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The posts talking about "not paying enough" are completely missing the crux of the issue. There are 12 million people on unemployment, they are unemployed by ch

The posts talking about "not paying enough" are completely missing the crux of the issue. There are 12 million people on unemployment, they are unemployed by choice. The government is killing these businesses by making it impossible for them to hire, and it's at the taxpayer's expense.

glasss 5y ago
I know lots of people, probably not a huge percentage of that 12 million figure, on unemployment not by choice but by circumstance. Restaurants closed, others aren't paying enough or offering enough hours for them to move out of their parent's house again. My friends would love to be off of unemployment and living on their own again, but their field of work isn't sustaining them anymore and other fields aren't hiring enough.
eru 5y ago
You are being downvoted, but you are right that on the margin paying people _not_ to work does have an impact. But I say on the margin, because it's not 100% of the story. It's not easy to design a system that provides for the needy, doesn't cost too much, and doesn't give undue incentives to become/stay needy.
- alex_young 5y ago
  Maybe the downvotes are from some of the 12 million people the OP said ‘chose’ to be unemployed
- PhileinSophia 5y ago
  I'm not saying this to be funny, I fully intend this to be taken seriously, the solution is to follow the principle of justice. The "needy" have no claim on the output of the productive. There is no free lunch, there is no claim to the unearned. The solution is to get rid of welfare entirely, on principle. Anything less leads to this mess eventually.
  - hug 5y ago
    What is "the principle of justice", exactly? If you're talking about Rawls' principles of justice, you've completely misunderstood the source text. If you're talking about something else... well, I'd be interested in hearing what it is, although I'm not holding my breath for it to be any good. As to the latter half of your comment, society has a claim on the output of the members of that society, given that the entire operation is built that way. Society presents you with opportunities that you may not otherwise have. Stated conversely, the expectation is that the opportunities that one might not otherwise have are given to them -- the very definition of welfare. To do otherwise is merely to try to pull the ladder up behind you, not some great moral ideal.
    - PhileinSophia 5y ago
      No I don't mean Rawls. Justice, in this context, means giving to each man what he deserves. This includes not punishing men who don't deserve to be punished. "Society" has no claim on the output of the members of society. Actually, there is no such thing as society above and beyond "the members of society." What you're claiming is that "the members of society" have a claim on "the members of society," but obviously it doesn't manifest itself in a just way otherwise you could only claim what you deserve, or in other words you wouldn't claim anything from anyone else without mutual agreement. What your statement really means is that one group of people in society "the needy" have a claim on another group "the productive." As a productive "member of society" you are forced at the point of a gun (don't pay your taxes, then defend yourself from being arrested) to support the most worthless scum on earth as long as he has the social grace of being "needy." Need does not produce food, need does not build houses -- those are productive efforts -- but need is the ultimate claim on the life and labor of all the productive members of society. If you want to help the needy so much, I will not stop you, please feel free to spend every last penny you have supporting them -- but leave me out of it. I have a right to live my life as much as they have a right to squander theirs.
      - lovich 5y ago
        > No I don't mean Rawls. Justice, in this context, means giving to each man what he deserves. Yo, we took an informal vote and it looks like everyone agrees that businesses don’t “deserve” cheap labor.
- DaiPlusPlus 5y ago
  I think you grossly overestimate how much money unemployment insurance schemes actually pay out. It's certainly far from anything that creates an "incentive" to avoid work or creating a moral-hazard as you suggest. It's also very time-limited, you can't make claims for more than a few consecutive months at a time (depending on your state). Unemployment insurance serves a valuable role in giving people (barely enough) means to look for new employment - which can consume a lot of time - without needing to immediately seek new employment outside of their area of expertise and thus damage their chances of getting a new job in a field that suits them, and if a job suits someone then it suits everyone because it means someone is capitalising on their potential. Wage-slavery is not how any employment system should work.
  - PhileinSophia 5y ago
    "wage-slavery" is not a rational idea at all. By the very nature of your existence you have to eat, drink, sleep somewhere, etc. What's "forcing" you into "slavery" is your own life as a human being. That's obviously not a proper way to describe the situation. The employer that's giving you a wage is giving you a means of survival, you are free to refuse it and pay the consequences. They have no moral obligation to take the shirt off their back to cover yours.
    - heavyset_go 5y ago
      The abolitionist and former slave Frederick Douglass had this to say on the subject[1]: > experience demonstrates that there may be a slavery of wages only a little less galling and crushing in its effects than chattel slavery, and that this slavery of wages must go down with the other According to Wikipedia[1]: > Douglass went on to speak about these conditions as arising from the unequal bargaining power between the ownership/capitalist class and the non-ownership/laborer class within a compulsory monetary market: "No more crafty and effective devise for defrauding the southern laborers could be adopted than the one that substitutes orders upon shopkeepers for currency in payment of wages. It has the merit of a show of honesty, while it puts the laborer completely at the mercy of the land-owner and the shopkeeper" [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wage_slavery#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wage_slavery#History
- azth 5y ago
  Check out Islam's Zakat laws, they're exactly that.
  - eru 5y ago
    Could you elaborate? According to Wikipedia Zakat is basically a tax on wealth (not income!); the funds are supposed to go to various needy / worthy people, but it doesn't mention anything about unemployment. Anything I'm missing that you want to point out?
    - azth 5y ago
      Sure. Zakat is a form of "wealth tax" if you will. For money above a certain minimum amount held for a lunar year, 2.5% of it is to be given to certain individuals (there are several categories of such people mentioned in the Quran and Hadith). It's superior to an income tax model, which many people today are complaining about. Taxation in the US and Europe is 40% or more, crazy. Zakat on produce (fruits and veggies), and cattle each have a different way of calculation. As far as unemployment goes, if the unemployed individual falls into one of the categories of people that deserve Zakat, then he will get it, it's quite straightforward and very fair. Actually, an individual may be employed and still deserve Zakat. This way, we ensure that the lower class of people are lifted up, while not overburdening society with insanely high tax rates.
      - eru 5y ago
        Thanks for explaining. Economists have also looked into the effects of wealth taxes. Taxes specifically on the value of land held enjoy broad academic support: land is hard to hide or smuggle out of the country, and its supply is fixed. > As far as unemployment goes, if the unemployed individual falls into one of the categories of people that deserve Zakat, then he will get it, it's quite straightforward and very fair. Actually, an individual may be employed and still deserve Zakat. Yes, that's what I alluded to: making unemployment the condition to get assistance, gives a certain (perhaps small) disincentive to employment. Of course, making being needy the condition instead of being unemployed, gives a certain incentive to staying needy. Traditionally communities regulated this via social mores and standards.
DaiPlusPlus 5y ago
> There are 12 million people on unemployment, they are unemployed by choice. wat?
- PhileinSophia 5y ago
  There are 12 million people unemployed and there are businesses everywhere trying to hire. They are choosing not to work at those places because they are "beneath" them. They are not unemployed because there are no jobs, they are unemployed because there are no jobs that are worth getting off unemployment for.
  - dragonwriter 5y ago
    > There are 12 million people unemployed and there are businesses everywhere trying to hire. The majority of states (even beyond the large minority that have also terminated enhanced benefits) have reimposed work-search requirements (the federal enhanced benefits program allows, but does not require, states to suspend work-search requirements while it is in effect.)
heavyset_go 5y ago
> The government is killing these businesses by making it impossible for them to hire Nobody is entitled to cheap labor.
lovich 5y ago
Weren’t these government payouts calculated as the minimum to survive? Times may have changed but when I worked jobs at the companies that currently are complaining about labor shortages, the first thing they did during our on boarding was tell us how to sign up for food stamps. I don’t really care if welfare queen businesses can’t stay open after they’ve been sucking at the government teat for decades in the form of welfare for their workers. When your level of “impossible to hire” is set below the minimum needed to sustain an employee, then you are useless to society at large and you deserve to go out of business
- bpodgursky 5y ago
  No, not really. The federal supplement was a super crude metric meant to temporarily match the average pre-pandemic wages of those losing income. It wasn't aimed at any sort of minimum standard income.
  - lovich 5y ago
    it was payments of 1400 every few months and then 300 a week on top of unemployment which you already don't get unless you were working and lost your job without being fired for cause. That was calculated based off of federal minimum wage at 40 hours a week(1160) and then rounded up to a cool 1200 a month. the 2800 total from stimulus payments at most helps defer 1-2 months of living expenses. The unemployment payments you cannot get if you are "are unemployed by choice" since by definition you had to lose your job for other reasons. Why do you act like giving even the barest of bones to people is an assault on businesses?
    - bpodgursky 5y ago
      > you already don't get unless you were working and lost your job without being fired for cause That condition was waived during COVID. Plenty of people are on unemployment who were not fired. The fact is, something like 50% of unemployed workers were receiving more than their previous wage. You can argue that we should be restructuring the economy or whatever anyway, but it's incredibly dishonest to suggest the US gave out the "barest of bones". The US COVID benefits were per-capita the highest in the world, by far.
JimTheMan 5y ago
I suspect if you went and talked to the unemployed, you would find 98% of them would be willing to work. They are not at all likely unemployed by choice... I found that statement incredibly out of touch and lacking empathy.

glasss 5y ago

I know lots of people, probably not a huge percentage of that 12 million figure, on unemployment not by choice but by circumstance. Restaurants closed, others aren't paying enough or offering enough hours for them to move out of their parent's house again. My friends would love to be off of unemployment and living on their own again, but their field of work isn't sustaining them anymore and other fields aren't hiring enough.

eru 5y ago

You are being downvoted, but you are right that on the margin paying people _not_ to work does have an impact. But I say on the margin, because it's not 100% of the story. It's not easy to design a system that provides for the needy, doesn't cost too much, and doesn't give undue incentives to become/stay needy.

alex_young 5y ago
Maybe the downvotes are from some of the 12 million people the OP said ‘chose’ to be unemployed
PhileinSophia 5y ago
I'm not saying this to be funny, I fully intend this to be taken seriously, the solution is to follow the principle of justice. The "needy" have no claim on the output of the productive. There is no free lunch, there is no claim to the unearned. The solution is to get rid of welfare entirely, on principle. Anything less leads to this mess eventually.
- hug 5y ago
  What is "the principle of justice", exactly? If you're talking about Rawls' principles of justice, you've completely misunderstood the source text. If you're talking about something else... well, I'd be interested in hearing what it is, although I'm not holding my breath for it to be any good. As to the latter half of your comment, society has a claim on the output of the members of that society, given that the entire operation is built that way. Society presents you with opportunities that you may not otherwise have. Stated conversely, the expectation is that the opportunities that one might not otherwise have are given to them -- the very definition of welfare. To do otherwise is merely to try to pull the ladder up behind you, not some great moral ideal.
  - PhileinSophia 5y ago
    No I don't mean Rawls. Justice, in this context, means giving to each man what he deserves. This includes not punishing men who don't deserve to be punished. "Society" has no claim on the output of the members of society. Actually, there is no such thing as society above and beyond "the members of society." What you're claiming is that "the members of society" have a claim on "the members of society," but obviously it doesn't manifest itself in a just way otherwise you could only claim what you deserve, or in other words you wouldn't claim anything from anyone else without mutual agreement. What your statement really means is that one group of people in society "the needy" have a claim on another group "the productive." As a productive "member of society" you are forced at the point of a gun (don't pay your taxes, then defend yourself from being arrested) to support the most worthless scum on earth as long as he has the social grace of being "needy." Need does not produce food, need does not build houses -- those are productive efforts -- but need is the ultimate claim on the life and labor of all the productive members of society. If you want to help the needy so much, I will not stop you, please feel free to spend every last penny you have supporting them -- but leave me out of it. I have a right to live my life as much as they have a right to squander theirs.
    - lovich 5y ago
      > No I don't mean Rawls. Justice, in this context, means giving to each man what he deserves. Yo, we took an informal vote and it looks like everyone agrees that businesses don’t “deserve” cheap labor.
DaiPlusPlus 5y ago
I think you grossly overestimate how much money unemployment insurance schemes actually pay out. It's certainly far from anything that creates an "incentive" to avoid work or creating a moral-hazard as you suggest. It's also very time-limited, you can't make claims for more than a few consecutive months at a time (depending on your state). Unemployment insurance serves a valuable role in giving people (barely enough) means to look for new employment - which can consume a lot of time - without needing to immediately seek new employment outside of their area of expertise and thus damage their chances of getting a new job in a field that suits them, and if a job suits someone then it suits everyone because it means someone is capitalising on their potential. Wage-slavery is not how any employment system should work.
- PhileinSophia 5y ago
  "wage-slavery" is not a rational idea at all. By the very nature of your existence you have to eat, drink, sleep somewhere, etc. What's "forcing" you into "slavery" is your own life as a human being. That's obviously not a proper way to describe the situation. The employer that's giving you a wage is giving you a means of survival, you are free to refuse it and pay the consequences. They have no moral obligation to take the shirt off their back to cover yours.
  - heavyset_go 5y ago
    The abolitionist and former slave Frederick Douglass had this to say on the subject[1]: > experience demonstrates that there may be a slavery of wages only a little less galling and crushing in its effects than chattel slavery, and that this slavery of wages must go down with the other According to Wikipedia[1]: > Douglass went on to speak about these conditions as arising from the unequal bargaining power between the ownership/capitalist class and the non-ownership/laborer class within a compulsory monetary market: "No more crafty and effective devise for defrauding the southern laborers could be adopted than the one that substitutes orders upon shopkeepers for currency in payment of wages. It has the merit of a show of honesty, while it puts the laborer completely at the mercy of the land-owner and the shopkeeper" [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wage_slavery#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wage_slavery#History
azth 5y ago
Check out Islam's Zakat laws, they're exactly that.
- eru 5y ago
  Could you elaborate? According to Wikipedia Zakat is basically a tax on wealth (not income!); the funds are supposed to go to various needy / worthy people, but it doesn't mention anything about unemployment. Anything I'm missing that you want to point out?
  - azth 5y ago
    Sure. Zakat is a form of "wealth tax" if you will. For money above a certain minimum amount held for a lunar year, 2.5% of it is to be given to certain individuals (there are several categories of such people mentioned in the Quran and Hadith). It's superior to an income tax model, which many people today are complaining about. Taxation in the US and Europe is 40% or more, crazy. Zakat on produce (fruits and veggies), and cattle each have a different way of calculation. As far as unemployment goes, if the unemployed individual falls into one of the categories of people that deserve Zakat, then he will get it, it's quite straightforward and very fair. Actually, an individual may be employed and still deserve Zakat. This way, we ensure that the lower class of people are lifted up, while not overburdening society with insanely high tax rates.
    - eru 5y ago
      Thanks for explaining. Economists have also looked into the effects of wealth taxes. Taxes specifically on the value of land held enjoy broad academic support: land is hard to hide or smuggle out of the country, and its supply is fixed. > As far as unemployment goes, if the unemployed individual falls into one of the categories of people that deserve Zakat, then he will get it, it's quite straightforward and very fair. Actually, an individual may be employed and still deserve Zakat. Yes, that's what I alluded to: making unemployment the condition to get assistance, gives a certain (perhaps small) disincentive to employment. Of course, making being needy the condition instead of being unemployed, gives a certain incentive to staying needy. Traditionally communities regulated this via social mores and standards.

DaiPlusPlus 5y ago

> There are 12 million people on unemployment, they are unemployed by choice. wat?

PhileinSophia 5y ago
There are 12 million people unemployed and there are businesses everywhere trying to hire. They are choosing not to work at those places because they are "beneath" them. They are not unemployed because there are no jobs, they are unemployed because there are no jobs that are worth getting off unemployment for.
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > There are 12 million people unemployed and there are businesses everywhere trying to hire. The majority of states (even beyond the large minority that have also terminated enhanced benefits) have reimposed work-search requirements (the federal enhanced benefits program allows, but does not require, states to suspend work-search requirements while it is in effect.)

heavyset_go 5y ago

> The government is killing these businesses by making it impossible for them to hire Nobody is entitled to cheap labor.

lovich 5y ago

Weren’t these government payouts calculated as the minimum to survive? Times may have changed but when I worked jobs at the companies that currently are complaining about labor shortages, the first thing they did during our on boarding was tell us how to sign up for food stamps. I don’t really care if welfare queen businesses can’t stay open after they’ve been sucking at the government teat for decades in the form of welfare for their workers. When your level of “impossible to hire” is set below the minimum needed to sustain an employee, then you are useless to society at large and you deserve to go out of business

bpodgursky 5y ago
No, not really. The federal supplement was a super crude metric meant to temporarily match the average pre-pandemic wages of those losing income. It wasn't aimed at any sort of minimum standard income.
- lovich 5y ago
  it was payments of 1400 every few months and then 300 a week on top of unemployment which you already don't get unless you were working and lost your job without being fired for cause. That was calculated based off of federal minimum wage at 40 hours a week(1160) and then rounded up to a cool 1200 a month. the 2800 total from stimulus payments at most helps defer 1-2 months of living expenses. The unemployment payments you cannot get if you are "are unemployed by choice" since by definition you had to lose your job for other reasons. Why do you act like giving even the barest of bones to people is an assault on businesses?
  - bpodgursky 5y ago
    > you already don't get unless you were working and lost your job without being fired for cause That condition was waived during COVID. Plenty of people are on unemployment who were not fired. The fact is, something like 50% of unemployed workers were receiving more than their previous wage. You can argue that we should be restructuring the economy or whatever anyway, but it's incredibly dishonest to suggest the US gave out the "barest of bones". The US COVID benefits were per-capita the highest in the world, by far.

JimTheMan 5y ago

I suspect if you went and talked to the unemployed, you would find 98% of them would be willing to work. They are not at all likely unemployed by choice... I found that statement incredibly out of touch and lacking empathy.