
Another 1.3M Americans File for Unemployment - tresilience
https://www.forbes.com/sites/sergeiklebnikov/2020/07/16/dow-falls-100-points-after-another-13-million-americans-file-for-unemployment/#5677021c6720
======
ethanwillis
Our government has failed in their response at local, state, and federal
levels. The other thing we're going to be seeing soon is that these
Unemployment programs have failed to do what they're ordained to do.

This is an anecdote, but my brother was furloughed and has been waiting on any
money (including the first stimulus) for literally _months_

~~~
alexpetralia
Do you have any sense of how people are managing?

I sort of assumed that people _must_ be receiving money because there's no way
Americans in the lower deciles of savings would be able to pay their bills
consistently without work or stimulus. If there's no stimulus and no work, how
are they paying bills? Is it on credit? Was there actually some savings?

~~~
paulmd
Roughly 1 in 3 american households are behind on their housing payments.

Most states (and all federally backed mortgages) have temporarily suspended
evictions so the short answer is that people in financial distress dropped
that expense, which is usually the single largest on most people's budgets
(for low-income people this can often be 50% or more of take-home depending on
the city - yes, the rule of thumb is that it shouldn't be higher than 25% but
you simply can't find affordable housing in a lot of areas).

However that one eventually is going to come due because the federal mortgage
eviction moratorium doesn't _prevent you from going in default on your
mortgage,_ it only _prevents evictions_. The 3-month timer is still running
and as soon as the moratorium on evictions is lifted, they can kick you out
_immediately_. So as soon as that lets up in a month or two there's going to
be a massive surge in evictions in states that do not go out of their way to
keep evictions suspended.

(and in fact this is probably a snowballing problem, the longer this crisis
goes unchecked and the worse the economic pain gets, the more people that will
be in default and the bigger the difficulty of getting "back to normal".
Furthermore at some point that shit starts rolling back uphill economically,
banks turned your mortgage into financial products and you not paying is
cutting off the income of someone else, and in fact there is an eventual risk
of a 2008-style crisis occurring _on top of all the current problems_ if we
get into a situation where people are defaulting en-masse.)

~~~
_wldu
Almost 40% of homes in America are owned free and clear (no mortgage).
[https://www.forbes.com/sites/brendarichardson/2019/07/26/nea...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/brendarichardson/2019/07/26/nearly-40-of-
homes-in-the-us-are-free-and-clear-of-a-mortgage/#1ff0b48947c2)

~~~
mjayhn
I'm not sure what you're trying to really portend here but this is a huge,
huge part of that article considering it's almost the entirety of the current
working class parents;

Sixty-eight percent of adults 70 and older are mortgage-free, while 15.9% of
Millennials are free and clear of mortgage payments.

I'm in my mid-30s and I hardly have any friends that own houses and if they do
they're tech workers with decades left on their loans.

~~~
kevin_thibedeau
Purchasing homes in low CoL areas is much easier.

~~~
mjayhn
I started my career in 2008. Millennials had to go where the jobs where, and
they weren't in low COL areas. Hopefully covid opens up the market for far
more remote work. I'm remote now, finally, but in a high COL area, which feels
especially dumb now that I'm locked inside.

------
mdorazio
This source kind of sucks for good info. To put this number in perspective:

\- It's almost exactly the same as new claims last week (1.31 million)

\- Total continuing claims not including this week are at 17.4M (dropping
weekly, somehow)

It's worth noting that the PPP plan for employers was extended to a 24-week
period rather than the initial 8 weeks, which to me has some interesting
implications and loopholes. States re-locking down due to surges in cases will
probably have a bad impact on employment as well. The supplemental
unemployment payments have not yet been renewed and will end at the end of
July.

------
NiekvdMaas
Meanwhile the S&P 500 is 5% away from an ATH record. Unemployed people =
gambling with stocks + FOMO?

~~~
TheAdamAndChe
No. The government is injecting tons of cash into the market. This props
prices up and causes inflation, or at very least avoids deflation.

~~~
raziel2701
The economic data
([https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CPILFESL#0](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CPILFESL#0)
) is showing deflation. The quantitative easing has so far been deflationary.
The Fed can lower interest rates, but it cannot make people spend. People are
unemployed and scared, they are not borrowing money, and it shows in the
lending data as well
([https://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/h8/current/default.h...](https://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/h8/current/default.htm))
where we can see falling numbers in consumer loans and credit cards.

I think people have rushed into stocks because they think that that's the safe
haven for their money against inflation as they think the Fed is "printing
money" and causing inflation, but the data is showing deflation. If deflation
continues, bonds would be the safer place to be.

~~~
landryraccoon
I am speaking anecdotally here but.. Deflation? I can’t think of a single
product that has gone down in price and numerous things are more expensive.

In particular, virtually every single food item at the grocery store is more
expensive than it was in March. Am I the only one who has experienced this? It
seems like basic staples (milk, eggs, flour) are substantially more expensive
than a few months ago.

~~~
guenthert
Oil/Gasoline went down in price early this year quite dramatically. This (as
energy cost) is included with a heavy weight in the price index calculation.

~~~
coolspot
Not in Southern California.

Regular costs $3.5/gal

------
bitxbit
August will be brutal if unemployment stimulus ends. I don’t think Washington
understands the dire nature of the situation.

~~~
hyperbovine
Half of it does.

~~~
saagarjha
Politicians aren't stupid, they just play it on camera. Everyone knows how it
will play out, but some are selectively ignoring it.

------
spuz
The source of this figure is here and includes graphs that can help put the
numbers in perspective:

[https://www.dol.gov/ui/data.pdf](https://www.dol.gov/ui/data.pdf)

------
varbhat
Can UBI(Universal Basic Income) scheme help to overcome Unemployment crisis ?

~~~
imchillyb
> Can UBI scheme help to overcome Unemployment crisis ? @varbhat

You realize that UBI requires monies, right?

The US Federal government, and most states, are bankrupt. There is no money
for this years bills. There was no money for last years bills, and we keep
borrowing at exorbitant interest rates.

Our deficit (shortfall for this year) is -more than- 2.7 trillion dollars.

Our debt (shortfall for previous years) is -more than- 4 trillion dollars.

We can't pay unemployment claims because there's no money...

Where the hell is anyone getting monies for UBI?!?!?!

~~~
kwhitefoot
> Where the hell is anyone getting monies for UBI?!?!?!

In times of crisis like this you just print it and claw it back through higher
tax rates .

~~~
charwalker
If MAGA means 1950's values and culture, does that mean 40%+ tax rate for the
wealthy?

~~~
Red_Leaves_Flyy
If only

------
coronadisaster
Just keep printing money... Can't wait to see what effect it will have.

------
j7ake
Is this a spike compared to last few months? Where is best place to get the
latest chart of unemployment over time for 2020?

~~~
jcranmer
You can get exact numbers in table form here:
[https://oui.doleta.gov/unemploy/wkclaims/report.asp](https://oui.doleta.gov/unemploy/wkclaims/report.asp)

The latest jobs report, which has a graph of the year's data, is here:
[https://www.dol.gov/ui/data.pdf](https://www.dol.gov/ui/data.pdf)

The numbers here are basically on an exponential decay curve from ~6M new
claims in the last week of March. (FWIW, the pre-2020 record for new weekly
claims, seasonally adjusted, was ~700k in 1982--we broke that in March and
haven't _stopped_ breaking it since).

~~~
j7ake
Really great thanks.

------
AnIdiotOnTheNet
"Government doesn't work. Elect us and we'll prove it!" \--One of the two
major political parties in the US.

We get the government we voted for, so I guess that's the one we deserve.

~~~
ironman1478
The majority didn't vote for this government. We do not deserve this.

~~~
roamerz
That is by design. I wish our state (Oregon) was of similar design so that all
interests are represented. As it is now the populous centers, mostly Portland
and Eugene, dictate their values to the rest of the state.

~~~
paulmd
Rural areas are already heavily overrepresented in the american system. We
certainly don't need to put the thumb on the scale further.

The ultimate problem is that "the rest of the state" (for virtually all
states) is empty, hardly anybody lives there, and letting a minority override
the will of everybody else is tyranny of the minority.

Taken to the extreme, this is ultimately what killed South Africa and Rhodesia
and other countries - a relatively small minority imposing their will on the
majority, things getting worse and worse with no recourse for the people whose
lives were actually affected until things boiled over.

At its core, this is ultimately an argument for anti-democratic principles.

~~~
nitrogen
You don't think the people who live somewhere should have a say in what
happens there?

Having city dwellers decide what happens in rural areas is the tyranny of
imperialism.

~~~
majormajor
So it's better to have rural dwellers with an outsized voice in deciding what
happens in city areas?

You also are performing a convenient geographic sidestep where suddenly "where
you live" isn't _the country_ or even _the state_ but is really only concerned
with the local. So the rest of the people who live in the nation are
diminished.

Localism has led to _lots_ of problems in American history, now we can add a
shitshow of a Coronavirus response on top of the others.

The party of localism tends to be gung-ho about that huge federal military
operation... yet refuses a necessarily-similar intervention in a pandemic.

~~~
nitrogen
You paint the not-city with way too broad a brush, and nowhere did I say that
people outside of cities should control the city.

But you are literally advocating for subjugation without representation. The
opposite of localism you describe _is_ imperialism/colonialism.

