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Even here on CD I wish I could see the finances of all those posters who are fully advocating a shutdown for as long as it takes and saying it's worth it. They must already be retired or have high paying essential jobs to not care for the masses.
I wish I could see the health conditions of all the posters who advocate for the economy to open back up right away. If they had pre-existing lung problems like I do, they might be singing a different tune. I'd also like to know if they have young children or not. For me, I'd rather live through a Great Depression era and still have my children alive, and me stay alive to raise them to adulthood.
It doesn't mean it is the peak, but how long does an area like this have to wait until we get over the curve? This could play out until July 4 or so. We are well behind the curve nationally. At some point, you have to do something to aid those who are laid off without an income. A one-time shot of $1,200 isn't much. If the feds backstopped us more, I wouldn't be so critical.
The $1200 isn't targeted at those laid off. That's the federal unemployment supplement of $600/wk until end of July. However, while that is a tremendous benefit for those at lower incomes it's still nowhere near letting those at higher incomes $50-100k make ends meet. Seems kind of ludicrous to me that all these forms of assistance are flat amounts and not scaled.
The Payroll Protection Program (PPP) was supposed to encourage employers to retain or recall furloughed employees but from what I've seen most employers are just gaming the system to put most of that benefit in their pocket while not really retaining employees.
The problem with reopening is we can easily be back to square one or crash hospital systems. We need to take a conservative approach to reopening. Too many want us to flip a switch on and jump into fourth gear. We need to slowly go into reopening until we are on the exponential downslope of the curve. This will be different in each area.
We haven't even come close to crashing hospitals despite the alarmist media. The problem with trying to reopen the economy slowly is that the economy is complex and vastly interlinked. It doesn't run in parts. It isn't like the lights in your house where you can turn them on in the living room and check if ok, then turn them on in the kitchen and check if ok, and so on. It's more like trying to get an airplane to fly after having re-attached just one of the wings and some of the controls.
What you want to do is distribute a certain amount of money to EVERYONE, NOW. That reduces administrative overhead. So what if Bezos blows another $1,200. Get it out there ASAP. People's rent, mortgages, utility bills, etc., depend upon it.
You want to get cash into everyone's hands. Recoup the money from 2020 taxable returns for folks above a certain income. That's how to do it. Avoid the administrative time and overhead at this point.
I made just a nose under $75,000 last year. I'll be eligible for the money based on my 2019 federal return. With that said, I live in a low cost area. $70k here for a single guy is upper middle class. In San Francisco, it's not much. You can't lump the two together and negate local cost of living. Personally, I benefit from this. If I was the $78k guy in SF, I'd be livid. That might, MIGHT, be equivalent to a $40k living here.
I wouldn't be eligible based on my salary this year. With that said, my employer 403b match was just canceled. That's a little over $5,400 for me that was supposed to be there that's vaporized. Otherwise, I'm "income as usual," but I'm not stupid.
The longer this shut down keeps up, the more likely I am to lose my job. I have an emergency fund. I could pay the house up through the first of the year. Beyond that, all bets are off.
I think that's the scenario for something like 70% of the working population. It sounds about like where my wife and I are. None of us can afford for this to go on forever. I'd bet dollars to donuts you're fairly frugal and careful with your money management like we are. By having a whole year's cushion, we're probably in the top 10-15% or higher in terms of preparedness, if not higher. Imagine everyone else.
I don't even think it can last forever for the supposedly "safe" stay at home workers. I work for a community college. We saw a 10% enrollment drop compared to last year at this time due to covid. Pre-covid we had been expecting somewhere between -2% and +2%. Only about 20% of the our students take online classes regularly. I think the rest of the 80% that are being "forced" into online, won't like it. Many will choose to just wait covid out and continue their education later rather than not get what they paid for. Plus online typically has double the attrition rate of regular classes. If this continues I think our enrollment drop will be huge in the Fall. That'll mean layoffs.
No doubt there are many bad aftereffects from stupid actions. Many we still do not forsee. Barkruptcies, repos, suicides, divorces, and as usual those on the lower rungs on the economic ladder will suffer the most. Expect the welfare roles and strain on state budgets to increase dramatically.
The big issue that I'm seeing with the "keep it shut" types is that the experts advocating this position are almost always well-paid professionals with damn near bulletproof jobs in government or academia. They really do not feel the pinch that the common person on the street feels right now. If Trump fires Fauci or Birx, they'll take another position somewhere else. They aren't going to go hungry or lose their home.
To the contrary I imagine many of them are low paid professionals knowing this will be their only chance at a true “vacation” or timeframe to work from home. The government has already banned evictions from taking place so all they need now is their unemployment benefits, stimulus check, and to call up all their creditors to say “we can’t pay because of COVID.”
Well - if you believe the media over the past three years - 60% of households earn less than 60K / year, which is 2x the 600 week "on top of" the unemployment. So, it's a raise, then. With that in mind - 60% of households should be carrying on like nothing happened, and spending like they always spend, if not more - although their options for spending it are now limited.
Either that - or maybe that 60% wasn't quite right...
Well - if you believe the media over the past three years - 60% of households earn less than 60K / year, which is 2x the 600 week "on top of" the unemployment. So, it's a raise, then. With that in mind - 60% of households should be carrying on like nothing happened, and spending like they always spend, if not more - although their options for spending it are now limited.
Either that - or maybe that 60% wasn't quite right...
Are you assuming a household is composed of two equal wage earners? Even if so, the short-term cash flow may be similar but the $600 supplement is only til end of July so those households are not going to be spending freely but instead trying to save every penny in case the job prospects aren't so good end of July. Also, $60k salaries usually come with a benefits package that would be costly to replace.
Except that your fundamental hypothesis that the medically vulnerable are on disability payments and on death's door already is fundamentally wrong. There are millions out there who have moderate lung problems or have recovered from cancer or some other vulnerability to disease that are out in world and workforce without a single accommodation needed from their HR department.
Heck, your position falls along the line of 'why bother even trying to save Stephen Hawking; he's just gonna die anyways', and it used to be that advocating eugenics was a Very Bad Thing.
Eugenics? That is just fear mongering. Shame on you.
No. I am saying the opposite. I say protect people with underlying conditions and I never said all people with underlying conditions do not work. But if you look at Italy. Average age of death is more than 80 years old. Lots of high risk people do not work. I would guess the vast majority. So you only need to pull out of the workforce those who do work and are high risk. Not almost everyone like we are doing. And lots of high risk people are still working now. How are we helping them now? Is it, oh well I guess they picked the wrong occupation? For that they risk dying? Yet some healthy very low risk person is sitting at home collecting unemployment simply because the picked they right job. But this is the mixed up mess we are doing and you support it.
But all of this requires balance. You destroy the economy and plunge the world into a great depression and suddenly everyone is in bad shape. The money are resources won't be there for those you claim you want to protect.
To the contrary I imagine many of them are low paid professionals knowing this will be their only chance at a true “vacation” or timeframe to work from home. The government has already banned evictions from taking place so all they need now is their unemployment benefits, stimulus check, and to call up all their creditors to say “we can’t pay because of COVID.”
I've only heard of some automobile companies really doing that especially if the company has their own auto loan department. Honestly I might need my auto dealer to ask for a pause for a few months since it is unlikely I will work during June and July and unlikely to get unemployment.
This is why I was always against supersized unemployment and more for a temporary Freedom Dividend. Too many donut holes with unemployment since it is based on individual state laws. The only fix the cares act did was expand it for gig workers.
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