US economy unexpectedly sheds 92k jobs in February

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.

Also:

Give money to organizations that are doing the work on your behalf. Lawsuits are still important.

Call or write your reps *frequently*. They use software to automatically tabulate voter positions. (And they look at it--they want to keep their jobs!)

>effectively

these are mutually exclusive

The conditions of TSA and the immigration system are...not independent of politics (or even independent of the top tier of most divisive partisan political issues in the current American context.)

The administration could not do any of this without the support of Congress, which has not wavered. That support is unwavering because those elected officials are not getting negative feedback from their voters and donors, so they have every expectation that staying this course will work out just great for them.

This administration's actions only continue with the approval of their party who put them and keep them in power.

If the system decides to screw you over, that your average Cali resident disapproves doesn't stop you being in a holding cell for weeks.

We just had to wait 3 hours in line to get into Costa Rica.

Probably not our friends anymore.

When you spend Canadian dollars at a business owned by a Canadian, you're sending that owner and the Canadian government your money, in exchange for their goods or services, normally at a surplus of value for them. You are 'helping' them; you are 'investing' in the Canadian economy. You are justifying the existence of their business and the jobs of the people who work there.

Especially insofar as you're making this choice versus American options, you are putting money into the hands of Canadians rather than Americans. This is the underlying concept behind boycotts and voting with your dollars or feet.

Gestapo is ... bullshit and FUD.

Yes, we see the news about ICE.

https://www.bts.gov/newsroom/border-crossing-data-annual-rel...

In 2025 there were about 18M personal vehicles and about 300K pedestrians crossed from Canada into the US. So yes, it's down (like 10%) but it's still a lot of people. Out of those the number of people that run into problems with the "Gestapo" is approximately, within rounding error, zero. You're a lot more likely to die in a car crash or get robbed or something.

Why does everything today have to be about hyperbole? You don't want to visit the US (like me) ... well don't. You don't like Trump ... fine. You disagree with the immigration policies, enforcement whatnot... fine. But enough with this bullshit fear mongering.

It's probably not bottomed out yet, some of those trips were booked months in advance and not cancellable without taking a financial hit.

Neither has the US. Trump specifically disavowed that every time he was asked (by the CBC). Meanwhile Cuba sent thousands of mercenaries to kill Ukrainians on behalf of Russia.

> punish Canada economically

Frankly, even as someone who opposes tariffs as uneconomic, given Ottawa's long-standing "constructive engagement" with the regime in Havana, even after they hosted Soviet nuclear weapons pointed at the US, even while they put AIDS patients in concentration camps, and even while they ran the island as a giant, open-air prison refusing to allow anyone to leave, it's really speaks to America's forbearance that it hasn't attempted to punish Canada economically, until now.

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://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2025/sep/12/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://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Driving_while_black

I meant to say "doesn't mean you're not less likely to be targeted".

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.

The US economy is driven in part by coal which employs 40,000 people. Rounding errors have impacts and are part of policy discussion all the time. It only gets shut down with 'rounding error' when it's referring to average people issues without clout.

Calling things rounding errors is the US equivalent speech as russian style apathy propaganda.

It's 12% of the international market. That is the segment. Any business is going to pay attention when they lose 12% of a market segment. Travel is 2.5% of GDP, above agriculture (0.9%), mining (1.3%), and utilities (1.5%) so a very outsize industry. Straight 10% of that (international travel) makes the rounding error market segment 20% of the size of our entire ag industry.

That is your 'rounding error' a segment that brings in 20% of the entire United States ag industry.

Tourism is also 15 million jobs so a 'rounding error' to such a large industry isn't necessarily a 'rounding error' to our population. 10% of that would be 1.5 million jobs. The entire US agriculture industry employs 812,600.

Again, the party that makes ridiculous claims for political impact is the one so concerned over 40,000 coal industry jobs but unconcerned about the fate of 1.5 million US workers because it's a small 'rounding error'.

https://www.squaremouth.com/travel-advice/us-tourism-statist... https://www.bls.gov/ooh/Farming-Fishing-and-Forestry/Agricul... https://www.trade.gov/feature-article/december-2024-internat...

Edit: My bad if you felt attacked. Everything just gets hand waived away as too big to do anything about nodays. I don't buy it. I'm a software developer. I was mentored on the montra 'how do you eat an elephant? one bite at a time'. It's the only way to create complex software solutions, and it's the only way to address our complex world. We shouldn't waive things away as rounding errors when they are part of a complex system. Especially when you consider the US Federal system. If you lose all the border states (most tourism comes from Mexico/Canada) you can easily lose control of the Federal government.

1. Should we deport illegal immigrants? While there are some debate here (sanctuary cities, immigration reform etc), it's not the primary cause of the current ICE repulsion.

2. How deportations are done currently. Mass round ups, targeting everyone, including those with no criminal record, the violence involved. This is what most people are against.

Many 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.

Ultimately, it would have been quicker, easier, and cheaper (and in the end, just as legal as my immigration) to come here on a tourist visa or the VWP, marry her in spite of the prohibition thereon, and ask for forgiveness and apply to be able to stay anyway.

When it's those three things versus "legal immigration", and other factors, I rather empathize with many of those people.

And as for your comment, it's more and more apparent that Trump intends for ICE to be his cudgel for all manner of opposition, not just immigration issues (witness the attempts to extort Minnesota into handing over state voter rolls, "We will move ICE enforcement out of the state if you do") so no, we'd still be having it.

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 what we're looking for.

US citizens are, of course, allowed in even if they refuse, but they will confiscate a citizen's phone in exchange for a custody receipt (Form 6051-D) and they are supposed to return it to the US citizen after they break into the phone / crack the encryption. If they can't crack it, they can choose to never return the phone to the US citizen. And it can be a very stressful situation in which citizens may not know what their rights are in the moment (or can't afford to replace their phone or lose access to it because how would you even get an Uber from the airport or coordinate a pickup if you don't have a phone).

You can choose to bring burner phones or make sure your phone is freshly factory reset, but if you're a non-citizen that can also be a reason to be refused entry, and if you are a citizen that can "get you on a list", leading to getting "SSSS" stamped on every boarding pass for every flight you take, in every country in the world, for the next many years. If your boarding pass gets "SSSS" written on it, you will get pulled aside by security and all your bags get individually hand-searched prior to every single flight (even transfers/connections/layovers).

Non-citizens are also sometimes asked for a list of your social media accounts and the passwords to their social media accounts. Refusing to provide your passwords can be used as a reason to refuse entry to the USA. If the USA believes you have a social media account that you failed to tell them about, that can also be a reason to refuse entry.

Also, as of recently, visitors from 38 countries have to post a ~$10,000 bond just to be allowed into the USA.

https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/2023-09/Test_Results...

https://cellebrite.com/en/products/ufed/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grayshift

In short, the thing is that countries like UAE are predictable. Follow their laws and don't mess with them, and they won't mess with you. The US has become unpredictable, hence more dangerous.

The Trump admin acts like it is on cocaine. Many people - and I think this can be a highly rational preference - prefer predictable more evil of chaotic less evil.

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.

https://www.kff.org/medicaid/implementation-dates-for-2025-b...

It looks like some of the big ones landed Jan 1 2026.

I ran the team that maintained our business analytic data, and was also on weekly calls where feedback from our clients about the situation was discussed. There was direct correlation between uncertainty and both a decline in new job postings, as well as a lack of renewing existing job contracts.

When comparing our numbers to those of our publicly traded competitors, all the data showed the same trends.

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.

Realistically catastrophic revolving temporary insurance plus managing what you can in Mexico, plus occasionally paying out of pocket would mitigate the vast majority of yours risks while keeping expense relatively low.

Humans weren't designed to last forever, and it's inefficient to push against that constraint, you run into fast diminishing returns, and it leads to maladies and stratification when done at a societal scale. It doesn't matter how much we spend on health care, we're not going to live forever.

I reckon I'm trying to think about the dependency graph of necessity. I suspect you are too.

A monetary economy has productive sectors and non-productive sectors. Most healthcare is non-productive from the point of view of an economy. Healthcare for workers and future workers is economically productive (from an economy's point-of-view). Maybe my conceptual cleaving is poor (black n white binary splits are usually misleading).

Of course ultimately most of what an economy delivers to us individually is monetarily uneconomic (is art or entertainment necessary?). Me confused.

Now I feel bad that I've wandered off into philosophy (which I usually find interesting but non-useful).

I've got some shocking news for you but we live in a society.

[1] - https://github.com/minimaxir/hacker-news-undocumented

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. /s

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.

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/200k thresholds should be today’s 150/250 thresholds. They are not.

https://www.opb.org/article/2025/06/26/kotek-multnomah-count...

How old are you? What propaganda told you this? In my generation (young millennial/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)

The budget expansion is almost entirely by medicaide.

Looking at 2019-2023

* Human Services: +~50% nominal → ~+22% real — biggest absolute dollar growth, driven almost entirely by Medicaid expansion and COVID enrollment

* K-12: +23% nominal → ~0% real — flat in purchasing power

* Higher Education: +~20% nominal → ~-2% real — slight real decline

* Government Operations: +~30% nominal → ~+6% real — modest real growth, headcount/compensation driven

* Natural Resources: +~25% nominal → ~+2% real — roughly flat

* Total Budget: +43.5% nominal → ~+17% real

>Yeah, screw DEI!

lmao I'm talking about wars; sprawl; advertising and consumerism; wasteful or gatekept luxuries; feet-dragging on any number of technologies and policies that could have mitigated the damage, just to please incumbents.

We temporarily made life spectacularly better for like 5-10% of the population, and doomed everyone to either generations of toil, or a hard reset in the form of a "burn it all down" revolution.

This isn't a counterpart because nobody is trying to explain a significant drop in tourism numbers to Paris.

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.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kavanaugh_stop

Good job being literally the epitome of what conservatives claim liberals to be. Every accusation is a confession.