Comment by steelstraw | Hacker News Reader

Comment by steelstraw | Hacker News Reader

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A new analysis by Peter Ganong, Pascal Noel and Joseph Vavra, economists at the University of Chicago, uses government data from 2019 to estimate that 68 percent of unemployed workers who can receive benefits are eligible for payments that are greater than their lost earnings. They also found that the estimated median replacement rate — the share of a worker’s original weekly salary that is being replaced by unemployment benefits — is 134 percent, or more than one-third above their original wage. A substantial minority of those workers, particularly in low-wage professions like food service and janitorial work, may end up receiving more than 150 percent of their previous weekly salary.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/many-americans-are-gett...

A Bank of America Global Research report published in April estimated, nationwide, workers who earn less than $32,000 annually could make more money on unemployment than they could from work.

An analysis of California Employment Development estimates showed $31,200, or $15 an hour, was the break-even point in the state, not accounting for differences in how the money might be taxed. The state portion of benefits is capped at $450 per week for higher-income earners.

“You could potentially earn $750 a week maximum in California using unemployment. That can be a disincentive to some workers especially some of those workers in lower-paid jobs,” said Roccato.

https://www.cbs8.com/article/news/verify/verify-can-you-make...

Literally the entirety of that "argument" falls apart when one takes into consideration that unemployment benefits are regularly limited to a short time span and a fraction of your recent income, qualified by lay offs, not being fired or voluntarily leaving work, and even when they were extended due to something as disruptive as a GLOBAL PANDEMIC, the payments were still limited and are no longer in effect.

And the fact that the most anyone could make was capped under 24,000 USD a year - if you consider anything above poverty level in the US in 2020/2021, then this conversation should stop here...

Look, this whole argument is terribly messy-- made so by entrenched political positions and lack of constructive dialog.

The thing is, a terrible feature of current poverty programs in North America is the existence of cliffs, where the net resources of a household can decrease -- especially in the short to intermediate term-- if one pursues more lucrative careers. See https://www.atlantafed.org/economic-mobility-and-resilience/...

This is at baseline. Some of the pandemic response measures have further worsened the picture. Work, in the short term, is punished.

We need a (small) basic income, and to structure the rest of poverty programs to make sure these kinds of perverse incentives no longer exist.

The cliffs are designed to divide the population on the issue of the benefits.

Making benefits universal is understood as a way to make the population unite behind them long-term, a political danger to capitalist elites who benefit from worker precarity.

Having no benefits at all is another political danger. The obvious cruelty of total economic exclusion results in social movements for reform.

Crippled benefits gate-kept by a punitive bureaucratic layer are the stable compromise.

> a political danger to capitalist elites who benefit from worker precarity.

This seems like an unusually pejorative way of describing the desire to have a functioning economy, where workers actually have an incentive to work instead of being paid to Netflix and chill.

And this article and its commentary are replete with examples that defy the usual straw men associated with arguments for UBI, if that helps. CERB at $2k a month is the prime example and the source of the original article.

I used objective, neutral language. You called it pejorative, then you used pejorative language.

Ideological defense of capitalism often takes the same forms as denial of interpersonal abuse.

Rather, “capitalist elites who benefit from precarious workers”, is not neutral or objective. That’s an editorialized and oversimplified view of what are the motivations and needs of people actually creating the jobs in the first place.

There are likely more unproductive (deliberately) workers on balance who are siphoning wages from companies than there are “capitalist elites” who prey on their workers needing a job.

The entire article and thread of comments demonstrate that people would prefer to stay at home and be paid than to work and be paid. It’s not hard to imagine why and see the negative downsides unless you’re one of the people trying to justify being paid to stay at home.

> That’s an editorialized and oversimplified view of what are the motivations and needs

I literally did not say anything about "motivations and needs."

I referred to "benefit," as in their interests.

Interests, motivations, and needs aren't all the same thing. You should know this and recognize it all by yourself!

I'm really not interested in refuting your sociopathic little distortions.

> people actually creating the jobs

ROFL

FYSA: one's "interests" are very, very similar to ones "motivations and needs."

But I agree to walk away. If you ROFL at the prospect of someone who is legitimately creating jobs being an interested party in the discussion of our economic structure, it's probably not worth the typing energy to debate with you.

Accurate neutral objective description of economic interests...

distorted by you into some offensive pejorative about "motivations".

Your dishonesty is disgusting.

> And this article and its commentary are replete with examples that defy the usual straw men associated with arguments for UBI, if that helps. CERB at $2k a month is the prime example and the source of the original article.

CERB does exactly what a UBI shouldn't do: phase out if you made more than a (small) income threshold. This creates an explicit incentive to not work. The "U"-- "universal" -- is important to not create these types of cliff where work is punished.

Right now in the US we have a mess of systems: tax brackets, EITC, SNAP, housing assistance, WIC, etc. I don't think we can quite "nuke them all" and replace them with a UBI, but a UBI with a flatter tax system, no EITC, less unemployment insurance, and a bit less SNAP could ensure everyone can still eat; would tide over people between jobs; would assist people in situations where they're voluntarily changing careers, etc... and most importantly, would remove the perverse disincentives to work that the cliffs on SNAP, WIC, etc, do.

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