105.8 Million Aren’t Working

We return with final bike-ride preparations and a push to take the Kayal and Company team past $35,000 for Families Behind the Badge. From there, we examine the record 105.8 million Americans who are outside the labor force, including retirees, students, discouraged workers and people dealing with long-term illness. We focus on prime-age men leaving work, the baby-boomer retirement wave and the difference between people who have earned retirement and people who have stopped trying. The work discussion expands into a survey showing that employees and managers fake productivity, along with a broader argument about burnout, purpose and resentment toward the nine-to-five routine. We compare costly degrees with skilled trades, question whether some graduate programs deliver enough financial value and discuss retirees filling support roles in schools. The crew also weighs remote work, social isolation and the decline of ordinary face-to-face interaction. The final stretch turns to Jimmy Kimmel, Brendan Carr and a coalition of 49 attorneys general asking the FCC to stop number cycling that helps robocall scammers. Nick explains how a home-loan credit check unleashes a flood of spam calls, and we compare blocking, reporting and answering those calls.