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Comment by WWLink | Hacker News Reader

I thought that was intentional, to make sure that people stayed home instead of looking for extra work.

Pretty sure it was because the states had outdated computer systems to send funds to the right places:

> Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said in March on Fox News that the $600 bonus was chosen because states' computer systems are more than 30 years old. Reprogramming the computers to achieve what he described as a more nuanced distribution of money would have taken too long.

> “In certain states, that might be a little bit too much money. In other states, it’s less money. It’s not a perfect system, but the president’s objective was to make sure we get money in people's hands,” Mnuchin said.

Source: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/04/13/fac...

Yeah I'm mystified that people are harping on this. The entire point of overshooting wages is that the economy isn't ready to fully reopen and so we want to create incentives for people to stay home.

That'd make sense only if everyone had that option. Right now this led to people who are risking their lives and out there working potentially earning less than the people who are at home not working.

Putting my "free market" hat on for a moment, the people who are risking their lives are in an advantageous situation for bargaining. To some degree, it worked too! Lots of stores and delivery services appeared to be paying more.

I think people often look at this with the "glass half empty" viewpoint though. "PERSON A MAKES MORE THAN I DO! THEY SHOULD GET LESS!" Why not think "PERSON A MAKES MORE THAN I DO! I SHOULD MAKE MORE!"

Anecdotally, no.

My sister was able to re-open and she had the hardest time convincing her workers to return simply because of this fact.

Some never returned. Why would they?

Has nothing to do with safety or trying to keep people at home.

I don't quite understand how this happens. I'm under the impression that when you are offered your job back, you have to either take it or go off of unemployment.

There's no way to enforce that.

"In Ohio, which has encouraged businesses to report employees who don’t come back to work, approximately 600 employers have already turned in about 1,200 workers, the state’s labor agency said."[1]

[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/05/08/workers-u...

Many do not. I know a fellow with his own gardening store where prospective employees refused jobs because their unemployment checks hadn't run out yet. He didn't rat them out, I doubt many did rat because the candidates were so open about why they refused the job.

Sure, employers and states aren't enforcing the rules as much as they could.

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