We decided to furlough people so they could keep their benefits. Also paid out their PTO balance which should hold them over until unemployment kicks in.
Here in California someone making $15/hr was making $600/wk. On unemployment they will now make $877/wk. That’s a 46% increase. It’s huge. We were trying to keep people employed while staying home but people literally started filing for unemployment anyway.
Did you offer health insurance? Again COBRA costs will easily take that extra $277 per week or more if you have a family. This situation is limited, it only applies to the few states with good unemployment compensation, if the person is a minimum wage worker and also if that someone didn’t have insurance, doesn’t opt for cobra (or has been picking up a separate plan through the ACA exchanges) and/or its just coverage for themselves for cobra then they might come out ahead. This extra money lasts until July and that’s it.
I’m guessing some people might rethink it when they see the costs of cobra and the fact that the sooner they hit the unemployment compensation the sooner they start the clock of limited benefits. If they need it for more than 6 months or whatever the state allows the max to be then they’re going to regret not first going for being furloughed. Unfortunately people also aren’t rational or forward thinking.
The way they did unemployment insurance certainly isn’t perfect in the stimulus bill. But I don’t think it’s all that problematic.
We pay 100% health insurance and will try to keep it as long as possible while they are furloughed. Things change day to day though. A number of our buyers, including some large public companies, decided to just stop paying their bills by switching to net-180 terms.
I can tell you right now most $15/hr employees aren’t too worried about health insurance. Most of them have gone their entire life without, so suddenly losing it again isn’t as big a deal as you might think.
Comments
We decided to furlough people so they could keep their benefits. Also paid out their PTO balance which should hold them over until unemployment kicks in.
Here in California someone making $15/hr was making $600/wk. On unemployment they will now make $877/wk. That’s a 46% increase. It’s huge. We were trying to keep people employed while staying home but people literally started filing for unemployment anyway.
Did you offer health insurance? Again COBRA costs will easily take that extra $277 per week or more if you have a family. This situation is limited, it only applies to the few states with good unemployment compensation, if the person is a minimum wage worker and also if that someone didn’t have insurance, doesn’t opt for cobra (or has been picking up a separate plan through the ACA exchanges) and/or its just coverage for themselves for cobra then they might come out ahead. This extra money lasts until July and that’s it.
I’m guessing some people might rethink it when they see the costs of cobra and the fact that the sooner they hit the unemployment compensation the sooner they start the clock of limited benefits. If they need it for more than 6 months or whatever the state allows the max to be then they’re going to regret not first going for being furloughed. Unfortunately people also aren’t rational or forward thinking.
The way they did unemployment insurance certainly isn’t perfect in the stimulus bill. But I don’t think it’s all that problematic.
We pay 100% health insurance and will try to keep it as long as possible while they are furloughed. Things change day to day though. A number of our buyers, including some large public companies, decided to just stop paying their bills by switching to net-180 terms.
I can tell you right now most $15/hr employees aren’t too worried about health insurance. Most of them have gone their entire life without, so suddenly losing it again isn’t as big a deal as you might think.