U.S. had almost no job growth in 2025

https://www.nbcnews.com/business/economy/january-jobs-revisions-trump-rcna258398

by ceejayoz • 5 months ago

206 183 5 months ago

nbcnews.com

josefritzishere• 5 months ago

The US lost 600,000 jobs just in January. The future is bleak.

nindalf• 5 months ago

What?

America’s economy added 130,000 jobs in January, almost double the number that analysts had been expecting, indicating that the labour market might have picked up after months of apparent stagnation. Unemployment also fell to 4.3%, a slight dip from the previous month. The figures may put off the Federal Reserve from lowering interest rates as quickly as Donald Trump would like.

taeric• 5 months ago

I'm assuming this is talking about the revised numbers for 2025? And if that revised so heavily downward, hard to imagine the latest numbers are somehow more stable?

rybosworld2• 5 months ago

Yeah not sure where the 600k figure is coming from. But that 130k that's being reported is almost certainly not correct, and will be revised down.

The ADP is only reporting 22k for January. Which lines up very closely with the monthly pace of job creation for 2025 (~15k, on average).

The downward revisions on the BLS numbers for 2025 are the largest on record. There's a sentiment that the monthly numbers were purposely inflated for 2025.

lgleason• 5 months ago

Only a golden age for the uber wealthy.

morkalork• 5 months ago

Gilded Age 2.0

heathrow83829• 5 months ago

>> "Still, Wednesday’s report also shows that not nearly as many jobs were added in 2025 as thought and last year will go down as the worst year for hiring since 2020, or since 2003 outside of a recession."

Almost no jobs were added net and the few that were, were all in health care, 131K i think the article said.

what i find interesting is that unemployment percent still looks low. is it accurate? even if it's wrong, shouldn't it be correct on a relative basis? why isn't this number climbing?

Arainach• 5 months ago

US Unemployment statistics have a number of flaws, including not capturing people who are underemployed (taking any low paying job to try to make ends meet instead of working in a higher paying field they are qualified for) and not capturing those who are no longer searching for a job

baron816• 5 months ago

These data are also reported by the BLS: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/U6RATE.

It’s been creeping up for sure, but still historically low. And I’d attest that the headline rate is still the “real” rate.

nickff2• 5 months ago

I agree that the most-commonly reported 'head-line' numbers can be misleading, but more detailed statistics are available. One of my favorites is the labor participation rate: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CIVPART

You might want to look at the 'not in labor force' numbers: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNU05026642

pc862• 5 months ago

The second point is hard to quantify. If I just give up searching for a job and live off savings or government assistance, but I would take a job if I could find one, I should probably count as unemployed even though I'm not actively searching for a job. But if I am choosing not to look because I won't take a job, I am technically unemployed by the strict definition of the word but I don't count for what most people care about when thinking about the unemployment rate.

Underemployment is already reported and is distinctly different so I don't think it's fair to say that not counting someone at Burger King who has a Master's degree as unemployed is a "flaw."

jeffbee3• 5 months ago

US unemployment statistics capture both of those things very well and in great detail. BLS U-6 tracks "Employed Part-Time for Economic Reasons".

The idea that the BLS lacks detailed labor market data is just internet conspiracy slop.

elgenie• 5 months ago

The US tracks six different unemployment metrics plus overall labor force participation rate. You’re talking about U6 and/or labor force participation rate.

Just because U3 is the measure typically quoted doesn’t mean the others don’t exist.

mc32• 5 months ago

There are flawed, however, as long as the calculations are consistent then the numbers are reliable across time.

kjkjadksj2• 5 months ago

It also doesn’t capture those not on unemployment. Graduate undergrad or grad school and can’t land a job? Government doesn’t know that.

eli_gottlieb• 5 months ago

But I think in this case an aging population can hold down the official unemployment rate, even when there are no new jobs outside services for the aged.

add-sub-mul-div• 5 months ago

What stops it from being a more useful metric is that it doesn't account for someone who was employed with benefits five or ten years ago, but today has some crappy gig economy job with no health insurance. They show up as employed either way.

antisthenes• 5 months ago

Almost no jobs were added net and the few that were, were all in health care, 131K i think the article said.

I wonder what those folks in health care are doing, because (once again) after dealing with the US healthcare system, it seems like it's about 1% doctors, 10% other staff and 90% useless billing/scheduling/collections, designed to extract the maximum possible amount of money from a patient and provide the minimum amount of care.

More jobs being added in health care seems to be an indicator for it getting even worse.

aetherson• 5 months ago

Native population is declining (and prime-age workforce is retiring), and the Trump admin has been extensively working to reduce the size of the immigrant workforce.

So the unemployment rate is staying low, but the absolute number of workers is flat or declining.

dzonga• 5 months ago

it's almost telling how Super Bowl commercials tell the mood of the country's population and economy

latest edition was A.I, prediction markets, GLP-1s -- all indicative of a "Casino" economy where you know the odds are against you but you gamble anyway so you might become one of the few winners

the US is caught up in a weird middle - where its lacking labor capacity for essential manufacturing & other positive contributions while also lacking job making capacity

because all the money has gone into casino economy not capacity building

jonas21• 5 months ago

What do AI or GLP-1s have to do with a casino economy?

unethical_ban• 5 months ago

AI, being a boom with a lot of companies trying to make something out of nothing.

GLP, not sure.

thrance• 5 months ago

The last times so many tech ads made their way to the Superbowl was during the crypto craze and the dot-com bubble. These are symptoms of an overly speculative economy.

saubeidl4• 5 months ago

the US is caught up in a weird middle - where its lacking labor capacity for essential manufacturing & other positive contributions while also lacking job making capacity
because all the money has gone into casino economy not capacity building

What you're describing is referenced to as Fictitious Capital in Marxist thought: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fictitious_capital

schmidtleonard• 5 months ago

Brains turn off if you say Voldemort's name out loud. These ideas need to be rediscovered and rebranded.

realusername• 5 months ago

Reading the Wikipedia article, it doesn't seem to fit at all, this concept is mainly about finance whereas here the money went into actual companies.

The AI companies really did spend every last cent (and more) of this capital.

NoGravitas2• 5 months ago

"What you're describing is referenced to as Fictitious Capital in Classical Economics."

mothballed2• 5 months ago

I don't gamble to become a winner, I gamble to keep myself break even desperately trying to hold to some asset that isn't inflated into oblivion by misinformed economic and fiscal policy.

anonymars2• 5 months ago

I think this illustrates another pernicious effect of excessive inequality: where does it lure talent? The best and brightest, lured [to] speculation to ads to blockchain to AI to...

Edit: clearer word choice

saubeidl4• 5 months ago

Yup, it's the tragedy of the system we have set up.

There's a potentially civilization-ending disasters looming over us (the climate crisis, increasing escalation between the major powers, rising risk of insurrection due to mismanagement and inequality) and what are the smartest people of our time doing?

Making sure you click that damn ad or create technology that lets you create slop ads more easily.

gruez4• 5 months ago

But are you actually against inequality because not every industry is getting its fair share (whatever that might mean), or simply that you don't like the winners under the current system? In other words if the current bubble are for solar or fusion power, would you be like "darn, the inequality under the capitalist system is luring talent from enterprise SaaS (or whatever) and that makes me sad"?

palmotea3• 5 months ago

I think this illustrates another pernicious effect of excessive inequality: where does it lure talent? The best and brightest, lured from speculation to ads to blockchain to AI to...

Or finance. There was a pretty brutal takedown published recently: The Finance Industry Is a Grift. Let’s Start Treating It That Way. (https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/06/opinion/capitalism-indust...).

Basically the finance industry is pivoting away from actually investing in real businesses to more and more elaborate paper pushing schemes (that make them money, but actually weaken the economy):

Unlike Dawes’s Fidelity Fiduciary Bank, a modern investment bank mostly earns its money in a way that not even the bravest lyricist would set to music: providing advisory services, executing complex financial engineering schemes, trading stocks and bonds, managing other people’s money, issuing credit cards and so on. Assets get bought and sold, divided and packaged, and the bank collects fees at each step.
David Solomon, the chief executive of Goldman Sachs, could not sing to young Michael about the many productive uses to which he might put the tuppence because Goldman Sachs rarely invests in anything at all. Fostering economic progress appears to be beside the point.
Less than 10 percent of Goldman’s work in 2024, measured by revenue, was helping businesses raise capital. Loans of Goldman’s own funds to operating businesses accounted for less than 2 percent of its assets. At JPMorgan Chase the figures were 4 and 5 percent; at Morgan Stanley, 7 and 2 percent. Even the efforts at helping to raise capital are misleading, because less than a tenth of it goes toward building anything new. The rest funds debt refinancing, balance sheet restructuring and mergers and acquisitions.
These are symptoms of financialization. That’s the term for making financial markets and transactions ends unto themselves, disconnected from — and often at the expense of — the societal benefits that support human flourishing and are capitalism’s proper purpose. Chief among those benefits are good jobs that support families, and products and services that improve people’s lives.

giantg27• 5 months ago

That's more of a moral question. The best and brightest are the ones running the casino. Why would someone spend 8 years in expensive schools becoming a doctor when they can work as a developer or marketer for an online sports book? Morals on the consumer supply curb demand. Morals on the provider side can help curb innovation and expanse.

giantg27• 5 months ago

"because all the money has gone into casino economy not capacity building"

Executives won't build on-shore capacity when they'll just get undercut by off-shore shops. It's less risky to just outsource.

criddell• 5 months ago

Isn't that one reason for tariffs? VW, BMW, Mercedes, Toyota, Honda, Subaru, Nissan, and Kia all have some US or Canadian factories.

ls612• 5 months ago

???

How are AI and GLP medications in the same category as Kalshi or sports betting? One is (economically at any rate) a tool to produce code and the other is a weight loss drug that actually works. Neither are a “casino” in any meaningful sense.

irishcoffee2• 5 months ago

Nit: One is an appetite suppressant, not a weight-loss drug. It doesn't burn fat, your body does that part. You just eat less.

dlisboa4• 5 months ago

I agree. From the outside looking in the US seems to be in a very nihilistic mood, sort of "nothing I do matters anyway so I'll gamble away in the hopes of maybe hitting the only winning ticket out". People trying all sorts of moonshot ideas in crypto, day trading, live streaming, etc. The idea of slowly chipping away and climbing the social leader seems very distant from what I see.

NoGravitas2• 5 months ago

A lot of it is simply the rising price of housing and stagnating wages meaning that for a lot of people, the "chipping away" path their parents took toward home ownership is never going to bear fruit. Gambling and grifts of one kind or another are seen as the only alternative.

autoexec3• 5 months ago

I agree. From the outside looking in the US seems to be in a very nihilistic mood, sort of "nothing I do matters anyway so I'll gamble away in the hopes of maybe hitting the only winning ticket out".

However bad their odds are gambling it's often the case that it's still the best chance they'll ever have to meaningfully improve their standard of living.

jaredklewis• 5 months ago

GLP-1s are miracle drugs that (to my mind) seem one of the great accomplishments of medicine along side things like vaccines and antibiotics. They are a cure for all manner of metabolic conditions.

How are they a “gamble?” For patients, their efficacy rates are stunning. If you meant from an investing perspective, Eli Lilly and novo nordisk have very down to earth valuations when compared with AI companies.

Balgair• 5 months ago

I agree that their large scale rollout will be very beneficial on the whole. The US is absurdly overweight and obese.

But these are powerful medications that affect very highly conserved areas of tetrapod biology. We discovered GLPs in the mouths of gila monsters, after all. So you then can infer that that the mechanism is at least 300 million years old (our last common ancestor with lizards).

Actually, I tried looking this up, and glucagon is likely 5-600 million years old, back to all chordates, the Cambrian explosion essentially, though likely even before that. So, incredibly conserved. Like, if you are a multicellular animal, odds are you have some glucagon-like thing for digestion regulation.[0]

We're strongly messing with a system that is just tremendously old. Biology and evolution are ruthless about this stuff, it edits it out as fast as it possibly can. That it's been so closely held is a very big sign for us that we need to tread extremely carefully.

Like, clearly, other countries do not have these issues with weight. Yes, they are developing them, I know. But even the US didn't have these issues near as bad just two generations ago, a blink in biological terms. You and I both know that the solution is not a pill, but the root cause of the obesity epidemic itself. These injections and pill are just band-aids for a much deeper and more pernicious problem.

But then again, you and I both know that we're not going to get at the root cause anytime soon either.

[0] This is biology so you'll find exceptions everywhere though

tzs2• 5 months ago

I don't know what OP considers to be a gamble, but one thing that comes to mind is that from what I've read most people who succeed at significant weight loss while taking GLP-1 drugs regain most or all of the weight within a couple years if they stop taking the drugs.

I'm in the US and if my doctor had suggested such drugs before last year I'd have been reluctant because (1) they were expensive even with insurance, (2) just how expensive varied quit a bit from insurance provider to insurance provider and from plan to plan from a given provider, and (3) as I said I'm in the US, and so never knew for sure who my insurance provider would be next year and even if it was going to be the same provider I never knew what their plans would be like next year [1].

Starting a new drug that looked like it would be a "rest of your life" drug where the price could change year to year from reasonably affordable to painfully expensive would definitely feel like taking a gamble.

Now I'm old enough for Medicare, and they are something I would at least consider because Medicare seems to be less volatile. They are still expensive, if my understanding is correct, with the need to meet a deductible and with copays or coinsurance, but all that counts toward the part D annual cap of $2100 so there is at least a cap making it somewhat safer to make long term plans. (But Republicans in Congress want to eliminate or at least significantly raise that cap, so long term planning is still somewhat of a gamble).

[1] In the US around 80-85% of people under 65 who have health insurance that is not provided through the government get their health insurance via their employer's benefits package. Most of the rest get it through the ACA marketplace. Employers often renegotiate plans with their provider or switch providers when the old plans/provider prices go up. The ACA market is even more volatile.

jselysianeagle• 5 months ago

GLP-1s

How do GLP-1s indicate a casino economy?

yndoendo• 5 months ago

I would say the consolidation of small banks into the big banks has fostered this more the people want to admit.

Since banks like Wells Fargo bought up local ones, the equality distribution changes dramatically. Wells Fargo wants the big players while that little bank wanted local players. This causes the market to lack marbling in competition while creating a massive group think economic bubble.

coolThingsFirst2• 5 months ago

Idiocracy pretty much

AngryData2• 5 months ago

I don't think the US is lacking labor capacity, I find it far more likely that capitalists are just too greedy to manufacture in the US because it would make their dividends and bonuses and valuations drop a few points. They lose nothing by outsourcing everything, worst case scenario they are handed government money and bailouts, meanwhile their dividends and bonuses still pay out the entire time. If the company fails because of that? Like the last time GM cut pensions using the excuse of bad financials they gave all their managers and c-suite massive bonuses. If their financials are bad enough to cut legally obligated pensions, how can they afford larger bonuses? Didn't they need that money to keep the business running? Anyone in the company with the power to change any of those things is also wealthy and connected enough from all that to jump ship without a problem.

Labor costs are a minority of expenses even in labor-heavy industries and most corporations profit margins far exceed even "ridiculous" raises in wages and pay for their average worker. But there is zero incentive to benefit average employees and customers and every incentive to try and screw as many over as possible.

Why earn 5% margin on a stable growth path that will remain secure 20+ years down the line when they can earn 10% margin through exploitation and outsourcing and then jump ship and reinvest that money in other business later on.

senordevnyc• 5 months ago

My guess is that you don’t work in manufacturing and haven’t done any comparisons to see what it would cost to manufacture here vs other countries? Hint: it’s far more than a few percentage point difference. It usually means that you can no longer make a profit, because your product will have to be far more expensive than your competitors, and most people don’t care enough to “buy American” vs save a lot of money. And for some products, manufacturing here is literally just not an option at all.

duxup• 5 months ago

It’s funny too because the casino game that is being advertised…. most people’s sentiments regarding AI is very negative.

tk-1234• 5 months ago

If most of the capital is in the hands of tech bros who live out their fantasies from 1980s SciFi novels, it is going to be misallocated.

The fake economy is now about AI, gambling and cryptocurrencies. It does not help that the current administration contains several Epstein disciples when Epstein was into these tech fantasies as well.

The misallocation of capital claims to grow the pie, but it dilutes the pie with fake growth so people that own the fake parts have more money to buy up the good parts.

jimmaswell2• 5 months ago

Anyone lumping AI in with gambling and crypto scams has their head firmly in the sand. The value in making it easier to make computers do things for you is plainly obvious. People all across the tech literacy spectrum are seeing benefits, from coding projects that took days or weeks taking minutes to hours to finish to soccer moms telling their phones to fix up family photos and find them the email from the doctor's that's buried in their inbox. Competent doctors are getting help catching things from scans/symptoms that would take House MD to connect but are a breeze for an LLM, and there are numerous reports of people figuring out their own longstanding obscure medical issues by asking an LLM to speculate on their symptoms after a hundred doctors failed to diagnose it. Someone who can't afford to get ripped off by a mechanic and doesn't have the spare hours in the day and technical knowledge to Google it the old-fashioned way has a decent chance of solving simple car problems instantly on their own by asking ChatGPT or Gemini. It's frankly a miracle, and it keeps making more leaps and bounds every time the peanut gallery starts going on about it having hit a wall it can never improve from.

giantg27• 5 months ago

"Anyone lumping AI in with gambling and crypto scams has their head firmly in the sand."

I disagree. While some AI related stuff is promising, much of it is consumerist or data harvesting. Many people are basically gambling on any sort of stock related to AI (vs diversifying). Education is likely declining as adoption allows students to avoid critical thought or applying concepts.

"It's frankly a miracle, and it keeps making more leaps and bounds every time the peanut gallery starts going on about it having hit a wall it can never improve from."

Explainable by engineering isn't a miracle. It's just an expanse on neural nets and the other predecessors from 30 years ago. In my experience, it has trouble following basic directions such as keeping a summary to a single page.

TimorousBestie• 5 months ago

On the other hand, it’s not clear if any of it is sustainably profitable. Zitron has done a lot of reporting in this area, but since he’s “controversial” let’s stick with Forbes and the case of Sora (2025):

https://www.forbes.com/sites/phoebeliu/2025/11/10/openai-spe...

As far as I can tell, the math isn’t getting any better. The financial costs of running an AI service are enormous and it’s not clear where sufficient revenue is going to magically come from once the aggressive loss-leading ends.

a_better_world• 5 months ago

sounds a bit like https://thechoiceengine.substack.com/p/the-strip-mining-of-t...

"The strip mining of trust" is a metaphor describing the unsustainable extraction of social capital—honesty, reputation, and goodwill—for short-term, selfish efficiency or profit. Similar to ecological destruction, this process erodes long-term, foundational trust, leaving behind hollowed-out institutions and requiring massive future effort to restore.

llmslave• 5 months ago

Even worse, look at white collar job growth among american citizens. It has been negative for years

mrtksn• 5 months ago

The content is the same as this article but the headline on Yahoo Finance is: "Jobs report smashes expectations as payrolls grow by 130,000"

There's no chance for survival just by glancing over the headlines.

ceejayoz4• 5 months ago

That's noted in this article:

One bright spot was last month, when hiring increased by 130,000 roles. This was significantly more than the 55,000 additions that had been expected by economists.

But that's 2026 hiring, and the article's about the 2025 revisions. (And the January number, as they all do, may get revised in a few months.)

master_crab2• 5 months ago

If I recall, the numbers almost always get revised down.

kingkawn• 5 months ago

If all of 2025 was overestimated, possibly for political purposes, then why believe that the 2026 numbers are accurate?

dgb232• 5 months ago

Also 130'000 seems to be moderate. It beats expectations but is only slightly above what is needed to keep employment stable.

JohnTHaller2• 5 months ago

Word on the street is that the January number is about to get revised down by a lot. Time will tell.

Me1000• 5 months ago

ADP is reporting only 22,000: https://adpemploymentreport.com

kleiba• 5 months ago

This is the White House's spin: https://www.whitehouse.gov/articles/2026/02/this-is-the-trum...

luckydata• 5 months ago

whoever believes the jobs report coming out of this administration is a complete fool.

oytis2• 5 months ago

US population has also barely grown so that us fine?

ceejayoz4• 5 months ago

Newborn babies don't go straight into the labor market.

pc862• 5 months ago

Newborn babies don't go straight into the labor market yet.

oytis2• 5 months ago

What about working population? Did it grow?

I thought much of a slow population growth is due to lower immigration, not declining birth rates?

toomuchtodo3• 5 months ago

~400k workers leave the labor force through retirement or death every month, as a data point.

lateforwork• 5 months ago

Any jobs data coming from the government is worthless, because gov employees will be fired for anything that makes Trump look bad. See link below.

https://www.urban.org/urban-wire/why-firing-bls-commissioner...

JohnMakin2• 5 months ago

Just a weird, completely unscientific personal metric I've used to note that the economy seems like it's shrinking - last year was the first year I've seen since the release of the original switch where switch/switch 2 was not constantly sold out (usually poached by resellers early in the AM) every time I visit target. There's a full shelf of them since late last summer. Unless nintendo actually produced enough units for the first time in recent company history, I suspect it indicates something.

ta9000• 5 months ago

It doesn’t help that the Switch 2 library is woefully inadequate.

PlatoIsADisease2• 5 months ago

This didn't affect Wii, WiiU, Switch or Switch 2.

Either people are waking up that Nintendo is selling nostalgia or the economy is not doing well.

I hope the former, there is something that feels sick to think Nintendo force fed corporate mascots to me when I was under the age of 1. To this day, I religiously buy Zelda games, even though I haven't enjoyed them since N64. FOMO mind control.

gruez4• 5 months ago

last year was the first year I've seen since the release of the original switch where switch/switch 2 was not constantly sold out (usually poached by resellers early in the AM) every time I visit target. There's a full shelf of them since late last summer.

Don't you expect demand to taper off as more people get their hands on it? It also doesn't help that the switch 2 is basically "the switch, but better".

kjkjadksj2• 5 months ago

Do you remember switch 1 or wii demand?

JohnMakin2• 5 months ago

This never happened with the switch. I am not kidding. 2023 I was trying to buy one for my sister, and it took me months of waiting for target to open and beating the resellers to it, because I didn't want to overspend online (plus online stock frequently sold out). It was released in 2017!

Nintendo is notorious for under producing their consoles vs demand in recent years - the worst example was the mini NES or whatever they called it, they could not keep it on shelves for that one either.

palmotea3• 5 months ago

last year was the first year I've seen since the release of the original switch where switch/switch 2 was not constantly sold out (usually poached by resellers early in the AM) every time I visit target. There's a full shelf of them since late last summer. Unless nintendo actually produced enough units for the first time in recent company history, I suspect it indicates something.

Well, I remember the same thing happening with the Wii for a long time, and then eventually it was easily available.

But now I can't find a Wii at a Target anywhere, so the economy must be booming?

deron12• 5 months ago

Unscientific indeed:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-10-17/nintendo-... [0]

They produced a record number...your observation should be the expected result (they are aiming to produce 25% more than are expected to sell).

[0] https://archive.is/RInO7

legitster• 5 months ago

Yeah, Switch 2 sales are actually outpacing Switch 1 sales.

snovymgodym• 5 months ago

Gaming technology is kind of stagnant, and there aren't the sort of technical leaps between generations anymore. Games today look and feel like games from 2014 with slightly better graphics (and more aggressive monetization).

The Switch has been out since 2017 and has probably reached market saturation at this point. Keep in mind that consoles are pretty durable and lots of people buy used. The Switch 2 isn't selling well yet since it has the PS3 disease (no games).

Anyways, the economy is probably bad but I don't think Nintendo Switch sales are much of an indicator for that.

mschild2• 5 months ago

The Switch 2 is selling incredibly well.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/conormurray/2025/11/04/nintendo...

Larrikin• 5 months ago

Nintendo indicated when the Switch 2 was launching that they were going to do their best to ensure a large supply and make sure actual players were prioritized. They did not want resellers to be profitable and did not want to create a situation like the PlayStation.

It still sold out and was a little difficult to get on release, but consoles came out at a pretty quick pace and resellers basically could not unload their stock for a profit. It became a bit of a joke about the resellers not being able to unload their stock because stores were getting replenishment stocks so often and Nintendo was constantly sending out emails to players saying they had been selected to buy directly from Nintendo.

I had my personal Switch 2 from the store within about a month of casual checking around and got one for a Christmas gift directly from Nintendo the next week.

mullingitover3• 5 months ago

May as well call this what it is: stagflation.

The anemic employment market calls for lower rates, but inflation still persistently being 50% higher than it should be calls for rate hikes.

My prediction: this inflation isn't going away without viciously painful rate hikes. It'll probably get worse.

martythemaniak• 5 months ago

With Trump appointing himself Fed chair after jpow's term is over get ready for jazz hands more unprecedented times!

xnx2• 5 months ago

Stagflation or vibecession? Surveys say people feel down about the economy, but their spending says otherwise.

dlisboa4• 5 months ago

Obviously not a macroeconomic analysis but if you watch YouTube channels like Caleb Hammer it seems people are literally spending their life away. No planning, no asset building, just hedonistic stuff. The kind of people you see there have the mentality of: "I'll never pay this debt down anyway so I'll max out my loans to do what I want before I die". Not very optimistic, even if it inflates the consumer market.

mullingitover3• 5 months ago

I don't think "U.S. Jobs Disappear At Fastest January Pace Since Great Recession"[1] is vibes.

The future picture on inflation also looks bleak[2]:

Taken individually, lagged tariff pass‑through, tightening labor supply, looser fiscal policy, and accommodative financial conditions would each push inflation modestly higher. Taken together—and interacting with increasingly fragile household inflation expectations—they create a macro environment in which inflation rising above 4 percent by the end of 2026 is not only plausible but arguably the most likely scenario.

It's common knowledge that the spending in the current economy is very K-shaped: the top 10% are the only ones staying above water.

[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/mikestunson/2026/02/05/us-jobs-...

[2] https://www.piie.com/blogs/realtime-economics/2026/risk-high...

alphawhisky• 5 months ago

Look into Doom spending. Excessive spending is actually a psychological response to hardship for consumers in 1st world countries. It's a documented phenomenon that has happened in the past and is exacerbated by social media, gamification of wealth, and general incompetence (all of which are on the uptrend).

tencentshill2• 5 months ago

Those 2 groups are increasingly separate populations.

bryanlarsen• 5 months ago

Spending is up in the top 10% and down in the bottom 90%. Average spending is up, median spending is down, adjusted for inflation.

kilroy1232• 5 months ago

I personally think we'll end up in a depression.

misterbishop2• 5 months ago

We're living through an extended recession statistically masked by the AI bubble.

ChrisArchitect• 5 months ago

U.S. jobs disappear at fastest January pace since great recession

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46925669

bitwize• 5 months ago

The economy is getting one-shotted by AI.

JohnTHaller2• 5 months ago

Word on the street is the January numbers are about to get revised down by a good bit.

kd913• 5 months ago

The US job stats were revised down for 2025 to 181k, but somehow the Country gained 130k in January?

Is anyone looking at this and the CBO figures and not just realising the government is straight lying about the figures?

Gonna believe Powell and Waller on this one.

keeda• 5 months ago

I've mentioned this before (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45987316), but I follow a labor economist on LinkedIn who puts things into a balanced perspective. The thing he reminds us often is you can't take these numbers in isolation.

Job numbers need to be considered in the context of a lot of other numbers, including population growth. As the other top thread yesterday highlighted, the US is experiencing slowing population growth, which may also have been exacerbated by the recent upheavals in immigration.

I may be butchering the theory here, but the point is that the economy is a dynamic, inter-connected system, and a smaller population requires fewer jobs. (As a silly example, you need many more car mechanics for a town with a population of 1000 as opposed to a population of 100.) That actually has implications for GDP growth as well.

That's not to say the overall economy is doing great, just that these job numbers should not be taken as a complete indicator of it.

dk8996• 5 months ago

I've been tracking number of post in "Who wants to be hired", this month has been the highest I a few years

1vuio0pswjnm7• 5 months ago

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/11/business/economy/after-a-...

1Q 2026: 130,000 jobs added, unemployment 4.3%

"It is true that some of the fields that have been adopting A.I. fastest - such as information and professional and business services - have been shedding jobs. That is also partly because those fields hired much more quickly during the pandemic years, and have been going through a correction."

IT, finance losing jobs

Non-IT, non-finance, e.g., healthcaare, gaining jobs

U.S. had almost no job growth in 2025

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