The damage from this is just getting started, we're already in recession, and the stock market is setting all-time highs. It's a bit bizarre.
Most people on unemployment are laid off. They are not applying for new jobs because they assume that they will have a job to go back to shortly.
These people are also dealing with the clusterfuck surrounding schooling & childcare. From what I've seen, it's close to impossible to get your younger child back into childcare. The older ones taking remote classes in school require a good deal of adult attention.
I don't think a lot of people would change jobs even for a big raise because things are so hectic right now. Even people here on HN are struggling to balance their lives, and these are people who earn good wages and have a lot of flexibility with their schedule.
The stock market is setting new highs in anticipation of a renaissance in worker efficiency and business margins.
If living poverty makes people more industrious, then people who grew up in poverty should have better outcomes than people who never have.
And that's pretty well proven to by false. In fact, there's a name for all of the negative effects of living in poverty that perpetuate a life in poverty: the cycle of poverty.
"We" as in "tech workers making several times the min wage" ? Or "we" as "people who already lived in precarious conditions before covid" ?
Not to rain on your parade but _a lot_ of people are _very badly_ affected by the situation, especially in the US.
We're not even in the first inning of this crisis - We're still in batting practice. The ripples and waves of this crisis will probably (just my arm chair opinion) last for years, if not the next decade.
But, hey, who knows! Maybe it'll all be over and done with next spring post vaccine. We'll be back to 4% unemployment and it'll be like it never happened from an economic perspective. Seems unlikely to me, but I'm not an economist.
I don't bet on this happening, but it is certainly a possible outcome.
A lot of the issues we are facing are the result of supply shortages due to people not being able to operate in close proximity to one another. If not for Covid, then it's likely that the economy would have continued to grow.
If you think about it, the US economy continued to grow over the past decade even while the collapse of the retail, energy, and agricultural sectors during that time frame. Once people are able to return to being in large groups, it's not unreasonable to expect growth to continue.