> only 40% of Americans are able to cover an unexpected $1000 expense. That's the really sobering number, in my view

This is pretty common everywhere across the developed world. The majority of OECD nations have a lower median wealth figure than the US, including Sweden and Germany (their median wealth figures are particularly shockingly low, given the affluence those nations should have vs their national output and given the high German savings rate).

The OECD labor force participation rate is such that about 28% of persons 15-64 do not work. Of the 72% group, a solid 1/3 are typically working jobs where they struggle to make ends meet month to month. The only way a lot of people will have a spare $1,000 in cash for random emergency expense, is if you directly transfer cash to them, and even in that case they will inevitably need to spend it sooner than later.

I think you're talking about apples and oranges.

Sure, these nations might have lower median "wealth" figures, but they also typically have lower costs of living (maybe not Sweden, but Germany does). These countries also have much better safety nets than the US. And if the German savings rate is high, that means they can weather a crisis better than the average American. Americans may make more money, but when they blow it all on an enormous car payment for a giant SUV and a mortgage for the biggest house they could possibly get given their salary, and don't save anything, that leaves them in a precarious position when they have a temporary loss of income.

Yeah, income inequality is not a uniquely American problem. But it's still worth pointing out that even though $1k probably seems like a piddling amount to most readers of this site, it could still help a lot of people who are significantly less well-off.

> income inequality is not a uniquely American problem

That's true but there are only a handful of countries doing worse: https://data.oecd.org/inequality/income-inequality.htm

Smaller wealth, but larger safety nets.

Swedes and Germans aren't going to have to pay a $13k deductible if they have an unexpected surgery, for example.

There is way higher number of situation where US Americans need to have 1000$ ready.

Examples:

- don't need to keep beating the dead horse about American healthcare

- cars. In most European countries a car is not absolutely vital. A lot of America is "drive til you qualify", and car issues can easily be above a grand. You need a car to go even to the closest store many times, so quarantine would not really get rid of your need for a car.

> cars. In most European countries a car is not absolutely vital

you're talking about cities, in rural places, europe is not different than the US.

The thing about rural areas, is that not many people live there.

We live just ouside a mid-sized UK town (and cities down to small/mid sized towns covers a really high % of the population). Between public transport and good cycle/pedestrian routes, a car is not a major living requirement for many.

>This is pretty common everywhere across the developed world

How much does a trip to the ER in an ambulance cost the patient in those countries?

> but a $1000 supplement would be a huge help to people who live paycheck-to-paycheck and may not get paid for a few weeks.

There is zero reason to believe that the service and retail industry will be back to normal in a few weeks.

Whenever the current situation has subsided to the point where we are no longer asked to engage in social distancing, perhaps local governments should make it a priority to allow a bunch of festivals and other large public events to take place. This will create work for the service industry which will help bootstrap their sector back into motion and also give the public a sense of normalcy so they'll start going out again.

Terrible idea. Unless there's herd immunity, this will just restart the epidemic anew, this time in the people who managed to dodge the virus the first time. Social distancing can be lifted in those who recovered from the virus though, maybe they'll be able to attend.

Well, policymakers could re-asses at that point in time if they decided to take an action like this.

If you really believe that things will remain disrupted for a long time, it seems like you could see this as a great opportunity for a basic income experiment, huh?

One of the interesting questions would be how much a basic income would affect people's willingness to work, and we would not be getting that out of this experiment. In fact, I can't imagine anything useful we'd be getting out of that experiment, except for its effects in similar very dramatic circumstances.

> I can't imagine anything useful we'd be getting out of that experiment

I uhhhh. People's ability to work and live is important. That's what we get out of it. People not starving or living in poverty is, surprisingly enough, pretty important to the economy and the ability to sell luxury goods. Regarding 'useful data':

https://www.inverse.com/article/53466-basic-income-canada-s-...

And articles from the institute that performed the study:

https://www.basicincomecanada.org/nearly_half_of_basic_incom...

https://www.basicincomecanada.org/ontario_government_defends...

How would the data from any experiment reach you? (there have been lots of experiments) And not to offend you but what point is there in informing people?

I would like to see an 1 euro/month basic income. Then we get a good idea what it costs to distribute. Then we should gradually increase it by an equally insignificant amount so that we can gradually observe who should but doesn't get it and how much fraud we have to deal with.

With 100 euro extra we can at least silence the folk who for the last 100 years barricaded the discussion by saying they would continue to work themselves but others... others will do this and that. Popular variations: Wimmen will stop obeying their husband. Men will use the extra money to buy alcohol. Kids wont seek jobs. etc

I think Keynes 15 hour work week provides a good hint. Wealthy people actually work more.

I think the silver bullet basic income is silly for other reasons. Our economic model is to optimize for wealth extraction. Give people 50, 500 or 1000 extra and rent will go up by exactly the same amount.

I'd still be willing to pay for the distribution experiment.

But does it actually matter what I think?

Still a useful data point. It would be nice to add this sort of action to the same toolbox which already contains quantitative easing.

It's borderline irrelevant. I'd want to see things like rent/mortgage payments alleviated or suspended for the duration.

Pretty much everybody has either rent or a mortgage. Therefore giving someone $1000 towards their rent/mortgage is basically equivalent to just giving them $1000, except that it's a ton of extra administrative complexity and it also screws over a few people who somehow don't qualify but still need help.

Whereas if you make the assistance "we pay the amount of your mortgage" instead of "we pay $1000" then you're giving much more of the money to affluent people, who presumably need it less.

That's not what he said. He didn't say, "give everyone $1000 towards their rent or mortgage". He said, temporarily suspend all rent and mortgage payments. As in, nobody pays any of it. Recurring expenses are what's going to destroy the economy so thoroughly that the great depression will look like a minor downtown. If nobody gets kicked out because they can't pay rent, or their mortgage, or the lease on their business, things might actually be able to resume once there's a handle on this.

I understand how that would work for Mortgage payments as they are controlled/facilitated by banks, and the government has the ability to coordinate with banks (in an ideal case). But how might the federal government enforce suspension of rent payments? Rent just goes to landlords (regular people) and is part of their gross income filed on their taxes. If you don't have to pay your rent, wouldn't we just be moving the buck from renters to landlords in terms of finnancial needs?

The landlords are using the rent to pay the mortgage on the property. If the banks suspend mortgage payments, then the landlords don't need to collect rent any more.

If the landlords desperately need that rent just to do basic maintenance and repairs, and don't have enough saved to deal with a possible problem that might happen in the next month, then they don't deserve to own the property.

> If the landlords desperately need that rent just to do basic maintenance and repairs, and don't have enough saved to deal with a possible problem that might happen in the next month, then they don't deserve to own the property.

I'm not saying you're wrong, but what's the argument for that? On its surface, the proclamation that they 'don't deserve to own their property' seems a little draconian to me. What if a repair is required that was unforeseen and not basic?

That's what insurance is for, or maybe a loan.

If the repair is not basic, then it sounds like it's going to be very costly. If it's very costly, then the tenants missing a month or two of rent is not going to be enough to make a difference on the landlord being able to afford it. After all, the amount of money they should be raking in above the mortgage on the property is not generally going to be a large fraction of the total rent. So if the landlord can't swing a few hundred dollars for an unforeseen repair, then they aren't in sufficient financial shape to be owning and renting out that property, since the landlord (in normal circumstances) is fully responsible for keeping the property in good repair at all times. "I can't afford it" is not a valid excuse for not doing repairs, and the court system agrees with me.

> The landlords are using the rent to pay the mortgage on the property. If the banks suspend mortgage payments, then the landlords don't need to collect rent any more.

How do you know it goes to a mortgage? The property could be owned by a retired couple and the rent is the income they live on, or a charity and the rent is how they fund their operations.

Or it could be owned by a regular old smelly landlord who just takes the rent money and invests it in the S&P 500 -- which, if you take it away multiplied by millions of landlords, does a Bad Thing to the stock market right when you want the opposite of that.

Sometimes rent includes utilities. What does the landlord pay that with?

I imagine you also expect to waive property tax or the landlords would have nothing to pay that with either, but then what are you using to fund local governments?

You can't just delete an industry and expect it to have no untoward effect.

Landlords do not need to invest in the S&P 500 right now; keeping the stock market going is not more important than people who can't pay rent.

If the landlords are retired, they have Social Security and probably other sources of income. If they can't live on that, then they're living beyond their means and don't need to be landlords.

If landlords can't float a little money to pay utilities, then they're in desperately bad financial shape, and shouldn't be landlords. What are they going to do when one of their tenants doesn't pay rent? Just let the utilities for other tenants get turned off? I'd be OK with simply seizing the properties from landlords that can't manage their properties properly.

> Recurring expenses

Then what about all the other ones? Are we also suspending utility bills? Car loans? Property tax? Grocery bills?

Why should someone paying the same total amount in recurring expenses have more of them waived just because they happen to pay more in rent and less in transportation and utilities than somebody else?