"Which business owner is right?"

October 1, 2011 10:51 AM

Why big business needs unemployment benefits. 'Many business leaders are shrugging off the forthcoming expiration of extended unemployment benefits, but they may regret it. In this downturn, every little bit of extra money in consumer pockets counts.' 'Steve Burd, the CEO of Safeway (SWY), told an analyst during the company's last earnings call that he did not think temporary benefits provided a meaningful boost to consumer confidence. "There are those that would argue that unemployment benefits, the longer they are, the longer people stay unemployed," said Burd, whose supermarket chain did $41 billion in sales last year. The CEO went on to cite the theory that extending unemployment insurance artificially props up wages, slowing the pace of economic recovery.' 'Some Republicans have already come out against renewing the emergency aid. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who is currently running for president, recently said that he thought it was "fundamentally wrong to give people money for 99 weeks for doing nothing."'

'Meanwhile, Joe Perry, the owner of Garland Street Market, a small grocery and convenience store in Bangor, Maine, told Fortune that he supports extending unemployment benefits for the simple reason that the program puts money in consumers' pockets. "The federal government can offer me any kind of tax cut, or credit for hiring, or anything they want -- and none of that is of any use to me if I don't have customers who have money they can spend," he says.
Which business owner is right? Economists have long sparred over whether unemployment programs stimulate or depress the economy. In recent years, though, research has largely supported extending benefits on the grounds that they are beneficial not only for consumers, but also for businesses. Several studies have disproved the theory that these jobless programs deter large swaths of the unemployed from seeking work.'

posted by VikingSword (85 comments total)

I think Steve Burd is a fucking asshole. Safeway used to be a great place to work. My grandfather and father both raised me on Safeway paychecks, but they don't hire people to be full time clerks any more, and they haven't for years. I worked there for only a couple of years and left.
posted by empath at 10:55 AM on October 1, 2011 [17 favorites]

(err, grandfather raised HIS family, rather)
posted by empath at 10:55 AM on October 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

"fundamentally wrong to give people money for 99 weeks for doing nothing." so, we're going to stop paying Senators and Representatives? Sounds like a fine plan.
posted by HuronBob at 10:57 AM on October 1, 2011 [35 favorites]

I'd be willing to give Gingrich money to nothing for the rest of his life, let alone 99 weeks.
posted by mollweide at 11:00 AM on October 1, 2011 [8 favorites]

Which business owner is right?

The one that thinks people should have money to buy food.
posted by mhoye at 11:04 AM on October 1, 2011 [82 favorites]

fundamentally wrong to give people money for 99 weeks for doing nothing.

Yes, because what changed in 2008 was not the overall economic condition of the country, but rather that millions and millions of people inexplicably became lazy at the exact same time.
posted by jcreigh at 11:10 AM on October 1, 2011 [116 favorites]

Which business owner is right?

The one who realizes the economy runs on money changing hands and an unemployed person not spending money is pretty much a sinkhole for money changing hands (that insane argument, that if you provide too much support people will just treat their income as "pin money", meaning what? They'll buy stuff and feed themselves and not worry about having a roof over their heads? That's called having an economy)

and it's pretty much the definition of a government to provide support so people don't run out of food because they can't find a job, which plays into the "You should pay your workers so they can afford your products" thing we seem to have forgotten about.

Argh, coming off political threads has just made me a rage-filled incoherent mess to the point that I'm starting to think anyone who wants to make these massive cuts in THINGS THE GOVERMENT IS SUPPOSED TO DO is calling for the dismantlement of the US government and thus is a traitor and hater of his fellow men.
posted by The Whelk at 11:12 AM on October 1, 2011 [16 favorites]

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who is currently running for president, recently said that he thought it was "fundamentally wrong to give people money for 99 weeks for doing nothing."'

Why should anyone listen to a guy who can't even manage his own campaign properly?
posted by rtha at 11:13 AM on October 1, 2011 [10 favorites]

If you want to be successful in this country, all you've got to do is be successful. What's so hard about that?
posted by Oh OK HA HA at 11:14 AM on October 1, 2011 [14 favorites]

He is personally bailing out Tiffany's, however.
posted by The Whelk at 11:14 AM on October 1, 2011 [4 favorites]

So, big business sends jobs out of the country, cuts wages and benefits for the workers that are left, and then whines about there being a lack of demand for their products. And many of them don't seem to grasp the connection, or even allow that there might be negative consequences to their actions. The best and the brightest, indeed.
posted by Thorzdad at 11:14 AM on October 1, 2011 [19 favorites]

businessmen are such babies
posted by The Whelk at 11:16 AM on October 1, 2011 [29 favorites]

Fundamentally, Republicans face a dilemma with demand-side stimulus issues, although they engage it in it themselves because it works. This is because it requires a redistribution of wealth while they spend most of their time and money justifying their hoarding of wealth.
posted by Brian B. at 11:21 AM on October 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

I think part of the problem is "the Enron situation." Enron was built on lying and misdirecting attention. And they did OK as long as they kept their double books sorted out. Toward the end, though, it seems that they lost track of when they were lying. Once they actually believed their own lies, it all came apart. The Republicans and "business elite" seem well into this spiral. Sadly, so are the rest of us....
posted by GenjiandProust at 11:22 AM on October 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

"A 2010 study released by the U.S. Small Business Administration reported a similar result: Although America remains near the top of the world in terms of entrepreneurial aspirations -- that is, the percentage of people who want to start new things—in terms of actual start-up activity, our country has fallen behind not just Norway but also Canada, Denmark, and Switzerland."¹

When you have a strong welfare state, people can actually think about taking risks and not ending up living in the gutter. Most people want to do something with their life, cutting off unemployment benefits in a downturn is probably more likely to turn people to crime than it is to make them get a job that probably doesn't exist.
posted by knapah at 11:32 AM on October 1, 2011 [25 favorites]

Another problem is that the people calling the shots have forgotten that money is an economic placeholder, not a means of keeping score. If you have all the money in the world, you haven't won, you have amassed a now worthless pile of paper because all that's left for you to trade it for is stone tools and crudely tanned hides.
posted by Kid Charlemagne at 11:42 AM on October 1, 2011 [14 favorites]

I was passing Safeway today wondering "why do I never shop there? They pay (paid?) their unionized workers well. They have good prices and sell some of the things I typically buy." But now I know. Thanks for the post.
posted by salvia at 11:44 AM on October 1, 2011 [3 favorites]

Safeway used to be a great place to work. My grandfather and father both raised me on Safeway paychecks, but they don't hire people to be full time clerks any more, and they haven't for years.

Yeah, when my friends and I worked cashier jobs in high school, the difference between the old guard and the new guard was pretty stark. The full-time employees were unionized, worked regular schedules, and made $20/hr; the part-time employees made $8/hr, had random schedules, and got no benefits. (But still had to pay union dues.) The pay raise was triggered when you reached the full-time threshhold, so supermarkets no longer hired any new full-time employees, ever. Go back there today and they are exclusively the domain of under-30 employees making minimum wage with no benefits, with the exception of one or two rare senior staff that have been there for decades.

And that's Canada.
posted by mek at 11:45 AM on October 1, 2011 [5 favorites]

artificially props up wages

HAHAHAHA. Yeah! That's the problem! The WAGE bubble!! Good one dude!
posted by salvia at 11:52 AM on October 1, 2011 [14 favorites]

Yep. That's exactly how Safeway was. I worked 40 hour weeks including sunday, 3pm-11pm. Sunday was time and a half, but it didn't count toward getting 'full-time'. They always worked you like an hour short of the threshold they'd need to reach for you to get full-time benefits.

That said, Safeway and Giant still treat their employees a lot better than Walmart, Food Lion, Costco, etc, so if you have a choice, shop there over the non-union places. I've also heard Wegman's is also a decent place to work, even though they are non-union.
posted by empath at 11:52 AM on October 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

I'd be willing to give Gingrich money to nothing for the rest of his life, let alone 99 weeks.

I wouldn't. Fuck him and the horse he rode in on. He has plenty of his own money to burn at Tiffany's and on quixotic presidential runs when he's at 3% in the polls.
posted by blucevalo at 11:54 AM on October 1, 2011 [4 favorites]

A couple of thoughts:

1) I think there is a certain moral obligation on the part of the government here. They are supposed to "promote the general welfare," and they failed miserably by failing to regulate and oversee the financial sector enough to keep the economy from collapsing, and their are millions of currently unemployed people as a result of their failings. For the vast majority of the unemployed, their situation is not their fault--it was the government's failure to regulate and the failure of hot shot investors to act prudently. Colin Powell once invoked the Pottery Barn rule in a different context, but someone needs to invoke it here: they broke the economy, now they have to buy it. You ruined the livelihoods of millions of people, now you need to make sure they have food and shelter, at least. This is not just a big of bad luck, this the the consequence of immoral actions (government laziness, Wall Street greed). Now grow up and buy what you broke.

2) The failure of otherwise intelligent people to understand that money sometimes, under certain circumstances trickles down, but always, inexorably trickles up is really a modern wonder. It's not hard. A rich person gets more money, and he might buy more things but he might also save it, or pay down debt. It's not necessarily going to circulate in the wider economy. Give a poor person more money, and they are going to the grocery store, or the liquor store, or the gas station. They are going to fork it over to a business owner who is richer than they are, and the business owner will pass it back to major corporations who are far richer than they are. Money goes up the ladder--especially these days, where the rich get richer and the poor stay poor. Rich people are very good at collecting other people's money--that's why they are rich. So if you want dollars to circulate in the economy, you don't give them to the people are are good at collecting money and hoarding it, you give them to the people who will, out of necessity, spend them sooner rather than later. This is, at most, sixth grade level logic, and yet seems completely lost on at least half of the county.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 11:55 AM on October 1, 2011 [53 favorites]

i figure there just never going to be enough jobs for the employable population
posted by robbyrobs at 11:57 AM on October 1, 2011 [4 favorites]

I recently was in a gathering of people who are all quite a bit richer than me. They were, of course, bemoaning welfare, the social safety net, and unemployment. My big mouth being impossible to keep shut, apparently, I said: "At the beginning of social welfare policies, it was understood that these policies were being created to maintain the peace and prevent social unrest and disorder. If we remove them all now, when they are needed the most, the same issues will be quickly revealed."

They looked at me like I had just said "rape babies and kill kittens, everybody."
posted by sonic meat machine at 11:57 AM on October 1, 2011 [26 favorites]

That said, Safeway and Giant still treat their employees a lot better than Walmart, Food Lion, Costco,

Wait, I thought Costco was unionized? And had good health insurance? They may not be the pinnacle of human existence but to put them in the same category as WalMart is like comparing apples to Hitler.
posted by elizardbits at 11:58 AM on October 1, 2011 [4 favorites]

That said, Safeway and Giant still treat their employees a lot better than Walmart, Food Lion, Costco

Safeway better than Costco?

I've also heard Wegman's is also a decent place to work, even though they are non-union.

It's routinely in the top-10 best companies to work for. From the point of view of a consumer, they're so full of win it's amazing they have room for food.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 12:01 PM on October 1, 2011 [4 favorites]

Right after I wrote my comment, I dropped by Yglesias' blog and saw this excellent excerpt from William Jennings Bryan's "Cross of Gold" speech. We've been here before:

Mr. Carlisle said in 1878 that this was a struggle between “the idle holders of idle capital” and “the struggling masses, who produce the wealth and pay the taxes of the country,” and, my friends, the question we are to decide is: Upon which side will the Democratic party fight: upon the side of the “idle holders of idle capital” or upon the side of “the struggling masses”? That is the question which the party must answer first, and then it must be answered by each individual hereafter. The sympathies of the Democratic party, as shown by the platform, are on the side of the struggling masses who have ever been the foundation of the Democratic party. There are two ideas of government. There are those who believe that, if you will only legislate to make the well-to- do prosperous, their prosperity will leak through on those below. The Democratic idea, however, has been that if you legislate to make the masses prosperous, their prosperity will find its way up through every class which rests upon them.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 12:04 PM on October 1, 2011 [33 favorites]

Although America remains near the top of the world in terms of entrepreneurial aspirations -- that is, the percentage of people who want to start new things—in terms of actual start-up activity, our country has fallen behind not just Norway but also Canada, Denmark, and Switzerland."

No one would ever mistake me for one of the world's big risk-takers. But I haven't worked as a full time employee anywhere since early 2001, and have been a free-lancer -- with good years and bad -- ever since. I'm not covered by employment insurance by default, and I haven't applied for the new version for the self-employed because the situations under which it would pay out don't apply to me. I have a mortgage, and no credit card debt, and an emergency fund that I treasure.

I've turned down year long contracts and full time jobs with pretty decent salaries for a variety of good reasons: didn't approve of the company's products, didn't want to lose my current small mix of clients for an inflexible employer, or didn't want to deal with a company that didn't understand the word "No".

Why can I do this? I'm Canadian, and I have health care. The system is underfunded and it needs some fixing, but even with a few worn spots, it's still one hell of a safety net. If I were stuck in the States, I'd be clinging like a limpet to any full time employer with benefits.
posted by maudlin at 12:06 PM on October 1, 2011 [44 favorites]

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who is currently running for president, recently said that he thought it was "fundamentally wrong to give people money for 99 weeks for doing nothing."'

So....how many weeks off for recess does Congress get? Because I'm not really sure that kissing babies and eating fair food to ensure the viability of their campaign is work, so it seems that they're doing nothing. It's funny how perception works.
posted by jetlagaddict at 12:10 PM on October 1, 2011 [3 favorites]

If we take the idea that O, Brother Where Art Thou is about class warfare (and I do) then people seem to forget we're all chained together at the ankle trying to jump onto the train.
posted by The Whelk at 12:26 PM on October 1, 2011 [3 favorites]

(sorry, I just assumed CostCo was non-union.)
posted by empath at 12:28 PM on October 1, 2011

I was skeptical, btw of the Occupy Wall Street movement, but I realized while I got called into my bosses office the other day, terrified that I was being laid off, that I was already making plans to go up there. Turns out that wasn't, but when that day comes, I'll definitely go.

IMO, if you're unemployed, you have no excuse not to be there. Everyday. Do it for your country. Do it for yourself.
posted by empath at 12:32 PM on October 1, 2011 [12 favorites]

Now, imagine if all these articles about how the 'demand' side of the US economy sucks had appeared before the whole debt-ceiling fiasco? It might have made the political debate actually about something more than which party was willing to shoot itself in the head first.
posted by ennui.bz at 12:32 PM on October 1, 2011

Also, if the CEO of a fucking grocery store is willing to go on record opposing a government program which is literally going to put money into his ledger i.e. most of those unemployment benefits will be spent on food and rent, it shows you that the problem really is ideological, and not just corporate America looking out for it's own interests: they are willing to los emoney if it fits with the ideology of the business class.
posted by ennui.bz at 12:34 PM on October 1, 2011 [41 favorites]

I would love to see Safeway's opposition to unemployment get wide media / blog coverage and whether that impacted sales.
posted by salvia at 12:37 PM on October 1, 2011

That said, Safeway and Giant still treat their employees a lot better than Walmart, Food Lion, Costco

Costco pays above-average wages and offers dental plans among other benefits.
posted by KokuRyu at 12:42 PM on October 1, 2011 [4 favorites]

Yeah, that costco reference comes from lack of knowledge of costco, I'd guess.
posted by maxwelton at 12:48 PM on October 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

Contrary to what Gingrinch and Stever Burd think, everyone I know who is unemployed actually does a fair amount of work. A lot of the work they do is taking care of other people close to them, some of it is organizing their communities for mutual benefit, and they take small random jobs doing whatever they can - fixing an uncle's computer type stuff. Not to mention that merely surviving - making sure you have healthy food, appropriate medical care, perhaps even finding safe shelter - can be an awfully lot of work when you have so few resources. On the one hand, this claim that unemployed people are not working is so mean and small-minded it makes me want to scream.

Also, if the CEO of a fucking grocery store is willing to go on record opposing a government program which is literally going to put money into his ledger i.e. most of those unemployment benefits will be spent on food and rent, it shows you that the problem really is ideological, and not just corporate America looking out for it's own interests: they are willing to los emoney if it fits with the ideology of the business class.

On the other hand, in the private college I attended for two years, I saw the process of the replication of those sort of attitudes. If the kids of the rich understood that the poor were people just like them, merely with different circumstances, and if they weren't also trained to view the existence of class as inevitable (eg., if they weren't sold the line that capitalism is the only, or the only valid, economic system), it would be an awful lot harder for them to take their appointed place in the economic hierarchy. The problem is definitely ideological, since that ideology is necessary for the system to reproduce itself, given that the actors are still human beings somewhere beneath all of that deeply-ingrained meanness. (Well, maybe not Gingrinch:P)

The irony that this ideology necessary to reproduce capitalism also promotes its worst excesses and thus destabilizes the system makes the situation no less bitter for the rest of us, of course.
posted by eviemath at 1:14 PM on October 1, 2011 [8 favorites]

"... it shows you that the problem really is ideological, and not just corporate America looking out for it's own interests:"

No, I'd say they are looking out for their interests in a purely practical way. Consider:

1. Extended employment benefits are eliminated, resulting in-

2. The recession worsens, guaranteeing that-

3. Obama loses the 2012 election, meaning a pro-business Republican takes office. This means-

4. With Republicans controlling the presidency and Congress, major business tax credits and other pro-corporate and Wail Street laws are passed. In addition-

5. Regulations are loosened, and environmental/global warming efforts are gutted. With changes to the Supreme Court, anti lawsuit and workers rights laws are enshrined for decades.

6. PROFIT!

The man is simply thinking for his own benefit, in the long term. Given that Obama has been sounding more populist and anti-wealth recently, his actions are unsurprising.
posted by happyroach at 1:26 PM on October 1, 2011 [6 favorites]

When you have a strong welfare state, people can actually think about taking risks and not ending up living in the gutter. Most people want to do something with their life, cutting off unemployment benefits in a downturn is probably more likely to turn people to crime than it is to make them get a job that probably doesn't exist.

I was going to say exactly this thing, but then knapah said it first.
posted by JHarris at 1:31 PM on October 1, 2011 [2 favorites]

One step closer to a mob with torches and pitchforks heading toward the other side of town.

Way to go rich guys!
posted by mygoditsbob at 1:41 PM on October 1, 2011 [3 favorites]

it shows you that the problem really is ideological, and not just corporate America looking out for it's own interests

It doesn't show that at all, and the biggest problem with this article is that it purports to show that. That's saying that under capitalism, the interests of the capitalist class and the interests of the working class are basically the same. But they aren't. The economy isn't growing, unemployment is high, but corporate profits are at record levels. So why does big business need unemployment benefits? That redistributes part of GDP back to labor, when they could just sit back, enjoy record profits, keep wages low, lower their tax burden and increase their share of GDP all at the same time.

Also, "unemployment makes people lazy" is a code for how workers with unemployment benefits will hold out for better paying jobs, requiring employers to raise wages, increase benefits and improve working conditions. A desperate workforce is a compliant one.
posted by AlsoMike at 1:45 PM on October 1, 2011 [22 favorites]

That's saying that under capitalism, the interests of the capitalist class and the interests of the working class are basically the same. But they aren't.

In the short term, no. Which is all anyone sees anymore. In the long term everyone's interests are basically the same: not destroying the planet. But it's a little hard to see that off in the distance.
posted by mek at 1:49 PM on October 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

So, big business sends jobs out of the country, cuts wages and benefits for the workers that are left, and then whines about there being a lack of demand for their products. And many of them don't seem to grasp the connection, or even allow that there might be negative consequences to their actions. The best and the brightest, indeed.

Maybe it's just some of the fields I've worked in, but every business I've worked at has had a very poor grasp of causes and effects. For example, one laid off their entire marketing and sales team because "they make too much money," then promptly tanked because they had no marketing and sales team and ran out of customers. They were "how could this be?!" til the end. Another one I worked at went through a rotating succession of ad sales people (for a business that existed entirely on ad sales) but constantly jerked them around on compensation until they quit. They went out of business because word got around and nobody wanted to work for them. I just got laid off from a place because the VP was convinced she could do my job when my job was entirely herding the cats around the office and she's never in the office and they're already having problems because nothing gets done unless you're in the office to make people do things. I worked at one where they'd fire anyone with a decent amount of experience who asked for more money and hire a college kid that'd work cheap, but had no clue what they were doing, and could never figure out why they failed at everything they tried. I worked at one where the new CEO they brought in let go of everyone below senior management level even though those were the people who actually made their products and they were aghast when they went out of business because there was no one to actually make things anymore and people wouldn't just give them money.

That's why I have to laugh when people say we should run the country like a business.
posted by Ghostride The Whip at 1:56 PM on October 1, 2011 [70 favorites]

It doesn't show that at all, and the biggest problem with this article is that it purports to show that. That's saying that under capitalism, the interests of the capitalist class and the interests of the working class are basically the same.

But they are the same: unemployed get to eat. Safeway gets to charge a percentage brokering the food and make a profit...

The CEO of Safeway is saying I'd rather make less money because unemployment insurance is wrong (though he may actually believe that this will drive up ui insurance rates in the future, but that's not what he's saying) which isn't the way capitalism is supposed to work.
posted by ennui.bz at 2:00 PM on October 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

Ok, so thinks he will save more money hiring desperate people at the lowest possible wages than he will make if the government is sending everyone checks that they then use to buy food?

If I was this guy I would be begging the government to hand out as much money as possible.
posted by Ad hominem at 2:01 PM on October 1, 2011 [3 favorites]

I wouldn't. Fuck him and the horse he rode in on. He has plenty of his own money to burn at Tiffany's and on quixotic presidential runs when he's at 3% in the polls.

Someone with less qualms than I needs to target these guys when they do these things. Like, run a printing business or web design firm for their campaign materials, make sure to charge high rates (maybe even sneak in some subtle off-messaging), then donate the proceeds to Planned Parenthood or something like that. Or hell, just milk them for all they got to assuage their vanity and drain them at least partially of their ill-gotten gains. But then yours will be ill-gotten, so ... I guess being Robin Hood these days is complicated.
posted by krinklyfig at 2:14 PM on October 1, 2011 [2 favorites]

That's why I have to laugh when people say we should run the country like a business.

I have very similar experiences working for many small businesses. Others had someone smart enough running them to make it all work. However, many large corporations are like machines. They may fail and many do due to the kind of incompetence you describe, but many others go on churning out profits for generations and can be ruthlessly efficient.

But anyone who says we should run the country like a business is still an idiot. A business must turn a profit and may exploit multiple types of businesses or revenue streams to do so, cutting off the ones which don't work in favor of the ones which do. Or if not it can declare bankruptcy and restructure or close its doors. It can fire everyone and hire a whole new staff. It can be privately owned or owned by shareholders through public exchanges. A government must serve the people in many ways and should never be run with the goal to make a profit. It must provide services, facilitate industry and finance and defend the country, all at a loss and be answerable to the people, in theory in a democracy all of them. It's really nothing like a business, most of which are unsuccessful. A government's success is not measured by the money it generates at a profit, but by how efficiently and how well it serves the people.
posted by krinklyfig at 2:27 PM on October 1, 2011 [15 favorites]

When you have a strong welfare state, people can actually think about taking risks and not ending up living in the gutter.

Seconded. If the US had affordable, universal health care, it would be much easier to start a company. The lack of affordable health insurance is an enormous burden for startups unless everyone is: 1) young, 2) childless, and 3) male ^*

It's hard to find health insurance with good terms if you're a small company; Some startups work around this by paying to maintain COBRA benefits - extending insurance from employees' previous employers.

COBRA coverage is the full cost, unsubsidized, with the advantage that the terms are much better as they were negotiated by a larger company – the previous employer.

At a startup a few years ago, the best health insurance plan I could find at the same price as my COBRA plan only covered 70% of in-network costs with a $2000+ annual deductible. My old employer's plan covered 100% of costs (after a $10 co-pay) with no deductible.

Let's say I need a routine outpatient operation with anesthesia, It costs $25,000. My COBRA insurance company negotiates an in-network price of $15,000 and then pays all but perhaps $500. I pay the rest.

If I go with the startup's plan, the in-network price is the same, but fewer doctors are in the network, so the bill includes an additional $3000 for out-of-network costs. The plan covers 70% of in-network and 50% of out of network costs, with a deductible of $2,500. So, insurance pays 70% of $15k plus 50% of $3k, minus the deductible, and I pay the balance.

$15k (in network) + $3k (out of network) = $18,000 total bill

15k * 0.7 (in network coverage rate) + 3k * 0.5 (out of network rate) - 2.5k (deductible) = $9500 covered by insurance

I pay the balance. $18k - $9.5k = $8,500 vs $500 under my old plan.

These costs make it harder to start a company, and much harder to hire people for a small company.

Footnote:

* family coverage costs 2 - 3x individual coverage, coverage for women and older men costs more than coverage for young men. I've heard it's because young men tend not to use health services, preventative or otherwise, as much, and insurance companies reward this through lower rates.

posted by zippy at 2:36 PM on October 1, 2011 [9 favorites]

When you have a strong welfare state, people can actually think about taking risks and not ending up living in the gutter.

I noticed that Canada was included in the list of "strong welfare states." Canada's welfare is extremely limited. While universal health coverage does mean that you are not going to rack up significant debt if you get sick, Canada still lacks things like disability insurance. Sure, there is assistance for folks who have disabilities and therefore cannot work, but it is tough to get, and, like welfare, does not provide much in the way of actual assistance - certainly not enough to facilitate "risk taking" by entrepreneurs.

As I am self-employed, I have only ever qualified for employment insurance in Canada once in my life. However, because I got a buyout after getting laid off from that job, I did not qualify to get the benefits. From my perspective, since I paid into employment insurance, those were benefits I was *entitled to*. While being self-employed means it's harder to provide dental services to my kids, at least I am not paying into EI. What a fucking scam.

And even if I had managed to collect it, what? $1000 a month? You can't live on that.

Like I said, EI in Canada is a scam.

The only thing that facilitates risk taking is jobs and a vibrant economy.
posted by KokuRyu at 2:42 PM on October 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

"Sure, there is assistance for folks who have disabilities and therefore cannot work, but it is tough to get, and, like welfare, does not provide much in the way of actual assistance - certainly not enough to facilitate "risk taking" by entrepreneurs."

I'm really left wing. Really. I live in a state that provides more than Canada does. But if you are claiming benefits designed for people who cannot work, you probably shouldn't be claiming it to facilitiate small buisness risk taking. The ability to do that would tend to indicate one is capable of work, and should be on regular welfare. Normal welfare (at least in the UK) allows people to claim until the first profit is actually realised from a small business anyhow.
posted by jaduncan at 2:56 PM on October 1, 2011 [2 favorites]

EI in Canada really favours small communities. If you live in the middle of nowhere and everything shuts down every winter and you find yourself without a job, it's pretty easy to get EI. In the city, basically impossible.
posted by mek at 3:11 PM on October 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

I personally look forward to being an enterprising American by filming the bum fights for the most lucrative Interstate off-ramps and interchange intersections and turning it into a series of DVDs.
posted by Talez at 3:12 PM on October 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

The CEO of Safeway is saying I'd rather make less money because unemployment insurance is wrong

All that means is that Safeway's interests aren't the same as the interests of the capitalist class that operates in every economic sector. Stimulating demand might be good for some sectors, but corporate profits overall are doing just fine without it.
posted by AlsoMike at 3:14 PM on October 1, 2011

Our current unemployment benefits system is really broken, in that it discourages many employees from getting jobs (because they'll lose their benefits completely, even if the new job pays only a little more than the unemployment check), and it also discourages companies from hiring in a recession (since, if they have to lay off the new employees again, their unemployment insurance bill rises).

I don't believe there's such a thing as a perfect UI system, but we really should look at Germany's. Instead of laying employees off, companies can reduce their hours, and the government will make up part of the difference in salary. This means people's skills don't atrophy while they're sitting at home collecting benefits, and companies have a ready pool of labor to draw from when things get better.

Hopefully, once we emerge from this recession the government will be in a better position to fix things.
posted by miyabo at 3:19 PM on October 1, 2011 [4 favorites]

Pater Aletheias: "The failure of otherwise intelligent people to understand that money sometimes, under certain circumstances trickles down, but always, inexorably trickles up is really a modern wonder."

It's because, as usual, the left conceded the terms of the debate. I mean that literally. "Trickle Down Economics" make sense because things trickle down. They don't trickle up, Pater Aletheias. Duuuuh.

You are, of course, 100% right on principle. When people argue "trickle down economics", I ask them where the "top" people get their money from. If they're honest*, they admit that it comes from consumers. In other words, this is a visual representation of trickle-down economics.

* If they're dishonest, they're usually the type of person I'll stop arguing politics with, because nothing makes someone more certain about their opinion than being wrong.

But I don't blame the left entirely. I think we lose the vocabulary war mostly because we actually have critical thinking skills, and so catchphrases and simplistic metaphors aren't nearly as effective with us. After all, it's not like conservative jargon even makes superficial sense a lot of the time... have you ever actually tried "pulling yourself up by your bootstraps"? Picture it. What the fuck, guys, did it not occur to you that you can't actually do that? GRAVITY DOES NOT WORK THAT WAY.

So I try to frame it in this way. We're a consumer economy. What's good for consumers is good for all of us. One person worth $10m consumes less than a hundred people making $100k, so if you have ten million dollars to give away it's pretty clear where it should go.

If you disagree with that, then you're not defending a consumer economy. You're defending either an investor economy, or a hoarder economy. Those principles may or may not make mathematical sense, but neither of them serves the actual purpose of an economy, which is to make it so the bellies stay full and the roofs don't leak and the lights stay on.
posted by Riki tiki at 3:39 PM on October 1, 2011 [12 favorites]

It must be emphasized that this is a difference between a BIG business CEO and a small business owner. I suspect that Safeway will be much more likely in an extended recession/depression to stay in business (closing a lot of individual stores, but keeping the home office open) than a small single-store grocer. And the increased insecurity will keep people from starting new businesses to compete with the biggies. The pie may shrink, but Safeway will get a relatively-larger piece. And the CEO can always point at the crappy business conditions to show that losses are not his fault and he can keep HIS job (with CEO pay going up,up, up). This kind of talk also panders to the large stockholders and corporate board members who he answers to, and who are even more detached from the 'common people' than the executives who employ them.
posted by oneswellfoop at 3:43 PM on October 1, 2011 [2 favorites]

It's because, as usual, the left conceded the terms of the debate. I mean that literally. "Trickle Down Economics" make sense because things trickle down. They don't trickle up, Pater Aletheias. Duuuuh.

For the rich, money will sometimes trickle down, you know, like if a rich guy springs a leak. For the rest of us it's evaporation, a simple, unavoidable process of nature.
posted by biddeford at 3:48 PM on October 1, 2011 [2 favorites]

I noticed that Canada was included in the list of "strong welfare states."

Actually, it was a list of states with more entrepreneurs than the USA, but I get what you are saying about Canada.
posted by knapah at 3:53 PM on October 1, 2011

artificially props up wages

HAHAHAHA. Yeah! That's the problem! The WAGE bubble!! Good one dude!

So, salvia, you're suggesting that America's traditional high wages has nothing to do with the amount of manufacturing being outsourced to other countries? Or the massive influx of cheap items from China (et al) on our discount store shelves? That, no doubt, you yourself have implicitly encouraged by preferring to buy lower-cost items as you shop?

Cute snark. Devoid of insight, but cute.

Somewhere in between a guy without a HS diploma pulling in close to $100k on Detroit's assembly lines in the 1990's, and a woman making $1k stitching together Nike track shoes, lies a balance point. We haven't "found" it yet, and so we suffer.
posted by IAmBroom at 3:57 PM on October 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

artificially props up wages

The argument is that unemployment insurance props up wages of employed people, while also decreasing the number of people who are employed (because the gains from getting a job are smaller). This is Econ 101, it's one of a bunch of market inefficiencies that's been studied a million times.

Of course what you do with that information depends on your political opinions. Myself, I'd prefer to have 5% of people be unemployed and collecting benefits rather than have 1% of people be unemployed and starving in the street. Maybe Steve disagrees.
posted by miyabo at 4:09 PM on October 1, 2011 [3 favorites]

this whole "life" thing is kind of a bubble, if you really think about it
posted by This, of course, alludes to you at 4:29 PM on October 1, 2011 [4 favorites]

For the non-USA people reading this, the article is about whether a temporary extension to the amount of time people get unemployment benefit should stay in place, rather than whether people should get unemployment benefit per se. There have been several extensions so its not that clear what's actually being debated. I think the most recent extension added 20 weeks (depending on what state), bringing the theoretical total to 99 weeks.
posted by memebake at 4:59 PM on October 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

kid charlemagne: Another problem is that the people calling the shots have forgotten that money is an economic placeholder, not a means of keeping score.

This reminds me of Alan Watts' quip about the Great Depression, which was along the lines of, "It's as if a bunch of workers with tools, lumber and hardware showed up to build a house, and then decided 'No, we can't do it because we don't have any feet.'"
posted by sneebler at 5:12 PM on October 1, 2011

There was a leveraged buyout at Safeway in the 1980s. The people in upper management made an immense amount of money while everyone else in the corporation had to pay for it through massive layoffs, cost cutting, new hires at way lesser rates etc. I think this was the key moment in Safeway's evolution into becoming the kind of crepuscular entity it is now.
And in Canada? Unemployment insurance runs 40 weeks max. The system had a 50 billion dollar surplus at one point that Harper folded into general revenue to pay for tax cuts and profligate spending to get his majority. He then refused to extend benefits during the biggest economic downturn since the great depression.
posted by Phlegmco(tm) at 6:08 PM on October 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

mek wrote: Yeah, when my friends and I worked cashier jobs in high school, the difference between the old guard and the new guard was pretty stark. The full-time employees were unionized, worked regular schedules, and made $20/hr; the part-time employees made $8/hr, had random schedules, and got no benefits. (But still had to pay union dues.) The pay raise was triggered when you reached the full-time threshhold, so supermarkets no longer hired any new full-time employees, ever.

Until they were bought by SuperValu, Albertsons still paid everybody well. I didn't mind the marginally higher prices because nearly every employee in the store was a long-term employee who knew what they were doing. This meant that the shelves were always stocked and the checkout line always moved quickly.

It takes longer to get through a checkout line with three people at the non-union (but local; there are no union shopping options here anymore) store I shop at now than it did to get through a day-before-thanksgiving line 12 deep at Albertsons. That's the difference between 6 months of experience and 10 years or more of experience.
posted by wierdo at 6:35 PM on October 1, 2011

the theory that these jobless programs deter large swaths of the unemployed from seeking work

Maybe I'm completely wrong, or missing something, but I thought that actively seeking work was a requirement for receiving unemployment insurance benefits...?
posted by naoko at 7:29 PM on October 1, 2011 [3 favorites]

...but rather that millions and millions of people inexplicably became lazy at the exact same time....

Yah, that's me, people. Too lazy to work and keep up with the bills. Two damn degrees, and I'm cleaning houses. Not enough houses, because my lovely older folks can't afford me any more with the price of groceries the way they are. Unemployment ran out long ago. but there's still no work. I still like to eat and pay my bills, though. Even with lying on the applications so that I'm not "overqualified" I'm still too bloody old. Amazing how you're exactly what they need on the phone, but they backpedal like crazy at the first interview.

...it discourages many employees from getting jobs (because they'll lose their benefits completely, even if the new job pays only a little more than the unemployment check)

Have you EVER tried to live on an unemployment check? Better yet, have you tried to work in a crap minimum wage job for 39 hours and no benefits, plus keep your life going while you are repeatedly applying and being turned down for the jobs you were educated for?

Yah, us unemployed, we're all a bunch of lazy buggers.

Hey, anyone remember when you could get a MacJob at age 16 and save up money for college instead of going into debt from the get-go?
posted by BlueHorse at 9:09 PM on October 1, 2011 [5 favorites]

Just came in to say I spent a large part of my childhood between the ages of 5 and 10 years old buying candy from the Garland Street Market. I was unemployed the whole time.
posted by mbatch at 10:21 PM on October 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

Let them eat cake!
posted by jeffburdges at 11:10 PM on October 1, 2011

So, salvia, you're suggesting that America's traditional high wages has nothing to do with the amount of manufacturing being outsourced to other countries

No, I'm not talking about that at all. I'm talking about how laughable it is to suggest that lowering the wages of the average US worker -- long stagnant -- is the path to economic recovery, especially in an economic situation marked by high debt loads. There are ways to address the trade deficit and loss of manufacturing that don't threaten US economic stability like causing US worker wages to rapidly fall to some theoretical global mean. Do you really think we could regrow a stable US manufacturing base while caught in a deflationary spiral?

Your comment, while cute, is also entirely irrelevant, as it's not like Safeway is going to offshore its cashier jobs.
posted by salvia at 11:41 PM on October 1, 2011 [2 favorites]

There is a deeper sickness here that is very difficult to understand or put one's finger upon. I'm still trying to figure it out. It would be simplistic to say it's a racial thing although that a crucial element of something like the CEO of Safewya saying something so unfeeling and self-detrimental. Sure it's ideology, but such hate and suspicion and need for a certain kind of vengence belies something much much more egregious and pernicious at work. I'll let you guys know whenever and if ever I can understand it.

I do know one thing: Capitalism has an aspect much like a cancer that attacks healthy tissue losing sight of the comprehensiveness and interconnectedness of a sort of organism or body politic and thinks decisive amputation and prolapse is always the answer. Without realizing just how much it is hurting itself. I mean, let's face it, that is the logic of an extreme fool or a person/nation with serious psychological problems.
posted by Skygazer at 1:29 AM on October 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

@Skygazer

I don't remember where I found this article so you might have read it from here already but: Cruel America
posted by This, of course, alludes to you at 5:21 AM on October 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

"So, big business sends jobs out of the country, cuts wages and benefits for the workers that are left, and then whines about there being a lack of demand for their made in China products. And many of them don't seem to grasp the connection, or even allow that there might be negative consequences to their actions. The best and the brightest, indeed.
posted by GreyFoxVT at 6:11 AM on October 2, 2011

Riki tiki: "It's because, as usual, the left conceded the terms of the debate. I mean that literally. "Trickle Down Economics" make sense because things trickle down. They don't trickle up, Pater Aletheias. Duuuuh.
...
After all, it's not like conservative jargon even makes superficial sense a lot of the time... have you ever actually tried "pulling yourself up by your bootstraps"? Picture it. What the fuck, guys, did it not occur to you that you can't actually do that? GRAVITY DOES NOT WORK THAT WAY"

---------
Dude, I was seriously thinking about gravity when he mentioned the trickle down.

Not just the boot straps, but think about it. We use trickle-down when the flow goes UP. Again. Gravity. This is about gravity, and we need to start thinking of money as mass and density.

The more money you have, the more mass you have, the more "gravity" you have, the more money comes to you.

Louis CK talked about the whole "punish the poor" with his bit on charging fees to people who don't have money. Money flows even MORE away from those who have negative money.

I think we should start treating money as a concept like mass and talk about the GRAVITY of money. The LOVE of money. Money is a FORCE, and attractive force. Money is something that contains power and it draws things towards it, like light draws moth to a flame.

And how big does the gravity have to get before we get a black hole, a place where there is "no escape"?
posted by symbioid at 7:33 AM on October 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

Yeah, when my friends and I worked cashier jobs in high school, the difference between the old guard and the new guard was pretty stark. The full-time employees were unionized, worked regular schedules, and made $20/hr; the part-time employees made $8/hr, had random schedules, and got no benefits. (But still had to pay union dues.)

This describes what just happened with the Postal Workers Union. Among other things the old guard is guaranteed full time and the new hires are guaranteed nothing more than 2 hours if they are scheduled to work. The Union has become toothless with all the threats to close down or privatize. The latest move is to take away the Federal Employee Health insurance and put everybody on some crappy, Post Office-run plan if they can get congress (who are of course covered under their own Gold Plated Health Insurance Plan) to approve.

Newt Gingrich, who is currently running for president, recently said that he thought it was "fundamentally wrong to give people money for 99 weeks for doing nothing.

This is the Welfare Queen method of painting a picture so that Joe Sixpack the Plumber is convinced that the Unemployed are lazy and worthless and should not be "showered" with tax payers' money. I expect we will be hearing all about these shiftless good-for-nothings who have been drinking $5.00 coffees and watching DVDs on their Giant, 3D Sets all day while the rest of us slave away.
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 7:36 AM on October 2, 2011

Skygazer: Capitalism has an aspect much like a cancer that attacks healthy tissue losing sight of the comprehensiveness and interconnectedness of a sort of organism or body politic and thinks decisive amputation and prolapse is always the answer. Without realizing just how much it is hurting itself. I mean, let's face it, that is the logic of an extreme fool or a person/nation with serious psychological problems.

Well, the premise of The Corporation is that corporations (having been granted personhood by governments) function like psychopaths.

The filmmakers have made the entire documentary available on YouTube. Make it a double bill with Inside Job and you've got a depressing explanation for today's situation.
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 1:20 PM on October 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

The curious thing about this discussion is that nobody brings up the fact that it is deliberate government policy to maintain a certain minimum level of unemployment to combat inflation. That is to say that the government artificially deflates workers wages and sacrifices the productivity of at least 1/10th of the workforce on purpose so that there is a threat of unemployment to counter wage demands.

That in the new global economic order many corporations now think that 1/10th is too low an unemployment rate is not surprising as their leverage only increases as the unemployment rate increases and at least in the manufacturing sector their customer base is no longer national but international so they can ride out local hardship.

So if you buy the need for anti-inflationary human productivity decimation then the very least you can do is support the people who you have democratically chosen to make useless. Vilifying them for being victims of policies you and your government have imposed on them is not only evidence of tremendous economic ignorance but is abusive and evil.
posted by srboisvert at 3:22 PM on October 2, 2011 [5 favorites]

Somewhat related: deflation and uncertainty: unnerving signs for the market.

Disclosure: I am long canned goods.
posted by salvia at 5:48 PM on October 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

Do Jobless Benefits Discourage People from Finding Jobs?
posted by renataskyfire at 6:14 PM on October 2, 2011

Hell I know if I got something like 2/3 of my current salary I would just milk that shit forever as my car got repossessed, as I came home to padlocks on my house, as my nagging toothache festered, etc. UNEMPLOYMENT IS A FUCKING PARTY WELCOME EVERYONE!!!!!
posted by Mister_A at 10:06 AM on October 3, 2011 [3 favorites]

I think the concept that people only look for jobs near the end of their unemployment may be true for some classes of worker, but skilled workers are constantly looking but can't find jobs anywhere comparable to their former employment. Case in point. A friend who is in IT, laid off in 2008 took 9 months to find an appropriate job at 2/3 prior income and far fewer benefits. Laid off again in late 2010 is still looking, and despite several interviews (seemingly always over-qualified), has only been offered a job that paid less than the previous one, again with even fewer benefits. I must note that in the past this person has never had any difficulty finding work. Another friend, a teacher laid off from a private school took a job where he was told he could have Fridays off for child-care purposes. When he arrived at his new job he was told otherwise...take it or leave it. Basically employers hold all the cards and are not hiring because there is no incentive to do so. Why should they risk becoming more profitable when Obama and Warren et al will just tax it away.?
posted by Gungho at 10:33 AM on October 3, 2011

All that means is that Safeway's interests aren't the same as the interests of the capitalist class that operates in every economic sector.

Interestingly, grocery stores tend to do OK in recessions. People still need to eat. Restaurants may suffer to some extent, as people tend to eat out less and cut back in other ways, but even if they're buying generic brands at the store they're still shopping at grocery stores (although Whole Foods is still doing well). This is one reason they can be so cruel in the way they treat their workers. The model has become one where they cut back on expenses by shafting their employees. Not sure how they used to manage when grocery store workers were largely full time and unionized, as I know margins these days are razor thin in their business. Maybe it's the overall Wal-Mart effect of low retail prices causing cost-cutting all down the line, including to their competitors.
posted by krinklyfig at 4:19 PM on October 3, 2011

But I don't blame the left entirely. I think we lose the vocabulary war mostly because we actually have critical thinking skills, and so catchphrases and simplistic metaphors aren't nearly as effective with us

This has a lot to do with how the labor movement has been slowly dying to the point where most jobs are non-union. The campaign of convincing working people to vote against their own interests has been very effective. I'm not a big fan of Ed Schultz's show on MSNBC, but he is a good example of the type of working class rabble rousing and muckraking that was once very common- it's also pretty effective for the target audience. If the liberal side of the debate depends too much on intellectualism or insists upon purely logical debate tactics, then you lose the working class votes and ultimately the labor movement.
posted by krinklyfig at 4:25 PM on October 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

So I try to frame it in this way. We're a consumer economy. What's good for consumers is good for all of us.

In other words, demand-side economics. Trickle down is also known as supply-side.
posted by krinklyfig at 4:28 PM on October 3, 2011