New York City, USA – For 14 years, BC Dodge has built a career telling the stories of others as a marketing and communications professional in the nonprofit sector in Washington, DC. But towards the end of 2024, this stable career hit a slowdown.

He was fired in a reshuffle. The news came without warning. One day he had a job, and the next he was sitting at home, staring at the numbers, trying to figure out how to keep paying his mortgage and supporting his family.

He is married and his partner is a teacher but not good at maths. A salary may last for a while, but it’s not enough to maintain long-term stability.

So he immediately started applying for new jobs. Within three months, he submitted 350 job applications. He was interviewed six times.

After months of searching, something changed.

He advanced enough in the hiring process at a Washington, D.C., nonprofit to sit down with senior leadership. It felt like he could finally rest.

Then the ground moves again. While Dodge is interviewing for a new job, Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, is advising President Donald Trump’s administration on how to shrink the size of the federal government, which means cutting funding from agencies that provide contracts and funding to nonprofits across the country. The effect spread outward and Dodge was targeted.

Contracts were canceled and funding flows dried up. Nonprofits that rely on government support — the very nonprofits from which Dodge seeks employment opportunities — must pull back and scale back their ambitions.

“I got a call from HR saying they were not hiring for the position and all hiring was on hold. I couldn’t argue with them because I’ve been hearing the same thing from the organizations I’ve talked to since I started applying. ‘We relied on federal funding and now they’re gone,'” Dodge said.

Then it was back to the drawing board. He started looking again, but this time uncertainty hung over his entire industry. Dodge eventually took what he could get – a part-time job in his field. Although the salary was much lower than what he had previously earned, he accepted it. He believes that any income is better than no income.

The result is underemployment. Underemployment can manifest itself in a number of ways, typically when workers seek full-time employment but can only find part-time positions, or when they are held in jobs that do not fully utilize their skills and training. It’s often associated with industries like restaurants or retail, but it also touches on areas with fewer resources and fewer opportunities, including the nonprofit sector, where jobs are increasingly precarious and full-time, stable work is increasingly hard to find due to the wave. Government funding cuts in 2025.

The result is that underemployed workers’ incomes fall, sometimes below the cost of living, and even push them into the ranks of working poor.

The Economic Policy Institute has been tracking the underemployment rate since 1978. Underemployment rates have been rising, according to the institute. Today, 8% of the U.S. population is underemployed, an increase of 0.5% from 2024 and an increase of 1.1% from 2023.

At the same time, many Americans are spending more.

The impact of tariffs hits low- and middle-income earners harder than others. An analysis by the Yale Budget Lab found that lower-income households pay a higher share of their after-tax income for goods affected by tariffs than higher-income households, while the cost of necessities like health care increases.

Earlier this year, congressional leaders failed to extend Affordable Care Act subsidies. According to an analysis by the Kaiser Family Foundation, premiums increased by an average of 144%.

“Some people have lost their jobs and found new ones with lower wages, but others have kept their jobs, but their health insurance premiums have increased. Their electric bills have increased. Their wages no longer cover basic living expenses,” said Jillian Hishaw, a personal bankruptcy attorney in Charlotte, North Carolina.

She said she’s seen an increase in inquiries about personal bankruptcy filings as such costs increase and the job market stagnates, with potential clients trying to avoid losing their homes to foreclosure.

“On one day last week, 85 foreclosure cases were filed in Mecklenburg County (where Charlotte is located). Foreclosure cases happen every day, but the number of 85 in a single day is unusually high. Two years ago, it was an average of 10 to 20 a day, but now the number of filings per day is approaching triple digits,” Hishaw said.

Narrow down options

Rising economic pressures are hitting workers across industries, including financial and administrative services. One Ohio accountant, who did not want his name published, has worked in accounting and administrative jobs over the past few years. In March, he was fired from a research organization in central Ohio.

After months of searching, he found a new job, but it wasn’t an accountant and the salary was well below his cost of living.

“I’m working as a sales coordinator, which I really don’t want to do, but it’s the only thing I can accept because the situation is so bad. It’s not enough to make ends meet,” he said.

The labor market is under pressure. Figures from Challenger, Gray & Christmas show that more than 1.1 million people will be cut in 2025, while job creation has failed to keep up, adding just 584,000 jobs. As a result, an increasing number of workers, including dodgers and accountants, are taking low-paying or part-time jobs that don’t cover basic living expenses.

Michelle Evermore, a senior fellow at the National Institute of Social Security, said the economic uncertainty caused by tariffs and economic development AI Putting businesses across industries essentially on pause – maintaining the status quo or downsizing.

“Those who were already on the fringes are being kicked out completely, and that puts pressure on everyone who keeps working,” Evermore told Al Jazeera.

One of the key indicators of underemployment, the number of people working part-time for economic reasons such as being unable to find full-time work or working reduced hours, reached 4.9 million in January. The January employment report released by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics on Wednesday showed a decrease of 453,000 people compared with the previous month, but an increase of 410,000 people compared with the same period last year.

The number of long-term unemployed people increased by 386,000 from the same period last year to 1.8 million, but remained unchanged from the previous month.

The nonprofit sector was particularly hard hit last year and will lose 28,729 jobs by 2025, up from 5,640 jobs the year before, according to Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

Like the Ohio accountant, Dodge has been looking for new opportunities since losing his full-time job a year and a half ago. He applied for 460 jobs but got only a handful of interviews.

Working overtime on weekends, washing dishes

The market is only going to get tighter. U.S. employers cut more than 108,000 jobs in January, while employers announced only 5,300 new positions planned for the month, the lowest number since Challenger, Gray & Christmas began tracking in 2009.

“Employers don’t want to make any major investments right now, including increasing employee wages,” added Evermore, who served as a policy adviser to the U.S. Department of Labor during the administration of former President Joe Biden.

Labor market mobility remained stagnant in December. Amid economic uncertainty and slowing new job growth, many Americans are holding onto their existing jobs. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS), job openings fell to 6.5 million, a decrease of 386,000 from the previous month.

There are no changes to hiring and separations, including layoffs and layoffs. The November report also showed little change in the number of new hires and job losses.

Taken together, this means that for underemployed people, finding a new role, whether part-time to supplement existing income or to replace it entirely, is increasingly difficult for people like accountants.

“I also worked at a friend’s cafe on the weekends, washing dishes, and was applying and interviewing for other job opportunities. But again, no offers. At the same time, I was considering changing careers or even going back to school, even though I already had a master’s degree,” he said.

While the outlook remains bleak, this shared pain also creates an incredible camaraderie among those struggling to survive.

Dodge found it while scrolling through late-night Reddit, watching strangers recount versions of the same stalled search.

“I do a lot of doomscrolling,” he says, “and get frustrated with politics and the state of the global economy, but I take some comfort in knowing that I’m not the only one struggling to find a viable job in 12, 13, 14 or even 15 months.”

For now, realizing that others are stuck in the same place, hitting a wall, is enough to keep him going, submitting applications and waiting for answers that may not even come.