
Ask HN: How to employ the 30M Americans that will lose their jobs? - ksj2114
Most recent Coronavirus projections show that 30-40M Americans may lose their jobs.<p>How can new businesses &#x2F; startups provide work to or help retrain this workforce over the next 6 months?
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themagician
Things are getting weird. I’m not sure how many people are even going to want
to go back work at a normal job after a month or two.

A lot of people losing their jobs are people making less than $20/hr, and
right now unemployment pays more than working. In fact, in California if you
make under $25/hr your unemployment check will be bigger than your regular
check. This only goes to July 31, but this sort of distortion is going to
completely upend the labor market. If you made between $7.25 and $25 an hour
there is little incentive for you to look for a job until July 31.

~~~
Scipio_Afri
Social distancing in some form will likely continue through June, at least. So
I doubt the economy snaps back overnight and everyone gets rehired in a months
time. So there is your extra slack. However you haven’t experienced this
situation nor thought about it much so let me enlighten you about how there is
no extra incentive to stay unemployed.

If you happen to have benefits, you lost them with unemployment. Matched
retirement contributions, health insurance, tuition reimbursement, etc.

Do you know how much full insurance premiums are for most plans with COBRA? My
brief unemployment experience showed me that just for me it ended up being
nearly 700 a month and that’s someone in their late 20’s at the time with not
the best healthcare plan I could have gotten but the middle range one with a
1500 deductible. For a family of 4? Easily 2k.

What you’re saying is we shouldn’t pay people to also sort of kinda have
enough money to continue health insurance during a pandemic??? For those to
don’t have it and do get sick enough to need care there goes a good portion of
that extra money and likely even more, especially if it involves
hospitalization - without insurance or a job they’ll likely be bankrupt unless
that happen to have a lot in savings.

You also have to skip a week with unemployment before taking the benefit,
that’s a week lost income. Finally only in the states with the best benefits,
eg NY pays 80% of your salary, do you possibly come out ahead. Some states
only pay 45-50% cause they don’t fund their versions as much comparatively.

Additionally unemployment is backlogged that means delayed payments and thus
people will possibly incur late fees, interest and other penalties and costs
associated with that.

Finally even if somehow someone comes out ahead due to being in a state that
gives you a high percentage of your over all income, the amount of situations
like that is small and if it happens it is likely a marginal increase at best.
Considering we are likely not going to have enough jobs to get people back to
work in any significant numbers by July anyway, consider any increase after
all that a slight additional stimulus check for people who have been impacted
by this and happen to also be low wage workers.

~~~
themagician
We decided to furlough people so they could keep their benefits. Also paid out
their PTO balance which should hold them over until unemployment kicks in.

Here in California someone making $15/hr was making $600/wk. On unemployment
they will now make $877/wk. That’s a 46% increase. It’s huge. We were trying
to keep people employed while staying home but people literally started filing
for unemployment anyway.

~~~
Scipio_Afri
Did you offer health insurance? Again COBRA costs will easily take that extra
$277 per week or more if you have a family. This situation is limited, it only
applies to the few states with good unemployment compensation, if the person
is a minimum wage worker and also if that someone didn’t have insurance,
doesn’t opt for cobra (or has been picking up a separate plan through the ACA
exchanges) and/or its just coverage for themselves for cobra then they might
come out ahead. This extra money lasts until July and that’s it.

I’m guessing some people might rethink it when they see the costs of cobra and
the fact that the sooner they hit the unemployment compensation the sooner
they start the clock of limited benefits. If they need it for more than 6
months or whatever the state allows the max to be then they’re going to regret
not first going for being furloughed. Unfortunately people also aren’t
rational or forward thinking.

The way they did unemployment insurance certainly isn’t perfect in the
stimulus bill. But I don’t think it’s all that problematic.

~~~
themagician
We pay 100% health insurance and will try to keep it as long as possible while
they are furloughed. Things change day to day though. A number of our buyers,
including some large public companies, decided to just stop paying their bills
by switching to net-180 terms.

I can tell you right now most $15/hr employees aren’t too worried about health
insurance. Most of them have gone their entire life without, so suddenly
losing it again isn’t as big a deal as you might think.

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steve_adams_86
I don't know anything about economics. My thoughts keep gravitating towards
the US and Canada employing people to invest in infrastructure upgrades. It's
a way to address a serious concern in both countries (especially the US), put
cash into the hands of citizens, thus the economy, and give a lot of people a
bit of hope.

You wouldn't need to create tens of millions of jobs directly in
infrastructure, just enough that the money would move around and make related
business possible.

Maybe this is a really stupid idea, I don't know.

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diafygi
Helicopter money. The fed has fired up the money printer and will shovel cash
out the door to any company that can take it and retain/hire people (though I
suspect a substantial chunk of that will be raked by business owners and
financial middlemen).

The reason that helicopter money won't lead to hyper-inflation is because the
entire rest of the world is just as fucked as we are, so the dollar will
remain the safest currency no matter how much the money supply is increased.

------
wmf
Just give them their old jobs back afterwards?

~~~
greenyoda
Not all the jobs will still be there afterwards. If lots of restaurants,
hotels, airlines, etc. go bankrupt, rebuilding will require someone who has
the capital to invest in building new businesses to replace them.

~~~
tonyedgecombe
Restaurants come and go all the time, I don't think there will be any big
issues there. Businesses relying on tourism might be another matter.

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chewz
Give them solid union jobs in manufacturing.

~~~
non-entity
I suppose that will work in states that still have unions, but I know for sure
that a lot of the states that are seeing large increases in manufacturing jobs
are seeing that because companies fleeing unions.

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andrei_says_
The green new deal sounds like a perfect opportunity... but unlikely in the
next 6 months.

A UBI in the meantime would be a super cheap way to prevent a lot of issues.

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jmerton
There are also twists to this story. I am a retired engineer with considerable
drainage and roadway experience. The infrastructure bill will increase the
demand for my skills, which can be in short supply in normal times. I may have
a technical duty to go back to work to assist enabling the actual construction
work.

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generalpass
The workforce won't need retraining. The economy will need capital so there
can be a workforce.

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8bitsrule
Green New Deal has a Plan. Clearly the Gov. has the spare cash. Great
opportunity to get serious about Climate, which if unattended-to will make
Covid look like a walk in the park. Who knows, maybe we could catch up with
India in renewable energy in a year or three.

~~~
freyir
What's the plan? Where do you think the cash comes from? How will climate
change going to factor in?

~~~
GaryNumanVevo
For one, the US government subsidies a lot of fossil fuel companies, easily
worth 50-60 billion in cash

~~~
Fjolsvith
That 50-60 billion isn't going to do much for the GND. You need to come up
with something like 200 trillion.

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fiftyacorn
My biggest concern of the current recession is that a lot of jobs wont
recover. They will be replaced with automation.

Companies now realise that the more services they can run autopilot the better
they will weather future storms

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quaquaqua1
As a former waiter turned programmer, I genuinely hope we find more ways to
make more programmers, even if it is at the expense of having less waiters.

Life is simply better in every way.

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aehre5h5e4ajh4
Somewhat interesting and purely academic curiosity, but US GDP (20 trillion)
split evenly among US pop (330 million) is roughly $60k/year, compared to
average income at $63k/year.

~~~
fallingfrog
That includes children. And, remember that the median income is only 30k, so
the average is skewed by a few people at the top making ridiculous amounts of
money. But if it were split evenly, you’re right, the median American would at
least double their income!

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toomuchtodo
The first iteration:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Deal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Deal)

Today’s version:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_New_Deal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_New_Deal)

The federal government acts as employer of last resort.

------
whb07
30M jobs “lost” in a forced moratorium. They will be gained back when the
shenanigans passes with this flu.

Not like people will stop drinking, going to activities, spending money and
become monks after a couple weeks.

~~~
midnitewarrior
Very much not "the flu".

As far as getting old jobs back, many companies will cease to exist unless
bailout money magically sustains them, which it likely won't.

Many businesses were weak, operating with high debt and thin margins. The math
that allowed them to continue to exist just got destroyed, they aren't coming
back. No cash flow, no cash reserves means no ability to service that debt.
Taking on additional debt to bridge this crisis would create a new level of
future debt service that isn't sustainable with previously good revenues.

Disposable income is going to be gone for many until we get a vaccine rolled
out in 18-24 months. Hospitality, travel, foodservicr, events and
entertainment industries will be decimated until we reach herd immunity.

