Discussion

US economy unexpectedly sheds 92,000 jobs in February

chazburger: And yet the fed refuses to lower interest rates

paxys: If the government-approved numbers are this bad the real ones must be catastrophic.

roenxi: > It marked the biggest monthly job loss since October, when the US government shut down, and came amid concerns that a jump in oil prices sparked by the US-Israel war in Iran could threaten growth.It seems like a stretch to say anyone was pro-actively fired on the speculation that a war could break out in the middle east; so the war is probably unrelated. That said, if the Strait of Hormuz stays closed for any length of time then something pretty drastic could happen to employment in the future tense.

mcntsh: Wasn't this always the idea behind combating inflation? At the end of the day you need to make people poorer to make the dollar worth more...

imzadi: I would like to know how much contraction is normal. I assume there's always some contraction around that time, because the holiday season is ending and the temp workers are being let go. I didn't see any mention of this in the article though (or I missed it).

squidbeak: > US economy >> unexpectedly << sheds 92,000 jobs in February

gigatexal: What a favorable headline. In reality everyone knows why the economy isn’t growing: Trump’s policies are paradoxically anti business given his public persona of this big bad amazing businessman. The guy failed at selling steaks in America. In America.

dfxm12: I think failing at gambling (especially at a time when like 2 cities had a monopoly on gaming in the US) is bigger proof of his lack of acumen.

ChoGGi: Unexpectedly, if you've been in a coma for the past year.Let's raise tariffs again.

jacknews: Exactly, massive price increases with the fake tariffs, hiring freezes because 'AI can do it all', who knew these things might affect jobs?

drooopy: Nothing unexpected about it.

testfrequency: I do not see the tourism industry mentioned here but I have to imagine that is a huge loss right now.Most of the world is not visiting the US right now which means projects and planning that was made in anticipation for summer has probably been halted or heavily reduced.

masklinn: Any business which exports especially to Canada (because oddly between tariffs and repeated threats of invasion US products and services are not seen in a positive light), likewise any business up or downstream of mostly immigrant workforces.

buckle8017: Ok but was the expected loss 60k or 0?Makes a big difference.

bilbo0s: Well the data says:2022, gained 678,000 jobs in February (Doesn't really count, global economy was emerging from Covid shutdowns.)2023, gained 311,000 jobs in February2024, gained 275,000 jobs in February2025, gained 151,000 jobs in February (This seems to be the point of discontinuity with gains only about half of what were typically expected.)2026, lost the 92,000 we're talking about. (Obviously, we had expected a gain.)

0x_rs: Not happening with oil skyrocketing.

cc-d: daddy needs his juice https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=YXXt48oQ8BY

nixass: "Trump being president" and "unexpected loss of jobs" does not fit together.

cc-d: we juiced this shit up hard. the vast majority of these jobs were never necessary and exist only to serve dad's power objectivesback to mommies with ye!

nemomarx: I believe it was expected to grow by 50k jobs?

Lambdanaut: Correct, and it is also the first 5-month long contraction of US employment since 2010 after the subprime mortgage crisis.

ck2: hey I know lets spend billon per day on war of choice for no reason for rest of year and make gas $5&#x2F;gallon so even people who don't drive have to pay more for trucks going to stores and deliveryoh and make old&#x2F;ill people somehow work until they are sixty-five to get any food or medical assistancethat should fix things right upxmas economic implosion inbound

metalliqaz: "Unexpectedly" to nobody with an actual job.

mekdoonggi: Makes sense. At the rate we're going, by 2028 the US is going essentially be Venezuela except AI instead of oil.

giraffe_lady: Ironically probably more like iran but with evangelical christianity instead of shia islam.

idiotsecant: Oh sure higher inflation will definitely solve this

cheesecompiler: There is a significant majority of people in Canada who not only vocally decided to not go to US but discourage their friends from doing so too. People have judged me for driving through the states.

zelphirkalt: Seems like many people here in Germany also don't want anything to do with the US any longer as well. I myself wouldn't go to the US, even before Trump, and recently also heard from someone else, who wants to travel around the world, that they will not be visiting the US, due to what is going on over there. Just 2 anecdotes, N=2 of course, but I can imagine many people sharing the worries or concerns about visiting the US.

TwoNineA: Statistics Canada has over the last year shown that tourism to US from Canada is down by a lot and it's not getting better. Hell, as an anecdote, I keep seing ads on TV like: Come to Disneyland! We got rebates for canadians!

knorker: It's going to be 92,001 after they fire whoever reported something to make dear leader look bad.

boringg: Why is this on the top of hackernews? Are differentials on the US economic jobs report something that is such a part of the zeitgeist that its on #1 spot on hackernews?Or is this a arms-length litmus test for AI taking jobs away and trying to re-enforce that argument? Either way it isn't definitive.Alternatively are we all muddling through and trying to find whats ground truth? Or is just a slow news day.

idiotsecant: Uh oh someone read something that made them grumpy

dmos62: An acquaintance had his phone taken away at a US airport by a border guard (or whatever you call them) for inspection. The guard went through his messaging apps, read chats. I understand the necessity for occasional physical searches for contraband or what have you, but reading private conversations is beyond what I can stomach. That, together with the infamous case of some guy being forbidden entry to US because he had the wrong meme on his phone, feels like Soviet Union bullshit. Actually, now that I mention this, reading my messages is fine compared to looking through my photos. I find it insane that this is happening in a first world country. I'm not a fan of hyperboles, but, man, this is just like what I'm told Soviet Union was like. I think I'll be skipping events in US for the next decade or so.

SecretDreams: Crazy thing is people will vote for this again. Some against their best interest. Others because they appreciate the divide that comes from this type of admin.

sailfast: I don’t believe they will. They will be thrown out soon enough and hard - but the incumbents will fight like hell to make sure people’s voices are silenced, diluted, or not counted.

ajross: Honestly, no. The administration is not subtle with its lies. If they want to fib, they do it out of POTUS's mouth at a podium, and it's a huge whopper that just dares the nasty liberal media to try to call it out. The strategy works for them, and they apply it repeatedly.They don't just fudge numbers a bit. This is a bad number for them because it's probably the correct (or best available, really) number produced by the existing bureaucracy that does things via the same rules it always has. Doesn't mean it won't be revised later (note that there's also a big downward revision in this report of previous numbers). But it's likely trustworthy.Along with Big Lie polemics, you also need to recognize that the administration is very sensitive to market motion (sort of a variant kind of democracy, I guess). And markets HATE when the government messes with the economic regulatory aparatus.

idiotsecant: They absolutely fudge the numbers. Summary below, but in short every possible mechanism for keeping economic reporting numbers honest is being systematically dismantled.https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.npr.org&#x2F;2025&#x2F;03&#x2F;11&#x2F;nx-s1-5323155&#x2F;economic-data-r...

TheGRS: They quite publicly fired an official related to reporting these numbers, and they also decided not to publish numbers during the government shutdown nor backfill them. I have zero trust the administration isn’t fudging things.

nemo44x: I have some Euro friends that went to Dubai instead because the USA is “too dangerous” right now. I wish them safe passage back, but yeesh talk about irrational perspective.

gambiting: I mean yeah, that's a dumb choice, for sure - but our company rescheduled all work events from their normal location in US to Montreal, Canada. Hundreds of people each. Sure, a small drop in the ocean, but I'm sure we're not the only ones.

nemo44x: I’m not saying it’s not real. It is, tourism is hurting. But the rational I’ve heard is ridiculous and just based on irrational conclusions.

bdangubic: Blame it on Biden or "AI"? (should have made this into a poll... :) )

actionfromafar: But at least Russia can fund their war better, right?

ck2: Are you referring to where he just eased sanctions on Russian oil so they can sell again at high profit to fund their own war of choice?I figured he was going to drop sanctions on them sooner or later but that was quite the ployThe problem is zero consequences for anything he does now, completely isolated, so it's one country destroying choice after anotherhttps:&#x2F;&#x2F;reddit.com&#x2F;r&#x2F;Keep_Track&#x2F;comments&#x2F;j6z8eh

joe_mamba: >Most of the world is not visiting the US right nowOnly right now? The US is one of the most expensive places in the world to visit by far, regardless of your views on $CURRENT_POLITICS, so most of the planet will never visit the US out of cost reasons alone, regardless if they would or wouldn't want to visit.Tourism probably isn't large enough part of the US GDP to be making a dent in the US economy as a whole.@WarmWash: where is the dollar collapsing? USD:EUR and USD:GBP are on par with where they were 10 years ago. Hardly a collapse. The people who can't afford flights and boarding in Vegas, Santa Monica or NY won't get any massive benefit from current currency fluctuations.

WarmWash: Well the dollar collapsing does make it much cheaper, for better or worse.

r_lee: "unexpectedly"

spiderfarmer: Yes they forgot February is a short month and they expected more.

jjgreen: All even years are leap years ... aren't they?

TheGRS: And indeed they are doing just that! On top of a war that will also affect energy costs.

toddmorey: It accounts for 3% of the economy and provides around 15 million jobs. That’s absolutely going to make a dent.And international tourism supports local tourism. I think Las Vegas will continue to be a shell of what it was until international tourism rebounds.BEA used to have these cool interactive tables on GDP by industry, but they’ve now been discontinued. It really feels like our current administration just does not like public data.

toddmorey: Edit: I do think it’s fair to say our economy is much more diversified and resilient to a drop in tourism then a country like Spain where it’s closer to 20% GDP.But maybe the right way to frame it is it wouldn’t be felt as much nationally, but international tourism drops are pretty catastrophic to local economies of some of our biggest cities like New York Miami and Los Angeles Angeles.

TwoNineA: Last year we cancelled a planned US vacation, this year we didn't even think about it. Going back to Europe two years in a row. I don't give a fuck about tariff policy of our supposed "friends" but when our "friend" repeatedly threatens our independence and sovereignty, no thanks. Not going to step into the USA for a long time.

gaoshan: Can't blame you. Coming from the US I have been making a point to vacation in Canada, fwiw.Short of voting, protesting and getting into arguments with MAGA people I don't know what else I can effectively do.

zkmon: Absolute numbers such as 92k do not give full picture. About half million jobs get added every month and there are 165 million people employed in USA.

aliljet: There's a vibe in at least the PNW that feels like the tech sector is sloughing jobs and avoiding creating new ones courtesy of AI. I genuinely wonder if that feeling is backed by reality and whether it's large enough to be translating into national statistics across all industries.

root_axis: The idea doesn't really make sense to me. We know LLMs increase productivity, especially for coding, but increasing productivity shouldn't make you fire people unless your business has already exhausted any potential for growth. Instead we would expect the increased productivity to grow businesses further and increase hiring for all other tasks that LLMs are still not good at.

thunky: > Instead we would expect the increased productivity to grow businesses furtherThis assumes infinite demand which is not a good assumption imo. Especially if people are losing their jobs.

giraffe_lady: I'm not sure how much of it is actually AI vs just like, the bags of VC money have dried up and most tech companies can't anywhere near justify their personnel or often even existence without it.Like companies have been doing the RTO "stealth" layoffs for years now, it's not even news anymore, this was already well underway.There is also the obvious priapism of owners and investors to finally do to the remaining white collar workers what they have already done to everyone else. Whether or not AI actually can replace all these workers is nearly moot, they have fantasized about business without labor for so long they can't tell the difference from reality anymore.

nerdsniper: Where is the money that was going to VC investments going now? With increasing inequality, I figure rich people have more money than ever that they need to figure out where to invest.

bigthymer: More money is flowing into commodities. Gold price going up feeds into more mining.

iso1631: It's not the government that's the problem per-se, it's the fact half the US supports that government

h2zizzle: Interest on debt; shoring up the financial vehicles and insurance through which they diffused the catastrophic losses of their bad bets from the past few decades; stockpiled for the inevitable economic collapse and the feeding frenzy that will follow; land.

nerdsniper: Even a single CBP employee scrolling through your texts feels like too much to me. But when they take your phone, they're making copies of all the content in the phone and as much as possible from any apps&#x2F;websites you're logged into. And that permanently lives in a database which doesn't afford you even the very thin veil of protection against misuse that a US citizen might be granted.It does all seem to be too much.

dmos62: Curious, how do they make copies of everything? Do they just film the phone as they're scrolling it?

nerdsniper: They connect it to a little box that "hacks" into the phone and downloads everything. Google "Cellebrite Universal Forensic Extraction Device (UFED)" or "Grayshift GrayKey". The border agent doesn't have to know anything about phones&#x2F;computers, it's just "plug in, press button".https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.dhs.gov&#x2F;sites&#x2F;default&#x2F;files&#x2F;2023-09&#x2F;Test_Results...

noah_buddy: Trump hasn’t managed to adequately combat inflation though. Last I heard, it’s ticking up once more.

phkahler: >> If the government-approved numbers are this bad the real ones must be catastrophic.Sadly my first thought was not to trust this report. The article even notes further down:>> The US central bank would typically respond to a weakening labour market by cutting borrowing costs, in hopes of giving the economy a boost.Our fearless leader has put enormous pressure on the Fed to lower interest rates from day 1. They keep refusing, and following the data so it makes sense (if you don't care about reality) to alter the data to get the desired result.

andxor: Your usual reminder not to come to HN for macroeconomic analysis.

flerchin: I took a taxi ride from Niagara (ON) to Buffalo. The Canadian driver really was leery of Americans and I apologized for everything. It's a dang shame, and I don't blame you all for feeling this way.

ourmandave: On Point on NPR covered January numbers.Apparently all 130k jobs came from the health care sector with everything else having no growth.

bdangubic: The state of the Country is fully on display here when comments like this one are getting downvoted consistently... quite amazing (and sad) to see

baq: tariffs on goods are mostly noise. if there were tariffs on services, though...

wholinator2: What do you mean noise? American people pay 96% of them with an average cost of $1000+ per family over the last year. To the vast majority of people that's waaayyyy above the noise floor.

thrill: For anyone who’s been paying attention, “unexpectedly” is doing a lot of heavy lifting.

onion2k: Allegedly the biggest package tour operator in the UK has seen a 72% drop in holidays to the US for 2026.

cjrp: The number of promotional emails I get from Virgin and British Airways, offering pretty big discounts for US destinations, suggests this is true.

bosch_mind: I grew up in the US and lived there for 30 years, but now I live in Europe. Every single one of my friends in their 30's finds visiting the US absolutely terrifying (even those who have previously been). I have yet to meet a single friend in today's day that has expressed any interest in visiting.

Bombthecat: I just flew to us from Euro, plane only business class was full, rest was half or even more empty... It's usually full.Reminded me of COVID time...

cjrp: Bit off-topic, but how easy was this to do? We need to do the same crossing to pick up a rental car from Buffalo.

gk1: Why not contribute, then?

leet_thow: Because it's pointless and a waste of time.

cgh: Same. We had two month-long trips planned and canceled them both. I realize California is not exactly “enemy territory” or whatever but we’ll spend our money elsewhere.

learingsci: Taxes are evil. Any tax on corporations will trickle down to the consumer.

TwoNineA: Controversial opinion, it's way more than half: 1&#x2F;3 voted for the orange man, 1&#x2F;3 didn't bother go to vote because "BoTh SideS ARe thE SamE!" and 1&#x2F;3 tried to do the right thing.

JohnMakin: It may surprise you, but it’s generally accepted that 1&#x2F;3rd is less than 1&#x2F;2.

elicash: We extract like 12 or 13 times more oil than Venezuela.

sybercecurity: I don't know either. I do wonder if AI is just and excuse since saying "we have to let people go because the economy is bad and our costs are up." spooks investors while "We adopted magic AI and don't need people anymore" sounds like these companies are being proactive so investors don't dump their stocks.

bombcar: Considering the first companies to claim AI has made many redundant are the same companies that overhired during Covid, I think it's pretty clear how the wind is blowing.Companies move in a group, if you're the only company doing layoffs you look weak and predators will pounce and the board will ask uncomfortable questions, but if everyone is doing it, they'll ask why you are NOT.

rs_rs_rs_rs_rs: Vote? Hopefully that's still possible!My paranoia conspiracy theory is that somehow US will declare war on Iran at some point and elections will be postoned.

Retric: This administration has terrible approval ratings. https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.realclearpolling.com&#x2F;polls&#x2F;approval&#x2F;donald-trump...

loloquwowndueo: Totally a case of “gee, who’d have thunk”

game_the0ry: > "...unexpectedly..."Really? Anyone here feel like the job market is thriving right now? Anyone surprised?Bc I was like - yeah, totally, makes sense, not surprised at all.If anything, I am waiting for that dreaded "business update" calendar invite from HR. I am already researching and taking notes on trade schools. Ready to punch that ticket any day now.

learingsci: Definitely not AI. We all know about Jeeves paradox. It must be the taxes on corporations (tarrifs). Taxes on business are always bad.

bombcar: There were definitely some companies that clearly overhired during Covid that are now "resetting" and blaming&#x2F;crediting AI is certainly an excuse they can use.

Luc: That can't be right, the real figure is probably closer to 7%.

hyperpape: I am a US citizen living in Portugal. I have the right to go to the US, live there, etc.I recently went back for a funeral, and I had to spend a moment reminding myself that it would be fine for me.For people who don't have my passport, I wouldn't feel comfortable telling them "it will be fine", though I would still tell a European "the odds of a problem are relatively low." But I couldn't in all honesty say "there's nothing to worry about."

newsclues: As a Canadian, most of those people stating this, are broke and can't afford to travel, so the anti Trump thing is a face saving excuse.Just a observation from my personal life, my friends who aren't broke, are still going to Florida, etc.

csomar: With oil prices now 90+, there is 0 chance of an interest rate decrease even with a new Fed chair.

heavyset_go: My man this is cope and we're in hell, never trust anyone who gets off on lying and cheating

sandworm101: Look into your state's recall procedures. Waiting for the next election is effectively acquiescence to the current situation.

jandrewrogers: In Washington it is much broader than the tech sector.Washington is being buried in indefensibly bad legislation that is extremely hostile to large companies and tech companies of every size for openly ideological reasons. It has rapidly become one of the worst business environments in the country when it used to be one of the best. Many companies have stopped or reduced hiring in Seattle and are moving operations to other States; there is a new announcement in the news every other day.I know several longtime residents that have recently moved out of State or are no longer domiciled there as a consequence. There was an article in the news just this week that housing prices are starting to decline rapidly in Seattle.It is looking like they couldn't help themselves and killed the golden goose.

joe_mamba: How much of that 3% is from foreign tourists versus domestic Americans?And what types of jobs are those 15 million? High paid high skilled or low pay low skilled?Because from what I can tell you about EU tourism jobs, most jobs tourism creates over here are low pay, hard labor, unskilled jobs, mostly filled by minimum wage migrant seasonal workers who then send the money back home, meaning the biggest beneficiaries from those jobs are the wealthy land&#x2F;business owners who exploit cheap mirant labor, and not the local workforce who mostly suffers gentrification as they don't work in low pay tourist jobs and have to deal with increased rents from tourism on top.Plus, the massive black economy tourism creates where a lot of the money is under the table and avoids the tax man further compounds to the problem. So I doubt much of the US working class will suffer from a tourism stagnation.@HEmanZ: Did you read anything I said? Who's losing their job when almost all tourism jobs are done by foreign seasonal workers? The locals mostly aren't losing any job because they don't work in tourism due to pay and work conditions.Are you using the same logic to cry for the western workers making clothes and sneakers who lost their jobs to Asian sweatshops? Do you think they miss that type of jobs and would want them back?

orwin: > How much of that 3% is from foreign tourists versus domestic Americans?Probably all of it since tourism was 11% of total GDP in 2023, a third of that being international tourism would be on par with european averages.

esseph: [delayed]

derektank: Said official herself (Erika McEntarfer) has said that you should continue to trust the numbers, “You should still trust BLS data. The agency is being run by the same dedicated career staff who were running it while I was awaiting confirmation from the Senate. And the staff have made it clear that they are blowing a loud whistle if there is interference”

butILoveLife: As a independent(I was a libertarian as a child), I find its incredibly popular to double gov reports when a republican is in office. When a democrat is in office? 'No no, inflation is really 2%.'I kind of wish I drank partisan koolaid, life seems more fun.

amelius: And you haven't even mentioned the detention of US visitors with approved visas.https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.theguardian.com&#x2F;us-news&#x2F;2025&#x2F;mar&#x2F;19&#x2F;canadian-det...

travisgriggs: So this. A year ago my wife and I did a road trip up into Canada (Kelowna BC region). It was a new experience. I’ve been up into Canadian provinces many times (20+ over the years), but because of the anti Canadian rhetoric that Trump and company were putting out at the time, I was embarrassed and eager for people to not actually know I was from the states. I was hyper aware of the Washington state license plates on our car. I have never felt that way before. Ashamed to be an American. Afraid of the association it implied. Anxious that people would be reductionist, unable to realize that I was not just an American, but a frustrated helpless American.The Canadian people I met as we travelled were all amazing. I was humbled that they took time to talk. And were less interested in identity than issues. One older gentleman, who saw us pull into the McDonalds with Washington plates approached us in the foyer and wanted to tell me that despite what others might say, I was welcome there. It was on one hand kinda weird and at the same time really touching.

atonse: This is true in most scenarios, and the opposite is also true – that Americans are famously friendly, and even though Canadians may not want to visit to make a point, I think even they would agree that most day to day interactions they'd have would be warm and welcoming.There might be a bit more hockey ribbing for the next few weeks, but I know there's a ton of respect for Canada's team.At the end of the day, the idea of "My problem is with the government, and not the people" is as old as time.

whynotmaybe: The ones I know that have money stopped going there and went further south or in Europe.Some even go as far as booking a trip to Europe for a music concert instead of going to the US.The line between "it's expensive" and "the current situation in the US sucks" is blurred.https:&#x2F;&#x2F;globalnews.ca&#x2F;news&#x2F;11075088&#x2F;canadian-snowbird-couple...

jazzypants: LOL. Why not? I wouldn't want to travel here. We're arresting people off the streets for no reason. It's fucking horrible.

lordgroff: These are shockingly high.

butILoveLife: Probabilistically speaking, the entire thing is fine.But seeing my engineer freak out about flying in a plane, despite passing Diff Eq and knowing the probability of a crash... Feelings&#x2F;emotions do matter.This is why populist demagogues win elections... ugh...

AndrewKemendo: I mean Dorsey literally just said publicly that he’s laying off people in order to utilize AIlike what more clear point do you want?Whether or not you believe that this is a good or bad move, correct or lying move, whether AI is capable or not,“AI” is the reason that CEOs are utilizing to cut rolesThe timing of this is based on the fact that Capital is striking from deploying money to anything else outside of the largest deals that include AI as promise of higher profitsBut ultimately it comes down to the fact that the people in control with all the money believe that the future is gonna need less human workers and is prioritizing giving money to organisms that will shed their workforces in order to run an experiment in AI capturing value on behalf of investors without having the additional overhead of personnel

epistasis: Dorsey is in a huge bind with runway and lack of revenue. Blaming AI for a massive cut needed just to get by lets investors trick themselves into believing that he has a plan that makes the company grow to reach the level of profitability that the stock prices suggests will happen.And perhaps Dorsey has a long enough of a runway for something to come along to save the company from eventual collapse. Maybe not, since firing 40% of a company tends to put a damper on innovative efforts that would massively grow revenues.

throw0101d: > I recently went back for a funeral, and I had to spend a moment reminding myself that it would be fine for me.Your passport does not matter, the colour of your skin does:"US citizens jailed in LA Ice raids speak out: ‘They came ready to attack’":* https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.theguardian.com&#x2F;us-news&#x2F;2025&#x2F;aug&#x2F;05&#x2F;us-citizens-..."A U.S. citizen says ICE forced open the door to his Minnesota home and removed him in his underwear after a warrantless search"* https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.pbs.org&#x2F;newshour&#x2F;nation&#x2F;a-u-s-citizen-says-ice-f...* https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Kavanaugh_stop

Pxtl: It's smaller than you'd think, but more than enough to make a real dent.December 2025, statscan calculated that cross-border auto traffic was down 30% (mostly same-day trips).Air travel is only down 11%, and air travel to other countries is up 13%.https:&#x2F;&#x2F;globalnews.ca&#x2F;news&#x2F;11679293&#x2F;us-canada-travel-rates-d...They didn't break down how much of that was tourism vs work.

onion2k: I don't think it's entirely due to US politics. The strength of the dollar against the pound, the perception of the US as not being a fashionable place to go, the fact that most news about the US in the UK media is either war, Epstein, or ICE, measured against some very competitive offers for other destinations that don't have those problems, makes me believe it's certainly a high percentage. FWIW in my teams (approx. 100 people, all in the UK) I can only think of one person who travelled to the US in the last year, and that was a trip to Disney they'd had booked in for a while. The rest have all been going to southern Europe, Japan etc.

saalweachter: Real estate?

esseph: [delayed]

forinti: I'm really anticipating what the World Cup will look like.Sure, there will always be die-hard fans that will show up not matter what, but with so many teams, I bet we'll see empty stadiums for some matches.

debatem1: I'm curious about the Iran match.

paganel: Most probably Iran will not take part at the tournament.

CoastalCoder: I like your ethic of thinking critically regardless of which party is on power.Sincere question: do we have any stats on how (party in office) correlates with (government publications containing lies and&#x2F;or misleading info)?

luxuryballs: I can only speak from anecdotal experience in that I just witnessed this week, dev team leads and architects “replaced” by Claude code, they kept the offshore junior-mid coders and are giving them $20&#x2F;mo pro accounts… (doesn’t that seem a little backwards?)

slantedview: This is absolutely backwards.

galleywest200: Golden Goose? WA has a massive budget shortfall.

jandrewrogers: There has been zero accountability for that massive budget shortfall. Revenue has increased 2x over the last decade with nothing to show for it. People are rightly skeptical of giving them even more money. And they have gone about trying to increase revenue even more in just about the most toxic ways possible, which will almost certainly erode the tax base.That state desperately needs to restructure its finances but the legislature is almost complete captured by clueless ideologues. Washington isn't California. Most of the attraction of living there historically was its extremely business-friendly environment.I've lived a large fraction of my life in Washington and I'm watching the State commit suicide in real-time.

mherrmann: I live in Europe and was in California in November. No issues.

barbazoo: Absolutely, my partner would love to visit national parks south of the border this summer but we decided we'd much rather spend our money in our own economy for the time being. That's not even considering the risk getting snatched by immigration anywhere in the country.

bee_rider: There’s a decent chance the national parks will still be there in a couple years anyway.Well, I guess, they might have been auctioned off to some billionaire at that point so… the tickets will probably be pricier but the facilities should be shiny and new.

coffeefirst: My grocery bills beg to differ.

dawnerd: I go to Disneyland nearly every weekend and the increase in foreigners is insane. Clearly a lot of people visiting that would have been going to Florida decided on California instead.

Nifty3929: "spend our money in our own economy" - a common fallacy about economies. Spending money is how you take&#x2F;consume resources from an economy.If you spend money in Canada, then you are taking stuff from Canadians. If you spend your money in the US, then you are taking stuff from Americans.You might wonder what happens at the limit - why don't Canadians just spend all their money in the US and take all America's stuff (just a thought experiment)? Because currencies adjust. Canadians would need US Dollars to buy stuff in the US, and as more and more Canadians try to do that, the exchange rate would change to devalue the Canadian Dollar against the US Dollar, effectively making things more and more expensive for Canadians until they are forced to get their stuff elsewhere.

kakacik: Canada? Count most of the world, and whole western world (minus US for the pedants but oh boy do US expats have juicy opinions on their homeland).I live in Switzerland, and literally everybody I talk to in our circles - bankers, doctors etc. despises US right now. The idea of going there as a tourist is immediately laughed at or met with puzzled look. Professional reasons or conferences are not even brought up, its automatic no and employers usually don't even try suggesting those.We ourselves with kids wanted to do the trip either this or next summer, but hell will freeze sooner. Some meager +-10k from us, I know just a drop in the ocean but there could have been many such drops. Other, less hostile economies deserve these way more.

root_axis: You're right. My point is that AI isn't at the heart of the job shedding, it's just a scapegoat for other structural problems in the economy.

tehjoker: The democrats are complicit in genocide. Trump is attacking allies too, but they’re both criminal. The main difference is “worthy and unworthy” victims.

prh8: For readers not in Washington, there is currently legislation being worked on that is essentially a millionaire's tax, (simplified as) 10% income tax on income over 1 million dollars, inflation adjusted.There are a few very angry, emotional, and vocal opponents of this in most corners of the internet, although very few of them actually make a million dollars and there are many million+ income people supporting this.Demographically, there are over 3 million households in WA, and only 20k of them would be affected.

mv4: Why is this unexpected? Seasonal sales hiring is over. Tech is cutting jobs (because AI). Things are generally bleak right now.

captainbland: On top of the stringent border checks and Minneapolis, Brits are now seeing things like this and thinking twice: https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.theguardian.com&#x2F;us-news&#x2F;2026&#x2F;feb&#x2F;21&#x2F;karen-newton...

tyre: Or it’s possible he was lying!If Block is really so much more efficient, while doing well, they should invest that talent into expanded products and services. But that’s not what we’re seeing.Some things:- They acquired AfterPay for $29bn. Their market cap today, after the big AI bump, is $40bn. BNPL did not pay off the way payments companies thought it would.- They have a weird internal combination of Cash and Square and AfterPay internally. They’re not as unified as they ought to be.This feels more like Jack coming to terms with a company that’s hugely inefficient organizationally. It’s easier to clear out thousands of people and rebuild.

sbarre: I am also a Canadian who has decided not to visit the US until further notice, and honestly, I'm sad about it.In my 20+ years of regularly travelling to the States, I've almost always had great interactions with the people I've met in all parts of the US I've visited, and I've been all over. "Warm and welcoming" is a very good description.I hope to be able to visit again in the future.

atonse: Same has been true the 2-3 times I've visited Canada. I don't think that'll change. I remember how things got pretty heated during the run up to the Iraq War. And we hope that the friendship will endure.But I'm a pretty optimistic person anyway.

Overpower0416: And oil is at 90$ and rising... what is the Fed suppose to do at this point

34679: The same thing it was designed to do and has always done: create unimaginable sums of money out of thin air that it loans to the government, with interest.

fckgw: What part did they find "terrifying"?

reactordev: [delayed]

raw_anon_1111: Because of the electoral college, it doesn’t matter if more people voted in California, NY, Alabama, Mississippi, etc vote

CalRobert: Conversely, I live in the Netherlands (though I am originally from California) and my entire summer is booked full of either family or friends visiting from the US - the friends are mostly here to get a feel for the place and see if they want to emigrate.I wonder how many Americans of means are vacationing abroad instead of domestically just to get some respite...

Uncle_Brumpus: I had never vacationed abroad in my whole life, then last year I traveled separately to Amsterdam (with 2 nights in Groningen) and Paris. Both trips ended up being cheaper than similar domestic trips. Both times I was extremely sad to return home.I would love to emigrate to Europe. One of the nights in Amsterdam, I couldn't sleep and spent the night frantically researching how to legally emigrate.

xhkkffbf: That's a bit ironic.If all of the undocumented people in the US spent this much time trying to emigrate legally, the US wouldn't need ICE and we wouldn't be having this discussion.

epistasis: Mass deportation means economic contraction. The administration has promised to deport millions of people. Mass deportations on this scale will have a somewhat drastic effect, and the true mass deportation hasn't even started, because they haven't built enough concentration camps to facilitate the deportations.Unless it is stopped the job losses will be absolutely massive, and a tiny tiny footnote to the massive human suffering that the stated mass deportation is intended to cause.

jfengel: I'd have expected mass deportations to decrease the unemployment rate, since there are now a bunch of job openings.Some of those jobs will just disappear (resulting in job losses, which is what the headline is about), but unemployment (people looking for jobs and not finding them) is up.It does mean economic contraction, but that's yet another number. That would show up in GDP, but that number is really slow to collect. Data so far is actually pretty smooth, but that's to be expected.

lapcat: This article mentions that leisure and hospitality are down: https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.cnn.com&#x2F;2026&#x2F;03&#x2F;06&#x2F;economy&#x2F;us-jobs-report-februa...

zjsisba: This is actually why Trump won’t do them, by the way. He’s already changed his rhetoric to “criminals only”.Trump is completely captured by business interests and is not America First. Mass immigration is the billionaire first position.Younger generations understand this, so we likely won’t see some change for a bit, but it is coming. And it makes sense - they’re the ones suffering most from unfettered immigration. Their birthright is being handed out to cheap labor, because the billionaires running our society see us as cattle.

Aurornis: US tourism declined in 2025 but the number has been relatively flat since then.These recent job losses are probably not attributable to tourism since that’s unchanged year over year.I’m not saying tourism is not a factor or denying anecdotes about people not visiting the US, but I don’t think it’s the explanation for the February 2026 job losses.

irishcoffee: > I’m not saying tourism is not a factor or denying anecdotes about people not visiting the US, but I don’t think it’s the explanation for the February 2026 job losses.This is accurate. This thread is people emoting. I get it, might as well let it out. Tourism being major part of the US GDP feels like countries whose GDP depends on tourism, projecting. I get that too, if that is the paradigm you live in every day, that is the lens you view things through.Tourism is probably affecting local economies at the margins, and there is a real loss there for those communities. The US GDP as a whole? Not even a rounding error.

angiolillo: > the friends are mostly here to get a feel for the place and see if they want to emigrateAs a US citizen who has daydreamed about moving to a Dutch city like Ultrecht I'm curious what they found, and how it feels to be an immigrant in the Netherlands.

xhkkffbf: It's not so easy to do. You can't just daydream about it. A friend of mine spent 18 months just with the paperwork. He's now making half of what he might make at home, but he's happy. The people are definitely friendly and welcoming, but the legal system makes it hard. And the businesses know this so they underpay because they can.

icecube123: I surprised more US folks dont visit Canada, its amazing, much safer, and cheaper for them because of the exchange difference. Im guessing they see prices in CAD ($), and think its more expensive, but not realizing that $1 of theirs buys $1.35 CAD.

leet_thow: Seriously, feels like Reddit in here.

michelsedgh: Ive never been to bluesky but it really gives me bluesky vibes every time i come to HN these days

flush: how is this possible

hyperman1: Someone mentioned how they had to go to America for the job, and everyone worried for his safety. His answer: Don't worry, it is south America. Everyon felt better for him, then we all wondered how 1 year could cause such a flip.

SpicyLemonZest: To me this seems pretty rational? I still don't think the US is more dangerous in an absolute sense than many places, but there's reason to hope that in a couple years the US will stop putting random unlucky tourists in ICE torture facilities. So if you don't have a strong preference about when you visit you might as well wait. Dubai is unlikely to stop being a conservative monarchy with harsh criminal laws in a volatile region.

derektank: No sitting member of Congress has ever been recalled and it’s almost certainly unconstitutional. Article I only outlines one way to remove a sitting representative or senator, and that’s expulsion by a vote of the chamber in which they sit

sandworm101: Congress is one power structure. States and cities are others. 19 states have recall procedures. The fed is much less powerful domestically without state-level support. And pulling down even a couple state reps would send a chilling message to the fed.https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ncsl.org&#x2F;elections-and-campaigns&#x2F;recall-of-state...

galangalalgol: Very few red states in those 19...

randlet: This is one of the big reasons I won't travel to the US anytime soon, even for work events. I really don't want to be put in a situation where you have to give a border guard access to your phone or risk detention or a future travel ban.

spiderfarmer: At this point any policy decision that opposes Trump’s views is the better one.

chazburger: So far that’s been the policy from the fed.

s_dev: ICE agents shooting US citizens, the mass shootings, the school shootings, the crime rate and fentanyl 'bend' posture that makes loads of poor people look like zombies, the aggressive police with guns who sometimes shoot people, burglaries that involve shootings. A lot of the problems in America seems to stem from guns and drugs but also policy.Even something as simple as crossing the road is necessarily complicated in America. Some roads you seem to need a car to get from A to B. It just doesn't seem peaceful but very chaotic and intense.

garbawarb: The bigger news is that it would be WA's first-ever income tax, along with the tax on capital gains income they just introduced. You can look at any historical example of introducing income tax in the US to see that the rates always expand to lower brackets over time.

prh8: Ahh, another favorite talking point. Yes, because the tax burden is already carried by the people you claim to worry about

gman2093: It also decreases the consumption rate. introduction of immigrant populations has not been shown to increase the unemployment rate, rather the opposite.https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.epi.org&#x2F;blog&#x2F;immigrants-are-not-hurting-u-s-born...

Herring: Since the end of WW2, and especially since the end of the Cold War, Democratic administrations have presided over significantly higher job growth than Republican administrations.https:&#x2F;&#x2F;arc-anglerfish-washpost-prod-washpost.s3.amazonaws.c...

sandworm101: There are hard and soft approval ratings. The soft number is the count of how many people will vote for&#x2F;against in the next election. The hard number is how many want a change today, how many will support recalling thier representatives in order to force change today. In that number, the current administration has widespread support.

greedo: There is no mechanism for recall of Congressional officers.

jacquesm: No legal ones anyway.

pupppet: Approval ratings should be far lower than this.

mrbombastic: Agreed but we also have to stop saying "the majority support this" or "half the country supports this" it ain't true and leads people to feel hopeless.

ryandrake: Yet, if we re-did the election today, we'd have the same outcome. People might not support what is happening but they will never "vote for the other guy." I personally know people who disagree with everything that's going on, but they'll still vote (R) next time "because I'm a (R)," as if it's their intrinsic physical trait like hair color.

noisy_boy: If only they were willing to change their affiliations as easily as they do change their hair color.

esseph: [delayed]

jacquesm: Those are MUCH higher than they should be by now. It makes me wonder what the approval rating of a ham sandwich would be, and I would not be surprised if it was higher.

Vegenoid: Will you elaborate on the “indefensibly bad legislation”?

forinti: This reminds me of an incident with a friend of mine. He flew to the US and entered through Texas. He is white with blond hair and he was wearing a t-shirt very reminiscent of the Confederate flag.A security guard picked up his bag from the carousel, handed it to him, and very emphatically said "Welcome home, sir!".

mixmastamyk: How would a guard know who a bag belongs to?

bluecalm: For me it's not about politics at all. Just the thought of going through TSA and immigration is enough to discourage me, especially when I can hop on a plane to Spain, Italy or Cyprus and face 0 inconveniences along the way.

morkalork: The whole social media history and phone searching thing makes me nervous, you're one bad-taste meme about Charlie Kirk and a butt-hurt CBP agent away from a very long and painful detention process.

jacquesm: Cyprus is probably best avoided right now.

downrightmike: They always revise the numbers later after the headlines fade.

spencerflem: You can be anti billionaire and still not be a fuckass racist

newfriend: Immigrant isn't a race.

jmull: Don't kid yourself. You're missing the part where the heads of departments who deliver bad or embarrassing news get publicly vilified and&#x2F;or fired.That's direct pressure now to fudge&#x2F;push the numbers before they come out. At the department level, there is usually a long culture of objective process to overcome, so it will probably start off subtle&#x2F;small, but once they clear the old guard away they will report anything they want.> the administration is very sensitive to market motionNot exactly. The administration (Trump) is sensitive to embarrassment and criticism from his own side. Tanking markets are such an embarrassment, and while he might back down when markets tank, he might also do the the other thing he does to deflect embarrassment and criticism, which is to perpetrate some new outrage so that everyone complains about the new thing instead of the old thing.And, of course, the markets will adjust. Iffy government numbers will get priced in.You might like to believe there's a rational actor there, but there isn't. It's a guy moving from one gut reaction to the next, where his gut reaction is often to push everyone's buttons.

rvba: Unexpectedly?BBC is really full style right wing propaganda machine now. This time propaganda by omission (like those articles about Brexit where they never gave "no Brexit" as an option).Zero commentary on tariffs, zero commentary about tourism and ICE, nothing about other policies.

Steve16384: Bloody BBC, keeping to the facts again...

DeathArrow: Some are not willing to visit US, but some, like me, are more willing to visit US. I will probably going for a business trip but I am willing to extend my stay to visit Florida for the Nature, Montana and Wyoming because I enjoyed the atmosphere in Yellowstone and Longmire TV series and Texas because I like the Texans.

dnemmers: How many months are you planning on visiting? Traveling between WY, TX, FL, and MT represents hundreds and hundreds of miles, and many hours.Also of note, all four of those states are ‘Conservative’ havens…

Steve16384: Since AI is taking a lot of the jobs and businesses are presumably generating just as much if not more profit due to lower wage costs, I think the world has to align to a new paradigm: a lot of people will be unemployed because the jobs just aren't there any more, but a higher tax on the rich companies can be used to pay for benefits for all the unemployed.This is the new utopia.

YZF: We did not travel to the US during Trump's first presidency either.That said, I do think some people are doing things for the wrong reasons and there is some manipulation of the masses at play here. One example is I expect most people don't really understand the tariff situation between Canada and the US and that most goods are still exempt from taxes and the agreements hold. I think some people want to punish the US for tariffs that don't exist.As a Canadian we should push back strongly against attacks on our sovereignty. We should also be somewhat concerned about the direction our neighbor is going in general. But it's also a reality that the US is very very close to us both geographically, culturally, and economically. That's not going to change. It's not an "enemy country" despite their very questionable choice of leaders. I think the correct long term direction is open borders and open trade, somewhat like the EU, and we shouldn't lose sight of that because a bad leader is in place today.It's very weird to me to see all the focus on US policies in the Canadian discourse while not enough focus on Canada. That feels like political distraction.

throwway120385: Washington has more in common with BC than with Alabama or Florida. Except for the Pig War, which was more of a disagreement between neighbors over their fence line.

strangattractor: Las Vegas tourism is experiencing a significant downturn in early 2026, with 2025 finishing with a 7.5% decline in visitors—the sharpest drop outside the pandemic since 1970. - Google AI

dboreham: Always good to see an A&#x2F;B test done.

saalweachter: It's probably just that it doesn't feel like there's much to "get" there.If you go south you get sun and beaches. The coastal regions of Canada will be comparable to the coastal regions of New England and the Pacific Northwest, so there's no need to go all the way there if that's the sort of beach you're looking for.Likewise your outdoors, your cities and restaurants and museums are all going to be about the same as the options available in the US, just further away. It's not really "exotic".We don't really have the same emigrant relationship with Canada; my grandfather's family spent a couple generations in Canada, but my mother only found out about it after he died. He considered his family to be Irish and to have come from Ireland; that they came to the US via a couple of generations spent in New Brunswick was never a part of the family lore.So there's no real "visiting the home of my ancestors" sort of feeling you'd otherwise see.

kspacewalk2: Most US tourism is domestic, the effect of a 12% drop in international tourism arrivals is a rounding error even for the US tourism industry as a whole, much less the US economy overall (tourism is 3% of total, compared to ~10% in other major tourist destinations like France).Emoting and wishful thinking is exactly right, and I say that as a Canadian who is participating in this boycott. I'm not doing it to hurt the US economy, because I know it won't matter one bit even if we all stay away. It'll hurt some border destinations, but will hardly register in most places. Facts are facts.

jacquesm: This post alone should be a reason for tourism to the USA to drop to ~0%.I've visited a lot of countries in my life but I've never been treated as rudely as on the US border.

01100011: AI is killing the notion that SW companies are infinite money printing machines. The idea is that someday soon(in the next 5-10 years as markets are forward looking), someone will vibe-code a replacement for Photoshop&#x2F;TurboTax&#x2F;Office and if nothing else that will kill the profit margins. This changes the entire economics of SW and affects current hiring and spending.

TwoNineA: 1&#x2F;3 explicitly approve and 1&#x2F;3 implicity approve. If my math is mathing, that's 2&#x2F;3 and it's larger than 1&#x2F;2.

JohnMakin: This is extremely lazy and unrigorous reasoning that could be extended dishonestly to any number of things. Oh, you aren't protesting genocides? You must support them then. Oh, you're not helping feed hungry people in poor countries? Guess you support child starvation. Oh, you're not contributing to the Rust ecosystem? ...............

lotsofpulp: None of those are comparable to the simple and quick act of voting against a treasonous candidate for US president.This wasn’t a bad candidate vs worse candidate situation, it was someone who supports breaking apart the trust and foundation of the country solely for personal gain versus someone who at least believed in providing a veneer of civility.

nyeah: [delayed]

Spivak: Because The DNC actually is what the Republican marketing pamphlet claims to be, a mildly right leaning pragmatic pro-business party.

JumpCrisscross: > mildly right leaningThis is nonsense even if we base to North America and the EU (versus just the American voting public). Within America, Democrats are center left. Internationally it’s a hodgepodge of left-wing social, centre right-wing foreign and across-the-board economic policy.

rapind: Ridiculous take that Florida is expensive like it's some kind of luxury trip.Florida was always a budget option for us. It's always been a quick, easy (you can drive), low risk break to get away from the cold. I just don't feel like dealing with CBP and random MAGAs right now to be honest. Wife is low-key stressed about the idea. I mean at best it's a hassle... so why bother?

Rexxar: Here is the official source: https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.dol.gov&#x2F;newsroom&#x2F;economicdata&#x2F;empsit_03062026.pd...Some of the main categories (page 8 of the pdf): - Construction: -11.0k - Manufacturing: -12.0k - Transportation and warehousing: -11.3k - Private education and health services: -34.0k - Information -11.0k - Leisure and hospitality -27.0k It seems to go down in lots of different sectors.

Tiktaalik: I agree that there are other factors likely impacting job losses in 2026, but it is possible that the impacts of a tourism downturn are only now being felt.One thing worth noting is that the tax structure of American cities can be more based on sales taxes than property taxes, and so if tourism is down, and sales is down, this will begin to impact city budgets, which can have rippling effects elsewhere. For example municipal cutbacks to landscaping budgets could impact private contractors etc.

anonnon: > People have judged me for driving through the states.Meanwhile it's perfectly acceptable, even lauded, to go to Cuba, which, besides being run by an actual, kleptocratic dictatorship that imprisons dissidents for decades at a time, is the number #1 destination for sex tourists, including child sex tourists, with the industry tacitly sanctioned by the dictatorship.

beezle: Please keep in mind two things with the NFP report:1&#x2F; the confidence interval for the monthly change in total nonfarm employment from the establishment survey is on the order of plus or minus 122,0002&#x2F; the report is based upon a survey of establishments. There is no obligation to respond and many do not and ability&#x2F;desire to respond may be impacted by company health as well.

cloverich: Which policies specifically? Certainly not the income tax on million+ income, seems pretty modest. We moved from TX. Property tax rate is low, no income tax sub million in income, schools are great (and almost all new), roads are fine and transit seeing massive investment. They definitely need to fix budget, but there's _ample_ wealth here to deal with it. I think they'll figure it out._Oregon_ has bad policies (10% income tax on all, upwards of 14% on high income earners at 400k); schools are in a rough place, their legacy pension system is a disaster. But Washington seems fine imo. TX and such states will always be a draw while their cost of living is low, if you don't mind the heat and general lack of outdoors (relative to PNW). IMO the weather and housing prices are the main tradeoffs between WA and TX.

j2kun: Oregon has some decent things going for it. Multnomah county is rolling out Preschool for All and it's wildly popular. I know lots of people who were going to move, but stayed in Oregon just because they got into the early lottery for it.

JumpCrisscross: Healthcare was carrying the economy. Any commentary on why that’s failing?

dehrmann: There was a strike. That particular number is probably worth ignoring.

sgustard: I have been to Rome and Taipei and Johannesburg, and crossing the road is terrifying lots of places.

_DeadFred_: Our immigration system is broken. Reagan realized this in the 1980s and gave amnesty to millions and Republicans were going to reform it. But businesses being able to abuse an unprotected 'undocumented class' won out instead.

scoofy: My partner works for a small, foreign-tourist focused hospitality company in the US. She says their numbers have fallen off a cliff in the last year. Apparently everyone is hoping that the World Cup will make up for the decline in tourism, but the are way below expectations of where they thought they would be by now.

throw310822: Pretty useless without knowing at least what % of the total they are per category and what type of jobs they are.

dragonwriter: The distinction between + and - is useful even without either of those.

mrbombastic: I am not confident that is as cut and dried as you are putting forth, there have been massive swings in heavily red districts the other way for special elections in the last few months and Republican polling is abysmal.

Dan_-: Visiting Quebec from the East Coast is great. Driving distance, plus Montreal and Quebec City are both different enough to feel like you’ve gone somewhere different. Plus the people are just really nice.

malshe: I talked to someone who is hosting an international academic conference. Usually they have about 40% international attendees. This year it is like 3%.

tenahu: How can one downvote on HN?

Bender: Some useful information not documented on HN [1] not my repo[1] - https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;minimaxir&#x2F;hacker-news-undocumented

tinyhouse: Less people visit the US because it's do damn expensive. That's the biggest reason for most people. Most people don't have any principles, they go where they can afford. Last year I was in NYC and Miami beach and was shocked how expensive everything was. (I know these are expensive places but that's where most tourists go - they don't visit Kansas)

exceptione: Those people didn't already come to the USA for starters, NYC has been crazily expensive for years.There are many reasons people might have, none are good. There is for instance also a risk factor of being harassed and detained by ICE. Cruelty and incompetence are a feature of authoritarian governance, not a coincidence. So anyone going there takes a kind of risk. As has been shown, even Europeans aren't safe from the whimsical paramilitary.

btown: In all seriousness, I’m unsure that official job numbers (even if they weren’t intentionally distorted, which is a big if these days) have caught up with the gig&#x2F;creator economy. If a person making ends meet with food delivery and a few dollars of ad revenue is classified as “self-employed,” is that the same level of stability and ability to keep up with cost-of-living increases (which may outpace traditional inflation) vs. self-employed freelancers with clients? Which isn’t to cast shade on those paths, but it’s meaningful to the metrics we choose to follow.

el_nahual: Yes, they have. The BLS actually tracks a number of different "unemployment" numbers, whose definition you see here [0].The "official" unemployment number, the one now reported as 4.4%, basically only counts the "percent of people actively looking for work that can't find it, who have been looking for work for more that 15 weeks.The number you are trying to capture is what the BLS calls "U-6". That number is defined as:> total unemployed, plus all marginally attached workers, plus total employed part time for economic reasons, as a percent of the civilian labor force plus all marginally attached workers.In other words, anyone that would like more work but can't get it. I encourage you to read the entire definition and footnotes at the link I shared. It's very interesting!Right now U-6 is at 8%. During the 2007 recession it peaked at about 17%. [1][0]: https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.bls.gov&#x2F;lau&#x2F;stalt.htm[1]: https:&#x2F;&#x2F;fred.stlouisfed.org&#x2F;series&#x2F;U6RATE

btown: Thanks for bringing this up, and you're right that this is closer. I still think it's imperfect, because a gig economy worker who works 35+ hours per week would be considered "employed full time" (footnotes, https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.bls.gov&#x2F;cps&#x2F;cpsaat36.htm) and as far as I know would not be included in the U-6.I don't have a more recent statistic, but in 2018 half of Uber rides were provided by drivers working 35+ hours per week: https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.epi.org&#x2F;publication&#x2F;uber-and-the-labor-market-ub...So while I was perhaps too harsh on the work of the BLS, I do think that newer metrics are warranted.

hparadiz: Through the magic of serendipity it just so happens that the states that decide for us happen to be MI, WI, and PA and so this concept of backlashes is quite amusing. Tech workers live in a bubble away from these states minus Philly.

dragonwriter: A little under half of US healthcare spending is public programs, the President’s signature “One Big Beautiful Bill” made massive cuts to the federal component of that which started impacting in July of last year, consequently....

Rexxar: I saw a lot of comments trying to guess where the job were lost in other comments and I think this give a little more context. I put the original source, there are 42 pages of data, if you want more details.

throw310822: Sorry, ofc, thanks for posting this.

meeb: They plug the phone into a computer and use software to literally clone it, so everything on the phone. All logs, emails, messages, photos, contacts, deleted files if they’re recoverable, passwords, everything.

CalRobert: Would an iphone in lockdown mode have any resistance to this?

nerdsniper: The latest iPhone model in lockdown mode would be super resistant. Lockdown mode is specifically engineered to protect against Cellebrite &#x2F; Pegasus-level threats.However, if you’re a noncitizen you might be refused entry, and if you are a citizen you might never see that phone again. The phone will be stored for years until&#x2F;if Cellebrite finds a vulnerability in that iPhone model, and then it will be searched. Also the government might target your future phones for Pegasus-style remote attacks, so if you present your phone to CBP in lockdown mode, you may want to leave lockdown mode enabled forever.Modern iPhones are very, very hard (impossible) to crack today if they’re locked down properly: strong password, biometrics disabled, and&#x2F;or lockdown mode.

srean: Very interesting. Are there any technical hindrances that prevent Android being the same ?

Luc: 72% is just not a believable figure. I assume we're talking about TUI here, and they haven't announced anything about this 72% as far as I can tell.

epistasis: Mass deportations are being conducted mostly on the basis of race. The accusation of blatant racism, come from police chiefs, from judges, as well as everybody experiencing the mass deportation. And the accusation of racism isn't that immigrants are a race, but the exact racial discrimination in who gets kidnapped and disappeared by masked men that are indistinguishable from criminals.

newfriend: >Mass deportations are being conducted mostly on the basis of race.Care to share your stats?This sounds like more of "I don't like this president, therefore what he's doing is wrong"

dehrmann: What are the current theories about why the perceived(?) healthy unemployment rate is lower post-covid? 4.4% is spectacularly good by historic standards. This has also been the slowest medium-term upswing in unemployment since WWII.https:&#x2F;&#x2F;fred.stlouisfed.org&#x2F;series&#x2F;UNRATEI'd ignore the headline number and wonder what the longer term trend means because this isn't normal.

kasey_junk: Macro demographics. Boomers are retiring and requiring healthcare in historic numbers.

AndrewKemendo: People were looking for the AI productivity metrics and here they are

spankalee: How has today's AI meaningfully impacted construction and manufacturing jobs in the US?

mindslight: And thank goodness for that! I'd never thought I'd see the day where I was praising the Fed. But when our government is full of arsonists lighting our institutions ablaze, the last thing we need to do is dump more gasoline on the fires. The only way to unfreeze the Main Street economy is to get rid of the tyrant strangling our society for his own personal enrichment.

blurbleblurble: At this point it seems absolutely intentional. Where I live they're trying to block multiple billions of dollars of already allocated money used to fund county hospitals. Accelerationists in office explicitly declaring intent to bring about Armageddon via official channels? Why would they care about keeping people employed when they don't seem to think there's room for everyone to even live?https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.theguardian.com&#x2F;world&#x2F;2026&#x2F;mar&#x2F;03&#x2F;us-israel-iran...

gardnr: The hotel booking websites show pricing trend data and rooms are largely “low price” currently. March isn’t exactly high season for California but it’s an interesting indicator.

rurp: They're also the only party of fiscal responsibility, although Biden broke the pattern there. Nearly all deficit reduction over the past couple generations has happened under Democrats.

mikeyouse: Yes it’s resistant but then they can just deny your entry into the country.

CalRobert: Presumably not if you’re a citizen but then, who knows

justin66: > If all of the undocumented people in the US spent this much time trying to emigrate legallyMany of the "undocumented people" (what an Orwellian phrase) that have been rounded up by ICE are picked up during court hearings or immigration interviews. An easy way for agents to meet their quota without doing any actual investigative work. Say what you will about them but there's no denying those people were by definition "trying to emigrate legally." This has been widely reported.

xhkkffbf: No. If you're "trying to X legally", that means you don't just do X anyway no matter what the legal system says. Next you'll claim that robbers are trying to earn a living legally".

kylehotchkiss: I find this policy of "reduce housing prices by economic catastrophe" instead of just like making the army core of engineers build 2-4 million housing units to be like hitting a nail with a jackhammer

kypro: > Private education and health servicesI'm probably missing something here, but those seem quite unrelated categories, and I'm not sure why anyone would pay for private education these days when we all have access to free AI private tutors?

JumpCrisscross: > when we all have access to free AI private tutors?The parents that stuck their kids in front of a TV in the 80s or handed them an iPad to shut them up in the 2010s think this is a great idea today. Namely, it’s not an AI tutor. It’s an AI babysitter. That’s fine. Parents need breaks, particularly ones who can’t afford childcare. But branding it as anything but a way to mindlessly occupy one’s child is dishonest.

kermatt: I come from healthcare staffing.Contracts were heavily affected by cuts in federal programs that are critical to some rural regions, and uncertainty caused by inconsistent messaging about the future of such programs. Some areas are very dependent facilities that can only survive with public funding.For example in nursing categories, CNOs (Chief Nursing Officers) would be requesting more staff, but CFOs would block those requests due to changing budget forecasts. The unpredictability of the fed is causing chaos downstream.There is also a continuing trend to "realign" staff levels post-COVID, but that now is much easier to forecast for compared to the political chaos. In 2026 healthcare, that would not be a reason for attrition at these levels.

JumpCrisscross: Thank you. Is there a good reason this is showing up now versus in the 2025 data?

robocat: Healthcare is a cost not a profit in the economy: the Healthcare sector consumes what is produced by other parts of the economy. Similarly government can't exist without businesses. And a large part of healthcare is dependent on taxation.

JumpCrisscross: > Healthcare is a cost not a profitIt’s both. Like transportation and construction. And whether you think it’s a profit or cost center doesn’t change that it contains paying jobs.

yonaguska: My personal take is that it's just hit a breaking point where people have finally decided that it's not worth the money. Im not the only person I know with an uninsured wife, and only coverage for my kids. If it weren't for my kids, I wouldn't have enrolled in insurance either. The math just doesn't work out for someone relatively young and with no major health issues. And with the government cutting back spending, which you can see that hitting big insurers like UNH directly, the market is getting a little tighter.

mschuster91: > The math just doesn't work out for someone relatively young and with no major health issues.The thing is, bad and expensive health issues can literally come upon you over night. You can get hit by a vehicle or get beaten up with no perpetrator to be held accountable, you can develop an aneurysm, get food poisoning, get pregnant unexpectedly (with all the risk that comes with, including healthcare not being accessible because of anti-abortion BS), or you can simply fall over a step in your own house.

conartist6: All those things could happen but the healthcare provider will mug you once a month.There has to be SOME point where the constant muggings aren't worth it vs the risk, otherwise they would simply demand all our money, knowing we won't say no with our life on the line.

wraptile: Agreed and generally insurance would be a value bet between you and the insurance providee with a slight operation overhead. In the US the market is basically circular as the insurance provider also has hands in all related pies so the bet odds are in such awful state that some people take the risk and rely on crazy stuff like gofundme for survival. I'm not an american but this doesn't look like something that can be solved with more market - the odds are just so broken in many cases.

mothballed: Most illegal immigrants could spend the rest of their lives trying to immigrate legally and never make it, so that doesn't seem rational. Being undocumented is their best bet, as long as they don't break the criminal law once they're past the border and they make it 100 miles past the border their odds of being caught are next to nil. ICE is mostly catching people that either turn up in the legal system or are documented somewhere where they can be found.

xhkkffbf: Uh. Most of us will spend our whole lives trying to earn money but never make it to being billionaires. So are you saying it's rational to disregard the legal system and steal?The irony is rich here. Country X is bad for enforcing its immigration laws. So let's run off to country Y and dutifully follow its immigration laws.

mothballed: That depends if it's more practical to steal a billion or earn it legally. I suspect the most practical way to get to a billion is to legally steal it, perhaps with some form of regulatory capture or a government franchise granting a monopoly. Whether you think this is right or wrong is immaterial to what the practical approach is.It is definitely easier to immigrate illegally for a large portion of the world population, and probably most illegal immigrants. Rational actor then would immigrate illegally.I think this also very much depends on the country. Only a total idiot would try to "legally" immigrate to Argentina as their constitution essentially grants citizenship just for surviving for two years, and meanwhile there is essentially no immigration enforcement and fairly onerous visa process to do it "legally." On the other hand, you'd have to be an idiot to illegally immigrate to China in anything but the most dire circumstances, as they have an Orwellian surveillance apparatus and getting a legal business visa is fairly straightforward particularly in some special economic zones.Having a dogmatic adherance to the law leads to irrational actions. But also having a dogmatic disdain for the law also leads to irrational actions. Everything has to be considered in context. In the context of the USA you mostly have to be an idiot to try and immigrate legally if you are low skilled poor person from a 3rd world country with no connections. In the context of an educated American going to Europe, the rational choice is probably to immigrate legally.

smallmancontrov: The cuts didn't happen the moment OBBB was passed on July 4 (ew). Here's a timeline:https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.kff.org&#x2F;medicaid&#x2F;implementation-dates-for-2025-b...It looks like many parts went into effect Jan 1 2026. Also, predicting demand elasticity with price hikes of this magnitude is difficult, so I imagine that many practices were in "wait and see" mode through Q4 and then adjusted in Q1.

n8cpdx: There’s no way preschool for all is broadly popular.It soaks the “rich” with an income threshold that isn’t indexed to inflation and kicks in at an income level where preschool is still a major affordability challenge.And then you pay PFA and don’t get preschool for your kid because we’re still years away from having enough seats for everyone.So it is preschool for some (multco paying for seats in existing preschool, aka kicking your kid out of their preschool spot) paid for by the broad middle class.Even Kotek was ragging on it.2020’s 125k&#x2F;200k thresholds should be today’s 150&#x2F;250 thresholds. They are not.https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.opb.org&#x2F;article&#x2F;2025&#x2F;06&#x2F;26&#x2F;kotek-multnomah-count...

ncr100: Our president is abusive, he hired other abusers ("stephen miller", etc), and they are spreading abuse.I WISH governments would be for the people and not for the powerful who can buy "justice" .. for themselves.

JumpCrisscross: OBBA as the cause requires intermediate steps to show up in this jobs report versus last year. The other comment’s guess at strike effects seems more parsimonious.

gruez: Why? Up till the end of last year, congressional Democrats were trying to get the ACA expansions extended, triggering a government shutdown in the process. Even after that plan fizzled out, they were promised a vote to reinstate it, so for hospitals or whatever there was still hope that there would still be funding. There's no real reason why you'd expect everyone to get fired the day that OBBA was passed.

verytrivial: That's a fine economic statistics operation you've got there. Shame if something were to happen to it.

Lio: > Your passport does not matter, the colour of your skin doesI'm not 100% that would save or condemn you either.There have been a number of high profile cases of white Europeans also being detained by ICE without due process.e.g. this white couple from the UK who spent 6 weeks in a detention centre:https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.independent.co.uk&#x2F;travel&#x2F;news-and-advice&#x2F;ice-bri...The implication being that ICE employees might be bonused on numbers imprisoned regardless of circumstances.Whether that's true or just a very rare anomaly it still puts the willies up me enough that I've stopped visiting the US. I'll be giving this World Cup a miss, as will my family.

hparadiz: Those people you wanna tax will just wfh from another state. Then you'll wonder why tax revenue is down and why no one is hiring.

prh8: People aren't leaving Seattle to save a small amount in taxes every year

libria: Maybe the opponents consider it a foot in the door; a wedge that can be expanded gradually to include lower tiers at lower percentages AKA the beginning of a WA State Income Tax. There are not few 400k households in Seattle.The majority of states have one so it's not that big a deal, but it'll be less often said "I'm going to turn down this higher SF offer for Seattle b&#x2F;c of lower COL...".I'm not sure where the next refuge will be. Austin? Memphis?

carlosjobim: The power of media influence over people's minds. People will think whatever they are told to think by their media rulers. They will feel whatever they're told to feel.So there's not much mystery to it.

bryanrasmussen: I didn't expect a precise number of course, so in that way it's true, and frankly I expected this sooner, but those little acknowledgements out of the way I'd say I sure expected it and so did a lot of other people.

h2zizzle: Seems like something that shouldn't be left up to a consumer market.

rootusrootus: What percentage of the market actually pays it this way? IIRC, somewhere north of a third of Americans are already on a form of single payer healthcare. Most of the remainder are getting it through their job, subsidized to varying degrees. The fraction of the population that actually pays the full premiums out of their own pocket is pretty limited, AFAIK.

bonsai_spool: > What percentage of the market actually pays it this way?The only way this can make sense mathematically is if you're including children, seniors, and&#x2F;or the ill—populations who are unable to work. What is your reference?

cucumber3732842: >Healthcare was carrying the economy. Any commentary on why that’s failing?The fact that it's such big part of the economy is a really bad thing because it's "overhead" or "broken windows" for the most part.And it's falling because people are stretched thin so they're not going to the engaging healthcare unless they truly NEED it. Even if you have "great" insurance contacting that system still costs you money if not every time then on average.

bodiekane: I don't think the "broken windows" metaphor is very accurate for healthcare. A lot of healthcare spending is along a gradient of elective vs necessary and some continuum of quality of life improvements.For instance, I could live with allergies, and all my ancestors just had to, but I have the option to spend money on allergy testing services, medicines, treatments, etc. People spend money on in-home professional care to get better treatment than going alone or relying on family, or spend money on care facilities as appropriate for their circumstances.We have medicines for depression, anxiety, restless leg syndrome, ADHD, birth control, acne, weight loss, low testosterone, ED, poor sleep, eczema, psoriasis and a million other issues which people in the past, or people in developing countries today, simply had to live with that we have the privilege of having access to treatments for to improve our quality of life.I know people who are affluent and outwardly "healthy" who spend thousands of dollars per year in the "healthcare" category that's entirely discretionary, but lets them keep looking young and playing tennis at 70 years old, or helps them juggle work, family and fitness at 40.

Al-Khwarizmi: I'm not a big fan of Dubai, but it used to be a really safe travel destination, at least for male travelers. A month or two ago there was no reason to assume it would be otherwise.BTW, the irony is that they decided not to go to the US, but they are victims of the danger caused by the US anyway.

bitcurious: I enjoy Dubai, but it’s is part of a state where showing a stranger the middle finger is punishable with jail and deportation, nevermind an expat criticism the emirs. It’s pretty telling to consider that safe but to be afraid of showing your passport to CBP.

bdangubic: All we gotta do is show passport to the CBP and that's it, we get in? All people avoiding travel to the USA are doing so because they have a bad photo in their passport? :)

HEmanZ: “ Most of the attraction of living there historically was its extremely business-friendly environment.”How old are you? What propaganda told you this? In my generation (young millennial&#x2F;genz) the attraction of living in Seattle, which pulled me and almost a dozen professional friends at this point has been:- high quality urban living in a temperate environment. Including access to great parks, waterfront, bikeability in the city- access to great outdoors and regional amenities like skiing, ocean fishing, hiking, wine country- liberal policies and general friendly society (it’s friendlier here than the east coast)- no state income tax (we’re all very high tax bracket)- a high enough income population that you can find a plethora of high-end products and services that cluster around high income earners (only a few us cities have this stronger than Seattle I feel)

keldonjohnson: For my demographic (Early genz), there are only 3 reasons to be here:A. Their job is only available hereB. No state income tax(C?). They REALLY love skiing&#x2F;hikingPeople have always regularly left for NYC&#x2F;Bay Area, but I predict it will start to happen in droves over the next few years as A rapidly fades and legislation begins to threaten B.

0xy: With this perspective, it would make a lot of financial sense for you to short the US markets or bet on this outcome.After all, you're certain it is true.

0xy: Seems like a pretty wild statement given the prior administration's record on inflation. Did they care if anyone could afford to eat?Seems to me like they blew tens of billions on EV charging stations they never delivered, started a fraudulent rural broadband program that was a handout to big telecommunications companies (the cost per connection was around $50,000, which would buy a Starlink and perpetual service for it). All of this fueled runaway inflation, goods such as raw chicken rose over 7.5% yearly.

thcipriani: Meanwhile, the ADP report[0]: +63k in Feb.[0]: <https:&#x2F;&#x2F;adpemploymentreport.com&#x2F;>

kyoji: What a head-in-the-sand comment. Are you very wealthy? Congrats! You can ignore the flames for a little longer than the rest of us.

lotsofpulp: I don't see why we should believe any of the data in the first place. At best, I assume good people have been let go and proper procedures are falling by the wayside. At worst, it is being manipulated (even perhaps incompetently).

JumpCrisscross: This sounds like someone who is on social media too much. The counterpart is an American in Paris convinced the banlieu are war zones.The actual problems: we’ve made it impossible and insulting to get a tourist visa. And we’ve made pissing on our tourism partners our foreign policy.

blurbleblurble: Your head's in the sand. Where I live we have bounty hunters kidnapping people into unmarked vans. For six months or more now. Would visitors likely be safe? Sure, but not necessarily and I can't blame people for being cautious and there's so much unpredictability around it, even for those of us who are familiar.

JumpCrisscross: > I can't blame people for being cautious and there's so much unpredictability around itI can. Again, this is like refusing to visit CDMX because you heard about gang violence or avoiding Sicily because there is crime. Those singular events aren’t false. But they don’t make up the majority of the context. Someone refusing to travel because of these low-probability events (note: because of fear of them, not out of protest, which is separate) is almost certainly behaving irrationally.Where your argument might have purchase is in America having previously been a good tourism destination for someone with such anxieties. But the truth of the matter is folks like that don’t tend to travel in the first place.

BeetleB: > But they don’t make up the majority of the context. Someone refusing to travel because of these low-probability events (note: because of fear of them, not out of protest, which is separate) is almost certainly behaving irrationally.Statistically speaking, it's very safe for a white American to go to Dubai&#x2F;Doha these days.Would you fault them for not going?

lgleason: So the only golden age is the gaudy gold he added to the white house and the profits for all of his oligarch friends&#x2F;defense contractors etc. while everybody else suffers.Let them eat cake.

jandrewrogers: You can add in the increasing B&O (revenue) taxes, payroll taxes, data center taxes, and the expansion of the extremely high sales taxes to things that effectively make Washington uncompetitive. The cost of doing business has become unreasonably high and is so badly structured that it creates perverse incentives for how you organize business.And then you have a litany of new business regulation across every sector of the local economy. My recent favorite, which fortunately did not make it out of this session due to heavy lobbying by tech, was requiring data centers to turn-off power during periods of high electricity demand. It's insane that this is even being seriously considered.Oregon is also a mess but it has always been a mess.Texas isn't the only alternative. Turning Washington into California with worse weather even makes California relatively attractive.

ActorNightly: >You can add in the increasing B&O (revenue) taxes, payroll taxes, data center taxes, and the expansion of the extremely high sales taxes to things that effectively make Washington uncompetitive.None of this matters. We have been hearing how California is doing the same shit for years and people are moving out in droves, but turns out California house prices are still high because people are staying there and its still a very good place to live and work on the average, despite way higher cost of living.So Washington is going to do just fine.

zzleeper: Sad&#x2F;funny that your comment is at the bottom.Workers on strike are classified as not employed, so yeah we should ignore that category

nradov: Sure, those things can happen. A lot of younger people will decide to just accept the risk, and then if they get hit by a bad and expensive health issue then they'll go to the ER anyway. Due to EMTALA, most hospitals have to treat them regardless of ability to pay. This is one of the factors causing the US healthcare financing system to collapse.

neogodless: Even less unexpectedly to anyone without an actual job.

metalliqaz: hah, point well taken. In hindsight, my use of "actual job" to mean "job that contributes to the economy rather than simply speculating on it or skimming off the top", wasn't very clear.

blurbleblurble: Remind me again which administration's Fed chair cut interest rates to near 0%, during which administration? And which administration has been pressuring the same exact chairman to cut rates now?

pcthrowaway: 90% of Canadians live within 100 km of the U.S. border, it's not much different than traveling elsewhere in Canada.Granted, as someone who lives ~40 km from the border, I'm broke and can't afford to travel, but I'm also avoiding the U.S. and have been further than 100 km from home on a number of occasions in the past year.

magicalist: > Due to EMTALA, most hospitals have to treat them regardless of ability to pay. This is one of the factors causing the US healthcare financing system to collapse.They'll only treat you until you're stabilized, though. They won't give you chemo or routine care. If you need to be admitted you're also not covered by the EMTALA.All emergency medicine, not just that triggered by the EMTALA, is 5-6% of all healthcare spending in the US, so while it contributes, it's not collapsing the healthcare system.The real problems with it are that it's an unfunded mandate by Congress, just adding to the financial tangling of the healthcare system, and that it's way too often used to treat things that could have been much more cheaply treated in a clinic, but then there are no clinics nearby that take Medicaid and are actually open, so instead, like with so much of our health care system, we choose to solve it the stupid way instead.

badc0ffee: Museums are notably worse in Canada, honestly.But, I think there some unique things worth seeing for an American: The old parts of Montreal&#x2F;Quebec city, and the Alberta Rockies, especially the corridor between Banff and Jasper.

01100011: Oregon ticks most of those boxes except the difference is that Oregon has very few jobs. People flock to WA because of jobs created by long-standing business friendly policies.That doesn't explain everything, obviously, but I think you need to take it into consideration. For decades I've heard this in some form from people: "Oregon is amazing, but I had to leave when I couldn't get a job." Meanwhile the Sea-Tac region has had amazing growth, packed wall-to-wall with a range of companies.

rendang: Weather is worse in the Portland area, can be a good few degrees warmer than Seattle in the summer

angiolillo: I have a general sense of the difficulty based on preliminary discussions with an immigration lawyer, but the Netherlands seems like one of the easier routes we're considering.The reason it's "daydreaming" is that we're not yet ready to give up on New England, but I'd still like to start getting our ducks in a row in case there's a rush for the exits and we have to move quickly.> He's now making half of what he might make at home, but he's happy.Sounds like exactly what we're looking for.

saalweachter: Sure, yeah, but you say "Alberta Rockies" and I think "Ah, yes, because the US is notably lacking good scenic parks in the Rocky Mountains."

summerdown2: > Trump is attacking allies too, but they’re both criminal.In other news, a mouse and an elephant are both mammals.If only there was some obvious way to tell the difference between them.

tehjoker: I don't really know how to respond politely to downplaying genocide. What I can say is that it is becoming accepted that Kamala Harris lost in part because she refused to change genocide policy. If you want to win, you should start taking it seriously.https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.axios.com&#x2F;2026&#x2F;02&#x2F;22&#x2F;dnc-2024-autopsy-harris-gaz...

hyperpape: Don't put words in my mouth, don't say silly things.I'm well aware the color your skin matters a lot, but your passport also matters, especially at the border.You're better off with white skin and a US passport than with white skin and a British passport, but you're also better off with brown skin and a US passport than brown skin and a British passport and that's still better than brown skin and a third-world passport.And yeah, even if you're a white man with a US passport, you still might end up shot by ICE if you're in Minneapolis (doesn't mean you're less likely to be targeted).

hyperpape: hell of a typo in that last sentence, and I can't edit.I meant to say "doesn't mean you're not less likely to be targeted".

hungryhobbit: >You're better off with white skin and a US passport than with white skin and a British passport, but you're also better off with brown skin and a US passport than brown skin and a British passport and that's still better than brown skin and a third-world passport.Tell me you're not an American without telling me you're not an American.I hate to say it, but to many (racist) Americans, brown skin < anything else ... and ICE has a disproportionate number of those people, because they deliberately hire them.

avrionov: Not everyone was laid off immediately in the government. Some people were given 6 months notices, etc. Then the local authorities started to discuss the gap in their budgets. In my town they stopped hiring first and then they decided to cut some positions starting from 2026.

anigbrowl: [delayed]

joe_mamba: Where did you get 11% GDP from. Google says 3%.

orwin: nvm i'm dumb, i can't read a chart: https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.statista.com&#x2F;statistics&#x2F;292518&#x2F;contribution-of-t...2023: 2.36T (i misread and took 2024 prediction)https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.statista.com&#x2F;statistics&#x2F;188105&#x2F;annual-gdp-of-the...2023: 27.72.36 &#x2F; 27.7 * 100 ~ 8.5so 8.5 percent, not 11I don't have a paid access to the website since 2021, so i can't look at the primary&#x2F;secondary data, but it never failed me, and doesn't have the bias more political economic institutes has, so i mostly take data from there. If you have different data i will take them.

drivebyhooting: Jobs is one facet. But I’d curious to know about inputs and outputs.Is the US producing more or fewer widgets? Are we generating and consuming more or less energy? How are imports and exports?If inputs and outputs are staying the same then it would support the narrative of increased efficiency and elimination of BS jobs.

CalRobert: I live very close to Utrecht and I adore the city. We literally have kids in groups biking to the canal with fishing rods.

angiolillo: Sounds lovely. Our kids enjoyed the local bikepacking trips we did this summer, perhaps our next will visit the area. (In the off chance you have personal recommendations for bike touring companies&#x2F;routes, let me know.)

rootusrootus: Pew Research says just under 7% of the population uses the exchanges to buy insurance. Overall, about 36% of the population is on public healthcare, according to Census.gov. KFF says that about 80% of the working population, plus or minus, gets insurance through their employer, with an average of $570&#x2F;month out-of-pocket for premiums.

hparadiz: Quite the opposite. I just spent the past month "vibe coding" a pretty serious program in C. The tldr is yea I can build faster but I'm still sitting there testing, debugging, and focusing on specific features as I go and that's still a human limitation. The AI productivity is pivoted directly into higher complexity of features. It's not a magic wand that immediately builds a program that works perfectly out of the box. The zeitgeist just hasn't caught up to the reality of that.

01100011: And that's cool but your experience is not what the market is trading. The vibe is that vibe-coding will come together in the next few years and SW margins will be hit. That doesn't mean it's the reality, just that it is what the market is thinking.

hparadiz: Yes. I'm saying the market is wrong.

simonh: I think it's also worth considering that taxpayer funded US government spending on health care is about the same as in a typical single-payer European country. Then many tax payers still have to pay for private health care on top, to actually get health care for themselves.

nradov: Hospital costs attributed to EMTALA are relatively low today. My point is we should expect those costs to grow as more consumers become uninsured. This is one of several factors that will eventually wreck the current healthcare financing system.

arethuza: "Illness is neither an indulgence for which people have to pay, nor an offence for which they should be penalised, but a misfortune the cost of which should be shared by the community.”Aneurin Bevan

nradov: That's true to an extent, but the majority of US healthcare spending goes to treating chronic conditions caused more by lifestyle choices than misfortune. There's a fundamental issue in public health policy about individual responsibility and whether to charge people more (or potentially even deny care) over factors at least partially under their control. For example, the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) allows health plans to charge tobacco users higher premiums. Is that fair? Should we also charge higher premiums to alcohol users or those with sedentary lifestyles? There are no clear right or wrong answers here.

magicalist: > There are no clear right or wrong answers here.Absolutely, but there are lots of working, existing models that are better than ours in practice, so this isn't much of an excuse.

nradov: That's a meaningless statement. You can find many examples of "working" national healthcare systems (for various definitions of working) and they're all different in how they allocate costs to consumers.For one example there some positive aspects to the Japanese system in that they achieve good outcomes (on average) at lower costs. But that's partly due to the "Metabo Law" aka "fat tax" which voters in other countries might see as punitive or discriminatory. I'm not necessarily arguing for any particular approach to lifestyle-related health conditions but any choice involves trade-offs.https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.telegraph.co.uk&#x2F;news&#x2F;2023&#x2F;12&#x2F;07&#x2F;japan-solved-obe...

throw0101d: > I'm well aware the color your skin matters a lot, but your passport also matters, especially at the border.The way things are currently operating, the border is probably the place you have to worry the least as it's staffed by CBP folks which have probably had training: it's the rest of the country with ICE randos running around that seem to be the worrisome areas. Just ask the South Koreans:* https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.theguardian.com&#x2F;global-development&#x2F;2025&#x2F;sep&#x2F;12&#x2F;s...> You're better off with white skin and a US passport than with white skin and a British passport, but you're also better off with brown skin and a US passport than brown skin and a British passport […]Are we talking at the border or the rest of the country? At the border with CBP a US passport would probably be best. With the rest of the country, with ICE, white skin and a British (or any) passports would probably be 'best'.* https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Driving_while_black

tremon: That topic should be a non-starter as long as US government policy is to keep shitting in the food bowl. There's way too many communities living under the toxic spill or waste of some unregulated industrial process -- and the country seems perfectly ok with that kind of "lifestyle". I really don't see why we should villify individual lifestyle choices when the entire country is happy with intentionally harmful policy choices.So, if health insurers want to start charging premiums I suggest they send their bills to Superfund sites first, then to regular toxic cities like Flint, Camden, Hinkley or Picher, then to producers of known-carcinogenic substances (like Chrome-6 or Roundup), and then to advertisers of known-harmful products like alcohol or tobacco. Only when they run out of those targets can we have a discussion on individual lifestyle choices.

nradov: OK cute rant but do you have a realistic proposal? I absolutely agree that we should do more to reduce exposure to toxins but there's no legal mechanism for health plans to shift costs that way. Ultimately some of the money spent caring for others with lifestyle-related chronic conditions is going to come out of your pocket through insurance premiums and taxes. This is inevitable. Are you willing to pay more for people who choose to smoke and get lung cancer &#x2F; emphysema &#x2F; heart failure &#x2F; etc? Yes or no?There's very little tobacco advertising anymore so we're not going to squeeze many dollars out there.https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.fda.gov&#x2F;tobacco-products&#x2F;products-guidance-regul...

0xy: A Senior Software Engineer in Stockholm can expect to make less money than a Graduate Software Engineer in the United States, and will pay more taxes.It's simple, as a technologist, you live in Europe if retirement isn't important for you. Because you'll have almost nothing to show for it after 30 years in tech in Europe.

BeetleB: Except lots of vacation, travel, etc.

keldonjohnson: In big tech the benefits are the same, except you save more in 10 years in WA than people in London save in 30.

JohnnyMarcone: What about everyone else in society? What happens if your skill set is no longer in demand and you become one of "everyone else"?

coder68: Even working in "tech" but not FAANG this is so true, 10 days is still the norm at many white collar businesses for your first year of employment, sometimes 15 days if they're generous.

coder68: The tradeoff with many EU countries would be that they enjoy their leisure time a lot more and sooner than Americans. Americans make more and save more statistically, but they spend it on cars, houses, and medical care, and generally have way less free time. So I think it's a wash.

wat10000: "The majority" I'll grant you, but I'd say 43.4% is close enough to "half" for these purposes. It's only a touch lower than his poll numbers right before the election.Compare with Kier Starmer, who as of this writing has not sent armed goons into his own cities, wrecked all of his international trade and tourism, alienated his allies, or once again invaded the Middle East. His approval rating is about 20%!

nradov: Well Starmer giving away the Diego Garcia military base has certainly alienated at least one ally.https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.reuters.com&#x2F;world&#x2F;europe&#x2F;trump-calls-uks-chagos-...

greedo: Sure, a CEO has never lied before about the reasons for layoffs.

shimman: I think COVID ruined people's ability to critically think. The amount of people in both journalism and across the economy, people are just taking the words of others (often those with malicious intents) with zero critical thought being applied.For Block's case they have had multiple layoffs over the last 5 years, hardly the sign of an AI apocalypse and more of a sign of a business leader that only survived because of free money.

greedo: I agree 100%. I think that many business "leaders" will use AI as a cudgel to control their budgets.

mikeyouse: Right this was in the context of Canadians visiting - they can’t deny entry if you’re a US citizen but they can certainly make the entry uncomfortable.

BeetleB: > In big tech the benefits are the same,Depends on which big tech. 15 days of vacation, BTW, doesn't even come close to comparing with much of Europe.And I didn't mention London. London is crap. Probably all of UK is.Most Europeans I know in certain countries travel a lot more than Americans at big tech.

lurking_swe: What if i told you some big tech jobs let you earn $300k+ a year, while take 4 weeks+ time off, and working 40hrs a week?My first SWE job was at an older fortune 500 company where tech was not its main focus. You started with 14 days of vacation and slooooowly worked your way up to 4 weeks after like 20 years of service lol.My point is, in the U.S. your experience varies WILDLY based on your employer. Not saying the U.S. is perfect or does things the right way. Just pointing out that you’re off base with your “15 days of vacation for big tech” comment. That’s a false generalization for big tech. Accurate for white collar jobs in general though!

g8oz: >>you live in Europe if retirement isn't important for you.Wouldn't the robust social safety net found in many European countries offer a dignified retirement for most people?

nitwit005: But other people did have issues. Examining a single person's experience won't work for this sort of thing.

nitwit005: AI isn't causing the job losses in health and hospitality.

Analemma_: I can't find it now because Bluesky's search function is so dreadful, but after the January jobs report was better than expected, a bunch of people were assuming the BLS must have fudged the numbers. Then the person who was actually fired from the BLS by Trump actually showed up and posted saying that, as far as they can tell from talking to "surviving" colleagues, the blowback after that firing was so intense that there hasn't been further pressure on the BLS and that as far as they can tell, the numbers are still good.If someone can find this post, please link it here, because this person was no fan of Trump and I considered it a matter of considerable personal integrity that they looked into the matter and determined they still stood by the numbers, instead of taking the easy win on Bluesky and denouncing them.(There is a separate issue where for the last 2-3 years, the BLS's later revisions to jobs numbers have been almost entirely downward, instead of evenly distributed like they used to be, indicating some kind of systemic methodological issue, maybe some secular change in how labor markets work post-covid. The February numbers could mean maybe they've fixed the problem, or maybe they haven't and this will later get revised to something even worse. But that issue predates Trump.)

h2zizzle: >There is a separate issue where for the last 2-3 years, the BLS's later revisions to jobs numbers have been almost entirely downward, instead of evenly distributed like they used to be, indicating some kind of systemic methodological issue, maybe some secular change in how labor markets work post-covidThe Biden administration pulled out all the stops (without resorting to outright corruption, like Trump) to get ahead of the fact that we briefly entered a recession in 2022 (which would not have been as brief if it had been correctly identified as the recession that it was). They changed how they calculated inflation around this time, which coincided with headline staying below 10% even though it had been trending higher and likely was much, much higher for parts of the country. I have no issue with the notion that they also changed the way that they calculated job growth and then, surprise, numbers are good (but then get revised down later when no one cares anymore).

Analemma_: I actually do pay reasonably close attention to how inflation and unemployment are calculated, and read the BLS and Federal Reserve reports beyond just the headlines from mass media outlets, and I can say this confidently: nothing you just said is true, you made up that whole paragraph out of nothing. It reads like a copypasta from RW Twitter reply guys.

h2zizzle: ...Headline inflation, as opposed to core inflation. Not literal headlines. "Close attention," indeed.Reading the reports "beyond just the headlines" implies that you're still just taking them at face value, when the problem is that the methodology was likely compromised by a desire not to see bad numbers roll out. Nonsensical susbtitutions in the CPI basket, which just happened to understate the price hikes most Americans saw c. 2022. Suspicious timing of changes in the efficacy of initial jobs reports when compared to later revisions, as you yourself brought up, in part because the Biden admin failed to better fund BLS surveys and better incentivize responses. Stuff like that.So while I appreciate that you would like to dismiss, out-of-hand, the concerns about the Biden admin's economic reporting, it's not so easy. They're real and this lacto-ovo progressive is not the only one bringing them up.Good Luke verbal cosplay, though. &#x2F;s

nitwit005: Several Europeans have been detained at U.S. borders or during their stays, sometimes for weeks or months, even with valid documents.Unsurprisingly, most people don't like hearing they might go to prison for no real reason.

BeetleB: > What if i told you some big tech jobs let you earn $300k+ a year, while take 4 weeks+ time off, and working 40hrs a week?Acknowledged in my original comment. The key word is "some".And my point is that people earning half that in Europe tend to go on more vacation travel than those earning the same amount in the US.