Men, gird your loins: there is a “mancession” coming for you

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xena warrior princess

This is the future of America. Yi-Yi-Yi-Yi-Yi!

As Hanna Rosin pointed out way back when in her controversial Atlantic cover story “The End of Men,” guys are suffering way worse in this depression than their female counterparts. The explanation is twofold:  traditionally woman-friendly industries like health care and education are growing while man-friendly industries like manufacturing and construction have been decimated by the recession.

This is nothing new (see the below category for this post), but writers everywhere are having fun coming up with cutesy monikers for the times. Columnists are deeming this economy a “mancession” that is dominated by a “she-covery.”

So as men everywhere are covering their collective crotch in what is sure to be a stampede of powerful, hungry women who will eat them alive, women can expect to abolish marriage altogether, unless they find themselves a nice househusband, and single-handedly resurrect the economy with some some mani-pedis while they ride this crappy economy thing over.  Who knows, maybe this new majority of the workforce can even start getting equal pay one day…

Gender-normative career paths 4eva!

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As Ivy Leagued and Unemployed as you can get

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drug dealer

Notice the higher tier of preppy collared shirts.

Something tells me these kids are going to have a harder time getting a job than I did:

Five Columbia students were arrested today for drug dealing. Continue reading →

Republicans give 99ers a nice lump of coal for the holidays

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santa claus

Not even this jolly old man can help you now.

Benefits that had been extended up to 99 weeks started running out Wednesday. Unless Congress approves a longer extension, the Labor Department estimates about 2 million people will be cut off by Christmas.

Republicans in the House and Senate, along with a handful of conservative Democrats, say they’re open to extending benefits, but not if it means adding to the $13.8 trillion national debt.

Ninety-nine weeks may seem like a long time to find a job. But even as the economy grows, jobs that vanished in the Great Recession have not returned. The private sector added about 159,000 jobs in October — half as many as needed to reduce the unemployment rate of 9.6 percent, which the Federal Reserve expects will hover around 9 percent for all of next year.

Recession causes sex slump epidemic for British men

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couch potato

Can't wait to get a piece of this action, eh ladies?

Stop the presses! Hold the mayo! Ring some sort of bell of the apocalypse!

Are you ready for this? Are you sure?

Okay, you’ve probably never read about anything like this ever before. So maybe sit down, grab a brewski, and exhale a few times. Continue reading →

Don’t worry, Ivy League grads, your tuition money is going in the right place

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cash pile

Looks like hundreds of thousands of dollars well spent!

Columbia University President Lee Bollinger was the Ivy League’s highest-paid president in 2008 at $1.75 million in total compensation, as 30 college leaders received more than $1 million in pay.

Yale University and the University of Pennsylvania joined Columbia as Ivy League schools paying their top executive more than $1 million, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education.

Boy, that $200K of college debt sure feels worth it, don’t it?

85% of you are going to have a curfew again

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moving back with parents

Hey guys, I'm baaaack!

Are you a recent grad who can’t afford to pay your own rent? Or a young adult who got laid off and can’t find another job? Congratulations! You’re part of a majority.

Sky-high student debt and minimal job opportunities create a perfect storm for young adults, and will force an estimated 85 percent to return home this year after graduation, according to projections from Twentysomething Inc., a young adult consulting firm.

This is not news anymore, but the numbers are pretty staggering. And in your favor. So feel free to kick back and relax on Mom’s old sofa while looking up porn job hunting. Now that over three out of every four kids are going to be living at home, you have nothing to be ashamed about. This is what our generation does. Whip out your moleskin, write some agitated poetry about being forced to eat brussel sprouts for dinner, then go out on the town and try picking up girls with their own apartments. Ride out this recession in the warm arms of your parents, who love you no matter how many futile resumes you’ve sent out.

We lucky grads get to be called a “boomerang generation” because apparently, we remind old people of flying wooden sticks. Either way, this year will be about “finding yourself” and maybe learning how to balance a checkbook while Daddy pays your rent. Don’t despair! This could be the time you’ve been waiting for to start on that novel or photography project you’ve been talking about for years. Heck, you could even start a blog with all your free hours.

So, fellow unemployed who have been moving home in droves, say goodbye to your independence and hello to warmly cooked meals for the next year or so. Thank god the recession affords you another year to putz around on someone else’s bank account.

A list of stats to recite for your condition while rolling your eyes are after the jump. Continue reading →

Hire my friend: the engineering major who’s looking to marry rich

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pic

He is new to selling his body. Otherwise he would've taken his shirt off.

Name: Ajay

Major: B.S. in Electrical Engineering (Cornell), M.S. in Information Technology (Carnegie Mellon)

What I would have majored in 4 years ago had I known the economy was going to hell:  Culinary Arts.  So I would make the perfect house husband for rich white women.  Or I should have listened to mom and become a doctor.

Why I decided to waste $160K $200K on an Ivy League education::  To impress rich white women Continue reading →

The Fairy Jobmother is coming to a television near you

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fairy godmother

Bippity Boppity Paycheck!

When you’re lying in bed and crying yourself to sleep because you’re a jobless loser, unable to even wipe your tears with your hand because of an early onset of arthritis from hand-editing all those resumes, you think to yourself: damn, GODSPIRITWHOEVERYOUARE, I’m doing everything I can! I’m kissing ass on informational interviews, tailoring my cover letters until my fingers bleed, and dry cleaning all of my blazers so I have no money left to eat. What more do you want from me? All I’m asking for is a crummy cubicle job. IF ONLY I HAD A FAIRY GODMOTHER TO COME AND SPRINKLE ME WITH CORPORATE FAIRYDUST.

Well, you’re in luck, pathetic unemployed vagrant! Lifetime (yes the same channel that brought you A Boyfriend for Christmas and The 19th Wife) has a new recession reality show that answers your prayers: The Fairy Jobmother. The show is a British import that features self-titled career specialist Hayley Taylor assisting “severely job-challenged” families with “tough love” career advice. Continue reading →

Economy fulfills every mother’s dream and forces kids, grandkids to move back home

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meet the fockers

One big happy crowded family.

What do you get when you combine two parents, at least one graduated kid, grandpa, Uncle Jack, and a boyfriend or two? Your new recession family!

Unemployed kids have been journeying home for awhile now. And when you factor in all those poor couples living in sin and the grandparents who can’t survive off their social security checks, you got yourself one hell of an extended living situation.

According to new census data, family households added about 3.8 million extended family members, from adult siblings and in-laws to cousins and nephews from 2005 to 2009. Extended family members now make up 8.2% of family households.

Porta pottys for everybody!

Men blame the recession for not putting a ring on it

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money marriage

Only a newlywed stimulus package can save America's sinful youth.

Commitment-phobe men can rejoice! You now have the shitty economy excuse to put off marriage until further notice.

2009 marked the first time in a century that the number of young adults who never married surpassed the number who were married. The Times reports that “a long-term decline in marriage accelerated during the severe recession, according to new data from the Census Bureau, with more couples postponing marriage and often choosing to cohabit without tying the knot.”

That would make sense, given the 468 other ways the recession has ruined your love life. Continue reading →

One in seven Americans live below the poverty line

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scream painting

A weekly round-up of hopeless economy news. Time to get psyched!

  • The percentage of Americans struggling below the poverty line in 2009 was the highest it has been in 15 years, the Census Bureau reported. With the country in its worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, four million additional Americans found themselves in poverty in 2009, with the total reaching 44 million, or one in seven residents. [NYT] Continue reading →

Yup, science confirms women with jobs are allergic to marriage

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wife scolding husband

She learned this in management training.

Ladies, if you need another reason to give up on this whole “success” thing, there’s more proof that love is just not sustainable when you’re the only one paying the rent.

We already explained why the unemployed trophy househusband is really just a fanciful illusion. And if you weren’t feeling hopeless enough, female breadwinners are nearly 40 percent more likely to get a divorce than cash-strapped women, according to a  25-year study. Continue reading →

Why I Have a Job: the creative writing major who gets hit on by homeless people

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why i have a job

Meet the next James Franco.

Name: Siobhan

Major: Comparative Literature & Society AND Creative Writing

What I do all day: I am a commercial real estate broker at ERG Property Advisors. Also I work in the Audience Department at the Late Show With David Letterman. My first job is very Glengarry Glen Ross and my second job is Party Down without the bowties. I also do stand up at nights. Stand up, I only get paid on some nights, but I treat it like a third job. (I am a nutjob who dislikes sleep). Let’s just say James Franco is my overscheduled hero. Continue reading →

How to get your career back: Lindsay Lohan’s 10 step plan!

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lindsay lohan vanity fair cover
2) Admit Your Prior Coke Dabblings
“I’ve admitted to the things that I’ve done — to, you know, dabbling in certain things and trying things ’cause I was young and curious and thought it was like, OK, ’cause other people were doing it and other people put it in front of me. And I see what happened in my life because of it.”
3) Stop Making Excuses
“I was irresponsible. And I’m not making excuses,” she said.
4) Then Blame Your Friends Continue reading →

The recession is the best form of birth control

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cute worried baby

Nom nom nom! What? Oh yes, the recession.

Grandparents and ovulating women over the age of 22, avert your eyes. Actually, you may want to sit down for this one.

The number of babies born in the United States dropped 2.6 percent last year, according to the National Center for Health Statistics. And nope, it’s not good old-fashioned women’s lib or those free condoms handed out on the subway that’s causing the decline.

“The birth rate is falling because of the Great Recession. When people are unsure of their financial future, they tend to postpone having children,” Andrew Cherlin, a sociology professor at Johns Hopkins University told CNN.

Nearly half of low- and middle-income women surveyed a year ago by the Guttmacher Institute said they wanted to delay pregnancy or limit the number of children they have because of money concerns, according to the Associated Press. Even more proof? The U.S. birth rate has been declining since the start of the economic downturn in late 2007.

This makes loads of sense. Diapers don’t come cheap. Neither does advanced squash for toddlers.

Your exciting new job opportunity awaits (hint: flexibility’s a plus)

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stripper shoes

Job applicants should be fans of flattering men for money and pole dancing for exercise.

If, like millions of people in America, you find yourself out of a job, stripping might be a lucrative career for the young and nimble out there!

The first academic research project into lap dancing by Dr Teela Sanders and Kate Hardy from the University of Leeds discovered that most strippers had at least completed a further education course, while one in four had undergraduate degrees. This means that for many of the ladies working that pole, their profession was a conscious choice with a lack of better options, like for example, blogging.

Unemployed new graduates – mainly with arts degrees – were also dancing because they could not find graduate jobs and found that lap dancing paid much better than bar work. Continue reading →

How to date in the recession without revealing your inner cheap ass

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jessica rabbit

Experts say hiding certain unseemly qualities, like say passing yourself off as Jessica Rabbit in your pofile pic, will help you find a life mate one day.

The recession has given love a particularly hard time these past few years. (See “Reason #468 why the recession is ruining your love life“). And a few months back, in a clever ploy to get people to remember who they are, online savings bank ING Direct surveyed 1,000 people on which words would come to mind if someone was fixing them up on a blind date with someone described as — god I almost vommed typing this — “frugal.”

Shocker: only 3.7% found that sexy.

Now as someone who has professed her willingness to marry a total stranger for his health insurance benefits, I probably shouldn’t comment on this. But anyway, 15% picked “boring” and 27% chose “stingy.”

Concerned by these sad statistics, NYT money columnist Ron Lieber decided to ask some random online daters for advice. How do you avoid the dreaded F-word? The answer, another shocker: Do what you do regarding everything else in dating profiles. Lie. Continue reading →

The Steven Slater Phenomenon explained

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steven slater jet blue flight attendant

All hail the hero of the overworked, underpaid working class.

By now, the folk tale of Steven Slater is probably being told in inspiring sing-song at campfires around the nation.

After a passenger on a Jet Blue flight allegedly cursed him out and slammed an overhead bin on his head, Slater did what most of us only dream of doing: he not only told that bitch off (“To the passenger who called me a m—-f—er, f—- you. I’ve been in the business 28 years. I’ve had it. That’s it”), but also took an exit route that we could only imagine happening in the throes of a Gossip Girl episode: he employed the emergency exit and slid down the inflatable slide with two beers in tow.

Yet for all the hoopla, there were also a lot of raised eyebrows: how could anyone quit a well-paying job in this economy? For all of you tsking tsking, Daniel Gross at Slate debunks that misguided thinking and explains why “more and more workers are unhappy”: Continue reading →

Avoid these schools unless you have at least $400 million in the bank

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student loan debt

This poor kid isn't trying to do his elementary math homework with the help of the cash in his mom's wallet: he's trying to figure out how many years of fake photos he'll have to pose in to pay for one semester of college.

The Washington Post Company released some sobering stats about how expensive an education has become. The Chronicle of Education released a similar report last year that showed university prices steadily growing. This is particularly depressing given that, as you can see, a college degree (even one that can provoke impressed oohs and aahs) isn’t really worth that much anymore. And yet, the number of kids taking out loans has been the highest in nine years.

So you can take your US News & World statistics and shove it. In a far more useful ranking system, Gawker crunched their numbers and revealed the top ten universities that will land you in the highest student debt. See the schools to avoid, no matter how awesome their lavish cafeterias are supposed to be, after the jump: Continue reading →

Watch America become a wasteland of unemployment

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If unemployment claims rising to the highest level since November doesn’t put you in the right partying mood, this visual graph of the nation’s growing unemployment numbers will sure do the trick. Don’t forget your flask this weekend!

(Thanks, HuffPo.)

UPDATE: Good point, Despondent! Things are even more depressing! The real unemployment rate — when you factor in people who have given up looking for jobs or underemployed folks working part-time or less — is closer to 20%, which Salon pointed out back in October.