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A comment on Because of high unemployment benefits, businesses can't find summer workers. Parent comment

Re:Because of high unemployment benefits, businesses can't f... by renewiltord on Friday May 22, 2020 @01:15PM (#23274479)
'Should' isn't a useful thing in this discussion. When thinking about policy there is only behaviour pre-intervention and behaviour post-intervention.

In this case, you'd note that there are certain businesses that don't consider themselves viable at the current value of unemployment benefits if unemployment behaves as it does right now. Then you see if you're okay with losing those businesses and if you are, then so be it, you think it's worth the trade-off. If you're not okay, then you need to tune the intervention, e.g. unemployment is guaranteed for some time even if you become re-employed, or 'unemployment' is guaranteed to all, or you lower the payment, etc.

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Re:Because of high unemployment benefits, businesses can't f... by NeuNeurosis on Friday May 22, 2020 @01:54PM (#23274957)
The only thing I would retort is that you are assuming their are only two outcomes, the incentives get realigned to allow businesses to operate under preexisting circumstances or we don't change incentives and these businesses fail. I would totally agree we need to look at behavioral outcomes, I would say that we need to look at it from the employer side and immigration side as well not just the domestic labor side.
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Re:Because of high unemployment benefits, businesses can't f... by renewiltord on Friday May 22, 2020 @03:14PM (#23275800)
Only stated it like that to keep it concise. Ultimately, I guess my point is that it isn't a moral question. Moral incentives are hard to provide so policy centres around the levers we know to pull. Saying "businesses should" without incentivizing that is just saying "users are holding the phone wrong".

So yes, you are right that there are many parameters that can be tuned.

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Re:Because of high unemployment benefits, businesses can't f... by LiquidSky on Friday May 22, 2020 @03:17PM (#23275827)
>'Should' isn't a useful thing in this discussion.

Your own comment refutes this, you just use different wording. Policies are created with certain goals in mind, i.e., how things should be. You then see whether your policies have achieved this goal, and reevaluate accordingly.

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Re:Because of high unemployment benefits, businesses can't f... by renewiltord on Friday May 22, 2020 @03:21PM (#23275862)
Perhaps I worded that poorly. That's fair criticism.

I just mean that making some policy and then saying "businesses should do X" isn't useful. That's like making a phone a certain shape and then saying "people are holding the phone wrong".

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