I'm going into a meeting in 11 minutes where my company is going to announce that half the workforce is going to a reduced schedule to save money; 32-hour weeks instead of 40-hour weeks.
Because our hours are being cut, we will be able to file for unemployment coverage for those 8 hours a week.
Because of the CARES act in the US, I will compensated $600.
I will be losing about $100 in actual take-home pay.
So in the end, I will be only working 4 days a week, and taking home MORE money.
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I had an issue with that, at first. I'm well-paid for what I do, and I live comfortably within my means. Not having a day's pay isn't really going to hurt how I live.
But, having another $600/week is going to definitely cause me to spend more. Into my local economy. At businesses I love and support, and that are run by local families, friends, and generally good people.
So am I happy to take a free $600/week and distribute it amongst the businesses I most want to see succeed right now?
Damn right.
But man... what a messed up place America is, right now.
HUGE backlog. And I am actually a part of that backlog, because my account was one of the ones stolen by the hackers a month or so ago. So my account is locked. So I can't file for unemployment until I talk to someone in person. And the phone wait times are measured in days. In all likelihood, it will take all of July for me to just recover my account, and then it will be too late to file for the 4 Fridays in July I will actually get off, so I will have to appeal, and each of those days will require a separate appeal, which can take months to resolve in "normal times". So I do not actually expect to get a single dollar of this money. But yeah. There's a backlog. There are backlogs on top of backlogs. On top of backlogs.
July 31 is the federal drop-dead date. The CARES act provides an additional $600 of federal funds for unemployment claims for the thirteen weeks starting March 25, backdated by a couple-three weeks if I recall correctly. Either way, party's over, masks are off, COVID has been eliminated and America has been Made Great Again.
Great unraveling was on temporary pause till after the 4th of July fireworks. The question is what’s next... I’m assuming some form of stagflation - wages going down prices going up. We’re already seeing 50% cost increases in child care 20-30% in food and I expect other shit to cost more soon. There may be a temporary blip where a bunch of assets show up on the market as people liquidate or go bankrupt but that will clear and new stuff will come with a hefty price increase.
At the end of the day, we do a lot of the same public assistance programs as the Europeans, just in the dumbest, most inefficient way possible.
Right? I'd prefer if these businesses got the funding (and healthcare and PPE) that other countries give to their businesspeople. But hey, if the Orange Fuckwit wants to send more money out, I'm gonna make sure it goes to the right people, like I did with my "Stimulus Check" with his putrid name scrawled on the bottom.
So they really did end up with his signature printed on them? I recall there was a lot of writing online about it in the weeks before the checks went out, but then online attention was quickly diverted to the next scandal.with his putrid name scrawled on the bottom.
I'm trying to think about what he would hate the most.