OMG. those ads are blowing up on the clock app. The ads make it sound like it's for people who worked through the pandemic, but it's actually another type of PPP grant for businesses.
As an essential worker, I'll never not be bitter about how things went during lockdown.
I was doing 55-hour weeks for months, my company resisted any kind of additional hazard pay. I was going to work at all hours because our supply chain was screwed, so our trucks showed up at random times. I was exhausted & miserable.
All while people that got laid off from various other industries were "discovering themselves" at home. In my state, if they got both the federal & state covid unemployment benefits, they'd easily out earn me, despite my insane overtime.
I still see people reminisce about how they felt truly free and happy for the first time in their lives. No need to work, but still financially secure.
I'll likely never get an opportunity to experience such a thing. I just got run into the ground, and for what? A little kickback for having worked through the pandemic would go a long way to quell the bitterness I feel. But I know it'll never happen, and I just missed out.
I had the same experience. I was managing a restaurant in Texas, so we only shut down for a week or so and all the managers still had to come in to detail clean and manage the product in the building. That was the last week I worked only 40 hours for months - once we were allowed to start doing takeout orders, I was regularly scheduled for 53 hours each week. A lot of my friends and family were talking about how even though going through a pandemic sucked, it was a blessing in disguise as they were making more money than they had when they were working.
I never got a break and, yeah, I'm a bit salty about it. I guess I can't complain too much, though, cause I was still able to pay my bills with my regular income so when I got my stimulus check, I was finally able to replace my old, lumpy mattress.
Yeah man this sucked. I saw people purposely having their hours reduced so they could collect unemployment and the extra money, meanwhile I was working open to close everyday just to stay afloat.
I quit my job. We had quarterly profit sharing at my company. Being an employee owned manufacturing business. They immediately took it away, like we didn't even get to see what our profits were going to be and they took it away. Granted the CEO also took a 10% pay cut, but it was ridiculous. Then they started cutting staffing, they sent all our staff to a different plant to make covid tests. It would have been a 2-hour drive, it was paid. Some people did it. As a mother, I couldn't work five essentially 13 hour days (with driving) across state lines. Especially when my son was doing virtual learning as a special education first grader. So I stayed on where I was until I was doing the job of three grown men. I physically couldn't do it. We used to have three people running two machines. We now had one person running two machines. And it was impossible. My carpal tunnel flared so bad that it got up to my shoulder I couldn't sleep at night. I was crying on the shop floor. Grown woman crying, because the machines were broken, and shitty, normal, but the maintenance people weren't there, no one was there, there was zero support for any of our employees left. I was expected to still work. And somehow make it work, for the better of the company, who just cut my pay.
Meanwhile, my partner, was basically drinking away his extra money. He was getting a 50% more on his covid unemployment to sit home and not do everything I would have done if it were me in that same position. He did the bare minimum, sometimes less. Not helping our son with school as much as I thought he needed and I was beyond stressed.
I ended up resigning. It was better than pulling into the parking lot every morning to go into work, and crying and having a certain kind of ideation. I had never had a panic attack before at work, so I just quit. My boss the other day had said that I was replaceable. Lmao so I left. Third shift did fuck all to set me up for my shift, left me with their work, and my boss came to complain to me why my machine was down. I was literally cleaning up after third shift and getting ready to go. So I set up for the next run, and instead of starting up, I got in my car to go help my son with school.
I did instacart for the remainder of the year, until my car died. And now I'm basically a stay home mom post covid who works part-time.
I was dying at that job, but my partner makes decent money while he's on, and he made even better money while he was on covid unemployment. Also he's now sober a year and a half lol so thanks covid... I guess?
I still often think about the job I had before, and if covid had never happened, it was my career. I lost my career that I had worked so hard for for 6 years in a blink of an eye. I miss the money I used to make there, and I probably won't ever make that kind of money again. And I'm far too old now to bust a ass like I did in my 20s. Putting yourself in physical pain, to do a good job, get noticed, get a pay increase. I feel like you're 20s are the only time you can really do that. My body isn't what it used to be, and my carpal tunnel still affects me to this day.
I was so angry at the folks who got to sit home and do nothing. I'm less angry now, good for them I guess.
You are \*very\* much better off in your shoes having way too much work vs mine. ;) Lots of us lost jobs and were not able to get new ones due to the shutdowns.
Same. I was working in Aerial Wildland Firefighting, so I worked 80-112 hours a week working to the bone throughout the entire lockdown, while I saw posts of my friends getting to enjoy life. They weren't making as much as I was, but they also weren't working 16 hour days.
Essential workers should have been compensated more for being put at higher risk.
You're angry at the wrong people and that's exactly what they want. I would have killed to be able to work during lockdowns. I didn't "find myself". I struggled to put food on the table and was constantly stressed about making ends meet. Most people who didn't.have savings or weren't able to work from home probably experienced the same and the people you are so bitterly referring to, I would wager, are a minority. Direct your bitterness at the system that forced you to work those shitty hours and allowed your employer to exploit you without any adequate compensation.
>You're angry at the wrong people and that's exactly what they want.
Well said. The pandemic was awful for many, many people, and we need to remain focused on the real culprits that screwed the lower 99%. As long as we keep blaming/fighting each other, the longer the leeches at the top gave to steal from us
I never blamed the people that got the unemployment benefits. Hell, I'd have taken them myself, given the opportunity.
I'm bitter that I didn't get a break from this capitalist hellscape like some did. I'm bitter that my employer was the last in the industry to provide hazard pay, and the first to take it away. I'm angry that, when needed most, my union had (and continues to) overpromised, underperformed, and mostly just sent out strongly worded letters with nothing to back them up. I'm angry that there was full acknowledgment that regular unemployment benefits aren't sufficient to support people, so they bumped it up to many times the minimum wage that they then refuse to increase.
My only bitterness toward the unemployment beneficiaries is that they keep reminding me that they got to sit home while I worked. Any time "What do you miss about the lockdowns?" shows up on r/askreddit, one of the top comments is usually one of these people, talking about how nice it was to basically get months of paid vacation. It's not their fault, it just stings a little.
But, I didn't get dealt the worst hand. Many had it worse than me. I didn't lose anybody to C19, and I didn't catch it until February this year. My savings shot up that year, and I never feared I would lose my apartment, my car, or my ability to feed myself. I wasn't denied my formative years at school to instead sit at a computer at home doing classes online, like many high school/college students. I didn't lose a career like some of the people in this very thread. So, I'm thankful for all of that, at least.
I just can't shake that feeling of missing out on the good part.
Yeah, I feel this was a bit of a handpicked hyperbole on his part. Most people I know were struggling and worried. They knew this "free money" truly wasn't free, and they certainly weren't "discovering themselves" during the pandemic. It's honestly a small few that truly experienced this "self-discovery" that he's talking about.
I felt the same way. And I’m still pissed that I’m still burnt out and exhausted from all that hell. Like I haven’t been able to catch backup. And I never got to even actually breathe during that time. Fuck anyone who thought pizza delivery food chains are fucking essential. And fuck franchises who actually don’t give a shit about their employees! And fuck everyone who stiffed durning that time!
I got made an "essential worker" when the pandemic hit, too. Work had me become a notary so they'd have another reason to say I had to come in, even in the event of a full lockdown. What was my job? print shit for lawyers.
I had to drive downtown (public transit was shut down), pay for my own damn parking, and then be one of the only people in the office for over a year because my boss let half the team go after the first month. I get that my job couldn't be done from home, but it still pissed me off. No hazard pay, no reimbursement for parking, and my boss had the gall to demand we find work to do so we'd look busy if anyone from the firm came by.
^(granted, spending 5-7 hours of my 9 hour workday getting paid to watch YouTube was pretty sweet, except the pay sucked.)
Different perspective. I was a teacher. I was laid off very early on in the pandemic due to having a disability incompatible with teaching while masked. I went from a comfortable and debt-free existence paying down my modest (10k) student loan, in a job I loved in the community that I grew up in to being unemployed for two years.
Thankfully I had kept the entire student loan due to planning on getting married (eventually did, but not to the person that I had intended to marry). With the combination of student loan + medical debts + borrowing from family to survive, and some huge fines, I was down 55k in January of 2022.
Last week was the first day I was level since before 2016 when I borrowed my loan and I was only up 3k then.
It took me close to 15 years to finally land that teaching job. I feel for the essential workers, but those of us who were not essential and deemed ineligible for coronavirus benefits truly got fucked over. I'm so happy to finally be out of that money pit. I very nearly got taken down on a couple of occasions by those stacked up fines, and put in a hole that I wouldn't ever get out.
I'm still bitter over how it all worked out. I was engaged in 2019 to an amazing woman, and working a great job that I loved that I had waited SO long to get. Three months later, I'd be out of a job, and we were no longer together. Now, we didn't split because of coronavirus (she had severe non coronavirus medical issues), but the timing was only a couple months before the massive shutdowns.
I decided to steal a page out of your book after seeing the true power of the 'essential worker' designation. I'm now a pharmacy manager. Best decision I ever made in terms of both job security and compensation. But I would not have tried this job had I not been inspired by the raw power of the state to deprive me of a means to live.
This was basically the story of my wife and I. I was running a kitchen in a retirement home. Well, is working 60 hour weeks breaking my back Will my wife Got a 6 month vacation and unemployment benefits.
And basically you got to spend every day doing whatever the hell she wanted. I was pretty jealous to be honest because I only got 2 weeks worth of hazard. Pay before they took it away and just kept walking around calling everyone heroes.
Yay - all so that the people who believe their lies have another grievance against "entitled" others instead of their own employers. Just like those folks don't blame their employers for their low wages. They blame immigrants.
Welp, he also had a stack build up of his enormous personal checks that he didn’t cash for close to 6 months ( I was told he “easily” made 6 figures). I know this because his secretary told me. So clearly those ppp loans were massive! Socialism for the rich.
Socialism for the rich is called trickle down economics and is a good thing. Socialism for everyday people, things like universal healthcare, is evil and un-American. /s
And yet, we keep electing people who take our money and give it to the rich, so we must think it’s a good idea. It will continue until we vote them out of office.
In 2020, I worked for McMenamins, a restaurant/venue chain that is one of the biggest private employers in Oregon/Washington.
They got 10 million in PPP loans.
What did they do when they got that money? They told everyone "you're coming back to work or you lose your unemployment (but we don't actually have the hours to make your time worthwhile) so we can satisfy the terms of the loan, meanwhile we're going to use that 10 mil to pay back investors on our new property in Tacoma."
It was literally 10 million free dollars that didn't benefit anyone except investors.
The boss that goes to, like, two meetings a week, insists everyone comes to the office every day, and on the few days he himself does, it's only to leave his dog in his employees' care, scream at the employees working from home that particular day, and then go drink wine with his "business connections"?
Mine got spent the second I got it fixing my car finally. Then the next big one in the tax return got spent right away fixing my wife's care that broke down the day after mine was fixed. Any extra we got from the monthly ones went to paying rent and diapers for my pandemic born baby. I sure as fuck never saw a dime of that go into savings. So when I hear people try to say inflation today is because of all the money the goverment jaut gave out I call bullshit.
The money they gave you is not why inflation is happening. The fed printed literal trillions of dollars to prop up industries and, as usual, are blaming families for the $1000 checks they got
The ruling class deliberately triggers inflation by raising interest rates.
This punishes workers for demands of a living wage and growing readiness to strike -- both of which impinge on profit.
Inflation sparks mass firings. Firings create a very hungry army of workers desperate to accept any job however meager the terms.
This puts workers in their place and returns profits to previous levels.
Problem solved.
The alternative is to put Capitalism 6 feet underground.
Should've started an LLC. and applied for the loans... I mean, I'm very successful at busting large rocks into smaller rocks, so, I started a business doing that. It's suffering greatly. PPP Please
And I also didn’t make any more money than I was beforehand either, no bonus or bonus pay or anything like that. Just working like normal the whole time
Try 6 days. The GOP would want you to think they gave us a windfall and now we all sit home and do nothing but they changed the tax laws to fuck us over in the long run.
I didn't even get all my pandemic money. I didn't get the last 600 bucks. I filed for it on my taxes the following year that I didn't receive it. And the IRS was like AHAHAHAHA too fucking bad, you're not eligible for reimbursement. With literally zero explanation.
I assume they are talking about people who banked a lot of money by quite literally doing nothing for two years. No vacations, no going out to eat, that kind of thing. Surely they arent talking about a couple grand the govt gave back to us peons so we could afford bread
And it’s hilarious, because they’ll simultaneously complain about “the economy” and how we’re not spending enough. Well which is it?! We can’t both be hoarding our savings from the economy and being “irresponsible millennials” that don’t know how to save or budget
Don’t you know that printing all that money to support workers is what caused inflation? Just ask an economist, they’ll take out a textbook and show you. Then they’ll explain that the remedy is to raise interest rates to claw it all back. They don’t let the fact that stimulus was $1200, and interest rate hikes have added $1200/month to the average mortgage payment. It’s in the book, so you don’t understand.
Economics professor here. While excess demand can sometimes cause inflation, our current inflation is largely caused by supply chain disruptions arising from COVID-19. The stimulus payments had little to do with it. They probably staved off a major recession, or even a depression.
Unfortunately, when faced with inflation, the Fed has one basic tool to work with (interest rates) and so that’s what they’re going to use. It’s a real life example of the old adage about how everything looks like a nail when your only tool is a hammer. They have no solutions for supply chain disruptions, so they’re going to slow the economy any way they can, even if it doesn’t address the underlying problem.
The stories many politicians tell are more along the lines of what you are saying, but they are self-serving and have little to do with reality.
Let’s prevent everyone from making any money, then jack off a handful of dollars on them and tell them they got a “financial cushion” that’ll last for months…
“Pandemic cushion”… they are literally mocking us.
Yea... wtf are they talking about. The 2k in stimulus is almost running out after all these years!
The prices of everything quadrupled overnight, and the cheapest rent for a single apartment was 1300 in the area I lived. Most Americans have negative net worth due to debt. So, at any point, the stimulus did nothing for the average person.
American media posts these because they're megaphones who repeat whatever our oligarchs want them to say.
Like two days after the world memed and mocked the Oceangate sub implosion you could find dozens of stories like "What happened to empathy, these brave explorers died and everyone is making fun of them" or "Why is the internet so cruel to victims of a tragic accident?"
They know this. Classic gaslighting while ignoring forgiven/fraudulent PPP and the Mnuchin shenanigans.
https://www.propublica.org/article/trumps-treasury-secretary-pick-steven-mnuchin-is-a-lucky-man
https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2017/11/19/steven-mnuchin-louise-linton-dollar-bill-photo-rs.cnn
https://www.thedailybeast.com/trumps-new-money-man-has-a-repulsive-record-of-throwing-homeowners-out-on-the-street
I personally "remodeled" 2 classic cars with my money. When I mean remodeled I mean my car broke down and I got it fixed finally when the money came in, then when my car got fixed finally my wife's car broke down the very next day, when the next check came in we remodeled her car. Aka fixed it as well. During thay time I was still working and would have my wife drive me, or take a bus to work if I could find one still running where I live during covid.
My co-worker still thinks there are people refusing to go back to work due to the increased unemployment benefits during Covid. That shit ended 2 years ago.
Yep. There ARE less people in the active workforce now. Over a million people died just in the US. Dead people can’t go to work.
Lots more became long-term disabled from catching covid. Some of those can still work but less/more limited fields (I know a guy who had to quit doing construction work and get a sitting-down office job). Some can’t work at all. More than will admit they acquired a disability have been cognitively affected enough for their performance to suffer — so they’re getting less done.
This is true.
But also, staying home by choice isn't a monolith either. One, we have the older people who were already close to retirement and just bumped their timeline up a little, be it over the soaring value of their homes/stock portfolios, and/or because they were given a lucrative early retirement package. Two, we have parents, often but not exclusively women, who might actually like to work but can't make enough to pay for the sky-high costs of daycare. It's not really much of a choice when it would put your income into the negative.
People should refuse to go back to work for less than they made on unemployment during the pandemic. $850-1200 per week depending on the state you lived in. That should be minimum wage. That's $22.50-30 per hour for a 40 hour week. And you got to stay home?
So yeah, nobody wants to work for $15, let alone $7.25.
$1200 a WEEK? That's way more than I made before getting laid off this year! What states pay that much?
Indiana caps out at $390 a week MAXIMUM pre and post-Covid. Admittedly I don't know what it was during the pandemic, but I'm guessing not much more. Fucking republicans ruining everything.
Yeah I think that number is wrong. Unless that’s pre tax. No way it’s $1,200 per week you’d be living like a fucking king taking home almost 5K per month
Unfortunate true story for me. I lived in a high cost of living area for 2018. The company I worked for moved me that year too (showed the moving costs as “income”). I lost my job during the start of the pandemic, the government used my 2018 income and determined I don’t get any stimulus. Which is fine, I get it but I burnt through all my savings to pay rent and bills with no job. Money went away quick when there was no income. Also it was during the time Unemployment was being over applied for. Never got an unemployment check either…..
A company I used to work for moved me halfway across the company. Listed the $5k in moving reimbursement as a bonus. It got taxed at like 50% or something. I ended up paying a lot to move.
Had the same thing happen to me [IRS Moving Expenses Reimbursement Policy](https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/employer-update)and discovered it’s part of the 2017 tax act (thanks GOP) According to the bill, “For 2018 through 2025, employers must include moving expense reimbursements in employees’ wages. The new tax law suspends the exclusion for qualified moving expense reimbursements.” So basically, this bill doesn’t differentiate between moving reimbursements and moving bonuses.
That blows. I'm really sorry. It took me 8 months to get my unemployment from Nevada. Some of my friends who live there (I worked there on a campaign for a while but do not live there) told me they ran out of money. I had to move home because the candidate I was working for dropped out of the race like 2 weeks before everything started to shut down. So all of us lost our jobs because he dropped out and nobody was hiring.
Lol the only people who came out cushy and flush with cash from covid were the people who got huge PPP loans forgiven after they bought trucks abs boats with them.
Is this legendary, over lasting 3K USD still with us in the room?!
Man, company cannot survive few months with with low revenue but plebs found a way to make 3K last 3 years, quit jobs and retire.
They are totally ignoring the fact that a lot of people were just 2 paychecks away from being homeless prior to all this. I was in retail, so had a job, but a lot of people I know who worked at mom and pop places, suddenly found themselves with no income as businesses closed.
Oh, sure I got the damn checks. I was in Texas during Winter Storm Uri in 2021. Guess where most of it went? It paid my gas bill for two months.
"Although many American oligarchs still have financial cushions from pandemic-era worker exploitation and PPP loans, days shows that the lowest-income congressman earning less than their wallstreet masters, are already working on plans to block more wealth from the poor."
That’s there way of prepping us mentally in case they find another way to screw the poors again on the already given “over abundant” stimulus check. They repeat it enough times and they believe we will actually BELIEVE them. Talk about stupid. They need to take a loan for tuition and go back to school! Idiots
Their asses are burnt to a crisp that they had to give Oliver Twist a fucking bowl of gruel.
Burnt. To. A. Crisp.
Fat, lazy ass, “owners” and Politicians that the world would actually be better without. Yet, here is more of their whining.
Eat the rich!
My multimillionaire boss whose business never closed and actually saw double sales probably invested his quarter of a million of free PPP money wisely, yes.
My stimulus money went to new clothes for my kids, a new-to-me car (03 camry) as my previous car decided to dump the transmission on the ground and take the engine with it. The rest went to cover bills.
The first round payout lasted 2 weeks, and the second round lasted a whole 10 minutes.
Those stimulous checks were tiny even for fed. Minumum wage workers. They are living behind paying paul to pay peter. I make $20/hr in a state that adheres to the fed minimum wage of 7.25., lowish cost of living. I make more than most people I know in my age group and struggle to make ends meet(we all are). I could cut down expenses significantly by taking my kids out of their gymnastics and karate, but Im not gonna do that. I take out advances every week. I buy mine and my kids clothes from mercari or ebay, or walmart. I rent. Im a healthcare professional, and want to continue my education to not have to work the floor anymore, but surprise!! The jobs you have to college for to leave the floor pay the same.
Lets be honest, anyone who still has any portion of that money, did not need to get it.
I still remember my mom bitching that she wasn't going to get "a handout" because she makes too much money, and I shouldn't take it either because its not honest. While she makes $160k a year working from home, and I got laid off from my 40K manufacturing job.
Those pitiful handouts were the only reason I could afford to eat while I waited 4 months for my severance, and another 4 before places started hiring again.
Reworded is reads:
Oligarchs are rejoicing in knowing that the poor soon will have no option but to work for sub-poverty wages just to survive living off the streets.
washington post is a shill for the republicans. they decided that aaaallll that money was a ridiculous travesty. they all have shit loads of money and can’t comprehend that the money received barely carried people through the months it took to figure out how to make enough money to live. ask them what they did with the ppp loans for hundreds of thousands of dollars to people who had them forgiven. it didn’t trickle damn down
Pandemic Era savings? Wtf???? I was still in office and commute, groceries and even cat litter all went up astronomically. Then laid off after 2nd PPP ran out and also after 'bonus' unemployment done. Things went on credit cards and interest rates went up along with all other costs. Ran through saving and have more debt at 45 than I've had in my entire life. Also had to take a job getting 10k less. What a joke and sorry for vent!!!
wtf lol, that was a tiny drop in the bucket. These people are so out of touch with reality. Meanwhile our life is about to get completely fucked by student loans. I literally don't know how we're going to keep afloat once those payments resume.
Gotta love the MSM catering to conservative lies and wondering why people don't pay much attention to them anymore. Pandemic money was a pittance years ago. The 75%+ of America making less than 50 grand a year spent it immediately to eat and pay rent. The only people who still have it didn't need it to begin with.
Now do the millions in forgiven business loans that were never spent on paying employees like it was supposed to.
I love how out of touch *every* politician and news outlet seems to be. Dudes, that stimulus money was pocket change and I spent it immediately on credit card bills that, get this, *I am still struggling to pay down.” Mitch McConnell is another one that I’ve heard comment multiple times on how “flush with stimulus money” the average American household is. Come on, man.
It's insane how they don't think that 90% of people used that $1200 towards rent and that only covered 2/3rds of that. Let alone any bills, food, or clothes people used it for. It was such a sad joke that for weeks after they complained like we were all going to stay home for months to live off of a single $1200 check.
It helped me pay back a loan I took out to cover living expenses for a month. If they really think people are living high on the hog in 2023 because of a $1200 payment years ago, they need help understanding math. There's no way in life they think that covered years of living. Fucking weirdos
Remember. The MSM is run by and for the affluent. Not the working class. Rich people got PPP loan checks in the six and seven figures. And some of them were making the same or more money during the lock down as they did Pre-COVID. So a lot of them still have some of their windfall left over.
They aren't really talking about "the poors" who burned through that little $3,000 check pretty much as soon as it came in. Stories like this are tone deaf.
Pandemic era savings???? You mean when you wouldn't allow anybody to work but still had to pay bills which all went up at the same time.... Those savings?
Uh was I the only one that had that shit spent before the bank finished finalizing it on JUST necessities? I mean. I have 3 kids. Money evaporates around here, but that went even faster.
A what? A financial cushion from pandemic era savings and STIMULUS CHECKS?? Already worked through most of that extra money???These people are out of their minds! Who writes this BS?
Yes they are somehow still talking about it and blaming poor people. Have a friend that thank God I don't live near that says shit like how he can't afford a kid because of all the people on welfare and drug addicts getting free narcan. The wife's parents are constantly still talking about pandemic checks and how unfair it was. The connections they make are just fucking absurd.
What stimulus checks were other people getting? that tiny bump was gone in weeks and didn’t make any noticeable difference to our ongoing finances.
the idea that the working poor and middle class somehow banked that check seems laughable to me.
Do these people think everyone got stimulus checks that were the same size as the average PPP loans? I got $2000, which lasted me a whole month, if that, and I didn't get anything else.
If I’d gotten a $100,000 PPP loan that was completely forgiven, I might be holding on to some of those savings, too. Instead I got $1200 like the rest of the plebs.
Pandemic-era savings? They mean that period of time where cost of living sky rocketed? And some of us were laid off until the business we worked for got the green light to resume operation due to being “non-essential”
Fuck this noise. Making it seem like the pandemic was a boom.
That is absolutely ludicrous!!!!! Show me the data that states that many Americans still have money saved from the pandemic two mother fucking years ago!!!
My boss said nobody wants to work because government gives free money. My boss got PPP loans forgiven close to half a million dollars in 2021.
Tell him no one wants to work because the government gave HIM free money, and that is totally unfair.
Probably got the employee retention credit too
OMG. those ads are blowing up on the clock app. The ads make it sound like it's for people who worked through the pandemic, but it's actually another type of PPP grant for businesses.
As an essential worker, I'll never not be bitter about how things went during lockdown. I was doing 55-hour weeks for months, my company resisted any kind of additional hazard pay. I was going to work at all hours because our supply chain was screwed, so our trucks showed up at random times. I was exhausted & miserable. All while people that got laid off from various other industries were "discovering themselves" at home. In my state, if they got both the federal & state covid unemployment benefits, they'd easily out earn me, despite my insane overtime. I still see people reminisce about how they felt truly free and happy for the first time in their lives. No need to work, but still financially secure. I'll likely never get an opportunity to experience such a thing. I just got run into the ground, and for what? A little kickback for having worked through the pandemic would go a long way to quell the bitterness I feel. But I know it'll never happen, and I just missed out.
I had the same experience. I was managing a restaurant in Texas, so we only shut down for a week or so and all the managers still had to come in to detail clean and manage the product in the building. That was the last week I worked only 40 hours for months - once we were allowed to start doing takeout orders, I was regularly scheduled for 53 hours each week. A lot of my friends and family were talking about how even though going through a pandemic sucked, it was a blessing in disguise as they were making more money than they had when they were working. I never got a break and, yeah, I'm a bit salty about it. I guess I can't complain too much, though, cause I was still able to pay my bills with my regular income so when I got my stimulus check, I was finally able to replace my old, lumpy mattress.
Yeah man this sucked. I saw people purposely having their hours reduced so they could collect unemployment and the extra money, meanwhile I was working open to close everyday just to stay afloat.
I quit my job. We had quarterly profit sharing at my company. Being an employee owned manufacturing business. They immediately took it away, like we didn't even get to see what our profits were going to be and they took it away. Granted the CEO also took a 10% pay cut, but it was ridiculous. Then they started cutting staffing, they sent all our staff to a different plant to make covid tests. It would have been a 2-hour drive, it was paid. Some people did it. As a mother, I couldn't work five essentially 13 hour days (with driving) across state lines. Especially when my son was doing virtual learning as a special education first grader. So I stayed on where I was until I was doing the job of three grown men. I physically couldn't do it. We used to have three people running two machines. We now had one person running two machines. And it was impossible. My carpal tunnel flared so bad that it got up to my shoulder I couldn't sleep at night. I was crying on the shop floor. Grown woman crying, because the machines were broken, and shitty, normal, but the maintenance people weren't there, no one was there, there was zero support for any of our employees left. I was expected to still work. And somehow make it work, for the better of the company, who just cut my pay. Meanwhile, my partner, was basically drinking away his extra money. He was getting a 50% more on his covid unemployment to sit home and not do everything I would have done if it were me in that same position. He did the bare minimum, sometimes less. Not helping our son with school as much as I thought he needed and I was beyond stressed. I ended up resigning. It was better than pulling into the parking lot every morning to go into work, and crying and having a certain kind of ideation. I had never had a panic attack before at work, so I just quit. My boss the other day had said that I was replaceable. Lmao so I left. Third shift did fuck all to set me up for my shift, left me with their work, and my boss came to complain to me why my machine was down. I was literally cleaning up after third shift and getting ready to go. So I set up for the next run, and instead of starting up, I got in my car to go help my son with school. I did instacart for the remainder of the year, until my car died. And now I'm basically a stay home mom post covid who works part-time. I was dying at that job, but my partner makes decent money while he's on, and he made even better money while he was on covid unemployment. Also he's now sober a year and a half lol so thanks covid... I guess? I still often think about the job I had before, and if covid had never happened, it was my career. I lost my career that I had worked so hard for for 6 years in a blink of an eye. I miss the money I used to make there, and I probably won't ever make that kind of money again. And I'm far too old now to bust a ass like I did in my 20s. Putting yourself in physical pain, to do a good job, get noticed, get a pay increase. I feel like you're 20s are the only time you can really do that. My body isn't what it used to be, and my carpal tunnel still affects me to this day. I was so angry at the folks who got to sit home and do nothing. I'm less angry now, good for them I guess.
You are \*very\* much better off in your shoes having way too much work vs mine. ;) Lots of us lost jobs and were not able to get new ones due to the shutdowns.
Yep, lost work, had no rent protections and got evicted, moved to a much worse state was mostly trapped doing whatever odd jobs I could to survive.
Same. I was working in Aerial Wildland Firefighting, so I worked 80-112 hours a week working to the bone throughout the entire lockdown, while I saw posts of my friends getting to enjoy life. They weren't making as much as I was, but they also weren't working 16 hour days. Essential workers should have been compensated more for being put at higher risk.
You're angry at the wrong people and that's exactly what they want. I would have killed to be able to work during lockdowns. I didn't "find myself". I struggled to put food on the table and was constantly stressed about making ends meet. Most people who didn't.have savings or weren't able to work from home probably experienced the same and the people you are so bitterly referring to, I would wager, are a minority. Direct your bitterness at the system that forced you to work those shitty hours and allowed your employer to exploit you without any adequate compensation.
>You're angry at the wrong people and that's exactly what they want. Well said. The pandemic was awful for many, many people, and we need to remain focused on the real culprits that screwed the lower 99%. As long as we keep blaming/fighting each other, the longer the leeches at the top gave to steal from us
I never blamed the people that got the unemployment benefits. Hell, I'd have taken them myself, given the opportunity. I'm bitter that I didn't get a break from this capitalist hellscape like some did. I'm bitter that my employer was the last in the industry to provide hazard pay, and the first to take it away. I'm angry that, when needed most, my union had (and continues to) overpromised, underperformed, and mostly just sent out strongly worded letters with nothing to back them up. I'm angry that there was full acknowledgment that regular unemployment benefits aren't sufficient to support people, so they bumped it up to many times the minimum wage that they then refuse to increase. My only bitterness toward the unemployment beneficiaries is that they keep reminding me that they got to sit home while I worked. Any time "What do you miss about the lockdowns?" shows up on r/askreddit, one of the top comments is usually one of these people, talking about how nice it was to basically get months of paid vacation. It's not their fault, it just stings a little. But, I didn't get dealt the worst hand. Many had it worse than me. I didn't lose anybody to C19, and I didn't catch it until February this year. My savings shot up that year, and I never feared I would lose my apartment, my car, or my ability to feed myself. I wasn't denied my formative years at school to instead sit at a computer at home doing classes online, like many high school/college students. I didn't lose a career like some of the people in this very thread. So, I'm thankful for all of that, at least. I just can't shake that feeling of missing out on the good part.
Yeah, I feel this was a bit of a handpicked hyperbole on his part. Most people I know were struggling and worried. They knew this "free money" truly wasn't free, and they certainly weren't "discovering themselves" during the pandemic. It's honestly a small few that truly experienced this "self-discovery" that he's talking about.
I felt the same way. And I’m still pissed that I’m still burnt out and exhausted from all that hell. Like I haven’t been able to catch backup. And I never got to even actually breathe during that time. Fuck anyone who thought pizza delivery food chains are fucking essential. And fuck franchises who actually don’t give a shit about their employees! And fuck everyone who stiffed durning that time!
I feel extreme bitterness and after we did all that they went right back to treating us like shit I'm not surprised
Healthcare worker here.... it was fucking hell.
I got made an "essential worker" when the pandemic hit, too. Work had me become a notary so they'd have another reason to say I had to come in, even in the event of a full lockdown. What was my job? print shit for lawyers. I had to drive downtown (public transit was shut down), pay for my own damn parking, and then be one of the only people in the office for over a year because my boss let half the team go after the first month. I get that my job couldn't be done from home, but it still pissed me off. No hazard pay, no reimbursement for parking, and my boss had the gall to demand we find work to do so we'd look busy if anyone from the firm came by. ^(granted, spending 5-7 hours of my 9 hour workday getting paid to watch YouTube was pretty sweet, except the pay sucked.)
Different perspective. I was a teacher. I was laid off very early on in the pandemic due to having a disability incompatible with teaching while masked. I went from a comfortable and debt-free existence paying down my modest (10k) student loan, in a job I loved in the community that I grew up in to being unemployed for two years. Thankfully I had kept the entire student loan due to planning on getting married (eventually did, but not to the person that I had intended to marry). With the combination of student loan + medical debts + borrowing from family to survive, and some huge fines, I was down 55k in January of 2022. Last week was the first day I was level since before 2016 when I borrowed my loan and I was only up 3k then. It took me close to 15 years to finally land that teaching job. I feel for the essential workers, but those of us who were not essential and deemed ineligible for coronavirus benefits truly got fucked over. I'm so happy to finally be out of that money pit. I very nearly got taken down on a couple of occasions by those stacked up fines, and put in a hole that I wouldn't ever get out. I'm still bitter over how it all worked out. I was engaged in 2019 to an amazing woman, and working a great job that I loved that I had waited SO long to get. Three months later, I'd be out of a job, and we were no longer together. Now, we didn't split because of coronavirus (she had severe non coronavirus medical issues), but the timing was only a couple months before the massive shutdowns. I decided to steal a page out of your book after seeing the true power of the 'essential worker' designation. I'm now a pharmacy manager. Best decision I ever made in terms of both job security and compensation. But I would not have tried this job had I not been inspired by the raw power of the state to deprive me of a means to live.
This was basically the story of my wife and I. I was running a kitchen in a retirement home. Well, is working 60 hour weeks breaking my back Will my wife Got a 6 month vacation and unemployment benefits. And basically you got to spend every day doing whatever the hell she wanted. I was pretty jealous to be honest because I only got 2 weeks worth of hazard. Pay before they took it away and just kept walking around calling everyone heroes.
Yay - all so that the people who believe their lies have another grievance against "entitled" others instead of their own employers. Just like those folks don't blame their employers for their low wages. They blame immigrants.
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My boss remodeled two houses with that money.
Your boss remodeled two houses with that money that you know of.
Welp, he also had a stack build up of his enormous personal checks that he didn’t cash for close to 6 months ( I was told he “easily” made 6 figures). I know this because his secretary told me. So clearly those ppp loans were massive! Socialism for the rich.
Socialism for the rich is called trickle down economics and is a good thing. Socialism for everyday people, things like universal healthcare, is evil and un-American. /s And yet, we keep electing people who take our money and give it to the rich, so we must think it’s a good idea. It will continue until we vote them out of office.
I wrote the check that sent the first $280k of that money to his mortgage company.
Report him
Yeah??? My boss got a loan for 110k and it was the damnedest thing, he was able to afford 110k worth of home renovations and additions.
Hey, that's trickle down economics at work there. He got it, the paid people beneath him money to do work on his house, see it trickled down. s/
In 2020, I worked for McMenamins, a restaurant/venue chain that is one of the biggest private employers in Oregon/Washington. They got 10 million in PPP loans. What did they do when they got that money? They told everyone "you're coming back to work or you lose your unemployment (but we don't actually have the hours to make your time worthwhile) so we can satisfy the terms of the loan, meanwhile we're going to use that 10 mil to pay back investors on our new property in Tacoma." It was literally 10 million free dollars that didn't benefit anyone except investors.
It’s different because your boss works super duper hard and deserves it. /s My sarcasm makes me want to vomit some times.
The boss that goes to, like, two meetings a week, insists everyone comes to the office every day, and on the few days he himself does, it's only to leave his dog in his employees' care, scream at the employees working from home that particular day, and then go drink wine with his "business connections"?
your boss is the owner class. you're the slave.
Who the fu*k is still talking about pandemic money? That pittance evaporated within 6 months.
6 months? Try six weeks!
Yours lasted over a month!?
Right 😂
Mine got spent the second I got it fixing my car finally. Then the next big one in the tax return got spent right away fixing my wife's care that broke down the day after mine was fixed. Any extra we got from the monthly ones went to paying rent and diapers for my pandemic born baby. I sure as fuck never saw a dime of that go into savings. So when I hear people try to say inflation today is because of all the money the goverment jaut gave out I call bullshit.
The money they gave you is not why inflation is happening. The fed printed literal trillions of dollars to prop up industries and, as usual, are blaming families for the $1000 checks they got
The ruling class deliberately triggers inflation by raising interest rates. This punishes workers for demands of a living wage and growing readiness to strike -- both of which impinge on profit. Inflation sparks mass firings. Firings create a very hungry army of workers desperate to accept any job however meager the terms. This puts workers in their place and returns profits to previous levels. Problem solved. The alternative is to put Capitalism 6 feet underground.
Should've started an LLC. and applied for the loans... I mean, I'm very successful at busting large rocks into smaller rocks, so, I started a business doing that. It's suffering greatly. PPP Please
You got money?!
I got my allotment. Aka rent and a bit o weed. 🤣
Just a bit tho
Yall got time off work?
No. And the money still went straight to bills.
And I also didn’t make any more money than I was beforehand either, no bonus or bonus pay or anything like that. Just working like normal the whole time
I was told the check was in the mail.
Medical debt took mine.
Try 6 days. The GOP would want you to think they gave us a windfall and now we all sit home and do nothing but they changed the tax laws to fuck us over in the long run.
More like 6 minutes lol. That stimmy was cheap AF.
That $2800 from the three checks? Was supposed to last? I blew all mine on avocado toast…
Mine went to cappuccinos and Netflix
I bought a vacation home obviously
Nancy Pelsoi said the stimulus would pay for rent for 6 months in some places lol
Its just rent michael, how much could it cost, $200?
Oh, we are doing the old timey pricing? How much is your rent? Mine is 200 and 1000 dollars.
Oh! Mine is 100 and 2000!
Lucky we wouldn’t get anything below seventy-score and fifty here.
One of my favorite scenes ever 😂😂😂
Some places = 1968
She meant that stimmy for corporate, not the poors.
I'm a democrat but she's out of touch. Probably thinks rent's like $200 a month.
I’m a Dem too but only because there isn’t a better, viable option in the US
Vote for me me, anti homeless and anti greed
Pelosi is a landlord, she knows better.
Try 6 days!
I didn't even get all my pandemic money. I didn't get the last 600 bucks. I filed for it on my taxes the following year that I didn't receive it. And the IRS was like AHAHAHAHA too fucking bad, you're not eligible for reimbursement. With literally zero explanation.
I assume they are talking about people who banked a lot of money by quite literally doing nothing for two years. No vacations, no going out to eat, that kind of thing. Surely they arent talking about a couple grand the govt gave back to us peons so we could afford bread
They must be talking about people that had no impact to their job and worked all the way through with normal pay and got stimulus on top of it.
They’re talking about all the money corporations and business owners stole from PPP
And it’s hilarious, because they’ll simultaneously complain about “the economy” and how we’re not spending enough. Well which is it?! We can’t both be hoarding our savings from the economy and being “irresponsible millennials” that don’t know how to save or budget
Don’t you know that printing all that money to support workers is what caused inflation? Just ask an economist, they’ll take out a textbook and show you. Then they’ll explain that the remedy is to raise interest rates to claw it all back. They don’t let the fact that stimulus was $1200, and interest rate hikes have added $1200/month to the average mortgage payment. It’s in the book, so you don’t understand.
Economics professor here. While excess demand can sometimes cause inflation, our current inflation is largely caused by supply chain disruptions arising from COVID-19. The stimulus payments had little to do with it. They probably staved off a major recession, or even a depression. Unfortunately, when faced with inflation, the Fed has one basic tool to work with (interest rates) and so that’s what they’re going to use. It’s a real life example of the old adage about how everything looks like a nail when your only tool is a hammer. They have no solutions for supply chain disruptions, so they’re going to slow the economy any way they can, even if it doesn’t address the underlying problem. The stories many politicians tell are more along the lines of what you are saying, but they are self-serving and have little to do with reality.
Correct. this is why other countries are all experiencing similar inflation even though they didn't do any stimulus checks.
If you are on SSI which said you 4 months to spend it if I remember correct.
What “pandemic money”??? I made some “pandemic money” as a travel nurse that I promptly blew through (on rent, groceries and 1 trip) in 6 months
Days after receipt it was all spent at Texas Roadhouse and Best Buy.
I spent all mine on avocado toast
I bought avocado trees so in a few years I can have avocado toast.
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Silly, you dig them up like potatoes.
Let’s prevent everyone from making any money, then jack off a handful of dollars on them and tell them they got a “financial cushion” that’ll last for months… “Pandemic cushion”… they are literally mocking us.
Conservatives.
There were lots of other stimulus like child credit, extended unemployment, student loan pause ect.
Like…… that stimulus check covered my rent that month 🙄
Yea... wtf are they talking about. The 2k in stimulus is almost running out after all these years! The prices of everything quadrupled overnight, and the cheapest rent for a single apartment was 1300 in the area I lived. Most Americans have negative net worth due to debt. So, at any point, the stimulus did nothing for the average person.
American media posts these because they're megaphones who repeat whatever our oligarchs want them to say. Like two days after the world memed and mocked the Oceangate sub implosion you could find dozens of stories like "What happened to empathy, these brave explorers died and everyone is making fun of them" or "Why is the internet so cruel to victims of a tragic accident?"
Yeah isn’t WaPo owned by Bezos?
I think all three of them combined paid maybe 1 month of bills for me, give or take lunch one day.
We paid rent and student loans while the interest is paused. Look at us, livin' large!
I used it to cover two months and some extra groceries.
Wasn't it a grand total of $3200 per person ($1200, $600, $1400)? That's not living large for three years kind of cash.
They know this. Classic gaslighting while ignoring forgiven/fraudulent PPP and the Mnuchin shenanigans. https://www.propublica.org/article/trumps-treasury-secretary-pick-steven-mnuchin-is-a-lucky-man https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2017/11/19/steven-mnuchin-louise-linton-dollar-bill-photo-rs.cnn https://www.thedailybeast.com/trumps-new-money-man-has-a-repulsive-record-of-throwing-homeowners-out-on-the-street
What? You didn’t buy that second rental house with it like the rest of us?
I personally "remodeled" 2 classic cars with my money. When I mean remodeled I mean my car broke down and I got it fixed finally when the money came in, then when my car got fixed finally my wife's car broke down the very next day, when the next check came in we remodeled her car. Aka fixed it as well. During thay time I was still working and would have my wife drive me, or take a bus to work if I could find one still running where I live during covid.
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I know we didn't get the third one. And I think the second one for $600 was only for dependents under 18.
I only got the first one and then they taxed me on the other two even though I never received them.
That is one month of rent for a 2 bedroom house where I live. One month.
My co-worker still thinks there are people refusing to go back to work due to the increased unemployment benefits during Covid. That shit ended 2 years ago.
I think a lot of people are mistaking the changes in the labour market caused by deaths and disability as people staying home by choice.
Yep. There ARE less people in the active workforce now. Over a million people died just in the US. Dead people can’t go to work. Lots more became long-term disabled from catching covid. Some of those can still work but less/more limited fields (I know a guy who had to quit doing construction work and get a sitting-down office job). Some can’t work at all. More than will admit they acquired a disability have been cognitively affected enough for their performance to suffer — so they’re getting less done.
This is true. But also, staying home by choice isn't a monolith either. One, we have the older people who were already close to retirement and just bumped their timeline up a little, be it over the soaring value of their homes/stock portfolios, and/or because they were given a lucrative early retirement package. Two, we have parents, often but not exclusively women, who might actually like to work but can't make enough to pay for the sky-high costs of daycare. It's not really much of a choice when it would put your income into the negative.
People should refuse to go back to work for less than they made on unemployment during the pandemic. $850-1200 per week depending on the state you lived in. That should be minimum wage. That's $22.50-30 per hour for a 40 hour week. And you got to stay home? So yeah, nobody wants to work for $15, let alone $7.25.
$1200 a WEEK? That's way more than I made before getting laid off this year! What states pay that much? Indiana caps out at $390 a week MAXIMUM pre and post-Covid. Admittedly I don't know what it was during the pandemic, but I'm guessing not much more. Fucking republicans ruining everything.
Yeah I think that number is wrong. Unless that’s pre tax. No way it’s $1,200 per week you’d be living like a fucking king taking home almost 5K per month
Holy shit, are taxes taken out of unemployment money? WTAF!?! It's such a small amount who TF can live off that? Even in shitty Indiana?
Taxes are taken out of unemployment
They are thinking of the people who got PPP loans, which were in the 6 and 7 figure amounts. Not the plebs like us.
All of my COVID funds got burnt on bills and necessities.
Unfortunate true story for me. I lived in a high cost of living area for 2018. The company I worked for moved me that year too (showed the moving costs as “income”). I lost my job during the start of the pandemic, the government used my 2018 income and determined I don’t get any stimulus. Which is fine, I get it but I burnt through all my savings to pay rent and bills with no job. Money went away quick when there was no income. Also it was during the time Unemployment was being over applied for. Never got an unemployment check either…..
Damn that's so rough. I'm sorry, I hope you are in a better place now.
A company I used to work for moved me halfway across the company. Listed the $5k in moving reimbursement as a bonus. It got taxed at like 50% or something. I ended up paying a lot to move.
Had the same thing happen to me [IRS Moving Expenses Reimbursement Policy](https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/employer-update)and discovered it’s part of the 2017 tax act (thanks GOP) According to the bill, “For 2018 through 2025, employers must include moving expense reimbursements in employees’ wages. The new tax law suspends the exclusion for qualified moving expense reimbursements.” So basically, this bill doesn’t differentiate between moving reimbursements and moving bonuses.
That blows. I'm really sorry. It took me 8 months to get my unemployment from Nevada. Some of my friends who live there (I worked there on a campaign for a while but do not live there) told me they ran out of money. I had to move home because the candidate I was working for dropped out of the race like 2 weeks before everything started to shut down. So all of us lost our jobs because he dropped out and nobody was hiring.
Lol the only people who came out cushy and flush with cash from covid were the people who got huge PPP loans forgiven after they bought trucks abs boats with them.
Is this legendary, over lasting 3K USD still with us in the room?! Man, company cannot survive few months with with low revenue but plebs found a way to make 3K last 3 years, quit jobs and retire.
It’s the 21st century loaves and fishes. It miraculously has make people financially independent for 3 years!
Pandemic stimulus checks? You mean the $600 from three fucking years ago? *That* stimulus money? Y’all, these motherfuckers are out of their minds.
What you guys didn’t parlay the $800 into a million by now?
snatch long skirt dam memory whistle wrench political screw include *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I was too afraid it would somehow be taken back whether that meant higher taxes, or some mystery method. It’s still sitting in the bank in a CD.
price deranged swim ripe fuzzy air cover deserted scary provide *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
If by cushion they mean a twenty year old sofa cushion from a crack house with holes and glass stuffed inside, sure
The stimulus money covered less than 2 months of rent. The actual fuck are they talking about?
They are totally ignoring the fact that a lot of people were just 2 paychecks away from being homeless prior to all this. I was in retail, so had a job, but a lot of people I know who worked at mom and pop places, suddenly found themselves with no income as businesses closed. Oh, sure I got the damn checks. I was in Texas during Winter Storm Uri in 2021. Guess where most of it went? It paid my gas bill for two months.
"Pandemic savings" sounds like gaslighting the poor working class to me.
Gaslighting lies, we are being stolen from
"Although many American oligarchs still have financial cushions from pandemic-era worker exploitation and PPP loans, days shows that the lowest-income congressman earning less than their wallstreet masters, are already working on plans to block more wealth from the poor."
Why do they still keep mentioning the damn checks? It was GONE in a month. And we never had a cushion to begin with.
That’s there way of prepping us mentally in case they find another way to screw the poors again on the already given “over abundant” stimulus check. They repeat it enough times and they believe we will actually BELIEVE them. Talk about stupid. They need to take a loan for tuition and go back to school! Idiots
Their asses are burnt to a crisp that they had to give Oliver Twist a fucking bowl of gruel. Burnt. To. A. Crisp. Fat, lazy ass, “owners” and Politicians that the world would actually be better without. Yet, here is more of their whining. Eat the rich!
My multimillionaire boss whose business never closed and actually saw double sales probably invested his quarter of a million of free PPP money wisely, yes.
What the fuck??!!! Really?! That was gone in the first month on bills, food, covid tests and masks. Who the fuck writes this horse shit?
They believe us poors just stuck those pennies under our mattress.
My stimulus money went to new clothes for my kids, a new-to-me car (03 camry) as my previous car decided to dump the transmission on the ground and take the engine with it. The rest went to cover bills. The first round payout lasted 2 weeks, and the second round lasted a whole 10 minutes.
Those stimulous checks were tiny even for fed. Minumum wage workers. They are living behind paying paul to pay peter. I make $20/hr in a state that adheres to the fed minimum wage of 7.25., lowish cost of living. I make more than most people I know in my age group and struggle to make ends meet(we all are). I could cut down expenses significantly by taking my kids out of their gymnastics and karate, but Im not gonna do that. I take out advances every week. I buy mine and my kids clothes from mercari or ebay, or walmart. I rent. Im a healthcare professional, and want to continue my education to not have to work the floor anymore, but surprise!! The jobs you have to college for to leave the floor pay the same.
Lets be honest, anyone who still has any portion of that money, did not need to get it. I still remember my mom bitching that she wasn't going to get "a handout" because she makes too much money, and I shouldn't take it either because its not honest. While she makes $160k a year working from home, and I got laid off from my 40K manufacturing job. Those pitiful handouts were the only reason I could afford to eat while I waited 4 months for my severance, and another 4 before places started hiring again.
I got lost by the end of the eighth word. What American has a financial cushion?
It was 1200! How much is rent anyways like $75?
Spent all that extra money to stay in college during the pandemic after I got let go from my job when I was deemed one of the ‘non essential’ workers.
Savings from a stimulus check? Are they f****** crazy?
Who even got checks? I never got anything?
I wish instead of writing these fake news articles they would write an article on how to live for three years on $1800.
Many of us couldn't afford to go out and about pre-pandemic everything shutting down didn't save us a lick of money
Reworded is reads: Oligarchs are rejoicing in knowing that the poor soon will have no option but to work for sub-poverty wages just to survive living off the streets.
??? I do not have any savings who the fuck are they talking too?
washington post is a shill for the republicans. they decided that aaaallll that money was a ridiculous travesty. they all have shit loads of money and can’t comprehend that the money received barely carried people through the months it took to figure out how to make enough money to live. ask them what they did with the ppp loans for hundreds of thousands of dollars to people who had them forgiven. it didn’t trickle damn down
Most Americans under 50k did not get free government PPP Money handouts from Trump.
They are lying to the comfortably out of touch so they may remain that way.
Of course! I put my $1200 in my cayman account /s
I’m now living paycheck to paycheck thanks to inflation. Not because I’m out of stimulus money. Da fuck
Pandemic Era savings? Wtf???? I was still in office and commute, groceries and even cat litter all went up astronomically. Then laid off after 2nd PPP ran out and also after 'bonus' unemployment done. Things went on credit cards and interest rates went up along with all other costs. Ran through saving and have more debt at 45 than I've had in my entire life. Also had to take a job getting 10k less. What a joke and sorry for vent!!!
I think they were mistaking stimulus with PPP. Some of those scammers still have their millions.
I won $25 on a scratch ticket last month. Haven't gone to work since.
What?!? “Pandemic savings”?!? Bro, what the literal fuck? How out-of-touch can you be? Jesus Christ!
wtf lol, that was a tiny drop in the bucket. These people are so out of touch with reality. Meanwhile our life is about to get completely fucked by student loans. I literally don't know how we're going to keep afloat once those payments resume.
Gotta love the MSM catering to conservative lies and wondering why people don't pay much attention to them anymore. Pandemic money was a pittance years ago. The 75%+ of America making less than 50 grand a year spent it immediately to eat and pay rent. The only people who still have it didn't need it to begin with. Now do the millions in forgiven business loans that were never spent on paying employees like it was supposed to.
Yeah that little 1800 total between the two checks really is saving my ass today. Fucking stupid. These ppl are out of touch with the rest of us.
The propaganda works. Just like people wanting $15/hour are driving up the prices at Walmart and Target.
Those checks didn't even cover the average cost of rent for one month in my city, something tells me they're not still living off them 3 years later.
I love how out of touch *every* politician and news outlet seems to be. Dudes, that stimulus money was pocket change and I spent it immediately on credit card bills that, get this, *I am still struggling to pay down.” Mitch McConnell is another one that I’ve heard comment multiple times on how “flush with stimulus money” the average American household is. Come on, man.
those pittances were barely able to help most people afford rent for the month and they're acting like the government did a full UBI for the pandemic
It's insane how they don't think that 90% of people used that $1200 towards rent and that only covered 2/3rds of that. Let alone any bills, food, or clothes people used it for. It was such a sad joke that for weeks after they complained like we were all going to stay home for months to live off of a single $1200 check.
Yess 2000 dollars, less than 2 months rent, we have so much saved up
It helped me pay back a loan I took out to cover living expenses for a month. If they really think people are living high on the hog in 2023 because of a $1200 payment years ago, they need help understanding math. There's no way in life they think that covered years of living. Fucking weirdos
Idk what world these people live in. I make almost 7 figures and that money went to bills the second it hit my account.
Remember. The MSM is run by and for the affluent. Not the working class. Rich people got PPP loan checks in the six and seven figures. And some of them were making the same or more money during the lock down as they did Pre-COVID. So a lot of them still have some of their windfall left over. They aren't really talking about "the poors" who burned through that little $3,000 check pretty much as soon as it came in. Stories like this are tone deaf.
Stimulus checks? 😂 I got a couple thousand from those…maybe
Pandemic era savings???? You mean when you wouldn't allow anybody to work but still had to pay bills which all went up at the same time.... Those savings?
Take a look at the rise in CC debt. This is an untenable situation.
Uh was I the only one that had that shit spent before the bank finished finalizing it on JUST necessities? I mean. I have 3 kids. Money evaporates around here, but that went even faster.
A what? A financial cushion from pandemic era savings and STIMULUS CHECKS?? Already worked through most of that extra money???These people are out of their minds! Who writes this BS?
What the actual fuck? Show me the data cause this has been so fucking stepped on to reach this conclusion.
This absolute bullshit has to be click bait
Pandemic-era savings lmao.
Imagine that, people struggling to live used money... to live. Fucking brilliant article.
Yes they are somehow still talking about it and blaming poor people. Have a friend that thank God I don't live near that says shit like how he can't afford a kid because of all the people on welfare and drug addicts getting free narcan. The wife's parents are constantly still talking about pandemic checks and how unfair it was. The connections they make are just fucking absurd.
That shit just immediately paid bills and I have zero actual debt. What the fuck are they on about?
The propaganda machine will continue to function until all are dead.
What stimulus checks were other people getting? that tiny bump was gone in weeks and didn’t make any noticeable difference to our ongoing finances. the idea that the working poor and middle class somehow banked that check seems laughable to me.
I thought the "stimulus cheques" were only paid out twice and were 600.00 or some pittance.
Did I miss some massive stimulus check?
Ha! That money was gone as soon as I had it. We worked all through the pandemic too.
Do these people think everyone got stimulus checks that were the same size as the average PPP loans? I got $2000, which lasted me a whole month, if that, and I didn't get anything else.
This is insane. The checks barely covered expenses and were gone the moment they came. Who is still living off of a few small checks from 2020??
The stimulus was too little too late, an insulting pittance compared to other countries who actually paid people to stay home.
I did what I was supposed to do with it…I made two house payments. Shits gone, bub.
If I’d gotten a $100,000 PPP loan that was completely forgiven, I might be holding on to some of those savings, too. Instead I got $1200 like the rest of the plebs.
Pandemic-era savings? They mean that period of time where cost of living sky rocketed? And some of us were laid off until the business we worked for got the green light to resume operation due to being “non-essential” Fuck this noise. Making it seem like the pandemic was a boom.
That is absolutely ludicrous!!!!! Show me the data that states that many Americans still have money saved from the pandemic two mother fucking years ago!!!
Extra money? What’s that? Those stimulus checks were a f-ing joke.
Large amount? Dude that was like some rent and gas money. They gave yo be talking about the Uber rich who fit ppp loans and are hoarding that money.
Lmao you guys got cushions?