Are High Unemployment benefits hurting the economy?

tallyho8 · Apr 1, 2020

Now that the gov't is adding $600 a week to unemployment benefits many people will be getting up to and even over $1000 a week for staying home instead of going to work. There are millions of job openings right now and employers are unable to fill them because who wants to go to work for $600 or $800 a week when you can stay home and get $1000 a week?

The news had a list of the many companies trying to hire who could not find workers such as: Walmart wants to hire 150,000 people. Amazon wants 100,000 new employees and so on and on.

If these people would go to work and pay taxes the economy could improve and the huge national debt would not be as bad.

In South Louisiana we had the same problem after Katrina. The gov't was giving out so many benefits to people not working that employers could not get workers and many businesses had to close making many items hard to get and we had to import workers from Mexico to fill the jobs Americans wouldn't do. At that time (2005) there were very few Mexicans before Katrina. After Katrina all you saw doing all the re-construction work was immigrants from Latin American countries. Even today we have a much higher number of Latinos that we had before. This is not a condemnation of migrant workers but an assessment of how American workers will fail to work if they get paid more for not working.

airbiscuit · Apr 1, 2020

Maybe Walmart should pay their employees a better wage.

Steppenwolfe · Apr 1, 2020

Then how would the Walton family pocket $100 million dollars a day? Come on... get real. World's richest family makes $70,000/minute, $100 million/day | KUTV

ArlyA · Apr 1, 2020

Every time I hear "these people just don't want to work!" so then I ask them "what are they paying" and the person usually reverts to stammering.

Peter 315 · Apr 1, 2020

delete...

edgarrian · Apr 1, 2020

My personal opinion!!! As for the stimulus package. The final number at years end will be damning. My guess up around 8 trillion. The grants already promised to companies and certain industries will only expand to other companies and industries. Car sales have fallen off a cliff, mortgage applications have fallen considerably, mechanic shops will soon start feeling the pain as people won't be getting scheduled maintenance done or repairs, banks will be in trouble again but lets be honest they were already heading down a path that was destructive considering corporate debt. Manufacturing is starting to slide. Given these jobs you mentioned simply will not absorb the sky rocketing unemployment numbers. Last week was 3.3 million and should have been more but states websites were crashing due to the added traffic of people trying to apply. This week will be even more. For instance I know a guy that was recently layed off. He couldn't apply on the site b/c it was crashing. He was on hold for 2hrs and was never able to get ahold of a person to file. That may have changed. So the 250,000 new jobs you mentioned doesn't even make a dent in the 3.3 million people that filed for unemployment last week alone.

With all that said im not in favor of giving airlines billions in grant money to keep them a float. They are still going to furlough people. They have no choice. I fly for work and I recently flew and there was a total of maybe 20 people on my flight. The terminals were basically empty. When I went through TSA i was the only traveler in the area. We were over 20 trillion in debt before this crap. The stimulus package included a scenario where they can release 500 Billion at a time on 10 different occasions. This will likely happen as other industries take a hit as described above. Where does all this money come from? They will simply print more of it. Before this our GDP to debt was over 100%. This country and really the world has a major problem and thats debt. I have seen numbers of what people have for savings and its concerning. This will likely wipe out what little savings people had. They will then turn to what little 401k savings they had. The outcome of this will be devastating.

I consider myself as a good saver. My family and I will be able to weather the storm. But for every person thats good with money there are probably 10 people that aren't. I see car manufacturers are already offering 84 to 120 month loans with 0%. You would be underwater the entire life of the loan. Before these terms people were already underwater on 60 month terms. People need to save and not consume so much. Where does this all end. Only time will tell. I doubt it will be a depression but certainly a good recession most likely worst than 2008. The only saving grace will be the governments commitment to propping up all the major industries and companies so that it doest lead to a depression. Basically kicking the can down the road for another economic crisis. I don't know how you correct the debt problem other than letting them fail. File bankruptcy and restructure. For whatever reason politicians are afraid to go down this road

edgarrian · Apr 1, 2020

And as far as the extra benefit of 600 a week. It is what it is. Take for instance my state of Indiana has a median income of 55k for a household so id imagine thats how they are coming up with these numbers of a 1000 a week benefit. We all know most people live to that standard without much left over. If they didnt tack on the extra 600. Indiana unemployment benefit is only 390 a week for the full benefit. That doesn't cover auto insurance, auto loan, mortgage or rent, utilities, and all there other monthly bills. Obviously thats no fault of the government bc unemployment benefits are not meant to keep up with a standard of living. Its to help you get through a rough patch and find a new job. But if there isn't any jobs to be had what do you do. Just let people file bankruptcy and watch the economy spiral out of control.

I don't know if you have noticed this or not but the price of gold and silver should be surging and its not YET. It should

Diggin It · Apr 1, 2020

If anyone fails to or refuses to return to work when called, they are no longer eligible for UI and could be required to repay some of what they received.

In no case should UI ever pay more than, or even fully equal to a claimant's former wages. Doing so removes the incentive to return to work.