those who are jobless, Americans seeking but unable to secure full-time employment, and individuals earning "poverty wages," defined as $26,000 or less annually
for the lazy
this post was submitted on 27 Dec 2025
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Underemployment has always been an ignored statistic. The media and government report a single number as some sort of status of the economy, when it's so much more complex than one data point.
I agree with you as well of the spirit of what the study in the article is trying to do, but I do object to the terminology they used, as it muddies the waters unnecessarily. A term like "underemployed" is much better than "functionally unemployed."
A term like “underemployed” is much better than “functionally unemployed.”
that's because you're not as used to using the word "functional" as i am.
Doesn't help that the average American information source an entertainment venue in a "news" costume.
It's not schiz. It's about how we measure "the economy". There are lots of ways, and the one that Newsweek (and all mainstream voices) use has nothing at all to do with the wellbeing of people. It only measures the wellbeing of shareholders.
This. Tech bros, Bit coin promoters and and all the sycophants who huff their farts are not "the economy." People who actually make things are the economy.
Usually when the news media talk about "the economy," they're not talking about the financial well-being of workers, or the average citizen. They're talking about how much extra money corporations and the ultra wealthy are making. If every time you read about the economy you mentally transpose the words "the economy" with "rich people's yacht money" what they're writing about becomes a lot clearer.
- "Everyone is being paid such ridiculous poverty wages that they are functionally unemployed."
- "Rich people have tons more yacht money."
They're not actually opposing statements. One is a direct result of the other.
In my area the job market has been bad for a couple of years. It’s getting way worse now though. It’s frustrating how the media never talks about how post 2008 the job market forced large portions of people into underemployment and low pay
The excuse I always heard was the affordable care act made it to expensive for companies to keep most workers 40 hours a week. All my friends in the service industry went from one full time job, to 3 part time jobs. Worse hours and pay.
nobody wants to hire anymore
line must go up, paying people fairly for their labor might make line go up slightly less than it could
No shit, have you seen how much money they are asking for?
I seen a comment on the other site saying "the verified, tax-paying EMPLOYMENT level, as opposed to Unemployment level, is currently 53%"
Would be interesting to see what that level has been at through the years to get an idea of where we actually stand.
I know the current unemployment reporting is completely inadequate with gig work/underemployment and people simply giving up not being counted in the official numbers.