Free Republic

According to a Gallup poll, just two in 10 people have a best friend at work. The group that has seen the greatest decline is younger workers: For those age 35 and under, the two-in-10 figure is down from 25 percent in 2019. All of this has gotten some attention since the US Surgeon General’s declaration last year that loneliness can have serious health consequences. “Employees are isolated and lonely,” says Julianne Holt-Lundstad, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Brigham Young University, who posits that the rate of surviving a job for people who are socially connected is 50...

Via TikTok "Papa Biden" is paving the streets with gold for illegal immigrants, brags Leonel Moreno, a Venezuelan illegal immigrant who is recruiting people to come to the US. He encourages illegals to invade homes and become squatters, so they get a free home by stealing them from Americans. Leonel Moreno, ‘migrant influencer’ encouraging others to invade the US, squat at homes is now on the run from authorities https://t.co/H3zbfx3m38 pic.twitter.com/5nSv5lra9N— New York Post (@nypost) March 27, 2024Stupid me, when I saw this video yesterday on Twitter I assumed it was anti-immigrant propaganda. It was just too outrageous, and too...

The Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions is slated to hold a hearing Thursday morning regarding a standard 32-hour work week. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) on Wednesday introduced a bill to establish a standard four-day workweek in the United States without any reduction in pay. The bill, over a four-year period, would lower the threshold required for overtime pay from 40 hours to 32 hours. It would require overtime pay at a rate of 1.5 times a worker’s regular salary for work days longer than 8 hours, and it would require overtime pay at double a worker’s regular...

WASHINGTON — Former aides to President Biden say they’re outraged that White House chief of staff Jeff Zients dismissed their allegations of bullying and verbal sexual harassment against first lady Jill Biden’s top aide Anthony Bernal — with Zients declaring them “unfounded attacks” without investigating. Three sources exclusively told The Post that Bernal, who is considered one of the most powerful officials at the White House due to his relationship with the first lady, repeatedly speculated to them about the penis sizes of coworkers and inappropriately postulated the sexuality of peers. Zients said in response to those complaints that he...

On Thursday’s broadcast of “CNN News Central,” White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre reacted to Republicans blaming President Joe Biden for Laken Riley’s death by saying that “We have done the work to make sure we’re dealing with a broken immigration system. The Republicans have gotten in the way.” Co-host John Berman asked, “One of the things that some Americans are focused on are crimes that are allegedly being committed by migrants who are in the country illegally. There was the death of Laken Riley in Georgia. There’s been an arrest made there. Republicans are directly blaming President Biden for...

WASHINGTON — First lady Jill Biden says she’s in a “work marriage” with her senior adviser Anthony Bernal, who can “make life hell” for White House staff with his “overbearing” persona, a new book reveals. The 72-year-old first lady, who regularly travels on behalf of her 81-year-old husband, relies heavily on Bernal, New York Times reporter Katie Rogers writes in “American Woman: The Transformation of the Modern First Lady, from Hillary Clinton to Jill Biden.” “Jill and Bernal are, as Jill puts it, in a ‘work marriage,’ but his reach extends beyond the East Wing,” according to the book, which...

The holidays are here, and while the decorations on Capitol Hill symbolize a season of giving, lawmakers seem more focused on getting what they want on immigration. Every member on Capitol Hill agrees the public health crisis at the southern border is untenable. Those truly committed to addressing the emergency know that it can’t be fixed overnight. They have the hard task of enacting laws to prevent migrants fleeing abhorrent conditions from entering America illegally, providing border support for their humane treatment while being processed and managing the needs of those granted temporary protected status now living in the U.S....

Gov. Kathy Hochul took a victory lap as she revealed Wednesday that all eligible migrants outside New York City have applied for work authorization — but she couldn’t say how many have actually been approved. Hochul said the 876 eligible migrants of the 2,100 migrants being housed outside New York City have applied for work authorization. Several hundred of the 2,100 are children, and others aren’t eligible to work.

A mere 2,100 migrants in the Big Apple’s care have applied for work permits — with not a single one yet to receive federal approval, city officials admitted Wednesday. City Hall also still has no solid figure for how many of the more than 40,000 adult asylum seekers it is housing are even eligible to legally work here, officials conceded at a city council hearing. The revelation frustrated even Mayor Adams’ fellow Democrats on the council. “This migrant strategy is going nowhere fast: We have to secure the border,” Council Member Robert Holden (D-Queens) said. So far, the city’s migrant...

A mere 2,100 migrants in the Big Apple’s care have applied for work permits — with not a single one yet to receive federal approval, city officials admitted Wednesday. City Hall also still has no solid figure for how many of the more than 40,000 adult asylum seekers it is housing are even eligible to legally work here, officials conceded at a city council hearing. The revelation frustrated even Mayor Adams’ fellow Democrats on the council. “This migrant strategy is going nowhere fast: We have to secure the border,” Council Member Robert Holden (D-Queens) said. So far, the city’s migrant...

Gov. Kathy Hochul (D-NY) announced Monday that she is assigning another 150 New York National Guard members to fast-track work permits for tens of thousands of illegals with an eye toward transitioning them out of state-run migrant shelters and into the state’s population. During her September 25 presser, Hochul noted that with the additional forces deployed, she would have put 2,200 soldiers to work for illegals, helping them gain legal status and protecting them in shelters. At least 250 of those soldiers are assigned solely to “case management” paperwork, the Times Union reported.

Amazon announced Tuesday that it will hire a quarter million new workers starting this month as the holiday shopping season nears. The company is also raising the starting pay for the new full-time, part-time and seasonal workers to an average of $20.50 per hour, it said.

Excerpt from agenda of an upcoming webinar: An employee now living and working from home in Indiana would be subject to Indiana wage-hour laws even if the employee used to work in Illinois and the employer is still located in Illinois. Overtime rules, minimum wage rates, and permitted deductions from paychecks, even pay stub requirements are governed by where the employee is physically performing the work. The same applies to garnishments for child support and creditors.

A man who works at the front desk at a rock climbing gym said in a viral TikTok that people who work from home all day are now bringing "insane energy into public spaces." Speaking on behalf of fellow hospitality and retail workers, the TikToker Alec Flynn told 1.4 million viewers last week: "If you're working from home all day, you need to have at least one more conversation or interaction before you come to a public place."

Former White House chief medical advisor Anthony Fauci said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week” that there were “a number of studies that show that masks actually do work” to stop the spread of COVID-19. Anchor Jon Karl said, “There’s a new study out that suggests that masks were actually not effective, at least not in a global sense, in containing the pandemic. What is your sense looking back at all of this? Did masks prove to be less effective than you anticipated?”

Author and pastor John Piper believes Christians will work in Heaven — but the work will be so “profoundly satisfying and sweet and enjoyable” that nobody in the world to come will say, “I need a weekend.”“I think we will work in the final age to come,” Piper, founder of Desiring God and chancellor of Bethlehem College & Seminary in Minneapolis, Minnesota, wrote. “Whether we will do what we were gifted for here, or whether we will have wholly new giftings, a thousand times greater, or what kind of work John Piper will be doing, I leave in the hands...

WASHINGTON — President Biden told middle school students on their first day of classes Monday that he understands it’s hard to return after “not doing any work” — after he received Republican criticism for spending most of the past month on vacation. “I tell you what, the hardest thing, I think, is when you come back — what’s the matter, baby? You look at me like, ‘I don’t want to be in this math class’?” Biden told students at Eliot-Hine Middle School on Capitol Hill, breaking off to call out one young scholar. “The hardest thing,” the president resumed, “is...

FRIDAY HARBOR, Wash. – San Juan County has announced that it is adopting a 32-hour work week for its employees. The County lists fiscal health, staffing challenges and the well-being of islanders as the reasons for the change, citing a 10 to 15 percent job vacancy rate across many key departments. They aim to hold wages and productivity constant while reducing the work week by eight hours for union workers. County officials say it comes as an alternative to the “last resort” option of increasing taxes as the island struggles to remain a competitive employer. The schedule change will take...

Officials in California are facing fierce scrutiny over increasing crime as some federal employees are being told to work from home over fears surrounding public safety. Independent journalist Erica Sandberg described what she called utter "mayhem" in San Francisco during "Fox & Friends" as state workers were reportedly told to work remotely. "What we're seeing right now is a matter of just mayhem with not enough police officers on the beat... not empowering stores to do what they need to do in order to stop this," she told Ainsley Earhardt Tuesday. "You shouldn't let people into the store who are...

We’re now finding out the damaging consequences of the mandated return to office. And it’s not a pretty picture. A trio of compelling reports—the Greenhouse Candidate Experience report, the Federal Reserve’s Survey of Household Economics and Decisionmaking (SHED), and Unispace’s Returning for Good report—collectively paint a stark picture of this brewing storm.Unispace found that nearly half (42%) of companies with return-to-office mandates witnessed a higher level of employee attrition than they had anticipated. And almost a third (29%) of companies enforcing office returns are struggling with recruitment. In other words, employers knew the mandates would cause some attrition, but they...