The richer you are, the more likely you’ll social distance, study finds | Hacker News Reader

The richer you are, the more likely you’ll social distance, study finds

releases.jhu.edu

192 pointsrustoo175 comments

Seems logical and what my anecdotal experience has been from talking with friends and family. There is one exception. There is a small percentage of far-right and wealthy that largely ignores social distancing, in my experience.

It does make sense though overall. The wealthier you are the more likely you are to have a significantly more comfortable living experience that makes social distancing more bearable. More access to food/grocery delivery, more access to entertainment and technology, more access to at home recreation/exercise equipment, more space in your home or the financial means to change that. The list could go on.

In short money buys you space and things to fill your time alone.

Yeah I would hope they adjusted for work. I'm a SWE working remotely until the pandemic is over and the guy at my house today fixing my plumbing is in people's homes every day. It's pretty unfair/easy comparison that doesn't really say much if you don't adjust for work.

You might be surprised by the plumber’s income bracket.

To save everyone else from a google, the median plumber income in 2019 was $55,160 according the BLS (https://www.bls.gov/ooh/construction-and-extraction/plumbers...).

We just did an extensive remodel of our house, which was around $200k to complete. I had lots of conversations with the tradesmen involved. The master tradesmen, plumber and electrician specifically, each made between $130k and $150k in 2018. They’re also actively turning down work and begging for help that’s worth a damn. The general contractor easily makes north of $200k, judging from his lifestyle compared to ours. For reference, this is Columbus Ohio. So while the median income listed above is a great income, the upper end of incomes for tradesmen can be quite high.

Which is about 1/2 the equivalent stat for software devs (https://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/...)

Surprising how the BLS numbers seem so far off from what's seen on Levels.fyi. Possible explanations: they only factor in base salary (no RSUs or bonuses), the bay area employs a proportionally small number of SWEs (such that the median is reflective of other, cheaper areas), or non-traditional jobs are getting grouped with SWEs as a single career category.

Levels.fyi is heavily biased toward companies where tech is their primary business. There are a lot of software engineers working in support roles for "old line" businesses that don't value or pay their software engineers nearly as well.

My wife works for a charitable foundation, and continuously complains about the quality of their software. Once she asked her IT director why they can't get someone like me in to just fix it, and her IT director was like "We can't afford someone like your husband."

> Levels.fyi is heavily biased toward companies where tech is their primary business.

They are also (AFAIK) based to a large degree on self reporting which you have to imagine would skew high. If I had an amazing salary I’d want to self report it and tell levels and HN all about it. If I have a normal salary, maybe I keep that to myself.

Anecdotally I’ve worked at two companies featured on levels.FYI and my total comp was nowhere near what they were reporting for similar roles... like 50-66%—they were waaaay off. Either I am consistently grossly underpaid or levels biases high.

Your issue might be the “similar roles.” Software engineer numbers on levels is very accurate, but don’t expect a similar role to pay similar, they’re not comparable.

Hi, I’m one of the creators of Levels.fyi. You’re right that there’s definitely likely a bias in the data we collect. But in terms of validation and verification, I just wanted to provide some info on how we source.

Whenever possible, we collect verified offers / pay stubs / W-2s to anchor the data on the site. While our self reported data is definitely the more popular choice for submission, we are able to determine general bands and find blatant outliers for certain companies and remove them. I think we might be the only consumer facing salary site to do this afaik.

Some more info: https://levels.fyi/verified

We also do provide a community reporting feature much like the flag feature here on HN, which we actively monitor.

Even after all we do, we are after all only as good as the data we collect. The more contributions we receive the more we can color in the whole picture. Feel free to email us any suggestions at hello[at]levels.fyi

Thanks for responding. Generally I find the equity values to be way high. Do people submitting their info take into account vesting? I’ve talked to (otherwise smart) people who make claims like: “My salary is $120k and my equity offer was $100k, therefore my total comp is $220k” where obviously he’s wrong because he will only vest, for example, 25% of that equity the first year. So he should consider $145k his TC.

A lot of people seem to make this mistake, so hopefully your data cleaners have solved that.

Yeah, we do specify that the values we collect our annual on our form. But we might be able to make it more clear.

We had this issue earlier on in our first 2 years since our form was much more rudimentary – could it be that the data points you're visiting are from 2019 or earlier? Also in any case, feel free to report those entries, and we'll make sure to take a look.

Levels.fyi is basically spot-on for my company, despite it having a relatively small # of reports, and is also accurate for friends of mine who work at larger companies (FAANG). But, as another reply said, some places will have vastly different pay scales for "similar roles" to SWE - for example, it's known that Facebook pays Data Engineers less than Software Engineers at the same level (mostly by giving them fewer RSUs).

If anything, I would say Levels.fyi underrepresents average total comp for many of the listed companies, because: 1) they don't take into account refreshers, where given, and 2) they don't take into account stock growth (which, yes, is not guaranteed, but it wouldn't be _unreasonable_ from a perspective of estimating Expected Value to assume whatever RSUs you get will track overall market growth, just with more volatility)

Levels should probably have a way of filtering submissions from employees with 0 YOE and 1+, 3+ YOE, as you mention, RSU value can double. So another identically leveled SWE could be making double you, just based off the stock appreciation. Naturally, one would expect the company to offer a package with half as many RSUs after share price doubles.

Since you always enter a company with 0 YOE at that company (or at least, a clean slate of RSU tranches), the data points of employees who 'got in' early aren't relevant to an offer you might receive.

Agreed that that functionality would be helpful, though I haven't noticed a huge number of offers with details that would indicate "stock growth" rather than "initial offer + raises". They're there, but they're usually easy to pick out because they're way out of band. Might affect things on the margin, I suppose.

Hi, I’m one of the creators of Levels.fyi and I just wanted to mention that we actually do have this feature. You can filter our compensation table by # of years of experience or years spent at the company by using the filters next to the search.

https://levels.fyi/comp.html?showFilters

This is also available on our level specific pages, for example for Google L3: https://www.levels.fyi/company/Google/salaries/Software-Engi...

Though I do agree it would be really nice to have this reflected in our visuals or aggregates where possible.

Hey, big fan of your work :)

Love the new reporting feature, way less friction than sending an email.

Do many SWEs not know that IT department staff are paid way less than them?

levels.fyi is not really a good representation of income for even the Bay area, let alone the industry as a whole.

I don't know why people get confused by this; most people working SWE in the bay area will never see a vaunted Levels.fyi equivalent salary (although most of them will exceed national averages for software).

Basing your understanding of software salaries across the industry on levels.fyi is a bit like basing an understanding of national lawyer salaries on a sampling from top NYC corporate law firms.

(NB there is some sprinkling of other useful salary info on levels.fyi, but people focus on the FAANG and similar companies, and the data is much better there)

People conflate the fact with simply desiring that sort of salary; pointing to Levels provides the justification for demanding top-of-market wages. It's not that we deny the existence of lower-paid SWE's, we just place less emphasis on them when evaluating our financial ambitions in the context of our careers. (If I'll be working 40+ hours regardless of company, might as well maximize wages).

Around here you are lucky if you can get a plumber to come and they are $100/hr minimum 1hr with a $50 callout charge.

Your plumbers should move to Vancouver

He doesn't get paid that for 40 hours per week though, there's lot of waiting around.

I’d love to double my rate and have to work half as much

Employed plumbers have more work than hands.

So...not that surprising

This is a common trope and is true for some journeymen/business owners, but does not necessarily apply to the majority of plumbers and tradespeople in general. The guy that Whoops-O-Rooter sends to your house to snake your drains or fix a leak is not likely to be in a high income bracket.

My contractor service friends spend a goodly portion of their income on Google Ads or their business evaporates.

A prime example of why advertising is zero-sum and should be restricted across the board. Would free up so much money for businesses to use on something worthwhile, with no net loss in customers.

I see the logic in your argument and if I were king I'd look into this. However in my real life advertising is how I make money and I have to do it to stay in business.

Except that little thing called freedom of speech gets in the way.

You don't make squat until you own your own business (though there are some exceptions for commercial work). Which you can't do until you've put your years in thanks to protectionist licensing schemes.

Also if you live in a mansion and can afford delivery instead of living in an apartment and getting groceries after work.

Most grocery stores now offer curbside pickup at no extra cost.

There are some non-monetary inconveniences associated with this. In aggregate, they are probably less significant than the monetary and non-monetary inconveniences of having the chance to catch COVID-19 inside the grocery.

There is also the issue that people with higher disposable incomes can afford to not work, while people with low or zero disposable income need every hour of work they can scrounge up, so they don’t have the choice to not work.

> There is also the issue that people with higher disposable incomes can afford to not work.

People with savings or wealth can afford not to work.

Can't forget the white collars also living paycheck-to-paycheck for whatever reason

I would tend to think the education level also plays a role, and considering wealthier individuals usually have a better access to education/are more educated (read correlation not causation here), said individuals might have a better grasp off what is happening.

Edit: Remote working is also easier when you have an office job

Edit 2: I hope more research like this will come out so we can prepare and protect the ones who are more at risk when the next pandemic comes. Uderstanding the risk factors and how a disease spreads is the first step of debugging it. Sadly it is the first pandemic where we have the necessary tools to track all the information and analyse it. We have been lucky the death rate was not much higher

That makes sense, given how much statistics they throw at you. Logarithmic scales, R numbers, per-100000 values, percentages etc. That's on top of all the numbers you must remember to relativise the daily news.

I wonder how much of it I'd grasp if I hadn't used maths since high school.

>There is a small percentage of far-right and wealthy that largely ignores social distancing, in my experience.

Case in point, republican lawmakers refusing to wear masks while sheltering during the far right insurrection last week:

https://www.wusa9.com/article/news/local/dc/democrats-have-c...

To be fair, the paper also looked at behaviors like increased washing you hands and found that they tracked with income as well.

I believe being wealthy just correlates with independence. Your needs can be met with short transactional interactions with others.

People with few or no resources are interdependent with or dependent on others.

White collar jobs tend to be more flexible with working from home too. If I worked at a factory all day in close proximity to others, I wouldn’t bother distancing when I was off the clock.

> The list could go on.

I'd think the biggest would be more freedom with respect to making work more compliant to social distancing.

this is my thinking as well. I was already excruciatingly isolated and lonely beforehand. I'm not gonna pass up what few social opportunities I get just to avoid a little risk

This is all true but I would still consider it surprising that it's such a strong predictor of mask wearing and staying physically separated from people.

The behaviors they studied cost nothing and are equally available and beneficial to the rich and poor alike so it's odd that it has any correlation to income at all.

If you're comfortable in your house for 15.5 of your 16 waking hours, it's not that much of a sacrifice to put on a nice, fresh mask for half an hour a day.

If instead you're working 10+ hours a day somewhere near people, you're probably tired of wearing the damn mask, the mask might be wet with condensation in cold climates, etc.

That's true. I also have a theory that those that don't wear condoms or use protection don't wear masks. And that a large percentage of the more religious are less likely to wear masks.

There are several buckets of people in those groups and they're pretty sizable. Crosses several races and several age groups.

EDIT: got some downvotes on this. Probably mentioning words like "race" and "age" which is a no-no for some people.

To clarify the intent of my comment - I think in order to provide a better response to a pandemic I think it is important to understand those groups which would be better served with different communications.

If you don't care about the risk of STDs or an unplanned pregnancy or your faith in God is the primary driver of your health and well-being response, you probably aren't going to care as much as others about wearing a mask.

I had one young pregnant acquaintance of ours, who lives with her grandmother, tell my wife that she knows she will be ok because of her faith in God. This young woman had at least one large family gathering. She didn't quarantine or test before seeing people. Her fiance was actually going to the gym regularly. Her grandmother got covid and luckily she made it.

Repeating all the same directives (social distance, mask, wash hands) has clearly NOT worked. Even saying the hospitals are overwhelmed hasn't seemed to matter.

I don't think you can prepare a good response without difficult conversations and an understanding of why people might do what they do and how that perspective developed.

And politicians would rather speak vaguely and not make tough calls lest they inflame some of their supporters.

>I also have a theory that those that don't wear condoms or use protection don't wear masks.

>If you don't care about the risk of STDs or an unplanned pregnancy or your faith in God is the primary driver of your health and well-being response, you probably aren't going to care as much as others about wearing a mask.

So people in committed relationships, homosexuals and people above the age where pregnancy is possible?

Because those are the groups of people who use condoms the least and at least one of them is certainly not letting religion inform their sexual habits.

> So people in committed relationships, homosexuals and people above the age where pregnancy is possible?

I wasn't speaking in an absolute, because almost nothing is absolute.

I probably should have said "I also have a theory that those that don't wear condoms or use protection are significantly less likely to wear masks over the general public. And that a large percentage of the more religious are less likely to wear masks."

Since you went there, I'll try to be more concrete.

Committed relationships across any sub-group you'd like to slice = no. Homosexuals that aren't in committed relationships = yes as they would be in the general non-committed bucket. No risk of pregnancy of course but obviously STD. Above the age of pregnancy? If not committed relationship = yes. Again, still risk of STDs, in fact quite high for the age group most younger people don't want to think of as having sex.

Above the age of pregnancy would have the kicker bonus of less likely to care due to being older and cynical. Once you've seen a lot of crazy things maybe this doesn't phase you? Can't tell you how many that have been fortunate to escape cancers or other more challenging problems only to go carefree on coronavirus which they have more control over. It's an odd thing. Especially because those are higher risk and the ones that still have parents alive are in the highest risk category.

> at least one of them is certainly not letting religion inform their sexual habits.

The condoms and religion in my theory need not crossover. Although I would guess the center of that Venn diagram would skew even less likely to wear a mask.

If the only respite to being locked indoors is going outside, of course people are going to dislike masks. It's a constant reminder that there's nowhere to escape from the current situation.

Do people commonly wear masks outside in some places?

Where I live, we have more or less universal mask wearing in stores, but the only reason people wear masks outside is that they are about to head into a business or are just leaving one. What's the point of wearing a mask outside?

Do people commonly wear masks outside in some places?

Yes. In my area it's required by law.

What's the point of wearing a mask outside?

Basically nothing other than signalling, with possible exceptions for crowded environments. Overall I expect outdoor mask mandates to be harmful on balance, by causing people to shift from outdoor to indoor gatherings.

At least here (SF), everything is crowded. Every single trail, park, you are going to effectively be covered in people, runners panting on the sidewalk an inch from you. It's definitely not signaling and I'd much rather everyone put them on in this case when crowding is the guarantee.

I'd have no issue walking around unmasked if you were out in the middle of the night and you were the only one around, though. But the days are so crowded it's pretty much an indoor environment.

Yeah, I can see the argument for places like SF. Where I am there are lots of areas where you can easily maintain 10+ feet separation, yet the city explicitly changed the law from "masks outside when you can't distance" to "masks outside always".

Enforcing an absolute is much easier. In Singapore, you wear a mask at all times outside your home or face fines of up to $3000, with exceptions only for eating, drinking, and "strenuous exercise".

Another thing: (that also pisses me off when I see it) is watching people constantly touch their masks (unsafe), taking them on and off every few minutes when they're about to pass someone, occasionally putting them on quickly by _holding their hand on the front of the mask pushing it against their mouth_

"signalling?" It reduces the spread of disease in crowded areas.

In the Bay Area masks are required indoors and outdoors whenever within 30 feet of people. For apartment dwellers there’s been no way to legally enjoy fresh air for the last 10 months.

This is an exaggeration. SF as an example says you can be without your mask if you are:

> • Sitting or standing outside alone or with people you live with (such as picnicking outside) and you are more than 6 feet from others; • When eating or drinking alone or with people you live with, and nobody else is within 6 feet; • Exercising outdoors alone or with people who live with you (walking, hiking, bicycling, or running) and no one else is within 6 feet

Realistically though, there is no enforcement anywhere outside. If you want to go walking or running around outside on the sidewalk without a mask, nobody is going to stop you. You might get a funny look. If you crowd someone's personal space without a mask they might be uncomfortable.

Please wear your mask if you plan to spend extended stretches of time near other people.

Alameda County (adjacent to San Francisco) says: “people must, unless an exception applies, wear a Face Covering when outside and when anyone else other than just members of their Social Bubble (as defined in Paragraph 7 of Health Officer Order No. 20-14) is within 30 feet (10 yards).”

There is no such requirement.

In Alameda County the face covering order reads: “ people must, unless an exception applies, wear a Face Covering when outside and when anyone else other than just members of their Social Bubble (as defined in Paragraph 7 of Health Officer Order No. 20-14) is within 30 feet (10 yards).”

Sounds miserable.

I usually only see people wearing a mask outside if they go by public transportation.

I'm sorry you are getting downvoted for wrong HN think. People come up with all sorts of weird off-the-cuff justifications for things. Medical staff, various home contractors, grocery-store staff all wear masks for extremely long shifts. HN logic seems to be: Poor people less-likely to social distance and wear masks -> HN responds with all sorts of supposed sociological factors why they don't and why it's acceptable. Meanwhile, lots of poor people (who work in the aforementioned professions) actually do wear masks and safely practice all the precautions, so the HN peanut gallery just end up being patronizingly insulting to poor people.

I'd say the biggest difference is where you make your money. Income and ability to work remotely seems pretty strongly correlated due to its probably white collar nature, and this normalizes social distancing. If you work in a grocery store, chances are you are desensitized to some of the ideas.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I sense a bit of classism in your comment. Seemingly excusing poor people's unsafe behavior because they lack the wealth needed to do it better. However, lots of things are correlated with wealth but not caused by it. Such an explanation could be that the same tendency to take care of things in your life which is helpful for becoming wealthy also causes greater care for personal health or more careful following of social norms.

> Higher-income individuals were more likely to report being able to work from home and more likely to have transitioned to telework instead of losing their job. The researchers found the ability to telework emerged as a huge predictor of whether someone would social distance. Compared to somebody who continued to work, people able to telework were 24% more likely to social distance.

> The team found lower-income respondents faced increased chances of job and income losses due to the pandemic and limited access to remote work. They were also more likely to live in homes with no access to the outdoors – access to outdoor space was a very strong predictor of social distancing, the researchers found. People with access to open air at home were 20% more likely to social distance.

> All of these burdens ensured those earning the least would have a harder time adopting social-distancing behaviors, which could have prolonged the pandemic, the team found. Social distancing was simply more practical, comfortable and feasible for people with more income.

Those are only some factors and don't account for the entire wealth difference. I agree they are part of the explanation though.

Women social distanced more than men which is consistent with women generally being more careful about their health than men. They couldn't explain it with women telecommuting more or having bigger houses.

It's not hard to imagine that other lifelong lifestyle habits have a significant influence on people's behavior. Wealthiness isn't allocated randomly to people. It goes to people who already have different behaviors so of course they're going to behave differently in many contexts. I find it ridiculous that people consider high income to be a fundamental source of good things, rather than being interconnected causally in both directions with many other aspects of a person's life. High income people are also less likely to smoke which doesn't make sense from a wealth-enables-behavior standpoint because they can afford to spend more on cigarettes. Seatbelt use is also positively correlated with income which surely can't be explained by some greater convenience wealthy people have for putting on a seatbelt.

> Women social distanced more than men which is consistent with women generally being more careful about their health than men. They couldn't explain it with women telecommuting more or having bigger houses.

I don't know if this was explained. I'd like to see if this might correlate with gender disparities in employment.

you specify far right, but it is also the left, in my experience. They dont flaunt it because they need to toe the party line. At the same time they are railing at trump for not promoting masks more, they are flying to go skiing.

Mayor adler of austin got extended family together, had a wedding, then took a private jet to cabo where he recorded a video encouraging austinites to stay home.

Most of my friends are liberals and many are eating in restaurants, taking trips, getting together without masks "with a select" group of friends that they are quarantining with etc. They say the right thing, but are doing something different.

Your confirmation bias and the media says it is the right. Here is an example of hollywood stars that got infected.

https://www.vulture.com/article/famous-people-celebrities-wi...

Here is an article about prominent dems not following guidance. https://www.businessinsider.com/democratic-politicians-who-v...

Here's an example of congressional republicans refusing to wear masks while sheltering in place during the recent siege on the capitol: https://www.wusa9.com/article/news/local/dc/democrats-have-c...

> you specify the far right

Because they were the ones who outright rejected masks? It's not like this is a bias being cast on them unfairly, the right has rejected masks on a basis of personal freedom (whether you agree with that take or not) and have been extremely vocal about it.

That being said, Democrats and leftists are people too - they're fallible. This pandemic has taught me that humans are far more social than I think most people realize, that we get bored incredibly quickly, and that we will normalize anything and live around it. Masks have become commonplace, and pretty much all content & media produced in 2020 will be immediately recognizable by the masks everyone is wearing.

Interestingly enough, I have seen pretty much 100% mask adherence in teenagers. I live by a high school and see them walk by all wearing masks even after school.

> Mayor adler of austin got extended family together, had a wedding, then took a private jet to cabo where he recorded a video encouraging austinites to stay home.

Yeah, the rich don't give a shit about the rules and guidelines, but what's new? Not following extreme quarantine protocols is probably very low on my list of criticisms for that mayor.

> They say the right thing, but are doing something different.

I've noticed the same thing with my liberal friends, but I have to remember that they're at least trying. They wear masks when they're hanging out and not eating, they're more aware of hand-washing, they don't share drinks, etc... You can't just look at the one thing they're doing to cling to a sense of normalcy. I wouldn't hold a right wing person to any more stringent of a standard, either. My problem with it has been the right's general rejection of any type of public safety measures.

I've been in an extreme quarantine because I live with an immuno-compromised person, but I have to remember that different people have different risk tolerances, and that at this point it's hardly the fault of people going to restaurants and that it was mostly our governments complete lack of action that lead to us being on this path.

Honestly, I just wish that it had never been politicized in the first place so that we didn't have to have silly conversations about political leanings of people given only how they respond to a pandemic. I guess I can't even talk about that without recognizing that our President is the one who politicized it, so :shrug:

> There is a small percentage of far-right and wealthy that largely ignores social distancing

There's a small percentage of far-left and wealthy that also ignore social distancing (like SF Mayor).

Let's not point finger and further assign blame.

The fact that when a few people from the left break quarantine rules it becomes front page news – while half the country (including every GOP politician) has been living the past year as if a pandemic doesn't exist – actually shows that one side is a lot more serious about it than the other.

> people from the left break quarantine rules it becomes front page news

It got to the front pages not because of breaking quarantine per se, but because of their hypocrisy: they wanted quarantine for everyone except themselves.

GOP politicians were consistent: they criticised quarantine and violated quarantine.

I didn't say they don't deserve to be criticized - they absolutely do. But pointing at a handful of high profile democrats breaking quarantine rules and then saying "see both sides are the same" is extremely disingenuous.

Talking like "There is a small percentage of far-right and wealthy that largely ignores social distancing" is extremely disingenuous. I was wanted to just point to that. And generally discourage from assigning labels like "far-right".

We addressed this in New Zealand when we went into deep lockdown (only allowed out for exercise and supermarket, everything else closed) back in March - what the government did was essentially trickle up relief (we all know now that trickle down doesn't work) - what they provided was a wage subsidy that companies could claim to pay employees who were locked down's wages - not a fixed puny lump sum, not a gift to big biz, something to keep people connected with their employers so that after we could easily start everything back up again.

It wasn't cheap, but locking absolutely everyone down for a couple of months was way cheaper that the alternative in the long run - surely the US could have done this - you pay far higher taxes than we do in NZ, money really shouldn't be an option

The US should have done this. We could have done it. We don’t know the total economic damage yet, but I would wager it is already many times what it would have cost to do what New Zealand did.

The problem is a huge chunk of the country flies into a rage at the thought of their tax dollars going to people who “don’t work.”

Combine this with decades of Republican rhetoric about “welfare queens,” [1] separating the undeserving poor (read: black and Hispanic people) from the deserving poor... it convinces white voters to hurt themselves just so those people don’t get something that they don’t deserve.

Racism warps American politics again and again and again. I used to live in Atlanta, a city with some of the worst traffic in the country. It lacks adequate public transit because white homeowners didn’t want black people coming to their suburbs [2]. So now everyone suffers.

Our political system is diseased.

[1]: https://newrepublic.com/article/154404/myth-welfare-queen

[2]: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/08/14/magazine/traf...

I think it'd be the opposite reaction if the US adopted the NZ strategy. People would be outraged that the money is going to companies, especially large corporations where most people work. Someone would come up with the statistic that 80% of the money went to the richest 100 companies in the US or something.

That would be true if corporations were just given money. But as I understand it, that's not what NZ did.

The US actually did a fairly smart thing with the initial aid package - corporations got loans that were forgiven if used to pay wages. The problem was that we (the government) didn't do anything to establish whether a company actually needed help with this.

I wonder why that happened ....

There was also a ton of fraud (some estimates were 1/3 of the money went to scammers and foreign people). They didn't have a good way to check if a business was an actual business or not. This resulted in entire neighborhoods of people getting 10K each by sharing the scam [2].

[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-12-24/small-bus...

[2] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-10-29/small-bus...

What's the demographic of the scammers? Are they immoral rich people who don't need the money and just love the idea of scamming the government? Are they poor people desperate enough to steal from the government? If the latter then the stimulus was actually quite well spent.

A lot of the money went to gangs in foreign countries. There were some stories of immoral rich people like the rapper who got over a million dollars and boasted about it, but I imagine most were dishonest poor people. The problem is this rewards a small pool of scammers, and the honest poor are left even further behind.

But it sounds like you want to believe it was money well spent, so I don't imagine this would convince you otherwise.

It will forever be a mystery as to why there was so much corruption surrounding the Covid business loans and payments.

https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2020-06-16/hiltzik-co...

unfortunately the de facto embrace of reaganomics and welfare queen rhetoric is completely bicameral. the orthodox position is that aid flowing to people who 'don't deserve it' is a far more unthinkable sin than aid getting to almost no one at the bottom after being delayed indefinitely by a broken social support system that is deliberately designed to demoralize and humiliate people who need help.

Left wing rant aside, California, which is not exactly known for it’s right wing leanings has done absolutely horrible with Covid. Not only has it failed to contain the virus it’s almost last in rolling out the vaccine (well behind those racist Red states you call out like TX).

I wonder how much of that is due to the lack of leadership from our President

Not very much? California has plenty of vaccines now, they just can't work out the last mile to distribute them. If only there was a valley in there somewhere that had people who had thought about things like this before...

I like this reply because not only does it strawman my opinion of “red” states, it boils down to, “I’m going to brush aside your substantive points because did you know some states are run badly by LIBERALS???”

Well, since your entire rant was "we could be like New Zealand if it weren't for racist Republicans", I wouldn't call it a straw man by giving an example of "a racist Republican state" doing a better job than a state that's been run by liberals for decades.

Kind of proves your point wrong, no?

Unless I'm misunderstanding, the US did do something very similar. A lump sum to individuals + huge increase to unemployment insurance + grants to businesses with the stipulation that they don't lay people off.

Sometimes I think everyone is so caught up in the narrative that nothing progressive ever happens in the US that they don't stop to celebrate wins like the CARES act, because it was frankly a huge win for the progressive agenda even if temporary.

But anyway, we did the expensive part of spending all the money. We just forgot to do the second part of locking people down and getting the virus under control. People were mostly always free to hang out with friends and family and congregate anywhere that wasn't closed. In some places there was better messaging in terms of trying to guilt people into not doing that, and calling it a "lockdown". But I don't know of anywhere in the country that actually had any consequences for individual people that chose to just ignore the guidelines (occasional businesses or organizers of large gatherings got fined, but not individuals).

The government paid business to pay workers? That sounds trickle down?

And no, the US has lower tax rates (30% bracket starts at $48k NZD?).

you're not comparing apples and apples - NZ doesn't have state taxes, you at least need to include those.

When I lived in the US (up until 2004) my top marginal rate was 33% plus 9.5% (CA) state tax, in NZ it is 33% - sales taxes are different (higher in NZ).

The govt paid workers through their businesses - but the amount paid was based on the payrolls - that money went to the workers.

Yeah, but the 33% US federal bracket kicks in at $200k versus $70k in NZ.

But sure, if you take the highest tax states in the US the difference isn’t that great. But compare it to say WA (no state tax) and it’s a big difference.

>“The whole messaging of this pandemic is you’re stuck at home teleworking, that must be really tough so here are some recipes for sourdough starter, and here’s what you should catch up on Netflix,” Papageorge said. “But what about the people who aren’t teleworking? What are they going to do?”

We've kinda entered this situation where the most vulnerable people are being shamed while the most able are held up as paragons of society. There's a reason that stupid video of celebrities in their mansions singing was so hated.

The most vulnerable aren't being shamed. The firefigher or nurse or plumber or grocer -- everyone respects that they are doing important work on the frontline.

The people being shamed are the ones having 30 person parties for New Years. Whether it is Gavin Newsome or someone in the trailer park. Those are the people that are being shamed.

And to be clear, should be shamed. It is just shameful to "continue on" with your life while our medical professionals are pulling 16 hour days with 0 capacity ICUs because you want to ski.

Are you saying skiing is particularly irresponsible if you're a competent skiier sticking to cross country, or courses which don't pose danger to you (not sure about the terminology as I don't ski). My understanding is it can be done fairly safely, and is a good form of exercise which doesn't require contact with others.

The risk comes from getting to the mountain, rubbing shoulders with others in the line and on the lift, going for an après ski, and feeding yourself for the duration of your vacation.

It could be done safely, but that depends on people acting reasonably without supervision.

And also the risk of crashes: which put you in the ICU.

the problem is that for most tourists skiing means taking like 3 runs, grabbing lunch and then barhopping or going to the pool. my understanding is that they're just holed up in their vacation homes living off take out this year. the biggest risk group are skico employees who have to use shared facilities. this is in all likelihood how i got sick and there have been lots of whispers that the infection rate between employees is very high although this has not been officially acknowledged.

Shaming isn't an effective public health measure. It didn't work with AIDS. It won't work with COVID-19.

What if you are a doctor and have been skiing with other doctors?

Yes. We should all cower inside 24/7 until this is over.

skiing is one of the safest activities you could be doing right now.

People who can afford to socially distance & tend to be more educated & are most likely to be able to work remotely are more likely to socially distance

And can afford food couriers for dinners.

Or a functional kitchen. It's one of the major factors for me in a dwelling. I used to have to make myself a loaf of soda bread as my only food for the week in my "kitchen" that was a stove and a sink in the corner of a room. Now that I'm a little more established I have a kitchen that my partner and I can both move about freely while we work on a meal and it never ceases to feel like we somehow cheated to gain such a luxury.

So food can increase qualitatively in more way than one when you have more resources behind you! And it's certainly not a fact that's lost on people who are struggling

Eh. I'm still on microwave dishes. It's been a while since I ordered food.

You...could be...healthier?

There is nothing unhealthy about microwaved dishes.

In fact, frozen food, a primary candidate for the microwave, may be just as good as fresh food, sometimes better depending on the process and on how fresh the "fresh" food is. Also microwaving is actually a healthy way of cooking things.

It all depends on what you put inside your microwave. Healthy food is healthy, junk food is junk, but the microwave has nothing to do with it.

This is true for at least a lot of frozen food, but doesn't speak to the distribution of available microwaved dishes.

As you say healthy food is healthy, but there may not be a lot of it available in your local freezer aisle. Or there may, depends where you live and shop I suspect.

Yes but doesn't preparing the food require at least a semblance of a kitchen? I mean you need a fridge, a sink, a countertop and all the utensils. Adding a real stovetop/oven combo doesn't take up that much space.

Ordering in is probably just as bad unless you really go out of your way to order healthy.

I could be a lot healthier in many ways.

That's probably true for 99% of us?

So...what?

That doesn't track entirely because the behaviors they're talking about are wearing masks and staying 6ft away from people. Both behaviors cost nothing.

Poorer folks in New York City have drastically less space available for...pretty much everything.

Even in relatively spaced-out areas, this is true. If you go to Central Park, you'll find that the density of people on an average day is far higher at (say) Harlem Meer than it is further south. There are simply more people who are sharing the same recreation space that is within X miles of the place they are living.

Central Park is actually a silly example, because it's far better than most other parts of New York. Go to Fort Washington Park on an average sunny weekend, and the density of people is dramatically higher than Riverside Park, further south. And that's just recreation...poorer people have less time for that than rich people do. Go to Flushing, and people are cheek-to-jowl at pretty much all times, even though there's a big empty park right next door.

> And that's just recreation...poorer people have less time for that than rich people do.

At least in the US, the poor have significantly more leisure time than the rich.

https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/09/the-fre...

I couldn’t get the information out of the article, but I would think conflating the working poor with the non-working poor makes that statistic unfair towards the working poor (and, because there are relatively more non-working poor, more unfair than conflating the working rich with the non-working rich)

Even if the working rich work more hours than the working poor, the situation might be reversed when one includes commute time from and to, and between jobs.

It could be a second order effect - the less wealthy you are, the more often you are required to not social distance (due to living situation and work etc) so in the times you can, there's less pressure or desire to.

That would seem to be a reasonable reaction. If people with jobs that don't really allow for social distancing were also the people the most worried about the virus, they would be under a great deal of psychological stress that they can't really do anything about. From a evolutionary standpoint it would make sense that the people most able to act around a threat are also the most worried about it.

when you're grabbing gas station coffee for your pre-dawn bus commute to a job multiple hours away. distancing requires both time and space that you do not have. moreover it requires the social cachet to choose to be the odd man out in a peer group that has been doing high-risk close proximity labor for the entire stretch of the pandemic. this generates broader complacency since you either already got it or you're fucked anyway because if your roomie gets it you're gonna get it and if you didn't get it by now then it must not have been a big deal so why single yourself out?

They cost nothing in the same way that exercising and cutting out junk food costs nothing8.

Though I will grant you that wearing a mask does cost less nothing*.

> Both behaviors cost nothing.

This is not true for the latter. Many people, especially some with little means, have little practical ability to maintain social distance.

You can't perform the no-cost behavior of wearing a mask without, you know, _having_ a mask, which is not necessarily free.

For people without kids, distancing is one thing.

For those with small children it’s a whole different matter.

Guess which group tends To have extra money.

At a certain point social distancing is pointless.

Have a small home with kids? Your not going to keep them locked up for a year without major issues. Us and neighbors eventuality gave up on keeping kids separated.

At home learning in a big house is painful. I can’t imagine a small apartment.

Once kids go back to in person schooling, Congratulations your getting Covid.

A month after in person school started later whole family had Covid.

  Not fun, but have had worse.  Very glad to finally get it over with.

Kids only had a fever for one day.

Had many friends lose or risk losing their jobs and businesses during the past year. So for many of them avoiding COVID may mean going homeless.

"But the team found it was also much easier for people with more money to take extra safety measures.

"Higher-income individuals were more likely to report being able to work from home and more likely to have transitioned to telework instead of losing their job. The researchers found the ability to telework emerged as a huge predictor of whether someone would social distance. Compared to somebody who continued to work, people able to telework were 24% more likely to social distance.

"“The whole messaging of this pandemic is you’re stuck at home teleworking, that must be really tough so here are some recipes for sourdough starter, and here’s what you should catch up on Netflix,” Papageorge said. “But what about the people who aren’t teleworking? What are they going to do?”

"The team found lower-income respondents faced increased chances of job and income losses due to the pandemic and limited access to remote work. They were also more likely to live in homes with no access to the outdoors – access to outdoor space was a very strong predictor of social distancing, the researchers found. People with access to open air at home were 20% more likely to social distance.

"All of these burdens ensured those earning the least would have a harder time adopting social-distancing behaviors, which could have prolonged the pandemic, the team found. Social distancing was simply more practical, comfortable and feasible for people with more income."

> the more likely they were to protect themselves at the early stages of the Covid-19 pandemic in the United States

Emphasis on "early stages".

When there was no data available and before the issue was politicised, of course it made sense for people who could afford it to preventively self-isolate.

Poor people simply didn't have an option (as in many other things).

It's glaringly evident when you see this mapped. Here is LA county, the hot spots are some of the poorest areas, while the wealthy along the hills are scarcely in a pandemic by comparison:

http://dashboard.publichealth.lacounty.gov/covid19_surveilla...

And it is no surprise considering most poor living situations in LA county are overcrowded where it would be difficult to distance, to the point of 1880s nyc tenemant conditions, and the working poor are more likely to be called into work as an essential worker than someone with a white collar job that can be done at home.

I wonder if the trend reverses when we get to the ultra-rich.

The richest people are often leaders, celebrities, etc... They are constantly moving and meeting people, and they are also more likely to have personnel in their house, and maybe a chauffeur, bodyguards, etc...

The "ultra rich" are CEOs, business owners and mostly people with generational family wealth.

Sounds like sampling bias, also - ""The team found lower-income respondents faced increased chances of job and income losses due to the pandemic and limited access to remote work. They were also more likely to live in homes with no access to the outdoors – access to outdoor space was a very strong predictor of social distancing, the researchers found. People with access to open air at home were 20% more likely to social distance.""

My poor friends are a lot more likely to smoke. Education probably plays a role in adherence to these types of public safety measures.

Unclear which way the causal arrow goes.

I feel like education is the bigger factor.

Is this due to predicament or levels of conscientiousness?

I've seen both, first-hand: working class people in more challenging scenarios, at the very same time almost a perfect correlation of 'risk aversion conscientiousness' with more wealth.

Well I must be the poorest rich person because I've gone full hikikomori

The Richer you are, most likely the more you can make a living with Remote work (white collar) and can afford to shop online and get it delivered home. Doesn't need no damn study for concluding this.

Shopping online is frequently cheaper... unless you’re talking about groceries only.

Even then, is grocery shopping really a large source of people getting covid?

The title should really be something like “The nicer a home you have, the more likely you’ll social distance, study finds”. This seems closer to the causality which is implied in the article.

The idea of being able to socially distance and work from home is one that is very much rooted in white collar and office jobs mindset.

Here is a paraphrasing of a conversation I had with my cousin who works as a research scientist for vaccines(not COVID), I am a production engineer at a manufacturing facility.

Cousin:"If we just locked down everything for a month or two, Covid would be gone" Me:"I don't think we have food in the house to last 2 months" C:"Well, grocery stores would still have to stay open I guess..."

So we need food, that keeps grocery stores open. Need delivery to the store, that keeps gas stations open. Need to repair cars, garages are now open. Keep unpacking things and you begin to see that there is a lot that is essential.

Now, you could help limit things by saying only 1 grocery store in 5 mile radius can be open but who gets to pick which store? Keep the Whole Foods open or the Kroger?

Not surprising at all. The less rich you are the more you have bigger problems.

anecdotal but from what ive seen its the rich & entitled that dont care and do whatever they want. vacations, seeing groups anfnthen their families etc.

entitled people doing what they want is a bit tautological

there's plenty of normally rich and wealthy people who aren't the narcissist jet set who are just WFH through the whole thing.

when you discuss "rich" you need to distinguish between the 99% narcissist kardashian class and everyone who is in the 90th percentile.

fair enough

> from what ive seen

Have you been peeking through the windows of a bunch of rich people's homes?

But with lots of testing throughout, no?

good self discipline correlates with lots of positive things.

I wish it was the opposite - the more you social-distance the richer you get :)

I am probably in the minority here on HN and I'd like you to pay attention to this part from TFA:

"But the team found it was also much easier for people with more money to take extra safety measures."

I am vulnerable due to pre-existing conditions. Currently my partner works retail-it is open and the workers are not considered essential/front line and will be in the last group to get vaccinated-because we need money of course. We live in a studio together, I'm afraid one or both of us may not make it through this pandemic. Every day we do everything we can, but all it can take is one slip. I am only one of many who share a similar story in the US and I believe it needs way more attention.

A lot of people have joked that there really is no "lockdown", there are just rich people staying home while poor people bring them things.

I'm not forcing people making $10/hr to work in a tight kitchen where social distancing is impossible. I'm supporting local restaurants!

There's definitely some truth to that joke.

Though it must be said that global lockdowns could end up doubling world poverty, according to the WHO.

So by trying to mitigate the virus through global lockdowns, we may have inadvertently doubled the size of the most at risk demographic group (aside from the very elderly).

Rich prefer more freedom and hence buy/live in Islands

"The richer you are, the more money you have in your bank account, study finds."

As I've gotten wealthier the amount of money in my bank account went up for a bit, but then it started coming back down.

Citation?

Yeah, sort of as a mockery to the OP title

Wtf is this research?!

People are dying and researchers trying to prove obvious things?! What's going on here?

I cannot understand what's the rationale behind this post. At either researchers going later to show that being rich also correlates with longer life and happier one as well?

What are all the inactivity happening in this country regarding the covid? Everyone seems content with their own life and comfortable with the obvious injustice and cruelty practiced between each other.

In China, covid is treated as a issue that matters above anything one can think of. If there is any trace of new carriers, any outdoor activities are strictly traced and managed. People pay a lot of attention and very careful about daily work and life. How is this country are content with understanding that richer people usually more respect the safety measure?

What an insane situation guys? Did you realize it?!

Do you have any suggestions for how an economist with this specialty could better contribute to the situation than doing research like this?

Do we realize it?? Imagine listing all the insane things happening in the US right now. It would take hours. It’s incredible how fast people can normalize things that not long before would have seemed completely delusional.

Chill out bro. You being stressed doesnt help you or others.

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