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PaperclipPerfector  17hr ago (text post)   728 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for April 24, 2026

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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Is everyone unemployed these days? 2pm on a wednesday and gym, grocery store, cafes, fast food joints at the local plaza are full. There's even a small line at crumbl. I don't think it's ever been like this in my area

A lot of people, myself included, who work traditional office jobs have a lot of flexibility when we have to be at the office, even if we're technically 100% in-person. I'm sure the government and some large globocorporations have detailed sign-in procedures, but no one at any non-governmental office I've ever worked at paid much attention to when you were coming and going. My father, who punched a clock his whole life, never understood how cavalier I could be about what time I got to the office, since being 5 or 10 or even an hour late never mattered much so long as I got my work done. Same thing with lunch breaks—I could and still can disappear for half the afternoon without anyone realizing I'm gone.

There are also a lot of people who just work odd hours. Industrial work, retail, and healthcare are the most notorious for this, but my neighbor, for instance, in a floor manager at a casino and works 3am to 11am, so she's home during the afternoon every day, and her days off are Wednesday and Thursday. A friend of mine who drives a tow truck for PennDOT works 4 tens followed by two days off, so his "weekends" are always shifting. Another friend who is a stationary engineer works a similarly goofy schedule. A friend of mine who does power plant outage work only works in the spring and fall, but racks up enough overtime to cover his expenses for the whole year. Teachers don't work much over the summer and have random days off. I have several friends who work for paving companies and are effectively off all winter. The idea that everyone besides young people, retirees, housewives, and the unemployed is stuck at work all day during the week is an overgeneralization.

Lowest non-COVID workforce participation rate in my lifetime, but that just means 62% down from a peak of 67%. Optimistically I'll guess there's just more and more jobs with flexible hours. If the nature of the work allows for it, a smart boss will realize that if you like to eat lunch at 2 that just means you'll be able to get back with less delay and there'll be someone around to handle any emergencies at noon.

Boomers aren't working - check prime age lfpr: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS11300060

Nearly at an all time high, and higher than pre covid.

God I wish that were me. Being funemployed that is, not being in line at a cookie dealer.

The US unemployment rate is about 4.3%, well within the target range.

The official unemployment figures are always heavily massaged. Look at workforce participation too.

It more misinterpreted than massaged - unemployment tracks people who are currently looking for work (at least notionally) but haven't found it yet. By definition - unlike, as you correctly noted, workforce participation numbers - they do not include those who, for any reason, are not looking. There are actually 6 official measures of labor utilization: https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t15.htm and plenty of unofficial ones.

It's been like this ever since Covid. Between remote work and unemployment and who knows what else, the traffic never abates. If I take time off work to run errands, it's an infinite sea of people clogging everything (and I doubt they have also all taken the day off).

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