[hooande]

how large was the "pandemic bailout"? it looked like two checks from the govt and < 1 year of increased (doubled?) unemployment. seems like a total of $8,000 or less for most people, with a wide variance from person to person.

Was this enough to make a large number of people stop working, even now into mid-2022? I really feel like the impact of several thousand dollars would be gone after a year, at most. yet many businesses near me are still under staffed and having trouble hiring.

[mynameishere]

I often read /r/povertyfinance, and they were not hiding the fact that it was a damn bonanza. Most people made it perfectly clear that they were doing very responsible things with the "free" money, but you know...

A lot of people for various reasons have never seen more than a thousand or two in their checking account at once (typically, from tax refunds). So, 8000 is a once-in-a-lifetime amount of wealth. It's sad to think of what's happening at a higher level of course. The government was borrowing money on behalf of everyone and telling everyone to go spend it. Thanks, uncle, I wasn't stupid enough already.

[lovich]

What does that have to do with people no longer wanting to work shit jobs in 2022? If anything this should increase the incentive to work as that money is already spent and the government hasn’t been handing out any more

[dangrossman]

I don't know how it relates, but I feel compelled to mention the PPP loan program as the largest part of the "pandemic bailout". It was $400 billion dollars in loans given out and forgiven with no repayment, to individual business owners and self-employed persons just as much as corporations. The average "loan" was just under $100K.

[omgsean]

The idea that it's caused by "bailouts" is just a talking point. Personally I think it boils down to a few things:

1. Older people taking retirement early when the pandemic hit.

2. People in service/public-facing industries leaving for jobs that could be done remotely, or going back to school.

3. Several hundred thousand working age people dying from COVID.

[native_samples]

For 3:

a. The official number is ~254,000 (in the USA) which is certainly a major over-estimate. True number is certainly far less.

b. Employees who died or retired don't count as resigned.

[braingenious]

https://covid19.healthdata.org/united-states-of-america

Can you point me to your source(s) indicating the lower number you’re referring to?

[native_samples]

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1191568/reported-deaths-...

Then summing the 18-65 buckets (working age).

[wrycoder]

For 3: the vast majority of those who died were over 60.

[Terry_Roll]

4. People have woken up to the current form of slavery called Capitalism. For a start, if the Govt wanted people to succeed they would teach law at school and update the public with the latest case law and legislation every few months, but the fact is, that doesn't happen, ergo the righteous can inflict their sadism on the uneducated, just like religion is psychological warfare on the uneducated.

It all boils down to survival of the fittest and history repeatedly shows and the the US Govt & US Mil demonstrates, violence always wins the day.

[phpisthebest]

Direct Payments was part of the story.

I saw more than a few people that when from 2 income house holds to 1 because of Student Loan payment defers and the increase cost of Child care made is possible for one of the parents to just stay home..

We also sadly lost a lot of people to covid, and many older people have chosen to retire rather than return to the office.

I think these 3 things are more impactful on the employment market than the direct payments

[adam_arthur]

$4T in total spending, plus debt/rent forbearance which effectively adds on top of this.

You're forgetting the child tax credit as well, which was effectively a monthly stimulus check for many, and student loan forbearance, which nets out to something like $10B/month in increased consumer spending power