[SingleSpeedSteven]

Opening the economy/letting small businesses open is the best thing for our economy. Not sending federally-printed money to people.

We've been doing that. I am in Arizona, which was one of the first places to open around the 4th of July and we saw the virus spiral out of control. You can open all of the restaurants and venues you want, but if people are scared to go out it's not going to make much difference.

 

[milehi]

No offense, but your opinions weren't worthy of engaging on a super deep level. You sounded just like every other American who thinks that if they don't have a problem, then there's no problem at all. On top of that, we had record unemployment on levels worse than the great depression at some points, and you're still out here arguing that "people just want to stay home because they're lazy". If you want to talk about moral high grounds, maybe try being a little more empathetic towards people who haven't been as luck as you through all of this first. I am taking no moral high grounds, and in fact have been very humble about the fact that I came out luckier than millions of people. You on the other hand want to accuse people of being lazy and just wanting to live off of unemployment. You're essentially a leftover relic of the 1986 Reagan era where we blame everything on "welfare queens". Get over yourself. People want to go back to work, but when there are no jobs to go to it makes sense to help keep them afloat so we don't see housing markets and other important economic pillars collapse.

I will tell you the same thing I tell everyone else. If you're an economist or some kind of authority on the situation, I am happy to listen. Your original post sounded like a typical upper/middle class wanna-be Libertarian who assumes that everyone below them on the economic ladder is just lazy and entitled.

Where are you from? In Southern California everyone has a job if they can breath air.

 

[Curveball]

I may or may not get a check. It might be nice though since my business is pretty well drying up. I don't know how much longer I'll have my job at the rate things are going.

 

[jeremy3220]

Opening the economy/letting small businesses open is the best thing for our economy. Not sending federally-printed money to people.

You should come to the US. Practically everything is open. I can go eat in a restaurant, go to the movies, shopping mall, etc.

 

[Le Duke]

I wish the checks were more targeted. How to pull that off? I have no clue. That’s a logistics problem I couldn’t begin to figure out.

Another problem is that they used 2019 tax returns. My wife took a pay cut (state university professor) AND was pregnant/on maternity leave in 2020. So, she took two different pay cuts, but the IRS thought that she was still making her 2019 salary. Income significantly less than 2019.

Now, apply that to someone who either lost their 2019/pre-COVID job and is unemployed or someone who had to find a different job with lower pay. There are a lot of people hard up right now.

Re: “opening up”. Restaurants and bars have been open to varying degrees here in CO. I haven’t dined in a restaurant in 12 months now; I only do takeout. We didn’t go out to dinner a lot before, maybe once a month, but just think about how many people are (not) doing the same thing. And how that applies to all of the staff at restaurants. Particularly those that get by on tips.


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[J.B. Weld]

I never hear billionaires complaining about bailouts or stimulus $$$ they get, or worrying about it wrecking the economy

 

[slapheadmofo]

I never hear billionaires complaining about bailouts or stimulus $$$ they get, or worrying about it wrecking the economy

Do you talk with billionaires often?

 

[WHALENARD]

I never hear billionaires complaining about bailouts or stimulus $$$ they get, or worrying about it wrecking the economy

And they got somewhere around 4/5ths of the cares act money.

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[SingleSpeedSteven]

I never hear billionaires complaining about bailouts or stimulus $$$ they get, or worrying about it wrecking the economy

This is why, as hard as I try I can't keep my mouth shut when I hear this primitive "people don't want to get off unemployment because they're making too much" argument. If you want to be pissed at someone for our national deficit or future tax obligations, be pissed at the ultra wealthy that use any small catastrophe to run out the back door with stimulus money. Your neighbor who's living off unemployment is probably not living it up over there, I am sure he wants to go back to work just the same as almost everyone else who's out of work.

 

[slapheadmofo]

. You on the other hand want to accuse people of being lazy and just wanting to live off of unemployment. You're essentially a leftover relic of the 1986 Reagan era where we blame everything on "welfare queens". Get over yourself. People want to go back to work, but when there are no jobs to go to it makes sense to help keep them afloat so we don't see housing markets and other important economic pillars collapse.

I will tell you the same thing I tell everyone else. If you're an economist or some kind of authority on the situation, I am happy to listen. Your original post sounded like a typical upper/middle class wanna-be Libertarian who assumes that everyone below them on the economic ladder is just lazy and entitled.

You really like to put words in people's mouths, eh?

He's right about the extra UE benefits. It was poorly thought out. It wasn't that people who took advantage of it were lazy, nor did he say that; it was that someone would have to be kind of stupid to go to work when you can make a lot more money staying home.

In my state, which has decent UE insurance to begin with, a person working part time (lets use 20 hours a week) for minimum wage ($12.75 in MA) would be pulling in $255 a week, before tax. That same person would receive $727.50 a week on unemployment. Not exactly much of an incentive to return to work. I know people who were trying to hire and it was practically impossible. The only people looking for work were really, really bad at math.

 

[SingleSpeedSteven]

You really like to put words in people's mouths, eh?

He's right about the extra UE benefits. It was poorly thought out. It wasn't that people who took advantage of it were lazy, nor did he say that; it was that someone would have to be kind of stupid to go to work when you can make almost twice as much staying home.

In my state, which has decent UE insurance to begin with, a person working part time (lets use 20 hours a week) for minimum wage ($12.75 in MA) would be pulling in $255 a week, before tax. That same person would receive $727.50 a week on unemployment. Not exactly much of an incentive to return to work. I know people who were trying to hire and it was practically impossible. The only people looking for work were really, really bad at math.

Maybe I misunderstood the original post, if so I apologize. I wasn't trying to put words in anyone's mouth, his post just sounded an awful lot like the typical "lazy people won't get off unemployment" rhetoric that I have heard this entire pandemic. We can argue both sides but I don't think either of us has any hard numbers to back it up, so it's pointless. Anecdotally, I have family members who don't make a ton of money and would be happy to get off unemployment, because they are fully aware that unemployment runs out eventually.

 

[slapheadmofo]

Another problem is that they used 2019 tax returns. My wife took a pay cut (state university professor) AND was pregnant/on maternity leave in 2020. So, she took two different pay cuts, but the IRS thought that she was still making her 2019 salary. Income significantly less than 2019.

Now, apply that to someone who either lost their 2019/pre-COVID job and is unemployed or someone who had to find a different job with lower pay. There are a lot of people hard up right now.

I believe I read that there's a way to handle this and get it balanced out while filing your current tax return.

 

[alxrmrs]

That same person would receive $727.50 a week on unemployment. Not exactly much of an incentive to return to work. I know people who were trying to hire and it was practically impossible. The only people looking for work were really, really bad at math.

Where is your math on this? You can't look at the theoretical maximum and apply it universally. CA has a maximum of $450/week (even before the pandemic) but to get the whole $450 you'd have to be making something like $100k/year.

 

[slapheadmofo]

Maybe I misunderstood the original post, if so I apologize. I wasn't trying to put words in anyone's mouth, his post just sounded an awful lot like the typical "lazy people won't get off unemployment" rhetoric that I have heard this entire pandemic. We can argue both sides but I don't think either of us has any hard numbers to back it up, so it's pointless. Anecdotally, I have family members who don't make a ton of money and would be happy to get off unemployment, because they are fully aware that unemployment runs out eventually.

I just posted some hard numbers. Do you see any issues with my math?

MA UE pays 50% of your regular pay, averaged over the best 6 of the previous 12 months, up to a max benefit of $855 a week, and then will add $25 per dependent. Then the feds threw another $600 per week on top of that.

What this means is everyone working full time making $29.99 an hour or less was getting paid more to stay home than to work. 30x40=1200, 1200/2=600, 600+600=1200.
Part time work would require an even higher hourly rate to get to break-even, depending on the number of hours worked.
In my previous example, you would need to raise the minimum wage to $36.38 per hour to reach break-even.

And that's just break even; again, who's going to be dumb enough to work all week for an extra $20-40-50?
This would disincentivize anyone with an shred of common sense from giving it up, lazy or not.

Again, feel free to correct my math if you see an mistake, but don't pretend neither of us have any numbers. I do.

 

[slapheadmofo]

Where is your math on this? You can't look at the theoretical maximum and apply it universally. CA has a maximum of $450/week (even before the pandemic) but to get the whole $450 you'd have to be making something like $100k/year.

My math is posted above.
Where's yours?

Mine also tells me that you need to make about $46,800 a year to max out CA UE benefits. Not anywhere near the "like $100k/year" you obviously made up out of thin air.

 

[Bacon Fat]

Where is your math on this? You can't look at the theoretical maximum and apply it universally. CA has a maximum of $450/week (even before the pandemic) but to get the whole $450 you'd have to be making something like $100k/year.

$48K is the min to get $450 per the CA calculator

 

[alxrmrs]

My math is posted above.
Where's yours?

Your math assumes minimum wage employees get the maximum benefit.

 

[slapheadmofo]

Your math assumes minimum wage employees get the maximum benefit.

Nope.

Go back to post #70 to see the referenced part time/minimum wage example.

20hrs x 12.75=255
255/2=127.5
127.5+600=727.50
727.50/20=36.375

That adds up to a $23.63 per hour raise to stay home.

If you see a problem with the math, please go ahead and share the "correct" numbers.
Just make sure to be specific. That's what math is for after all.

 

[slapheadmofo]

$48K is the min to get $450 per the CA calculator

I believe in CA they also just use your best quarter to determine your base rate, so you could actually make quite a bit less than this in a year and still max out.
And then they added the extra $600 a week on top of that.

MA uses your best two quarters.

 

[prj71]

This is completely ad hominem, you don't address a single thing I've said. Instead, you've self-righteously seized the moral high ground, constructed a straw man that makes you feel good and passed judgment on me, someone you don't know at all. You know nothing about me or my circumstances. You know nothing about why I hold these opinions and what my experiences have been. This kind of garbage is the reason I hate engaging online.

You took the moral high ground with your initial post in this thread. Holy pot, kettle, black!!!