are there any conservative/libertarian econ policies that you wouldn't say are a scam or a way to keep the little guys down? cuz I can't think of any:)
Note. I did not read your article all the way through yet because I’m cooking dinner. Or the linked article.
My wife and daughter are both working to servers. They both got laid off I guess it was March. They were actually both employer attached, but the system was confusing back then. So for a month they were on normal unemployment insurance, where they were required to apply for two jobs a week to get paid.
They were making about $700 a week, but unemployment insurance was paying them around 1000. It was a pretty good time.
So to meet the requirement for job applications, they would just apply for jobs that were let’s say a reach. There are no server positions, so you apply for administrative assistant or working the front desk at a doctors office. Of course the resume has no experience, so you’re probably not going to get the job or even get called back for an interview. But you met the intent of the regulations.
You apply for the job, and then you submit the relevant information into the states unemployment database. Caseworkers are too busy to verify, so as long as he put something in the computer system you were going to get paid.
Eventually they were able to get it sorted out, and get employer attached. But we know lots of people who did that who weren’t.
When you’re working at this sort of income level, guaranteed job is no big deal. So why wouldn’t you game the system to collect more money. Wait it out.
I don’t know how to make an effect this had, but it did happen.
I glanced briefly at the dudes claims, and they are talking about job openings.
In June or July, my brother-in-law opened up a new fast food place. My daughter and wife, and my other two kids all went to work for him. They lost money, but it’s family. But for a while he did struggle to fill positions. It’s gotten a lot better now, now that UI has gone back down to normal… He’s getting more applicants. He should probably pay more, but that’s his business.
Anyway, I’m not an economist, just a working class dude, with the working class family.
In other news, his fast food drive-through place is doing awesome.
Sorry if this sounds like too basic a question to be asked. The papers you mention -- Marinescu et al., Dube et al., Bartik et al. -- how representative are the data? Do they cover some % of the SMBs and can be used as a good proxy for the whole distribution or possibly are they more representative for some sectors and not all?
Dude really got mad he was embarrassed publicly by another economist and came to make like 5 comments on his blog about it. Then tried to use the comeback that people anticipated the historically unprecedented CARES act two weeks ahead? When many Republican officials (who held the senate and presidency) were claiming there would be no emergency stimulus act? Couldn’t have been the workers... unless they wanted to lose eligibility - so your attempt to save face is that employers anticipated the unprecedented act and laid off the workers, not because of the pandemic, but so they could be altruistic and qualify them for a nonexistent act? That sentence is so dumb. Or I guess the March shock attenuates during the ensuing couple months when there were definitely not huge numbers of layoffs and firings... unless you think those 20 some million were mostly altruistic firings that don’t happen without ui benefits? Do you have any empirical evidence for regression to the mean other than saying “my ‘70’s model says it doesn’t matter if no one is spending money going out for entertainment, these businesses that laid off millions of people would definitely employ as many people as before with 200,000 new cases a day if it weren’t for that damn ui extension.” Also love to see a supposed academic use the line “try reading the words” about a paper the blog quoted saying “ We find no evidence that more generous benefits disincentivized work “. Mr. mulligan are you sure you can read?
Lots of people work despite the $600 bonus? I agree. Mulligan-Moore estimate says that that, relative to the workforce we have with $300 UI bonus, **more than 97%** of it would work with $600 bonus. So yes LOTS of people have reason to stay in work despite the $600.
But having a story that sounds nice for a vast majority of people is not the same as a story for 100% of them. Just 2% of potential workers gets into millions of jobs.
Reduced poverty? That is no surprise. Try reading http://redistributionrecession.com or many other articles I've written on the subject saying "equity-efficiency tradeoff". So unless you assume no tradeoff, pointing to more equity means smaller aggregate economic pie.
You are welcome to assume no tradeoff, but then you have assumed the answer rather than supporting it with the poverty findings.
I never said you claimed it didn't reduce poverty. That was just background information, so readers would know why the policy was important.
And yes, it's quite likely there was no tradeoff, given the macro effects of the CARES Act. Which Ioana Marinescu pointed out. You should have read her paper!
Funny how these all fit with the usual economic model that when you subsidize something, you get more of it.
Instead of just "glancing" at the Altonji et al paper, try reading its words. “the workers with the largest changes in UI generosity experience the largest declines in employment relative to the January baseline, [but] the differential decline occurs entirely in the weeks prior to the passage of the CARES Act.” In other words, two very opposite interpretations of their estimates are possible, depending on (a) whether the CARES act was anticipated and, if not, (b) how the March shock would have regressed to the mean absent uniform unemployment benefits.
So, this absurd hypothesis requires us to believe the following things:
1. That people anticipated the specific provisions of the CARES Act two weeks in advance
2. That they were confident enough about it to quit their jobs in the middle of a deep recession in order to take advantage of those specific provisions,
3. That they anticipated that the CARES Act would allow people to get UI benefits after QUITTING their jobs, which required them to be able to successfully argue that they quit for COVID-related reasons,
4. That they strongly believed in their ability to successfully game this provision of the act, and
5. That they believed in and anticipated all of this so strongly that they were confident enough about all of them to quit their jobs in the middle of a deep recession to receive unemployment checks weeks or even months in the future.
Casey, this is not credible. It is, to be frank, risible.
What do you expect from a man who thinks child labor is perfectly fine (Moore). The man is a moral cretin.
Is there a worse pretend-economist out there than Stephen Moore? He's got to at least be in the running for all-time worst, right?
Well, there's Larry Kudlow that is the George Costanza of economics. And he is not a real economist, he just pretends to be one on tv.
I demand that Larry Kudlow and Stephan Moore duel for the title of King of the Fake Economists
Larry Kudlow would win hands down because Moore is an actual economist, albeit a terrible one.
You could however have a battle of terrible economists between Moore and Art Laffer who specialized in publishing tax policy papers on dirty napkins.
are there any conservative/libertarian econ policies that you wouldn't say are a scam or a way to keep the little guys down? cuz I can't think of any:)
DBCFT!
woah, i forgot about that! i liked the idea but didn't know much about it. thanks
Well, what about Canada? Generous Pandemic UI program, and better job recovery.
yeah
OK no I’m gonna do this all again.
Note. I did not read your article all the way through yet because I’m cooking dinner. Or the linked article.
My wife and daughter are both working to servers. They both got laid off I guess it was March. They were actually both employer attached, but the system was confusing back then. So for a month they were on normal unemployment insurance, where they were required to apply for two jobs a week to get paid.
They were making about $700 a week, but unemployment insurance was paying them around 1000. It was a pretty good time.
So to meet the requirement for job applications, they would just apply for jobs that were let’s say a reach. There are no server positions, so you apply for administrative assistant or working the front desk at a doctors office. Of course the resume has no experience, so you’re probably not going to get the job or even get called back for an interview. But you met the intent of the regulations.
You apply for the job, and then you submit the relevant information into the states unemployment database. Caseworkers are too busy to verify, so as long as he put something in the computer system you were going to get paid.
Eventually they were able to get it sorted out, and get employer attached. But we know lots of people who did that who weren’t.
When you’re working at this sort of income level, guaranteed job is no big deal. So why wouldn’t you game the system to collect more money. Wait it out.
I don’t know how to make an effect this had, but it did happen.
I glanced briefly at the dudes claims, and they are talking about job openings.
In June or July, my brother-in-law opened up a new fast food place. My daughter and wife, and my other two kids all went to work for him. They lost money, but it’s family. But for a while he did struggle to fill positions. It’s gotten a lot better now, now that UI has gone back down to normal… He’s getting more applicants. He should probably pay more, but that’s his business.
Anyway, I’m not an economist, just a working class dude, with the working class family.
In other news, his fast food drive-through place is doing awesome.
Note. This was all dictated on iPhone while making roast cauliflower and grilling a steak.
Sorry if this sounds like too basic a question to be asked. The papers you mention -- Marinescu et al., Dube et al., Bartik et al. -- how representative are the data? Do they cover some % of the SMBs and can be used as a good proxy for the whole distribution or possibly are they more representative for some sectors and not all?
Noah Smith has a habit of offering lengthy opinions on things he hasn’t read, including the work he is citing now.
http://noahpinionblog.blogspot.com/2012/11/should-i-read-casey-mulligans-book.html
Dude really got mad he was embarrassed publicly by another economist and came to make like 5 comments on his blog about it. Then tried to use the comeback that people anticipated the historically unprecedented CARES act two weeks ahead? When many Republican officials (who held the senate and presidency) were claiming there would be no emergency stimulus act? Couldn’t have been the workers... unless they wanted to lose eligibility - so your attempt to save face is that employers anticipated the unprecedented act and laid off the workers, not because of the pandemic, but so they could be altruistic and qualify them for a nonexistent act? That sentence is so dumb. Or I guess the March shock attenuates during the ensuing couple months when there were definitely not huge numbers of layoffs and firings... unless you think those 20 some million were mostly altruistic firings that don’t happen without ui benefits? Do you have any empirical evidence for regression to the mean other than saying “my ‘70’s model says it doesn’t matter if no one is spending money going out for entertainment, these businesses that laid off millions of people would definitely employ as many people as before with 200,000 new cases a day if it weren’t for that damn ui extension.” Also love to see a supposed academic use the line “try reading the words” about a paper the blog quoted saying “ We find no evidence that more generous benefits disincentivized work “. Mr. mulligan are you sure you can read?
Lots of people work despite the $600 bonus? I agree. Mulligan-Moore estimate says that that, relative to the workforce we have with $300 UI bonus, **more than 97%** of it would work with $600 bonus. So yes LOTS of people have reason to stay in work despite the $600.
But having a story that sounds nice for a vast majority of people is not the same as a story for 100% of them. Just 2% of potential workers gets into millions of jobs.
What are the error bands on that estimate, Casey? Do they include 106%? ;-)
Reduced poverty? That is no surprise. Try reading http://redistributionrecession.com or many other articles I've written on the subject saying "equity-efficiency tradeoff". So unless you assume no tradeoff, pointing to more equity means smaller aggregate economic pie.
You are welcome to assume no tradeoff, but then you have assumed the answer rather than supporting it with the poverty findings.
I never said you claimed it didn't reduce poverty. That was just background information, so readers would know why the policy was important.
And yes, it's quite likely there was no tradeoff, given the macro effects of the CARES Act. Which Ioana Marinescu pointed out. You should have read her paper!
RE the 2020 recession and recovery, unless your intention is to build a straw man, you would reference the series that Mulligan and Moore use.
https://twitter.com/caseybmulligan/status/1336537434176294914/photo/1
https://twitter.com/caseybmulligan/status/1336537566384885760/photo/1
https://twitter.com/caseybmulligan/status/1336537816352911363/photo/1
https://twitter.com/caseybmulligan/status/1336537916856819719/photo/1
Funny how these all fit with the usual economic model that when you subsidize something, you get more of it.
Instead of just "glancing" at the Altonji et al paper, try reading its words. “the workers with the largest changes in UI generosity experience the largest declines in employment relative to the January baseline, [but] the differential decline occurs entirely in the weeks prior to the passage of the CARES Act.” In other words, two very opposite interpretations of their estimates are possible, depending on (a) whether the CARES act was anticipated and, if not, (b) how the March shock would have regressed to the mean absent uniform unemployment benefits.
So, this absurd hypothesis requires us to believe the following things:
1. That people anticipated the specific provisions of the CARES Act two weeks in advance
2. That they were confident enough about it to quit their jobs in the middle of a deep recession in order to take advantage of those specific provisions,
3. That they anticipated that the CARES Act would allow people to get UI benefits after QUITTING their jobs, which required them to be able to successfully argue that they quit for COVID-related reasons,
4. That they strongly believed in their ability to successfully game this provision of the act, and
5. That they believed in and anticipated all of this so strongly that they were confident enough about all of them to quit their jobs in the middle of a deep recession to receive unemployment checks weeks or even months in the future.
Casey, this is not credible. It is, to be frank, risible.
Nice straw man about the ACA. Maybe try reading the ACA book? It has things called dates & magnitudes. It makes projections for specific series.
How do you explain the miracle of "49er" firms exactly at the time when the ACA began taxing @ 50+ FTEs?
https://twitter.com/caseybmulligan/status/1336536158059311104/photo/1
https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/708173
That is among the most dubious trend-break diagrams I have ever seen, and I've seen some bad ones!