://www.marketplace.org/2020/06/05/when-does-the-expande...
mnm1 6y ago
> Should anyone ever make more money while unemployed than when employed? Yes. During a pandemic or other disaster where they are intentionally paid to stay at home like the one we're currently in.

kingkawn 6y ago

It just means that they’ve all been wildly underpaid, not that unemployment is overpaying

glofish 6y ago
How did everyone miss this ingenious policy that immediately solves poverty. You can't have a low salary if everyone, by default gets a high salary. All the worlds problems instantly solved.
- happytoexplain 6y ago
  This seems like a flawed, and emotional, interpretation. Edit: I say flawed because, of course, the point stands regardless of how difficult it is to raise wages.
- anthony_doan 6y ago
  Salary aren't dichotomous to high and low.
  - kingkawn 6y ago
    They are when you’re making under $600 a week in America
- Jweb_Guru 6y ago
  $600 / week is $15 / hour. I'm not sure why you are saying that's a high paying job when it's a long overdue proposal for a minimum wage.
- kingkawn 6y ago
  They missed it because they were too busy enriching themselves at the expense of the poor while patting themselves on the back and calling it rationality.

TAForObvReasons 6y ago

The more interesting question is whether wages were too low to begin with. Plenty of evidence points to wage stagnation in the lower-wage jobs starting in the 1980s and continuing to today. A huge number of americans collecting SNAP benefits actually work at companies like Walmart and Amazon. Is it possible the answer to the question is "we should pay workers more"?

glofish 6y ago
consider what you are saying, that the economic policy for raising salaries is to introduce an artificially highly set unemployment benefit
- throwanem 6y ago
  No, the economic policy for keeping our economy from entirely imploding, instead of just partially imploding as it actually has done, has been to introduce an unusually high unemployment benefit. Raising wages has been a beneficial side effect. I say "has been" because, again, the CARES Act supplementary benefit expired today, with no clear replacement plan in sight, and no equivalent replacement plan anywhere on the horizon.
  - glofish 6y ago
    think about what you are saying artificially raising salaries in an imploding economy with high unemployment is beneficial uh, no, it is a recipe for economic disaster.
    - throwanem 6y ago
      I'm not unsympathetic, although I admit I've sounded that way just now. Terror will have that effect on a person, I suppose. Glibness aside, I spent enough years working in a company with three total employees counting myself and the owner to have a sense of what things must be like for someone trying to operate on a shoestring in this kind of environment. In a word: desperate. I'd imagine it's a familiar feeling to people who have been paid so poorly in the recent past that they find $15 an hour a step up. Ideally, you'd see living-wage unemployment in a situation like this one matched by the kind of substantial, ongoing supplemental loans to small business owners that'd enable them to pay a living wage directly, and thus successfully compete in the labor market. But our shitshow excuse for a government - and that's not partisan; I'm indicting all sides equally here - has been no more successful at that than it has at supporting workers. And now it looks very much as if we're going to have an economic disaster no matter what anyone does. Well. Judging by yesterday's GDP figures, I suppose I should say more of an economic disaster.

throwanem 6y ago

So, what I hear you saying is that he can't compete in a seller's market for labor.

glofish 6y ago
are you serious? obviously he can't compete against the government's pocket
- throwanem 6y ago
  Good news for him, then! Starting Monday he doesn't have to. Give it a couple of months and he can probably hire at $2 an hour, or maybe just room and board. There's a whole lot of people about to get evicted, after all. He might have a bit of a hard time getting customers, what with everyone being either broke or terrified into hoarding whatever they've got or both, but what the hell, right? They say a rising tide lifts all boats. What do you think happens when the tide goes out and stays out? If you're not scared shitless, I have to assume you cannot possibly be paying attention.
  - glofish 6y ago
    you talk exactly like someone that has no idea what it is like to run a small business that serves a community around them. you are jumping to conclusions that he must have been exploiting his staff etc. and you are disregarding the fact that you are punishing the most entrepreneurial, whose entire livelihood depends on this. He built the business for 20 years, has 8 trucks, garages, equipment, loans etc all goes sideways if he has to double his prices especially in this environment. He now has to compete against an unrealistic, government set salary that ironically, is paid partially from taxes imposed on him. Maybe he should go on unemployment, and ta-da all is solved, he is now making a good salary
    - throwanem 6y ago
      See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24015210 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24015210 - our replies crossed.

landryraccoon 6y ago

Isn't the ultimate goal of technology for no one to have to work unless they want to, while providing utopian material abundance to everyone regardless of whether they work? Of course this isn't possible with our current level of technology, but isn't that what we are striving towards? I mean, what's the point of building AI and robots and advanced energy sources and bio engineering if they don't fundamentally improve the quality of life for everyone? I certainly don't think there's some moral requirement to force everyone to work.

dry_soup 6y ago
Under capitalism, no, that's not what anyone is working towards.
- happytoexplain 6y ago
  America isn't strictly, for all time, and to the absolute exclusion of all other systems, capitalistic. No society is, for any system.
- duckMuppet 6y ago
  Which is a primary reason for the push against capitalism
WalterBright 6y ago
People thrive when they have a purpose in life and problems to solve. Take away their problems and purpose and: 1. they'll invent problems I.e. "first world problems". We (in America, anyway) live in an incredible utopia by any historical standard. But I read on the news every day about an endless series of phony crises. (The coronavirus thing is a real crisis, but even so, by historical epidemics it is not that bad. The bubonic plague, for example, killed something like 35%.) 2. they'll be miserable and self-destructive This is a well known problem with the offspring of very wealthy people who never had to try at anything. 3. they die People often die shortly after their retirement. They don't survive the loss of purpose.
- 6y ago

arcticbull 6y ago

No, nobody should ever make more unemployed than unemployed, and that just shows that we need to raise the minimum wage -- not lower unemployment benefits.

glofish 6y ago
if everyone's salary is raised by $600 what do you think happens? I'll tell you, $600 is the new zero that gets you nothing.
- recursive 6y ago
  How does arithmetic work under this system? If $600 gets you nothing, then what does 2 * $600 get you?
- arcticbull 6y ago
  That isn't actually how that works, for a lot of interesting reasons, but the most objective answer I can give you is this. Since the 1970s, the M2 money supply has 15X'd, but inflation has only divided value by 7. Just increasing the supply of money in an economy doesn't cause inflation on a 1:1 scale. If everyone made an extra $600, they would more than likely obtain an additional $280 in added welfare. I think it's not an unrealistic way of looking at it to say that our floor is $280, and in reality, we could see up to $600 or more in net welfare added. What you're actually doing is bringing the poor and the wealthy closer together, reducing inequality. In places with a $15 minimum wage, standard of living actually goes up for the poorest citizens.
  - glofish 6y ago
    Ok I'll bite. How much do you think would entice someone to be a cashier and work 8 hours a day when someone on unemployment in the current system gets say $3600/month. Imagine a poorer state where you can easily make do with $3.6K per month. My question is pretty much what would you have to pay someone to show up for a somewhat unpleasant workplace when they don't need an income for a decent life already? (and they would lose their previous income if they did work) I think the math is not so simple there.

happytoexplain 6y ago

>Should anyone ever make more money while unemployed than when employed? No, but of course the fault lies somewhere between unemployment being too high and wages being too low.

skwb 6y ago

Because we don't have any efficient way for states to figure out exactly how much people were making before. Lawmakers have been on a campaign to defund, stifle, and keep unemployment insurance hard to access. This has resulted in ancient systems (even by government standards) that makes it very hard to figure out how much people make. I cannot find the specific reference for it, but I believe I heard people saying some of these systems were having a hard time paying out over $1,000 a month because they were so old and outdated. This is the case of "don't let the enemy of the perfect be the enemy of the good" that is repeated a lot in policy making. Sure, we could create a more perfect solution, but what are the costs associated with crafting that perfect solution under the specified given time frame? https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/19/outdated-technology-may-slow-any-solution-to-extend-unemployment-benefits.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/19/outdated-technology-may-slow... https://www.marketplace.org/2020/06/05/when-does-the-expanded-covid-19-unemployment-insurance-run-out/ https://www.marketplace.org/2020/06/05/when-does-the-expande...

mnm1 6y ago

> Should anyone ever make more money while unemployed than when employed? Yes. During a pandemic or other disaster where they are intentionally paid to stay at home like the one we're currently in.