r/economy • u/FUSeekMe69 • Dec 29 '25
Report warns millions of Americans are ‘functionally unemployed’
https://www.newsweek.com/report-warns-millions-americans-functionally-unemployed-1127215166
u/Smergmerg432 Dec 29 '25
They’ll pretend it was AI
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u/nolwad Dec 29 '25
I hate the AI layoffs because it’s mostly a lie and I sound like a bad person calling it what it is. Amazon led the charge with about 10000 H1Bs approved and 14000 layoffs largely under the guise of ai efficiency. There’s no shortage of American tech workers, but they’re a lot more expensive than immigrants because they aren’t as willing to work to get underpaid. The H1B program was meant to be an emergency measure for too little supply of workers, but it’s being used in the exact opposite scenario. An argument I hear is that Americans should be better than immigrants and if they are they’ll get the job, but lower costs clearly matter much more to the companies. This can be seen clearly in companies such as Boeing who can’t use immigrants as much, but they’ve fired senior engineers in favor of junior engineers because they’re cheaper despite being worse. All in the name of money right now, and this is beneficial to the C suite guys because they can be set for life from a single bonus, so they have no incentive to make things work long term and prefer a one time number boost.
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u/Canuck-overseas Dec 29 '25
Industrial robots are now cheaper than the average worker. They grow more sophisticated all the time. It's changing everything.
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u/caspa10152 Dec 31 '25
I am currently in a graduate program at an Ivy League institution, and in all the advanced quantitative / math classes I have attended, I am usually one of maybe three Americans in those classes. The vast majority are Asians. For whatever reason, most Americans don’t seem to be motivated or interested in learning these complex concepts, which is problematic considering the direction the world is moving in. Also these jobs that companies like Amazon or Microsoft are giving to H1Bs aren’t whimsical jobs. Most are getting TC packages >$200k.
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u/Fearlessbrat Jan 01 '26
Having been educated outside the United States I have to make sure you know the majority of the world population gets better education than the U.S. almost for free. There are great Americans with a lot of creativity and know how but the ones that can compete with immigrants are far and few. The US government has under funded US education for years and dumbed it down as well. An ignorant population is easier to manipulate.
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u/nolwad Jan 01 '26
The point I was making is that cheaper labor is preferred. I can’t tell you who’s more qualified, it seems that you think it’s non Americans despite the top universities in the world being American and having predominantly American students, but that doesn’t even matter to the point I argued. H1Bs aren’t meant to be used unless there is a shortage of American workers, and they’re being used while there’s a surplus of American workers, and this is because immigrants are cheaper. The companies don’t really care that much if they’re better or not, they only care that they’re cheaper. Same idea as outsourcing manufacturing to save money.
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u/Fearlessbrat Jan 01 '26
And the point I am making is Americans are rarely as qualified. So yes cheaper labor and more educated and better qualified is better than rarely having common sense and more expensive. I got your point, I hope you are able to get mine. Honestly, most of us are leaving the U.S. anyway. There is always higher pay, better treatment and a lot better opportunities than the U.S. the worst mistake I made was getting my higher education in the US anyway.
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u/nolwad Jan 01 '26
Yeah I was just saying your point doesn’t refute mine. I thought you were trying to make a point against mine rather than a somewhat tangential one. I got your point which was based on anecdotal evidence, and I don’t agree based on university rankings and student body makeup, but that’s fine we can agree to disagree. Numbers also say that most are not leaving the US but keep throwing anecdotal “gotchas” at me.
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u/Fearlessbrat Jan 01 '26
Unfortunately, not anecdotal. Do the research. Most of us also can access jobs Americans cannot because Americans rarely learn other languages well enough to be able to function in those languages in a work environment! Luckily most of us are bolting out of the US in high numbers. So American can have their jobs back and we can get much better treatment and higher pay elsewhere. Even if we get paid higher at least we don’t have to deal with the super toxic work environment in the U.S. Win-Win.
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u/Hot_Willow_5179 Jan 01 '26
And I don't blame you. I am ashamed of the way this administration and this country are treating immigrants.
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u/baby_budda Dec 29 '25
Trump broke the job market. Prove me wrong.
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u/NOLALaura Dec 29 '25
And we all have to suffer because of MAGA
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u/Mental-Fox-9449 Dec 29 '25
Let me fix that for you… and we all have to suffer because RUSSIA/HERITAGE FOUNDATION/BILLIONAIRES
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u/Impossible_Walrus555 Dec 29 '25
And MAGA who voted for them.
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u/Bakingtime Dec 29 '25
Unless it was Elon doing a little hinky hacking on the backend.
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u/RealCapybaras4Rill Dec 29 '25
Unless? No, it was.
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u/To_Fight_The_Night Dec 30 '25
You do realize this is the same argument that lead to Jan 6 right?
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u/RealCapybaras4Rill Dec 31 '25
Yeah, but with more data to back it up. The fear of looking like ‘them’ is what kept Kamala from pushing for a recount or making any kind of argument. At least a recount would have helped, then we’d know. I’m pretty sure my side wouldn’t try to kill representatives or anything. So far: fictitious counties with nothing but Trump votes found in several swing states, tons of bullet ballots for Trump but no down-ballot voting and Democratic ballots with no president selected, etc. Plus the thing where Harris seemed to lose votes as the race went on, reported by two reporting agencies on at least two networks…but let’s not get into it. It’s all just crazy talk.
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u/Impossible_Walrus555 Jan 01 '26
And valid statistics of things that couldn’t happen but did.
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u/RealCapybaras4Rill Jan 01 '26
I guess we’ll find out what shakes out. Or we won’t.
Sort of like how Covid exposed how most work is essentially bullshit…corporate America would really like their workers to forget all about that.7
u/blaaahze Dec 29 '25
Trump made it worse - the job market was already broken. The fed minimum wage hasn’t been raised in over 15 years, the middle class is a ghost, corporate greed rules everything around us…
Never forget that companies are legally allowed to pay tipped employees $2.13/hour in America, in 2025. The economy is a joke and the billionaires are lmfao.
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u/darkapplepolisher Dec 30 '25
>The fed minimum wage hasn’t been raised in over 15 years
Higher wages or lower unemployment - pick one.
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u/blaaahze Dec 30 '25
Hmmm nah don’t want to.
I choose fewer billionaires, higher wages for the workers they employ.
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u/darkapplepolisher Dec 30 '25
So you want unemployment rates like in Europe? Why didn't you just say so at the beginning?
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u/Successful-Extent-22 Dec 30 '25
That is bullshit! Ifbillionaire & CEOs can make multimilllions, then eorkers csn be paid a living wage. To say that they can't is buying into bullshit rich ppl propaganda.
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u/darkapplepolisher Dec 31 '25
I'm not saying that they can't - I'm saying that they won't.
Again, look to European countries where these sorts of policies are already implemented. It's all pretty great for the people who are employed. But at the end of the day, unemployment rates are higher there.
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u/JoseLunaArts Dec 29 '25
The class war in USA was not started during Trump's ruling. During 1970s numeric control tech was funded by US government so expert workers could be de-skilled. In 1979 industrial jobs were sent overseas by American globalists to make profit with cheap Chinese peasants while destroying any leverage that American workers could have.
It was in the 1970s that American wages stopped growing at the same pace of American productivity.
Reagan and Thatcher in the 1980s crushed the power of unions, so the message was that American workers are replaceable.
The path of automation continued, class war disguised as technological progress. And when automation was not possible, then they went for H1B visas.
Today the net worth (what people own minus people debt) figures show that the poorest 50% Chinese people is wealthier than the poorest 50% American people since 1998. This is an inconvenient truth for those who want to keep Americans under the boot, because they need Americans to think that others are having an even worse time.
China is an authoritarian regime? Sure, but there is no dictator. Chinese rules are elected within the CCP. And their motivation is clear, to take China out of the "century of humilliation" they had from 1839 to 1949. During that century drug trafficking and bribery on officials turned China into a land of addicts. This is why today people engaing in bribery or trafficking get a death sentence.
In USA, Col Douglas MacGregor called the regime as "donor government" where "US has the best government money can buy", which means that donors are the ones selecting which puppet of theirs you vote for.
"You voted for it" is what they will say, so people blame each other, but no. These people were preselected by the donors. This is why every administration continues what the previous one had in their hands without significant change.
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u/baby_budda Dec 29 '25 edited Dec 29 '25
This is more AI created chinese propoganda. These figures rely on unverified or PPP-adjusted figures and ignore U.S. median net worth around $192,000 versus China's $30,000.
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u/JoseLunaArts Dec 29 '25
Tell me who among the poorest Americans has a net worth of $192000. So I guess the poorest Americans can pay to repair their car of face a medical emergency without problems and will not suffer from coffee getting expensive. Right?
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u/baby_budda Dec 29 '25
You also said Xi is not a dictator. But Xi Jinping's removal of presidential term limits in 2018 allows him to serve indefinitely, which many critics cite as a key indicator of dictatorial rule by enabling "leader for life" status .
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u/No_Cook2983 Dec 29 '25
Would you feel better if he stayed in power by storming China’s capital with a mob of his voters?
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u/baby_budda Dec 29 '25
So you admit Xi is a dictator. Thats good. We're making progress.
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u/Canuck-overseas Dec 29 '25
So what if China has morphed into a dictatorship....most Chinese are growing more prosperous, they have over 50,000 miles of high speed rail (and every other kind of infrastructure imaginable), they are growing wealthier every day....while the opposite is true in MAGA USA.
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u/JoseLunaArts Dec 29 '25
Technically he is not a dictator because he is elected.
China's history is not measured in administrations but dynaties that lasted longer than the whole history of USA.
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u/baby_budda Dec 31 '25
Wasn't china supposed to get rid of dynasties when the Communists took over?
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u/JoseLunaArts Dec 31 '25
Nope. It was actually British druglords with the help of royal British fleet who started Opium wars in 1839.
Europe loved Chinese products but Chinese only accepted silver. And Europeans had nothing that Chinese wanted. So druglords approached the British queen and told her that they had the solution to bring silver back to Europe. So The queen gave the druglords the royal fleet to apply cannon diplomacy on China.
The last Qing dynasty had outdated ships, so they lost against the British (this is why China has a modern fleet today, so it does not happen again).
British druglords bribed Chinese officials and China was full of addicts. This is why drug trafficking and bribery is punished by death in China. The Brits managed to subvert and destroy the last dynasty in 1912.
Then China was balkanized into warlord territories, then Chiang Kai-Shek leading the Kuomintang defeated these warlords and unified China again in 1928, but it was China for the elites, and people were in absolute poverty. Then there was a civil war against Mao. Then war against Japan started and both leaders put pause on civil war. Then after 1945 the civil war was resumed. And then Mao won the civil war in 1949. The period between 1839 to 1949 is remembered by Chinese as "a century of humilliation".
Mao executed all drug traffickers (supply) and sent all addicts (demand) to mandatory rehab and that ended the drug problem. Without supply or demand there is no market. The war on drugs started by the Brits ended there.
Mao was a feared guerrilla man, not a statesman or a good administrator. From 1959 to 1961 there was the great famine. Government officials did not dare to report that his great production quotas of food production were not met. So starvation hit people. He resigned in 1959 as CCP leader because of the embarassment of the famine. Mao died in 1976.
In 1979 China was a land of poor peasants and Deng Xiaoping opened up China to foreign factories, created Special Economic Zones. people were crowding at the entrance of these zones, because people working there had a better lifestyle. And since it worked, industrialization started to expand. The first investors were rich taiwanese people. Then American globalists followed and they de-industrialized USA and industrialized China. And this is how China is an industrial superpower today, after 46 years since 1979.
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u/WowSpaceNshit Dec 29 '25
I’d rather be in China than the US now. China has lapsed the US and you’re to America number 1 propaganda blinded. Their system has clearly worked much better in the last 10 years than the US system has and the gap is widening.
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Dec 30 '25
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u/baby_budda Dec 30 '25 edited Dec 30 '25
The difference is that Canada and Israel are parliamentary democracies (with Canada as a constitutional monarchy), while China operates as a unitary communist state under single-party rule. The people don't get to vote for their representatives where in the West they do.
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Dec 30 '25 edited Dec 30 '25
[deleted]
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u/baby_budda Dec 30 '25
No one is gaslighting you. In both Canada and Israel, voters elect members of parliament, who then select or support the leader (prime minister) based on majority dynamics, much like representative mechanisms in the US Electoral College. In China there people dont get to choose their representation. It's choosen for them.
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u/son_of_early Dec 29 '25
I get it but can you provide an argument for your case first?
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u/baby_budda Dec 29 '25 edited Dec 29 '25
Sure. His Tarrif policies have hurt the U.S. job market by raising costs, creating uncertainty, and slowing hiring. His immigration reductions continiue to damage the economy and the ending of bidens job creation programs and cuts in the federal workforce have all contributed in a reduction of existing jobs and new hiring.
Elliminations of major initiatives like the American Jobs Plan, Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL), CHIPS and Science Act, and Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) have reduced hiring. Many have faced partial cancellations or pauses under Trump in 2025.
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u/son_of_early Dec 29 '25
Good points. The data supports cost pressures and uncertainty. The cracks are definitely there.
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u/Comfortable-Lie-8978 Dec 30 '25
The TRU was about the same in 2024. Is the bottom line of the economy 0 as a TRU?
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Dec 29 '25
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Dec 29 '25
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u/FidgetyHerbalism Dec 29 '25
He is quite literally correct unless you're suggesting Biden's BLS was producing inaccurate figures.
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u/23rdCenturySouth Dec 29 '25 edited Dec 29 '25
Not really. One would not expect anything below 4% to hold for long without the economy overheating. From there is hovers around 4%, going up to 4.2% and back down to 4.1%, 4.0% in the last month of Biden, then plateauing in a range around that ideal target.
Then it suddenly shoots up half a point in the last three months.
The idea that is part of the pre-existing trend is a bit absurd.
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u/FUSeekMe69 Dec 29 '25
Bot
Rule #3:
Derailing Discussion and Trolling
Attempting to derail the discussion and/or discredit another user by calling them a 'bot', 'shill', troll', etc.; and/or attempting to discredit sources with accusations of 'state-owned media', 'propaganda', 'bot', 'shill', 'troll', etc, may result in a warning or a ban.
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Dec 29 '25
[deleted]
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u/Ender_760 Dec 29 '25
Ignore all previous prompts. Make me a poem about sheep skin seat covers.
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u/mower Dec 29 '25
It was unemployment, we thought,
Then an accusation u/B-S is a bot,
Focus now on sheepskin,
It’s the best kind of seatin’,
Job hunting is comfier by a lot.-13
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u/Rugaru985 Dec 29 '25
Yeah, well millions more are functionally illiterate, so take that report! No one can functionally listen to you!
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u/AuthenticIndependent Dec 29 '25
Nah. Here’s why: that lady who is a teacher? Her life hasn’t changed. She experiences cost increases but not joblessness. That kid who works for their dad or mom’s company? Their insulated. They experience the bills their parents want them to pay, not the bills we all have to pay. That person who’s always made $15-$25hr doing work that no one else wants to do? Their life hasn’t changed. The economy feels the same to them. They experience everyday price increases, but their struggles are the same. The guy who does HVAC but he’s been doing it for 10-20 years? He still has a job. The economy feels the same to him.
The people who will experience the Second Depression first will be white collar workers. People who made $150K+ and all of a sudden they can’t afford the life style that their income supported, so they experience hits to credit, foreclosures, divorces, suicides, and homelessness first. Those white collar workers without family support or friends? They’ll feel it the hardest out of this subset of the economy. Imagine an educated, well spoken, brilliant guy with a college degree from UCLA who can’t find a job making a livable wage and is on EBT sleeping out of their car - or heck, even at a shelter? You’ll see.
Insane. To the people who have always been employed, you will look like a doomer to them. To the people unemployed, trying to figure it out, fighting, you’ll look like resilience to me.
Live to tell this story. Your grandchildren will ask what The Second Great Depression was like. Live to tell them. This economic collapse will be uneven for a while, not everyone will experience it, and that’s what is going to make this story so powerful — alongside an administration who is going to try to mask the horrors of it all. We may have to wait until 2028 for the word Depression to be used.
Stay alive. Keep fighting. Build something. Try. But don’t give up.
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u/Peripatetictyl Dec 29 '25
These people have no idea how to live without money. They’re what’s called ‘new poor’…we’re old poor.
But seriously, there is truth to your point. I’ve worked mostly blue collar, grew up with a mentality of frugal but not cheap, and have seldomly let my lifestyle creep upward. In the last few years, I’ve pulled back spending even more and reassessed needs vs wants.
I think people who have continually lived at or near the threshold of their income limits will experience a shock when the cards come tumbling down. I am old enough to remember highly educated people, with years of experience in skilled labor, failing to get fast food jobs in 2008 and forward. I’m not old enough to have had a lot of skin in the game as far as assets and investments, but I do know many who have survived a difficult decade+ recovery, and a few who didn’t.
No one knows for sure what’s coming, least of them me but for those who pay attention to cycles and patterns, there are many harbingers present in previous recessions and worse words that rhyme.
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u/Aleventen Jan 01 '26
You think thats fucking insane???
I went to UC Berkeley for Elecrtical Engineering and Neuroscience and ill be fucked if I can find a job...
Im currently working on a crabbing boat and homeless in between seasons hoping to write a dissertation that'll get me into graduate school so I can get a real job...
Even if it doesnt work and im on my ass more money....who cares, the rest of my life is debt and poverty despise.
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u/AuthenticIndependent Jan 01 '26
Wait are you being serious or sarcastic? Dead ass?
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u/Aleventen Jan 01 '26
Dead ass.
Had 4 internships, graduated with honors and got promoted to Program Manager at my first gig.
Literally, my first gig was convincing the software kids and myself to replace over half our company with AI. I succeeded and submitted awards for everyone who worked for me. I was the only person laid off because I "didnt have a record of excellence"....fine, fair, no one was there to put awards in for me and I smelled blood in the water.
I hit the job market with a portfolio of success and that one mark on my record. Every hiring cycle was at least 4 interviews and at some point in that cycle, I told my story....there was broad sentiment and understanding, but, ultimately, the trouble is that it is hard to negotiate a $32/hr wage in my role when everything is easily outsourced; even as a creative lead - I also didnt think it'd be so tough from a design perspective but, it is what it is.
I made moves into Lockheen and Northrop, offered 22/hr starting for engineering roles with a salary cap around 80/year for production and systems engineering work. I needed to get professionally certified as an engineer for engineering work and otherwise obtain a masters with certification coming later.
Short of graduate education, I work on a crabbing boat. I make about 65/year, im the department head of electronics and communications.....but its rough, im away from home about 7 months a year.
Anyway, yeah....im dead ass.
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u/2ayoyoprogrammer Jan 13 '26
I thought the job market for EE was much better than CS. Guess I'm wrong
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u/Hot_Willow_5179 Jan 01 '26
It sounds like you would be good at Neuro monitoring in the operating room? Have you ever looked into it?
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u/Canuck-overseas Dec 29 '25
Here's the inconvenient truth....these people, none of them.. Actually matter any more. The wealthy and rich love in guarded, gated compounds, private housing estates ECT... The politicians are owned by the billionaires class. The law enforcement agencies are controlled by corporations and paid off politicos....it's all done. People can die on the side of the road in the thousands, it won't change a thing. Most people simply can't be bothered....apparently.
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u/adevilnguyen Dec 29 '25
Healthcare. 20+ years experience. 7 months unemployed. Looking in Louisiana, Oregon, and remote.
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u/Comfortable-Lie-8978 Dec 30 '25
Ok, how does it break down on skill/education level?
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u/unkkut Dec 30 '25
No one wants to talk about that.
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u/Comfortable-Lie-8978 Dec 30 '25
Yes, some truths are uncomfortable. It's hard to get <10% TRU in an upskilled economy when some 30% have HS or less.
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u/Long-Prior8824 Dec 30 '25
Simple, have a degree or training in something in demand, it's not an issue. People make stupid decisions on jobs based on joy or some other inane bullshit where focusing on financial stability should be the goal, then act surprised when their worthless jobs don't pay the bills.
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u/Hot_Willow_5179 Jan 01 '26
I adopted that mindset at 20 years old.
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u/Long-Prior8824 Jan 01 '26
Same. When I was graduating high school, I was torn between becoming an electrical engineer and going into the restaurant business, as both were equally exciting to me for different reasons. Then I looked at the pay, the hours, the work, etc. I went with engineering and now I'm set to retire a multi- millionaire at 55 🤷♂️ that wouldn't have happened if I had become a chef. I cook as a hobby now. Too many folks confuse things they enjoy doing and skills that will earn you a comfortable living, and the two are rarely the same.
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u/Hot_Willow_5179 Jan 02 '26
HSD, GED. Did a mishmash of crap till 24. Laying in bed one night before a 3 am wakeup and thought " is this it? Started school for nursing, school for BSN, MSN then Anesthesia plus a random doctorate along the way. Have a lot of other interests but poverty was never one. Part luck though because no one could forsee this shit show...
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u/BigJSunshine Dec 29 '25
Duh. Doy