If you had a McJob, you’d be an essential worker and not be eligible for unemployment.
OTOH, you don’t want to wait too long. The bonus on UI will not last forever, and when it runs out, everyone’s going to be looking for a job. If you wait too long, you may lose out.
There are certainly jobs that cannot be done from home, but still have an extremely low chance of infection. If going to work carries less of a risk than visiting the grocery store, then I don’t consider that to be such a Satanic choice.
By McJob, I mean store clerk, receptionist, restaurant waitstaff, those kinds of low-level unskilled or semiskilled jobs. Those are not (mostly) essential jobs and they can’t be done from home, and millions upon millions have been laid off. I work in the supply chain for retail stores, and I know of whole chains that have been shut down and their whole non-manager workforce laid off.
A literal McJob, that being of working at McDonalds or Wendy’s or Burger King or any of the other fast food restaurants has not been shut down. The same for many restaurants that were able to transition to take out or delivery.
Less literal “McJobs”, like store clerks or other workers in grocery stores or home improvements stores also were not shut down.
There are 13 million people working just fast food. Another nearly 3 million working grocery stores. It’s hard to estimate the number working in restaurants that are not closed.
Maybe you were just a bit way too over generalizing, but my point stands, if you had a McJob, then you most likely are not eligible for unemployment.
I was referring to jobs that give the people holding them, and I quote, “a nontrivial risk of death in the short term.” Are you saying that’s the level of risk from going grocery shopping? If so, you’re dismissing it awfully glibly.
And it goes without saying that the people who work in a grocery store or at a Home Depot all day, five or six days a week, have a much greater risk of infection from being in that location than you or I would during the half-hour we spend there each week. Our risk is less than theirs by a couple orders of magnitude, and that’s if we continue to shop inside the store, rather than choosing delivery or curbside pickup.
Also, in threads about how the stores are these days, a number of Dopers have reported that mask-wearing is far from universal in places like Lowe’s and Home Depot, which greatly increases the level of risk for all who shop there. You and I can choose to simply not go there - and I, for one, have made that choice. The employees can’t.
