NYT Comment of the Day...

on Paul Krugman's column, The Next Disaster is Just a Few Days Away:

Best advice Paul Krugman ever gave President Trump to get re-elected: Push the Republican Senators to pass 13 more weeks of unemployment insurance. Cap it at what workers made previously per week. If some state computer systems cannot calculate that, hire IT help so they can.

Labor Secretary Scalia dropped the ball here and should have been working on this since March. I get it some people are getting a "raise" if they made less before. I get the complaints that some workers are refusing to return to their jobs because UI benefits now pay them more than working. But...

Why can't we overcome that? Some workers are making the same, or less weekly, than they did working; their jobs are still not back. No working from home, and not everyone out of work is in retail or hospitality. A lot of "down line" office work depends on offices being open. Educated professionals should not have to collect 1/4 of their salaries on regular state unemployment, OR choose to become daycare workers, personal aides at nursing homes, or gas-station/fast-food clerks because those jobs are now hiring and in need.

Why not: ask employers to immediately report workers who have been offered their jobs back but who refuse? Why not cap it at the amount you were making, and reporting, before? That would help workers by not punishing those who are without work but not getting a "bonus" with the $600 help. The money continuing to flow to what the unemployed were making would help the economy overall.

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ALSO: Require workers to produce their weekly "job hunt" logs showing their full-time job search activities, including jobs applied for, results, and credible attempts to obtain work in their own field, or in comparable employment situations.

In regular times, it's easy to convince yourself, as a worker, that those without jobs just are not trying hard enough. But this isn't regular times. There's a pandemic out there, and the riots in some cities -- and those blessed to "work from home" -- have left downtown office areas as essential "ghost towns".

I went back to get my haircut in downtown Minneapolis on Monday, and to follow up in person on a job lead. Was SHOCKED at how empty it still was, and also all the boarded up street-level businesses. The rioting didn't hit here, my hair stylist told me, but there were fears. And the workers and businesses for the most part, have just not yet returned...

And not everyone can live off their stock-market profits.

*Only the downtown library branch had windows smashed, she said. So sad.