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Comment by garduque | Hacker News Reader

I don't know where you live, but that is not the experience of the 32 people I have furloughed (across a handful of states), except for my one guy in MA. He is the only one I know of who is getting the $600 kicker, and the only one who is getting a meaningful percentage of his base salary. Most of my people are in GA where they max out at some $365/wk and no extra $600.

So probably at some point - even if some benefit is supposed to be coming, with no particular timeframe - you want to pay your rent or get hungry, and Instacart doesn't look so bad.

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All unemployed workers in the US receive the extra $600/week Federal benefit. Sometimes it takes time for the States to start paying (and they are particularly backlogged at the moment) but once approved, the amount paid is backdated to the filing date. Based on the extra Federal benefit, on average, any employee who was/is making less than $22/hour is better off on unemployment (exact number varies by State.) For this and other reasons, I imagine Instacart will have a hard time attracting workers.

Exactly the case, it is taking an extreme amount of time in some states. I have family that lost a job, it took 5 weeks to begin receiving unemployment, and another week for the additional $600/week to come in.

On the plus side, that unemployment benefit is definitely helping with social distancing - with the additional benefits they are essentially making an additional $13/hour over the job they lost and I am sure are in no hurry to find a replacement.

I think you're underestimating the number of people who need cash ASAP.

The $600 extra is nationwide, every state. If they aren't getting it, maybe they were unemployed too far before the crisis?

Otherwise, a vast # of fired workers come from relativy low paying service I dustry jobs. Even $300 capped plus the extra $600 works out to about $47,000 per year. More than most service industry workers. Also, about 35 states have caps at $400 or higher. The most impacted states are as high as $600-$700. If you're capped in one of those states and getting the extra $600, that works out to about $62,000/ year.

Please note I'm not saying this is wrong to do. I don't think a lot of people would stay on those short term benefits if they could get a steady job. But instacart is far from a steady job, and any temporary I crease in pay from the surge in demand will eventually go away. Not worth giving up those unemployment benefits while they're still available without a better job guarantee.

I thought the extra $600 is only for 4 months.

Yep, 4 months. I don't mean they'll actually get that annual salary, just that if they were making less than that annual salary before losing their job then their weekly pay will be more with unemployment + $600. As such, there's no reason to take an unsecured gig-worker job without benefits and with a higher risk of exposure. This is what I means when I say that the millions of new unemployed workers might not be flocking to instacart's 250k hiring binge.

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