> There was also a lot of stuff where unemployment paid more than working so there were perverse incentives to not work and make more money. I had a family member who normally made about$2k/month. He got $600/week in unemployment so took a long time to go back while making an extra $500 per month. Stupidly, he bought a car with the extra money (but he’s been able to keep making the payments).
On an instinctive level I prefer hearing a story like this to the kind of story that would have been more common/worse without the very broad aid that was given, but perhaps this sort of event is quite damaging as well. I'm not sure it's possible, but it would be interesting to see attempts at quantifying the difference.
> Just having some cap that paid 80% of your salary in unemployment would have been super simple to implement.
There is nothing super simple about government unemployment insurance programs, especially in recent years. What about Uber drivers, per diem nurses, people whose employer was dependent on events in Wuhan so their pay was cut?
Even if there are easy answers to these questions, UI is administered by the states so there are going to be more than 50 versions of each answer.
On an instinctive level I prefer hearing a story like this to the kind of story that would have been more common/worse without the very broad aid that was given, but perhaps this sort of event is quite damaging as well. I'm not sure it's possible, but it would be interesting to see attempts at quantifying the difference.
> Just having some cap that paid 80% of your salary in unemployment would have been super simple to implement.
There is nothing super simple about government unemployment insurance programs, especially in recent years. What about Uber drivers, per diem nurses, people whose employer was dependent on events in Wuhan so their pay was cut?
Even if there are easy answers to these questions, UI is administered by the states so there are going to be more than 50 versions of each answer.