The new class of unemployed, the overly educated unemployed.
The new class of unemployed, the overly educated unemployed.
A friend of mine, who graduated from the University of California, is currently living in a van because he hasn't been able to find a job. Desperate to change his situation, he reached out to his county worker for help. Initially, the worker suggested the usual resources: unemployment centers and basic career services. But once he realized that my friend has a degree and no criminal history, it became clear that he was dealing with a different kind of situation.
My friend has applied to over a thousand jobs, yet he’s repeatedly told he’s either underqualified or overqualified, if he even gets a response at all. He’s applied for numerous state jobs, where he’s often met with initial interest, only to be ghosted later. The constant rejection is taking a toll, and he’s starting to lose hope.
In talking with his county worker, they came to the conclusion that he’s part of a new and growing class: the overeducated unemployed. Sadly, most of our current services are geared towards those with fewer qualifications, people who may lack basic skills, but that’s not the issue here. The problem is that, despite having the skills and education, nobody is hiring them.
As AI continues to advance, this class of unemployed is likely to grow. So, what are we supposed to do? What happens when the overeducated, who were once considered assets to society, can’t find work? In the U.S., unemployment often leads to homelessness. It's a harsh reality.
But there’s hope. This new class of unemployed is more capable of organizing than previous generations. My hope is that they can come together to form a union or lobbying group, advocating for the overeducated who are being pushed into poverty. It’s often a lack of education that hinders people from organizing, but this new class has that in spades. They need to fight for themselves and refuse to be dismantled like the previous class.
Thank you.
Feel free to DM me if you want to work together to fight for change!
Jobadvisor
1. Structural Breakdown in the Job Market
- The Algorithmic Black Hole: Automated Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) reject candidates for non-standard career paths or arbitrary keyword gaps. Human recruiters rarely see the majority of applications, leading to the pervasive "ghosting" your friend experienced.
- The "Overqualified / Underqualified" Paradox: Employers are increasingly hesitant to hire highly educated individuals for entry-level or mid-tier roles out of fear they will leave as soon as a better opportunity arises. Simultaneously, entry-level jobs now routinely demand 3 to 5 years of specialized experience.
- Mismatched Social Safety Nets: Most public assistance programs and county workforce centers were designed in the mid-20th century to assist individuals needing foundational literacy, vocational retraining, or basic work readiness. They are rarely equipped to offer specialized networking, resume restructuring for career pivots, or high-level placement for degree holders.
2. The Impact of Automation and AI
3. The Power and Promise of Organization
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Potential Avenues for Organized Action |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
| 1. Advocacy & Policy Lobbying: |
| • Pushing for updates to state workforce development programs. |
| • Campaigning for student debt relief tied to underemployment. |
| • Advocating for UBI (Universal Basic Income) or public-sector |
| knowledge-work guarantees. |
| |
| 2. Mutual Aid & Alternative Economies: |
| • Forming skill-sharing cooperatives and freelancer guilds. |
| • Building peer-to-peer job networks that bypass traditional ATS. |
| |
| 3. Legal & Algorithmic Transparency: |
| • Demanding regulation on AI hiring tools and mandatory |
| transparency regarding job posting legitimacy (ending "ghost |
| jobs"). |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
Immediate Practical Steps for Your Friend
- Radical Resume Functionalization: To combat the "overqualified" tag for non-academic or general roles, your friend might consider creating a functional (skills-based) resume rather than a chronological one, framing the degree in terms of practical project management, communication, and problem-solving rather than academic credentials.
- Targeting Non-Traditional Public Sector Hiring: While state hiring processes can be notoriously slow and prone to ghosting, targeting local municipal or regional utility districts directly through networking events or local civil service boards often yields better contact than online portals.
- Connecting with Mutual Aid & Housing Resources: Given the immediate housing crisis, connecting with local unhoused advocate networks or vehicle-residence support groups can provide safer parking spaces, community resources, and immediate solidarity.
Getting written up due to transportation issues
I agreed to work at 6am but due to transportation issues and having to take public transportation I won't be able to show up till 8am. I told my supervisor this 2 days ago.
Now the night before my shift I am told I am being written up. I understand I agreed to 6am shift but I also don't understand why I have to be written up. I know I am in the wrong but have been a sole asset to the company I work for and have done over time when needed. This is the first time I am "slacking off"
Not sure what to do or how to address this. Like I said I am taking accountability but think it's crazy. Any opinions on this or someone who has been in a similar boat?
Jobadvisor
Why Employers Write People Up (Even When It Feels Unfair)
- Coverage & Operational Needs: When you agreed to a 6:00 AM start, management likely scheduled operations, customer service, or shift handoffs around that arrival time. Arriving two hours late leaves a gap that others may have to cover.
- Policy vs. Performance: In many organizations, attendance policies are strictly rigid and managed separately from performance reviews. Managers often use write-ups to maintain "consistency" across the team so other employees can't claim favoritism if they are disciplined for similar issues.
- "Written Up" as Documentation: A write-up is primarily a record that an agreement (working a specific shift) wasn't met. It doesn't necessarily mean your boss thinks you are a bad employee, even if it feels punitive.
How to Handle the Situation Step-by-Step
1. Shift Your Mindset for the Conversation
2. When Signing the Write-Up
- Signing usually just acknowledges receipt: Signing typically means "I acknowledge receiving this document," not "I agree with everything written or think it's fair."
- Add an Employee Statement / Rebuttal: Most official write-up forms have a section at the bottom for "Employee Comments." Use this space.Example Comment: "I acknowledge that I accepted a 6:00 AM shift and was unable to arrive until 8:00 AM due to unexpected public transportation constraints. I notified my supervisor 48 hours in advance as soon as I identified the issue to allow time for coverage."
3. Have a Productive Conversation with Your Supervisor
"I understand that accepting the 6:00 AM shift and arriving at 8:00 AM causes an operational gap, and I take accountability for not being able to fulfill that commitment today. I wanted to clarify that my 48-hour notice was sent to help the team plan ahead, as I value my work here and always aim to be reliable. Because transportation options are limited at that hour, I want to make sure we set up a schedule moving forward that I can reliably meet 100% of the time."
Protecting Yourself Going Forward
| Action Area | Strategic Step |
| Shift Agreements | Avoid accepting shifts earlier than public transit reliably runs, even if asked under pressure. |
| Documenting | Keep copies of any written communication (texts or emails) where you gave advance notice. |
| Future Schedule | Formally update your availability with HR/management in writing to reflect transit hours. |
Boss told me I make too much money so he was putting me on commision
Years ago, I was working in a small auto repair shop, only two full time employees, plus the boss and a part time office worker. Boss always complained that I made too much money. So he decided I was going to get a raise, but he was going to put me on commision. I would only be paid based on the labor charged to customers for the jobs that I did.
So Monday, the first day of my commision time comes along, and I immediately get busy working on jobs left over from the week before. Paying jobs. In the mean time, the office is filling up with customers, and the phone is ringing constantly. Boss calls me up front, says he needs some help. I told him sorry, I don't get paid to answer the phone, or to write up customers, or to call in the stock order, put the stock order away, pick up or deliver parts, drive customers home, clean up the shop other than my own work area, and pretty much everything else that I could think of that I usually did previously, when I was paid hourly, but was no longer part of the "payable" package.
He said, "that's not how it works."
I said it sure is.
I had been there for almost 10 years and pretty much did everything except payroll. It wasn't a great job, but I enjoyed the work. But he was no longer very interested in the work part of owning a business. He would come in late every day, promise a bunch of work, then go to the bar down the street for lunch from around 11 until 2 or 3, some times even later, then come back and then complain that all the work wasn't done.
Sure, it was his place, he could do what he wanted. But if I was doing the work, I expected to get paid for it.
Being on commision only lasted a week or so, I went back to hourly, and got to keep the raise. Things got a little sour after that, and I eventually moved on to another shop.
Jobadvisor
That's a frustrating situation, and your boss's plan had a built-in problem. Commission on labor only pays for the jobs you bill. The phones, the stock orders, the parts runs, and the cleanup are real work, but they don't generate labor charges, so under that plan you'd be paid for the least of what you did. He was trying to get all the benefits of your skills without paying for the rest.
You handled it well. You didn't argue about his right to run his business. You just stated what the job included and what it was worth to you. A week later you were back on hourly with the raise intact, which says the plan didn't survive contact with the shop's reality.
Ten years is a long time to carry most of a shop's load. It makes sense that things got sour after that, especially when the person who wasn't doing the work was the one setting the terms.
Did you ever figure out what he was actually after with the commission idea? Was it about cutting your pay, or was he hoping you'd quit on your own?
Corporate Profits Have Exploded. Workers Are Getting Screwed. And We’re Too Busy Fighting Each Other to Notice.
Let’s talk about something that should piss off every working person.
Between 1950 and 2025, total after-tax corporate profits in the United States increased by approximately 914% after adjusting for inflation.
Over roughly the same period, inflation-adjusted hourly wages for production and nonsupervisory workers in goods-producing industries increased by approximately 80%.
Read that again.
Corporate profits grew more than tenfold in real terms, while workers’ hourly purchasing power increased by less than double.
And no, this isn’t just inflation. These figures already account for it.
So where the fuck is all that extra wealth going?
Because it sure as hell isn’t showing up proportionately in ordinary workers’ paychecks.
Where did all the economic growth go?
Think about how much the world has changed since 1950.
We have computers, automation, advanced machinery, global supply chains, and technology that allows us to produce things faster and more efficiently than previous generations could have imagined.
We’ve made enormous technological progress. Businesses have access to tools that make countless tasks easier, faster, and cheaper.
Yet somehow, we’re still telling ordinary people that the reason they struggle financially is that they aren’t working hard enough.
Work harder. Get another qualification. Find a better job. Stop buying coffee. Cancel Netflix. Learn to code.
Seriously?
Of course, personal decisions matter. But at what point do we acknowledge that individual responsibility cannot explain everything?
If corporate profits can grow by 914% beyond inflation while workers’ hourly wages grow by 80%, perhaps we should stop pretending that telling people to budget better is an adequate answer.
I’m not saying every dollar of corporate profit should go directly into workers’ pockets. Businesses have expenses, investment needs, and legitimate reasons to make profits.
But I am saying that we should be asking some serious questions about who benefits from economic progress and why the rewards are so unevenly distributed.
Workers build, manufacture, transport, maintain, sell, and provide the goods and services that keep the economy running.
They aren’t spectators watching the economy grow. They’re participants in creating that wealth.
So why are we so willing to accept a system in which the financial rewards of corporate ownership can grow so dramatically faster than the purchasing power of the people doing the work?
Most people can’t even afford a fucking house anymore
Let’s bring this back to something people actually experience.
Housing.
For generations, owning a home was a realistic goal for many working people. You got a job, worked hard, saved money, and eventually had a reasonable shot at buying a place to live.
It wasn’t guaranteed, and the experience varied enormously depending on where you lived. But for many people, it was an attainable milestone.
Now, in many housing markets, people can work full-time, earn a respectable salary, and still struggle to afford a home.
They save for a down payment while prices keep climbing. They pay rent that eats up a huge chunk of their income. They postpone having children or starting a family because the numbers simply don’t work.
And then someone who bought a house decades ago tells them they should stop wasting money on avocado toast.
You couldn’t make this shit up.
If housing costs hundreds of thousands of dollars more than an ordinary worker can reasonably afford, cutting out a few coffees isn’t going to solve the problem.
You cannot budget your way out of a housing market that has become disconnected from ordinary people’s incomes.
And housing is only one part of the problem. Groceries, childcare, healthcare, education, and retirement all compete for the same paycheck.
People aren’t asking for private jets or mansions. Many just want a decent place to live, enough money to raise their children, and the ability to retire without spending their final working years terrified of running out of money.
How have we reached a point where these basic expectations can sound like unreasonable demands?
What is the point of an economy generating extraordinary amounts of wealth if so many people who participate in it struggle to build a stable life?
At what point is someone rich enough?
Let’s talk about billionaires.
A million seconds is about 11.6 days.
A billion seconds is about 31.7 years.
A trillion seconds is about 31,700 years.
We throw these numbers around so casually that we barely stop to think about what they mean.
No human being needs a trillion dollars.
Not to live comfortably. Not to travel the world. Not to own beautiful homes, eat at the best restaurants, or provide for their children and grandchildren.
At that level, we’re talking about a concentration of wealth that is almost impossible to comprehend.
Yes, much of a billionaire’s net worth is tied up in stocks and other assets rather than sitting in a bank account. That is an important distinction, but it doesn’t make the concentration of ownership or economic power meaningless.
Meanwhile, ordinary people work for decades and still struggle to buy a home.
Some people work multiple jobs and barely keep their heads above water.
Others have to choose between paying a bill and dealing with an unexpected expense.
And somehow, we’re expected to see nothing particularly troubling about these realities existing alongside fortunes approaching a trillion dollars.
Question this, and someone will inevitably accuse you of being jealous or hating successful people.
No. There’s a pretty big difference between wanting to punish someone for being successful and questioning whether the rules governing our economy are producing a reasonable outcome.
I don’t care if someone is rich enough to live like royalty. Good for them.
But when the accumulation of private wealth reaches a scale that dwarfs the resources available to entire communities, while millions struggle to afford basic necessities, I think we’re entitled to ask whether something has gone seriously wrong.
The problem isn’t that some people have more money than others. The problem is when the gap becomes so enormous that people effectively live in different economic realities.
And wealth isn’t just money. It’s freedom.
It’s the ability to refuse a terrible job because you have enough savings to survive. It’s the ability to move somewhere better, take risks, start a business, or pay for an unexpected emergency without worrying about losing everything.
If you’re living paycheck to paycheck, your choices are much more limited.
That difference matters.
Why the fuck are we all fighting each other?
This is what really gets me.
People are constantly fighting about sexism, racism, religion, gender, immigration, political parties, and whatever controversy is trending this week.
Social media has turned outrage into entertainment. People spend hours arguing with strangers, insulting people they have never met, and treating anyone who disagrees with them as an enemy.
And for what?
I’m not saying racism and sexism aren’t real problems. They are. Discrimination matters, and people deserve equal rights and opportunities.
But we seem to have lost the ability to put things into perspective.
We can care about multiple problems at once. We can oppose discrimination while also demanding better wages, affordable housing, and a fairer economic system.
Yet so many people seem more interested in fighting someone who earns roughly what they earn than questioning why their own financial situation is getting harder to manage.
Why are we so eager to hate our neighbours while being so reluctant to question the people and institutions that have enormous influence over our economic lives?
Why do we keep treating ordinary people with different political opinions as our greatest enemies when we have so many problems in common?
A conservative working-class family struggling to pay rent and a progressive working-class family struggling to pay rent still have something important in common: neither family can pay its landlord with political opinions.
We don’t have to agree about everything. We don’t even have to like each other.
But we should be capable of recognizing that our disagreements don’t erase our shared economic interests.
Instead, we get caught in an endless cycle of outrage, while the underlying problems continue.
And here’s the really stupid part: people often defend economic arrangements that work against their own interests because they’ve convinced themselves that criticizing those arrangements means siding with the political tribe they dislike.
If someone proposes stronger labour protections, better access to healthcare, or policies that make housing more affordable, why should your first question be whether the idea came from someone on your political side?
Judge the proposal on its merits.
Stop treating politics like a sports team where your side must win every argument, even when you’re the one getting screwed.
Fix your own country before trying to fix everyone else’s
Another thing I find ridiculous is how eager people are to lecture the rest of the world while ignoring the problems in their own backyard.
People will spend hours arguing about what another country should do, how its government should operate, or which foreign conflicts their country should intervene in.
Meanwhile, people at home are struggling with housing, poverty, healthcare, infrastructure, and the cost of raising a family.
How about we get our own house in order first?
I’m not saying international problems don’t matter. Wars and humanitarian crises can be serious, and some situations deserve international attention and action.
But there’s a difference between caring about the world and constantly focusing on problems abroad while treating problems at home as someone else’s responsibility.
Your government has responsibilities toward its own population.
If people in your country cannot afford housing, why isn’t that a major priority?
If families are struggling to afford childcare, why isn’t that a major priority?
If people are working full-time and still living paycheck to paycheck, why isn’t that a major priority?
If young adults are beginning to believe that they’ll never own a home regardless of how hard they work, why isn’t that a major priority?
Instead, we often get endless political theatre, culture wars, and arguments designed to keep people angry at one another.
Foreign affairs matter, but they shouldn’t become an excuse to ignore the conditions under which your own citizens are living.
You can care about the rest of the world without neglecting your own people.
And you can criticize another country’s government without pretending your own government has everything figured out.
Maybe we should spend a little less time explaining how everyone else should run their country and a little more time demanding that our own governments address the problems we’re actually living with.
We’re living in completely different economic realities
Consider two people.
One owns several properties and a substantial portfolio of investments. When property prices rise, their net worth increases. When the stock market performs well, their wealth can grow without them working another hour.
The other rents an apartment, depends on a monthly paycheck, and spends a significant portion of their income on basic necessities.
When property prices rise, the first person gets richer. The second person may find that buying a home becomes even less attainable.
When living costs rise, the first person may have assets that appreciate in value. The second has to find more money to cover the same bills.
When work becomes unbearable, the first person can afford to walk away. The second might have to stay because missing a paycheck means missing rent.
These two people aren’t experiencing the same economy.
And this is why extreme wealth inequality matters beyond simple envy.
It’s about the distribution of security, opportunity, and freedom.
The person who owns assets has opportunities that someone who depends entirely on wages may never have.
And the more wealth becomes concentrated, the more important ownership can become in determining who gets ahead.
We tell young people to study, work hard, save money, and build a future.
But what happens when they do everything they’re told and still find themselves priced out of housing?
What happens when a decent salary no longer provides the security people reasonably expect from full-time employment?
At what point do we stop blaming individuals for failing to achieve goals that are becoming increasingly difficult to reach?
Hard work matters. Personal decisions matter.
But hard work cannot guarantee financial security when the economic conditions surrounding that work make financial security increasingly difficult to achieve.
We need to be honest about that.
So what the hell are we supposed to do about it?
I’m not suggesting that we abolish businesses, eliminate profits, or make everyone earn exactly the same amount.
Businesses need to make money. Investment matters. People should be able to benefit from their work, their ideas, and their willingness to take risks.
But none of that means we have to accept the current distribution of economic rewards as inevitable.
We can support stronger collective bargaining so workers have more leverage when negotiating wages and working conditions.
We can address housing shortages and reconsider policies that make housing increasingly inaccessible to ordinary people.
We can examine tax systems that treat different forms of income and wealth differently.
We can enforce competition laws, protect public services, and question whether productivity gains should translate into better wages, shorter working hours, or greater financial security.
We can vote for people who take these issues seriously instead of choosing politicians solely because they share our views on cultural controversies.
And we can stop automatically dismissing every discussion about economic inequality as jealousy or class warfare.
Because here’s the thing: the people benefiting most from the current economic arrangements have very little reason to change them voluntarily.
Some wealthy people support reforms, and some businesses treat their employees well. But we cannot build an entire economic system around the hope that everyone with power will always use it generously.
Rules matter. Institutions matter. Collective bargaining matters. Political participation matters.
And none of these things improves when ordinary people are too busy fighting one another to demand change.
We don’t have to agree on every policy. We don’t even have to agree on what the ideal economic system should look like.
But we should at least be able to agree that people who work hard deserve a realistic chance at a decent life.
We should be able to agree that housing shouldn’t be an unattainable dream for so many working people.
We should be able to agree that children shouldn’t grow up believing that financial security is reserved for people who were fortunate enough to be born into wealth.
And we should be able to question why an economy that generates so much wealth leaves so many people feeling financially insecure.
Stop fighting your neighbour over every political disagreement long enough to ask who actually benefits from the way things are.
Start paying attention to the policies that affect your wages, housing costs, and financial security. Hold politicians accountable, regardless of which party they belong to. Support workers who are fighting for better conditions, and stop dismissing economic inequality as someone else’s problem.
We don’t need to agree on everything, but we need to stop accepting that working hard and still struggling to afford a decent life is just the way things have to be.
If we want things to change, we need to stop treating the status quo as inevitable and start demanding better from the people who have the power to change it.
PS:
I don’t want to make it political, it’s strictly an economical rant.
TLDR: After adjusting for inflation, US corporate profits have increased by roughly 900%, while real hourly wages for production and nonsupervisory workers in goods-producing industries have increased by only around 80%.
In other words, corporate profits have grown more than 10 times as much as workers’ wages. Meanwhile, ordinary people are struggling with housing costs, bills, and the rising cost of living.
Maybe it’s time we stopped fighting each other over everything and started asking who this economy is actually working for.
Jobadvisor
This is a passionate piece, and the core idea, that the gap between productivity and pay matters, is one economists across the spectrum debate. But before you share it, the central statistic needs attention, because a skeptical reader will go straight to it.
The 914% and 80% figures compare different things. Total after-tax corporate profits cover the whole corporate sector, while the wage figure covers hourly pay for production and nonsupervisory workers in goods-producing industries only. Those are different groups measured in different ways, so the "more than tenfold" comparison doesn't show what the essay says it shows. Wages also exclude benefits, and profit growth is affected by things like the growing share of the economy that's corporate, changes in interest costs, and how depreciation is counted. You may be able to find a stronger version of the argument. The Economic Policy Institute has published productivity-versus-pay analyses, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics and Federal Reserve have data you can cite directly. Comparing productivity growth to compensation growth is a more defensible frame than profits to wages, and it still makes the point.
The essay also has some rhetorical choices that may cost it readers. The foreign-affairs section and the "stop fighting each other" section drift away from the economic argument, and the repeated profanity in headers may lead people to dismiss the piece before they reach the numbers. Those choices are yours to make, but if the goal is to persuade people who don't already agree, tightening the focus on the economic argument would help.
What would be most useful: a critique to sharpen the argument, a shorter version for a specific audience like a newsletter or a forum post, or help finding and citing reliable sources for the wage and profit data?