By Michael 

Do you ever feel like you are “functionally unemployed”?  If so, you are definitely not alone.  There are lots of people out there that cannot pay the bills each month even though they have jobs.  In fact, there are lots of people out there that literally cannot afford to put a roof over their heads even though they are employed.  Yes, there are many hard working Americans that are now living in their vehicles or in “tent communities” because that is all they can afford.  In recent years, the cost of living has been rising much faster than paychecks have, and so now a substantial percentage of the population is living in a state of constant financial stress.  The middle class has been collapsing all around us, and we are witnessing an extraordinary amount of economic suffering all over the country right now.

For years, the federal government has been telling us that the unemployment rate in the U.S. is very low.

Everyone knows that is a bunch of hogwash.

According to a report that was recently released by the Ludwig Institute for Shared Economic Prosperity, the true rate of unemployment in the U.S. was 24.3 percent last month…

But another indicator suggests those pieces of government data may be painting an overly rosy picture of the economy, with a recent report from the Ludwig Institute for Shared Economic Prosperity (LISEP) finding the “true rate” of unemployment stood at 24.3% in April, up slightly from 24% in March, while the official Bureau of Labor Statistics rate remained unchanged at 4.2% over the same period.

LISEP’s measure encompasses not only unemployed workers, but also people who are looking for work but can’t find full-time employment, as well as those stuck in poverty-wage jobs. By tracking functionally unemployed workers, the measure seeks to capture labor market nuances that other economic indicators miss, such as Americans who are left behind during periods of economic expansion.

Today, there are millions upon millions of Americans that are “functionally unemployed”.

According to Gene Ludwig, you can literally “be homeless and in a tent community and have worked one hour” and be counted as “employed” by the federal government…

“The unemployment data, as it’s put out, has some flaws,” LISEP chairman Gene Ludwig told CBS MoneyWatch. “For example, it counts you as employed if you’ve worked as little as one hour over the prior two weeks. So you can be homeless and in a tent community and have worked one hour and be counted, irrespective of how poorly-paid that hour may be.”

I know that a lot of you can really identify with what I am talking about in this article, because you are experiencing deep economic pain on a daily basis.

Earlier this month, I heard from a reader that is essentially “functionally unemployed” at this point.

I asked him if I could share an excerpt from his email to me with all of you, and he gave me permission.  If you are suffering too, hopefully his story will help you to realize that you aren’t alone…

Last year my income was $19,000. If I didn’t have a mortgage/rent free house to live in, I would be homeless!!!

I try to stock up on food when ever my local Grocery Store puts items on sale.

I shop at Thrift Stores and only on the half price days.

In 8 years my Real Estate Taxes have gone from $1,400 to $2,000.

In 8 years my Real Estate Insurance has gone from $1,500 to $2,200.

I haven’t had a Vacation in DECADES!!!

I seldom eat out.

I drive a 40 year old Pickup with 220,000 miles on it.

I try to combine errands and shopping in one trip to conserve on gasoline and not put as many miles on my old Pickup.

During the hot summer months I take a shower out of the end of a garden hose to cut my water bill.

I wear my clothes day after day until they get so dirty I can’t stand it or they start to stink.

I can only dream about living a normal American middle class lifestyle.

I hear of people making $100,000 a year and how they cannot pay their bills. MY GOODNESS MAN, I WOULD CONSIDER MYSELF RICH IF I COULD MAKE $100K A YEAR!!!!!!

Countless others are living a similar lifestyle.

As I discussed earlier this month, one survey discovered that 70 percent of Americans are the most financially stressed that they have ever been in their entire lives.

And the cost of living just continues to soar.

In fact, the average price of a pound of ground beef just surged to another brand new record high…

The average cost of one pound of ground beef reached a record-high of $5.80 in April, according to numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That is up nearly 50% from five years ago.

Ouch.

Our cost of living crisis never seems to end.

Inflation is one of the primary reasons why consumer sentiment in the U.S. just hit the second lowest level ever recorded…

The index of consumer sentiment dropped to 50.8, down from 52.2 in April, in the preliminary reading for May. That is the second-lowest reading on record, behind June 2022.

The outlook for price changes also moved in the wrong direction. Year-ahead inflation expectations rose to 7.3% from 6.5% last month, while long-term inflation expectations ticked up to 4.6% from 4.4%.

And the outlook for the months ahead is not promising at all.

Last month, the Conference Board’s index of leading economic indicators fell for a fifth month in a row…

The short-term outlook for the U.S. economy worsened significantly in April, according to the Conference Board’s latest Leading Economic Index (LEI).

On Monday, the D.C.-based research said that the index—a closely monitored composite of several economic indicators—had fallen by 1.0 percent to 99.4 in April, registering the fifth consecutive monthly decline and the steepest drop since March 2023. Over the six months ending in April 2025, the LEI fell by two percent, matching the pace of decline posted over the previous six months.

Let me try to end this article on a positive note.

If you are “functionally unemployed”, I know that it is tough right now.

In this difficult economic environment, we are all just going to have to get lean and mean.

Do your best to try to earn as much money as you can, and once you have got it hold on to it very tightly.

The middle class has been getting eviscerated for years, but we must never give up.

It won’t be easy, but if you are willing to fight you can survive in this economy.

Just keep putting one foot in front of the other every day, and just keep looking for more opportunities to make things better for you and your family.

By Michael Snyder

This summer, vast numbers of radical leftists that absolutely hate Donald Trump, vast numbers of protesters that are deeply angry about the war in the Middle East, vast numbers of people that are in this country illegally, and vast numbers of ultra-violent predatory criminals will cause chaos in the streets of major cities all over America.  Unfortunately, even though the official start of summer is still nearly a month away, it appears that our upcoming “summer of chaos” is off to an early start.

Let me give you a perfect example of what I am talking about.  On Saturday, radical leftists spent hours disrupting a huge prayer rally right in the heart of Seattle, and authorities were forced to make dozens of arrests…

Dozens were arrested after violence broke out between woke protesters and police at a religious rally in Seattle.

Christian activists from On Fire Ministries hosted their ‘Mayday USA’ rally at Cal Anderson Park on Saturday.

The event was described as ‘standing together for Biblical truth and values’ as part of the ‘#DontMessWithOurKids’ movement, according to the organization’s Facebook.

The violence began some time around 1:30 PM, and by 5:30 PM the violence was still so bad that the Washington State Patrol was called in…

‘Individuals in the crowd have begun throwing water bottles at officers,’ police said. ‘Protesters have now knocked over fencing. Additional officers will be responding to the area to assist in maintaining a safe environment.’

By 5:30 p.m., troopers with the Washington State Patrol arrived at the scene to help SPD.

It was quite a chaotic scene, but what happened in Los Angeles that evening was even worse.

It is being reported that “a large mob” went absolutely wild in downtown Los Angeles on Saturday night…

Officers had to form a skirmish line to clear a large mob that vandalized a Metro train, a police car and several businesses in downtown Los Angeles on Saturday night.

A Los Angeles Police Department spokesperson confirmed to KTLA that units were dispatched to the 1700 block of Trinity Avenue near Washington Boulevard for reports of a group that was trespassing in the area around 10 p.m.

“The group vandalized a Metro train on Washington Boulevard. They also vandalized some businesses in the area,” the spokesperson said.

Liberal news outlets are not saying much about this riot because it makes their people look bad.

But it certainly should be getting a lot more attention.

At one point, the mob actually posed to take photos in front of an LAPD squad car that they had just vandalized…

“Around midnight, approximately 50 trespassers blocked two A Line trains traveling northbound and southbound at the intersection of Washington Boulevard and Maple Street, south of downtown Los Angeles,” Metro said in a statement given to KTLA. “The trespassers began to spray paint on both trains and gained entry into the southbound train and sprayed paint on the interior of the train. During the incident, no operators or passengers were harmed and service was delayed around 20 minutes.”

Several individuals were also seen vandalizing an LAPD squad car – even posing for pictures in front of it, shooting fireworks at it, kicking it and spray painting it as the officers started to drive away. Many of those who were not actively engaging in the vandalism were recording the chaos on their cell phones.

These days, our streets are absolutely teeming with predatory criminals.

And way too often, the police lose control.

Speaking of losing control, Fox News is telling us that “chaos erupted” when a large group of “keffiyeh-wearing anti-Israel protesters ripped up and burned diplomas outside Columbia University on Wednesday”…

A group of keffiyeh-wearing anti-Israel protesters ripped up and burned diplomas outside Columbia University on Wednesday shortly after a graduation ceremony at the Ivy League institution, while unruly demonstrators also tangled with police.

Chaos erupted outside the university when the protesters – many of whom had their faces covered with masks – torched diplomas in food trays next to a sign that read “Free Mahmoud Khalil,” the former student who was arrested by immigration agents in March and whom the Trump administration is trying to deport.

“Free, free Palestine,” and “You’re committing genocide,” the protesters yelled in the rain to the sound of drums.

Of course we are seeing similar protests all over the globe.

In fact, masked protesters set up a blockade of the Ontario Food Terminal very early on Sunday morning…

There are troubling reports that the Ontario Food Terminal—the largest wholesale fruit and produce hub in Canada, moving 2 billion pounds annually—has been disrupted by far-left activists chanting “Free Palestine.”

“Masked protesters stage a blockade at the Ontario Food Terminal, preventing freight trucks from accessing Canada’s largest wholesale fruit and vegetable distribution center,” citizen journalist “CarymaRules” wrote on X early Sunday morning, adding, “The demonstration began shortly before 2:00AM, ahead of the day’s scheduled deliveries.”

This is just the beginning guys.

Once the bombing of Iran’s nuclear facilities starts, these types of protests will be far more widespread.

Lastly, I wanted to mention the horrifying vehicle attack that we just witnessed in Liverpool…

A man has been arrested after a vehicle struck several people during a parade celebrating Liverpool Football Club’s Premier League title on May 26, authorities in the United Kingdom said.

Authorities said a “number of pedestrians” were hit after the team’s open-top coach carried players and coaching staff through Liverpool, England, for a victory parade. Merseyside Police said a “53-year-old white British man from the Liverpool area” has been arrested after the crash.

We don’t know why this nut drove his vehicle into the crowd yet, but one eyewitness says that it appeared to be “clearly deliberate”…

“But then he put his foot down again and just ploughed through the rest of them, he just kept going. It was horrible. And you could hear the bumps as he was going over the people. Then my daughter started screaming and there were people on the ground.

“It looked clearly deliberate. They were just innocent people, just fans going to enjoy the parade. There were hundreds and thousands of us there because this is probably the busiest part of Liverpool.”

“We were shocked, couldn’t believe it.”

My advice would be to avoid large crowds this summer if you are able to do so.

There are way too many nuts running around out there these days.

Politically-motivated violence has no place in our society, but we are seeing politically-motivated violence on an almost daily basis now.

Sadly, I believe that what we are currently witnessing is not even worth comparing to what is eventually coming.

Exploring an answer to a question that seems to be on more and more people’s minds.

Joe Martino

Since I started this work in 2009, I’ve been asked this question at least 100 times. I give the same answer now as I did back then because it’s honest to how I have felt and still feel about the state of our world and where we might be headed.

When you’re on the internet or watch the news, there’s no shortage of claims that we’re about to see our entire planet collapse via climate change or ‘unhinged leaders’ of various countries. As all of those claims are made, with partial truth mixed in to each, I find very few voices that provide a sense of settling and hope.

I feel I used to be one of those voices that reached far and wide with a message of hope and groundedness. The tens of thousands of emails we’ve received over the last 16 years suggest that statement is true. But with all that has happened to our company and the changes in the conscious media field over the last 5 or 6 years, it often feels like panic, fear, and drama have won out, leaving more hopeful voices in the background.

And so I write this because, regardless of how far it goes, I think it needs to be said.

Where Are We Headed?

I was doing a podcast episode with Daniel Pinchbeck on the CE Podcast a few weeks ago (which I recommend checking out.) At the end of the episode, he actually posed a question to me. It was something like: “Do you feel like this is the end times, the apocalypse, the end of the world?” He asked this as he is quite concerned about the Trump admin and what he feels they are doing to America and thus the rest of the world.

I personally don’t feel the destruction of our planet or way of life would be the result of Trump or any singular recent event, but as a result of a much wider picture. So I answered the question like this:

“The way I honestly feel about it is, speaking totally from the gut here, I feel deep down like deep, deep, deep, deep down that even if we all died – I don’t want that but – it would be okay. There’s a part of my consciousness that has experienced something beyond this physical body and I cannot deny the fact that apparent in the way I see the world is this understanding that like “it’s OKAY.”

But this does not make me passive. It does not make me not care. It does not make me not feel the emotions of what’s going on. But there is a part of me that is like, “it is what it is.” Look, we’re having this conversation. I dedicate large amounts of hours of my life trying to help with this situation.

I see all the challenges we’re going through as an opportunity. Like anything else, it’s an evolutionary pressure. The more things are extreme the more we have to converse. The more people have to come out of the slumber and the illusion.

If it feels like it’s too easy to just live day-to-day life, we’re probably not going to question things, especially given the state of humanity’s existing consciousness as a collective. And by that I mean, it’s very easy for us to just kind of coast along, going to work, coming home, repeat, repeat, repeat. But when things are so extreme that we have to come out of that, there’s an opportunity.

I feel this is where it’s about how we steward – or it’s about how a certain number of people – stand up and steward this moment with wisdom, with connection, with a new level of consciousness.

I think that’s what our best opportunity is, our best chance. And I get emotional when I think about that which means I know there’s something there. There’s something there that feels right. There’s something there that feels accurate.”

Daniel was kind enough to allow me to have the last word on my own show after that, haha. (Do check out the full convo here, Daniel had many great thoughts to offer.)

This was maybe the third or fourth time in the span of a month that I was asked a question like this, and so I write this today because I wanted to offer something that might bring a sense of grounding in the chaos here.

When I look out at the influencers, writers and commentators out there, I feel that most everything is polarizing, doom and gloom, or uninspiring. They still provide value of course, but there are flavors missing, and I see it wearing on people.

There are perhaps 3 – 4 folks I listen to that I feel are providing good medicine, and yet their audiences are not overly large compared to the big names out there who, in my view, are just feeding into the old paradigm without knowing it.

Beyond The Old Paradigm

The largest aspect of CE has always been to help build a new future for humanity. One built on a new story, a new level of consciousness, and a new way of being. This, of course, requires a commitment to inner work, deep levels of curiosity, and a willingness to communicate in community about what we truly want life to look like. It’s the one goal of mine I never got to fully realize, as it’s one of the hardest messages to get to catch on.

We tried a project in 2010 on this that failed to gain interest. In 2017, I tried again, and still it wasn’t time. Here in 2025, it feels more than ever the time to discuss, practice, and hold a new paradigm, yet I find myself at what feels like the end of my journey with this work due to a lack of funding. I don’t want it to be the case, but it might be what I have to accept.

Back to the topic here, if you recall, there are 4 elements/stages/themes I find important to consider when navigating our world and how we can create a more thriving society. These 4 pieces make up the CE framework that has guided our mission for 16 years, and help us answer the question of what may happen with humanity. The 4 themes are:

Breaking the Illusion  | Awakening Curiosity & Interconnection | Deprogramming Limits | Living Aligned

To keep this essay efficient, I will provide a very brief outline of each, you can read more about them here.

Breaking the Illusion – realizing that what we thought was certain about ourselves or our world is not the case, causing us to begin to question many things related to ourselves or our world. (This is almost always the first stage.)

Awakening Curiosity & Interconnection – truly awakening a sense of curiosity about ourselves and the world, so we can begin moving closer to truth and clarity without getting stuck in simplistic narratives. We awaken a sense of interconnection and complexity to better understand ourselves and our world. We begin to truly define problems at their core, understanding the drivers of what’s happening, not just obsessing over the symptoms. Inner work is involved here.

Deprogramming Limits – the Illusion (what we believed was certain but wasn’t) taught us many limits – or we accepted many limits. As we hold the two previous themes, we can begin questioning what our true limits are vs telling ourselves a story of what’s possible and what’s not based on illusions. This is where we explore human potential. This is a big part of the inner work as well.

Living Aligned – to live aligned is simply to say we stay connected to these elements and themes as we continue to explore, create, and navigate what we do and create. The process is never “done” but always unfolding. To live aligned is to maintain the spirit being deeply embodied as a human being interconnected with all things. What would it look like to create and BE aligned with that?

That said, I believe there is a path where we destroy ourselves and a path where we do not. Both bad actors and system dynamics of the old paradigm are at play here, which we will explore more soon. Then there is also our worldview and consciousness.

What path we go down comes down to how we embrace the one we want and whether we take the personal responsibility to hold and embody that vision. I am personally hopeful because I see that path and see little value in constantly sitting in ideas of doom and gloom. Plus, in my practiced spirituality, I feel that underlying “this isn’t all there is” deep in my being.

We have to ensure we don’t continue to play into and create the old paradigm. Can we embrace elements of the framework above to stay out of narrative traps, fear traps, division, and illusions that keep us separate and polarized? How can we see our world and ourselves in a new light based on the chaos happening around us? What is the chaos saying about ourselves? (Hint: if you feel “it’s just the bad guys at the top,” think deeper.) How can we take short-term responsibility to create local connections, relationships and systems that end revalrous and individual-focused dynamics of competition?

As we ask ourselves these questions and truly practice a new state of being, you will often find that literally the lens through which you see the world changes. You move from seeing, perhaps, only the bad and poor outcomes, to seeing the world much more holistically.

Looking A Little Deeper

One thing I want to say is this: when I look out at the media landscape, I generally feel we have still not collectively grasped the challenges we face. It’s primarily because we are stuck in a disintegrated version of Breaking The Illusion.

That is to say, we are narrative battling or stuck in the blame game without looking deeper. Whether it’s blaming elites, one political side, one class of fellow citizens or another country, blaming doesn’t get us deeper.

Instead, I still think we have to look at the wider consciousness and the system it has created as our way of seeing the challenges we face more clearly. We have to begin Awakening Curiosity & Interconnection at a cultural level. These themes need to be part of how we make sense of the world.

Let’s consider an overwhelming story that drives our consciousness: we are fundamentally separate from each other and nature, and therefore it makes sense to compete with one another to improve our individual quality of life, even if it is at the expense of each other or the natural world.

This concept of ourselves as separate beings creates the illusion that we can thrive at others’ expense, ignoring our complete dependence on natural systems like forests and soil microbiota, and establishing the foundation for increasingly dangerous conflicts.

If you look closely, this is how our world turns. Systems have been set up where it is every person for themselves, and while collaboration is an option, it’s not overly incentivized compared to thinking purely individually.

Further, in our current market economy as it is, an old, beautiful tree in a forest is seen as valuable only when chopped down and turned into lumber, yet valueless when it stands in the forest’s complex ecosystem, doing many great things for the totality of nature (including us).

This dynamic creates incentives for us to damage the environment wholesale while slowly and surely disconnecting our emotions and connection in the process, so we can more easily participate in the system.

The design of our system, regardless of who we want to blame as bad guys, incentivizes extractive and destructive behavior to survive and gain power. (Reflecting on this level represents breaking the illusion & awakening curiosity and interconnection.)

How could we expect a system that assigns no value to a tree staying in a forest, and that constantly has us in competition with no end, to produce societal results we would thrive in?

Seems silly, doesn’t it?

Within this existing system, we will see the production of bad actors who are conspiring to gain more power and influence within the game. This many people are recognizing (breaking the illusion).

But the disconnect is that people think removing the bad actors will solve the problem (a disintegrated version of breaking the illusion).

It is our programmed consciousness accepting many illusions and the system design itself that is creating the constant competition for survival, the revalrous dynamics that are constantly pulling from the earth and each other, and the race to the bottom dynamics that keep us trying to move faster and faster to beat other people out so we can gain advantage.

For us to move forward requires a new story and state of being that is not built on this deep belief of separation and competition, but one that is centered around our nature of connection and belonging to not just a human family but the natural world.

Embracing What We Can Control

For some of us, much of this seems pie-in-the-sky level thinking because it’s so different than the way our world currently works, and because considering change at this scale seems unfathomable (or maybe you just disagree with me entirely.)

But for me, when I integrate all I’ve learned and experienced in my lifetime exploring these questions, I always come back to this way of orienting.

When I look at the results we are currently creating by seeing it all through the lens of good guys, bad guys, teams, political parties, etc, things only seem to be getting worse as people descend into despair, division, vengefulness, and greater forms of competition. Something isn’t working when we look too shallowly at defining the challenges we face.

This is a call to look deeper, to truly begin to ask whether we understand what is driving our world, as this is what will help us understand solutions.

Knowing what we can and cannot control in life is key. We don’t have our hands on the levers of power when it comes to societal decisions that are made. For example, right now the world is watching Palestinians be genocided while having no way to stop it. It’s a very challenging feeling to navigate when you feel so strongly about how inhumane what’s happening is, yet have no idea of how to stop it in the immediate or short term. This is the reality of the intensity of the human experience. We can go mad focusing every day on the atrocities without integrating them into the whole and knowing what we can and cannot control immediately.

In exploring what we can and can’t control, I’ll end with some final thoughts:

Story and narrative drive illusions or clarity, starting with sensemaking is key.

• How can we understand what is happening at a deeper level? Might we have to change our media consumption?
• How can we reflect on where our narratives are coming from, and how do we know they provide clarity vs just feeding into another agenda? (embrace curiosity!)
• Are we truly understanding what is driving our world systems, how they are designed, and what those designs produce in terms of results?
• How much content do we consume that inspires us and keeps us grounded when it comes to these themes? How much is inviting us into new ideas and ways of seeing things?
• How can we create a culture of complexity and curiosity? Perhaps starting with ourselves, how we comment and communicate with each other and on social media.

Creating local connections and parallel systems can be inspiring and actionable.

• How can we set up local connections, communities and relationships that bring us together?
• Have we considered solution framing like the difference between short term in system solutions, long term in system solutions, short term out system solutions, and long term out system solutions? (these can help us feel a sense of direction.)

Exploring our worldview and state of being is powerful too.

• How can we spend some time each day finding a sense of grounding, peace and resilience?
• How can we slow down, more intentional with our actions, and be less in survival mode throughout the day? This state shapes how we see the world and how we act. Do we want to act from survival or a sense of settling and connection? This might be one of the most important elements as the constant doom and gloom orientation I see in people is largely physiological: they are habitually in survival mode, struggling to find settling and connection to themselves.
• How can we become more personally responsible and not feel passive?
• How can we explore how we feel about being separate and competitive individuals? Have we heard other perspectives on this question?
• What is our human potential in terms of creating a peaceful and collaborative society? How do we know the stories we tell ourselves about this are true? (can we be curious?)

There is a whole course that could be taught on all of these things. But I wanted to say something that could provide a nudge to switch things up if you find yourself in a rut of despair or looking for a next step.

Honestly, I’ve found in doing this work for so many years and teaching at various stages, embracing curiosity and a ‘beginner’s mind’ in exploring our world and what else we can do is one of the most powerful pieces to this.

Finally, noting that we don’t want to simply get stuck in Breaking the Illusion all the time is key too, this is to say, “what’s next?”