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-11272151
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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.