Times data says the nonemployed spend a lot of time with their pals TV and the internet

Despite the fact that the economy has allegedly improved, unemployment is still a specter haunting America. It might even be haunting you, humble Brokelyn reader and person just trying to make it in this stupid world. Or you might just not have a job by choice. Don’t feel too bad though, you’re not alone, as shown by The Upshot’s latest number-heavy study where they broke down how 294 nonemployed Americans spent their days, as broken down by gender and what exactly they do all day. It’s what you might expect: looking for jobs, watching TV, sleeping on odd schedules and taking care of people. What we want to know is, does this mirror your reality?

We’ve previously heard how at least one unemployed Brokelynite spent her days, but that seemed like a pretty specific situation. On average, The Upshot found that men and women had a split between housework and taking care of people (at its peak in midday, women do housework at about a 3:1 ratio as compared to men), and men spend more of their waking hours watch a ton of TV or movies or engage in “other leisure activities” like reading for pleasure and dicking around on the internet. Surprisingly, at their peak, only 5% of men and 2% of women are looking for jobs, which suggests a good amount of nonemployed people by choice or that people are just giving up.

So what are your days like, if you’re nonemployed? Do more of you spend time looking for jobs (maybe like these ones)? Do you even need a job, or is your nonemployment more of an unemployment? Do you go for some kind of self-improvement through education, like 12% of men and 7% of women in their peak hours for those activities do? Or is it a lot of hopeless flipping through TV watching Maury and tearing through Friends and Black Adder on Netflix? That’s fine too, this is a judgement-free zone, we don’t give a shit what you do. In a judging way, we mean. We ARE interested in what you do with your time.

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