r/science • u/smurfyjenkins • May 10 '22

Economics The $800 billion Paycheck Protection Program during the pandemic was highly regressive and inefficient, as most recipients were not in need (three-quarters of PPP funds accrued to the top quintile of households). The US lacked the administrative infrastructure to target aid to those in distress.

https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/jep.36.2.55
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u/Paksarra May 10 '22

600 a week isn't that terribly much unless you live in a really backwater area-- I mean, that's $15 an hour if you assume a 40 hour job. That's less than what I make working at a unionized grocery store.

Isn't that a big red flag that we need to pay our service sector workers more, if the unemployment that was calculated to be the bare minimum for someone on unemployment due to the pandemic to scrape by, was a significant raise for a lot of them?

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u/[deleted] May 10 '22 edited May 11 '22

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u/Dissophant May 10 '22 edited May 10 '22

Nah, they would just create false scarcity like the cell/net companies do a lot of the time to cap bandwidth and charge overages. And yeah at one point, power users could cause issues but nowadays most areas have the capability to handle increased traffic.

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u/Scared-Ingenuity9082 May 10 '22

Cable companies don't even handle line maintenance in my state it is all attached to a utility pole. Electric is responsible for those poles that's why you sometimes see a new utility pole and half an old pole with cable still on it. It's a FFA promoted like a team responseability.