Now I know where to move.
The “may take months to arrive” part doesn’t seem to be true since the payments are hitting now.
I’m hesitant to take my info from a tweet.
Is this really comparing apples to apples? Are the other countries including their version of unemployment insurance? I’m not unemployed and I don’t qualify for the stimulus check but my daughter does. She is getting unemployment and the $1200.
Hitting now if the IRS/SS folk have your direct deposit info. It may take longer if you have to send them that info.
Canada has a temporary benefit (paid to employers) to cover 75% of employee
(snip: more similar stuff)
Link: https://www.canada.ca/en/department-finance/economic-response-plan/wage-subsidy.html
Our Employment Insurance (unemployment insurance) program pays a maximum of $573 per week. Right now the Canadian government is paying people a flat $500 per week (in four week increments) because the usual checking process takes too long. It also now applies to self-employed people and some other categories who wouldn’t qualify before. Obviously there’s fraud going on; so many people who either weren’t self-employed or who were hiding that are revealing it. (You have to have made $5,000 in employment or self-employment income.) 
Same in the Netherlands. The government is paying 90% of the wages…with the understanding that they won’t be fired. This is an existing arrangement, for situations where employers have a temporary shortage of business. The purpose is to keep people in their jobs.
There are other arrangements for businessowners and the self employed.
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In Australia, businesses that have seen a 30% or more decline of business can get a subsidy of $1500/fortnight/employee, to be paid to the employee. This keeps the employee on the business’ books, with an income. That way the business will still have some employees when things ramp back up. They came up with the amount as a percentage of the median wage, IIRC. It’s called the JobKeeper program - fact sheet here with summaries.
They’ve also fattened up the JobSeeker (unemployment) benefits some, and loosened the qualifications.
Truly startling for a Liberal government, and JobKeeper is actually pretty clever. Should cover more people, but…
Can someone explain with layman math how a government can fund 90% of employee salaries for any prolonged period of time?
If just one month, OK, but how long are the Dutch planning to do that?
I’ve been wondering this too. The Canadian programs are announced to last for four months. Almost 6 million Canadians (over 16% of the entire population of Canada!) have applied for COVID-19-related benefits. Assuming they all get the $2000/month, that’s 12 billion dollars a month. And that’s just the program for individuals: EI and CERB. The business wage subsidy has not yet started.
In other news, the Bank of Canada is pleading with business to continue accepting cash.
I don’t know either, but they’re doing it.
UK is paying employers up to 80% of salaries for furloughed staff, capped at £2500 per month. We have furloughed staff on this scheme. We have to furlough for a minimum of 3 weeks, and (obviously) can’t ask them to do any work in that time.
Employment insurance isn’t anything to do with it.
There’s also a similar package for the self-employed, although it’s more complicated to claim and won’t be available til the beginning of June.
A one-off payment of $1200 doesn’t sound like it’ll go very far for most people.
From the employer side of things, I’ve been spending the morning running through the numbers for my staff of 50+ to see how it applies.
Essentially, the program is available to any employer that has seen a drop in revenue of 30% (15% for March since the economic impact took hold mid-month) since either the same month last year e.g. Mar 2019 vs Mar 2020 OR you can use a baseline of the average of Jan 2020 and Feb 2020, which ever works better for you. In addition, you can use either a Cash or Accrual basis. Whatever you pick, you have to stick with it for the balance of the program.
Initially, they have broken it up into 3 four week periods. If you are eligible in period 1, you are automatically eligible for future periods. It is capped at 75% of $58,700, so in my case they cover about 45% of my payroll.
As a services company, payroll is the biggest single expense I have. The CEWS means I keep everyone working and hopefully roll into June/July in good position to help support the rebound in the economy, generate tax dollars, and encourage spending by my staff.
At the end of this the debt is going to take a huge hit that I expect my kids will be paying for the next 30 years but we will all be alive and healthy. This is the big picture decision I expect and am proud to see from my government.
In the Netherlands, the government finances are ok. We can borrow.
From what I could find, the first numbers indicates that companies applied for the 90% deal for 300000 people (probably more now, this was some time ago. If you assume 3000 paid by the government for each one (which is probably close to the median), that’s less than a billion a month. And a chunk of that will be held back for income taxes.
When this all started it was immediately stated that at least 70 billion would be available to deal with the economic consequences of the crisis.
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Presumably if a person is rehired and wage-subsidized, they will no longer be on the CERB. So one program gains a member, one loses a member… and maybe the total government cash outflow doesn’t change that much.
But when your employees are receiving the wage subsidy, are they doing anything? Or is this more along the lines of keeping them on a ‘hot standby’, ready to go when work appears? I can see how that would help you by reducing the overhead of (re)hiring when the work resumes, as well as helping them.
For me it’s a bit different. I work in an auto parts factory, and it’s a little hard to take my part of the assembly line home. 
So we just got a straight layoff on Friday the 20th of March. (What a week that was… we went from hearing “there’s going to be mandated overtime this weekend” on Monday to “We’re laying everyone off but a skeleton crew” on Friday. And even the skeleton crew was laid off on the following Monday.)
We applied for EI in the regular way; the CERB wasn’t even announced yet. But it absorbed our in-process EI applications, and I have received $3500 from it over the past few days. By my calculations, that covers the first month of unemployment (March 21st to April 20th) and most of the second (to May 20th).
The money enabled me to prepay my rent for the month, and help out my friends, one of who just graduated as a nurse, I mean he only got his (temporary) license four weeks ago, and his graduation ceremony is set for June. Once he gets through his ten probationary shifts at the hospital, he’ll have all the work he needs, but right now things are a little tight, so I am glad to be able to help.
I am amazed at how quickly they have got all this up and running. Those government programmers must be working overtime!
Because governments have tremendous resources to back borrowing.
I don’t like the analogy of comparing a disease to a war, but there is one clear instance where it is instructive, and that is to demonstrate the government resources available to fight a national crisis.
Sunspace’s estimate for Canada is $12 billion a month.
In the eleven years from 1939 to 1950, the federal government in Canada spent $21.8 billion dollars on the war effort and reconstruction.
Using the Bank of Canada inflation calculator, using 1945 as the mid-point, that $21.8 billion dollars would be $329,156,043,956.04 in today’s dollars.
Now, there are differences, notably that war-time put the Canadian economy back on its feet after the Depression. That’s not the case here, where the disease is going to result in a contraction of the Canadian GDP. And, we hope it’s not going to go on for 11 years.
But, the numbers above show the resources that a modern government can muster, through a combination of taxes and borrowing.
During WW2, nations like the US, USSR & UK were spending 35-45% of GDP on military. Japan was closer to 70%. Germany around 50%.
https://eh.net/encyclopedia/military-spending-patterns-in-history/
Canada’s spending as a % of GDP peaked at about 37% in 1943.
However the world also spend decades paying it back.
So the world is able to spend 40% of GDP on important projects when it needs to. I think a plan like UBI of $1000/month for every adult in the US would cost about 16% of GDP.
That’s correct that CEWS saves them on CERB, but it’s theoretically productive $ that adds to the economy for an extra $350/week.
About 2/3 of my staff are fully productive. Of the remainder, 1/2 have some work. The balance have nothing to do, although they can do self directed training. If my staff are fully on hiatus for the entire week, I can also claim back CPP and EI. If they do any “real” work, I can’t.
In Norway the government is covering 100% of the wages of people furloughed or unemployed for the first moth, as opposed to the normal 63 %. The period may be extended. Also, running payments for businesses hit by the crisis, such as rent and utilities. Theres also a funding scheme to support businesses who are struggling. Also, laws for bankruptcy and debts are to be amended to allow otherwise functional businesses to avoid bankruptcy due to the crisis.
Its not been mentioned, but I assume we’ll be tapping some savings rather than borrowing, unless borrowing is financially advantageous.
Nitpick: that’s for one program, although it is maybe the highest-profile one. Canada.ca has a list of them all. Dozens of them. Including the “suspend all student loans for six months, no interest” one, which is helping me a lot. When they were first announcing the support programs, they said $82 billion, then the next day it was $107 billion, and I think it’s gone up from there.
In Japan, the government has announced a cash payment between ￥100,000 to ￥300,000 yen (≒ US$930 to US$2800) for households that have had their usual income decline more than 50% between February and June of this year. It only applies to low-income earners that are exempt from paying residential tax, so about less than 20% of all Japanese households. The rules and method of applying for this cash payment is still being worked out and no one knows how and when this will come into effect, but the earliest people will start seeing the money in their accounts is expected to be sometime between mid and late May.
And not to worry, the government hasn’t forgotten about us regular taxpaying citizens. We’re getting two cloth face masks per household, whether we want them or not. Whether we’re a single dweller or a family of seven, each household is getting two masks fair and square.