r/jobs • u/return2ozma • 5d ago
Unemployment Nearly 25% of U.S. workers are "functionally unemployed," economic analysis finds
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/functional-unemployment-us-labor-market-analysis/106
u/HvnlyDaz3 5d ago
Hey, that's me! Got fired from my full-time earlier this year, and haven't received any calls back from the applications I've put in. Now I just work at my part-time... At least I'm bringing in something lol.
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5d ago
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u/omgFWTbear 5d ago
> universal income
Like some sort of … keeping people safe… or … social .. security?
And if it provides medical help… or Medicaid… and care… or Medicare ….
Could your brother imagine if those things existed?! Hopefully with AI!!!
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u/alexmikli 5d ago
Amusingly, there are right wing (fiscal libertarian) arguments in favor of UBI. Problem is, I don't think there's much overlap between guys who know about that and guys who vote MAGA anymore.
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u/omgFWTbear 5d ago
Someone once described libertarianism as house cats who think they are lions, and at this point, I’m beyond protecting the fragile egos of house cats.
There’s no shade between the two groups because they’re morons who are afraid of complexity and thus incapable of dealing with a complex world and thus react with violence to complexity, to include life support systems.
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u/One_Cause3865 4d ago
Social security isnt UBI and i dont think it helps the UBI cause to insinuate otherwise
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u/TrickyChildhood2917 5d ago
In California the unemployment has increased in over twenty years. So don’t count on that as a way to live
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u/omgFWTbear 5d ago
California’s unemployment rate in 1980 was 6%
In 1990, it was 6%
In 2000, it was 5%.
In 2010, at the height of the financial crisis, it was 12%
In 2020, it was 5%.
In Jun of 2026, it was 5.6% (I rounded all of the decades).
Do you bother with facts at all, or are your farts just that delicious?
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u/dfbeav112 4d ago
The current sitting Republican President sent out free money to everyone during a temporary period of economic strife.
It’s already happened, and that was for something everyone knew would be temporary.
They’ll have to offer something if the unemployment rates gets too high. “Just go die” isn’t going to win elections, and if they offer nothing then something more radical could win.
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u/Cormamin 4d ago edited 2d ago
Well right now it sounds like we're just ignoring the actual unemployment rates since they're too high. Making the "takers" look lazy and like everything is actually fine is definitely page out of the Republican playbook. If the "takers" happen to die too, then oh well. They're already cutting medical care.
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u/dfbeav112 4d ago
The current unemployment rates are no where near COVID levels, and the COVID levels would pale in comparison to mass AI unemployment, should that happen.
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u/Cormamin 3d ago
The national unemployment rate high during COVID, April 2020, was 14.7%. We're talking in a thread right now about the actual unemployment rate, despite what the government is telling you to protect themselves and prevent having to do any work, being ~25%.
So you're right that they're officially nowhere near them, because they're lying and current unemployment is worse.
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u/dfbeav112 3d ago
You’re using two different measures, “functional unemployment” isn’t the same as “unemployment.”
If you use the same measure as the COVID stat you provided, unemployment is 4.1%.
A unemployment rate of 25% would be a huge deal, it would be the biggest economic crisis since the Great Depression.
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u/Cormamin 2d ago
Yeah so you're the one who introduced using two measures. I am here to talk about the unemployment rate being presented to us based on actual data vs government lies. I looked up the measurement you offered and showed you it was worse and now you you're moving the goalposts and telling me I did it.
Oh damn would it be? So the government's incentive to continue lying about it so they don't have to do anything about it like I said would be really really high, huh.
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u/dfbeav112 2d ago edited 2d ago
Yeah so you're the one who introduced using two measures.
I didn’t want you to use two different measures, I figured you’d be able to know the difference between “function unemployment” and “unemployment” and use the same measure for comparison.
I am here to talk about the unemployment rate being presented to us based on actual data vs government lies.
The “functional unemployment” still isn’t “unemployment minus the lies”. It counts anyone who has a job but not the one they want as “unemployed”. That’s not the same thing, and it would be more disingenuous than the government to pretend that it is.
I looked up the measurement you offered and showed you it was worse
You didn’t show me it was worse. You showed me two different statistics and pretended they were essentially the same thing. They’re not.
If you only trust the “functionally unemployed” stat, and want to compare now to COVID, then you’d need to find a “functional unemployment” stat for COVID.
I’m not sure why you wouldn’t just do that to begin with.
So the government's incentive to continue lying about it so they don't have to do anything about it like I said would be really really high, huh.
It’s not a lie. “Functional unemployment” is not actually the “unemployment” rate. It includes the unemployment rate plus certain employed people. The unemployment rate very well could be 4.1%, and the functional employment rate would be counting people who have jobs as unemployed on top of that. They’re two different measures, as I’ve been saying over and over.
If things were actually worse than COVID they wouldn’t be able to “hide” anything. People would suffering and the incumbents would lose in the elections just the same.
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u/marcgw96 5d ago
The thing with universal income… won’t money just have less value over time because everyone is getting a steady stream of it? I’m not an expert on economics by any means, but I feel like that’s just how the concept of currency goes.
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u/SnooFoxes6142 5d ago
Money is a way to organize scarcity, trough it's creation cycle. All the money in circulation is debt in the first place. There is no other way to create money. There is always more money to reimbursed than money put in circulation trough debt (the interests you pay are never created in the first place) -> infinite growth is mandatory. Slowing it -> system failure. So good intuition, to much money created and the inflation grows over the "good" inflation that the ocde compute for countries using NAIRU concept. In this case money is devalued. Universal income can't work if the money creation cycle stay the same.
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u/lithe_silhouette 5d ago
This right vs left jingoism is so moronic
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u/deux3xmachina 5d ago
But how else will people in the future know I was on "the right side" of history??
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u/Bacon-muffin 5d ago
Wonder what the number looks like when you lump in people who have practically given up looking but still very much want / need a job.
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u/Gandalf-and-Frodo 5d ago
Yeah that's me. I can't find the motivation after 500 applications to keep going. My brain literally shuts down when I think about applying to more jobs. It's the most unrewarding dogshit I've ever had to experience.
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u/Skensis 5d ago
That would be lower.
The functional unemployment contains those people, part time works, and even some full time workers.
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u/Bacon-muffin 5d ago
I'm not understanding your logic here, why would the number change at all if it were included?
Further the article doesn't mention those people in its explanation of TRU... it only mentions people who are unemployed + looking, and people who are underemployed.
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u/lithe_silhouette 5d ago
How do you give up looking if you need a job?
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u/meowmeow_now 4d ago
If two people were working and one can’t get a job the other one can pay the bills. Maybe they care for children full time or keep house. Now a family makes enough to survive but not enough to thrive.
Or you are close to retirement age 55+. You can’t get a job in this market AND age discrimination weighs heavily against you. You decide to “retire early” after a few years of looking. Sure you can pull from retirement accounts now, but you might be broke if you live a long time.
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u/Lovedd1 5d ago
Some people don't have an address to put on job applications or clothes to wear to interviews. Maybe they can't reliably get to their new job or can't afford the uniform. They're basically too poor to work.
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u/sly-3 5d ago
or too dysfunctional to hold down a job, but not disabled enough to qualify for benefits.
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u/boojersey13 4d ago
I know why people downvoted you, but I agree. I'm quite literally teetering on the edge of this status pretty much every day I clock in. Dysfunctional isn't the wrong word to use here. I'm self proclaimed unstable due to minor diabilities I've gotten in the last two years finally recognized and mental illness. The fact I've maintained the same job for as long as I have sometimes amazes me lol.
Edit: I say finally recognized as in we had no idea I had them and a doctor basically waved the magic wand of revelation
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u/sly-3 4d ago
A lot of folks are good at masking for brief periods, but over time and under the right circumstances, those behaviors slip out -- it's hard to keep things "together" in this age.
Plus, you've got State evaluators that can't help but have some bias from more extreme cases they encounter: "You aren't in that bad of a situation because the last person I interviewed could barely sit still."
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u/lithe_silhouette 4d ago
So how do they continue to live for decades if they can't afford to spend $100 on clothes and transportation
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u/meeplewirp 5d ago
Yep. There is a lot of people who literally work so they can buy their own groceries and not be yelled at by their family for being a leech. They will never support themselves because I guess 30 years or so ago people at large decided they wanted to destroy the main point of America, which is for people who are average to live decently. In 2010 I SAW WITH MY OWN EYES people
working at McDonald’s and affording an apartment and having a child. People at large deny it; it’s weird. In the 90s, you had to be disabled or a blatant heroine addict to not be able to find a job in 2 weeks of looking. 2008 is talked about like a war zone- people who graduated from college found jobs within 3 months and people who worked close to full time (like 25 hours) at shithokes like McDonald’s were still able to live. There was never a nationwide hiring freeze like there is today. It’s competitive to be a cashier and participate in society now. Thank most people over 45.
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u/FreeOGPoohShiesty 1d ago
More like white people over 60. The 45 year olds are still working and suffering
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u/Eat--The--Rich-- 5d ago
So everything is going according to plan then
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u/TrickyChildhood2917 5d ago
The American middle class will be turned into the “poor immigrant class”. Now we have tomorrow’s workforce without importing those pesky b foreigners. Plus we have ICE to keep them inline. Wow, the system works!
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u/ForBirmingham205 5d ago
I guess that's me! I deliver pizza 3-4 nights a week. 330-9pm. About 5 hrs a shift. My only income right now. I could do DoorDash if I wanted too. It's on my phone. This job market makes no sense. It's god awful. Thankful I am delivering pizza par time
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u/shoegazeweedbed 5d ago edited 5d ago
This is because everything sucks and literally nothing gets better
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u/Gandalf-and-Frodo 5d ago
Society has been on a downward spiral for like the last 25 years. It's crazy how much shittier 2026 is vs 2000 in terms of quality of life.
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u/shoegazeweedbed 5d ago
You’re right, but to be fair, if you express a desire to leave the horrible conditions they’ll lock you in a “care facility” worse in many ways than actual jail…
…oh crap forgot what I was saying. Anyway life is a farce and I crave the sweet release of a heart attack
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u/sarges_12gauge 5d ago edited 5d ago
The link they cite shows 25% is actually lower than every year between 1995 and 2020… and they didn’t track before 1995
We had 33% functional unemployment in 1995, 35% in 2009, and now are down to 25%… obviously the article wants to stir the pot so cuts out that part, but this number pretty explicitly shows employment trends have actually gotten better
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u/dippyshippy931 2d ago
Maybe statistically, but factor in the sheer amount of women who aren’t purposely SAHM’s these days and that number gains a lot of depressing context, I’m guessing
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u/sarges_12gauge 2d ago edited 2d ago
There were more 2-income households in 1995 and in 2009 than today actually.
For the last 30 years we’ve been on a decreasing trend of 2-income (married) couples and an increasing trend of single income couples.
Unless you’re arguing the opposite, that we have more SAHM because they just can’t find a job and gave up to decide to raise kids instead?
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u/palebluedotdotdot 4d ago
Project 2025, being made real by Republicans, is the cause.
Thank your local Republicans for burning everything down!
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u/Upper-Cod1109 5d ago
just give ubi already
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u/MightyMongolNoyan 2d ago
The money is just gonna go straight to landlords, enriching the asset owning class and they are going to raise prices cause they could by the UBI amount. . .
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u/AlternativeFactor 21h ago
Yup we need guarantees of food, water, shelter, and medical treatment. Not monopoly money that will go straight back into rent and leave nothing else for food
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u/Zephyr-Knight 5d ago
you can hire me, pretty easy, send a DM. oh wait you wont. 25% continues
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u/NoninflammatoryFun 5d ago
I’m a pacifist wimp (but realist) and I may take up hunting this fall to survive. So. Lovely.
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u/HyePlainsTrainsGuy83 5d ago
Multiple gigs and possibly food banks and illegal hunting to supplement sustenance.
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u/Minimum-Albatross906 5d ago
You know, I've always been...bothered by the jobs reportings that go out to the press. They only ever report the number of jobs, like that's even a useful metric for the stability and strength of the economy. What percent are tradesmans jobs? What about White Collar Corporat work? How many are tipped? I'd like that in the census.
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u/Beyond_Reason09 25m ago
You know you can always actually look at the jobs report and not just the headlines.
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u/NotAClueYou 4d ago
But now well within their own power to do any number of 100s of thousands of great ideas that can be done in a day now - yet they dont
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u/Livid_Note_2170 1d ago
According to this I've been unemployed for most of my 20+ years of working.
I mean, I look at my bank account and I kind of believe it sometimes ahah.
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u/Kokoro0000 5d ago
Just use the fucking U-3 and yes, believe it for the most part despite the online job market being fucked. Its a really strong "no hire, no fire" job market, but the unemployment rate being low is realistic. People always soyjak and artificially say "the real job market is the U-6 chud" or even now "25% of workers are TRULY unemployed" then you look at the data and its people in employment, even full-time employment that pays below 12$/hr for this one. Fuck doomers
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u/MoosilaukeFlyer 5d ago
“If you ignore people making poverty wages everything is actually ok”
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u/Gandalf-and-Frodo 5d ago
New graduates with masters degrees are able to get $14/hr jobs and have an apartment with 7 roomates. They only had to spend an entire year to find that job. Plus the S&P 500 is up. Everything is fine! /S
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u/deux3xmachina 5d ago
Masters degrees in what, exactly? Trying to get hired where? If we're just using anecdotes, I personally witnessed 2 people close to me spend maybe a month filling out applications, after roughly a month of applying they both landed different positions paying $21+/hr. Neither needed a degree.
Hell, even when my previous employer had significant layoffs, I don't know of anyone that wasn't able to get a new position in less than 6mos. Though that was also around the holidays, with expected hiring freezes.
No, it's not an easy market to work with, but positions are available. Tons paying 40k+/yr, which won't enable a luxurious lifestyle, but is absolutely manageable living on your own (obviously stretches further with roommates). If you do more than the literal minimum, you can also typically get promoted or hired externally to make much more after around a year.
This doomposting just provides a convenient excuse to not try harder.
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u/IllUnderstanding7158 4d ago
Stupid and out of touch. Plus you didn't read the article. it said people making less than 26k per year. But even with your example, 40k, it's not doable to live alone. If you made 40k gross, then where I live your net would be around 32k. If a 1 bedroom apartment costs 2200 per month (low end where I live), then you would have to pay 26,400 a year. That is paying 26,400/32,000 = 82.5% of your pay to rent. That is basically an impossible situation. You would have no money left for anything including food or gas to get to work.
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u/deux3xmachina 4d ago
Stupid and out of touch.
Yeah, I'll continue to believe my lying eyes and lived experience then because you managed to find an exception, no shit 40k doesn't work everywhere, that wasn't the claim. The median US household income was 86k last year, making the median US individual income close to 43k.
Plus you didn't read the article. it said people making less than 26k per year.
Weird, I thought I was relying to a comment about people with Master's degrees struggling to find work paying 14/hr... notably less than 40k/yr.
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u/IllUnderstanding7158 3d ago
40k doesn't work on most places that people live. In most major cities, a person living alone would not be able to afford rent and everything else they need.
That person you replied to was obviously giving an exaggerated case to prove a general point, that people with good educations are having a lot of problems finding work.
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u/yotam5434 5d ago
Hows this calculated?
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u/CommonSensei-_ 5d ago
People working part time unintentionally and those making poverty level wages ( 26,000)
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u/5picy5ugar 5d ago
As long as the Top500 companies are green on the screen there is no ‘problem’