Hello, Danger Corps! It’s Monday, September 7, 2026, and on this Labor Day weekend we would like to recognize you, the people, the workers, who are responsible for keeping America functioning.
Friday’s jobs report actually brought some good news. Employers added 162,000 jobs in August, unemployment stayed at 4.1%, and June and July were revised upward by a combined 55,000 jobs. Restaurants added 59,000 jobs, local government education added 42,000, and construction continued inching higher. Information was one of the clear weak spots, losing jobs again. So the labor market has more fight left in it than a lot of people expected.
But if you are looking at those numbers and wondering why you still feel financially exhausted, you’re not imagining things, it IS hard out there.
Average hourly wages are up 3.1% over the last year. Meanwhile, shelter costs are up 3.2%, rent is up 2.9%, electricity is up 4.2% and utility gas is up 4.3%. For homeowners, insurance has become another major bite out of the household budget. A new national insurance-affordability index found homeowners insurance consumed 24% more of median household income in 2025 than it did in 2020.
And then there is actually buying a house. Mortgage rates climbed to roughly 6.7% heading into the holiday weekend, meaning even people who managed to save for a down payment can look at the monthly payment and suddenly develop a deep emotional attachment to their current landlord.
Then you have transportation. Gas is averaging roughly $4.14 a gallon, the highest Labor Day price on record, while diesel has climbed to about $5.85, which matters even if you do not own a diesel truck because diesel moves the food, packages and approximately everything else you buy.
Medical care belongs on that list too. The latest CPI shows medical-care prices up 1.7% over the last year, but the pressure people actually feel can be much larger than that headline number. Employer-sponsored family health coverage averaged nearly $27,000 a year in 2025, up 6% in a single year, with workers themselves paying about $6,850 of that through their paychecks. And employers increasingly point to prescription-drug prices, new specialty drugs, hospital prices and higher medical utilization as reasons premiums keep climbing. Small business insurers are already proposing a median 14% premium increase for 2027, with medical and prescription costs among the biggest reasons why.
So when somebody gets a modest raise, that extra money isn’t necessarily becoming savings, a vacation or even a nicer dinner. It can disappear into the health-insurance deduction before the paycheck even arrives, then into deductibles, copays and prescriptions afterward. Health care is supposed to be the thing that helps when life goes wrong.
So yes, wages are a little higher. Jobs came back strongly in August. Those are real positives. But housing, utilities, insurance, groceries, transportation, and medical care, are the bills people cannot simply unsubscribe from. When those costs keep consuming more of the paycheck, telling somebody their wage went up three percent doesn’t mean much if the money was already spoken for before it hit their bank account. We would simply like the jobs to come with enough money to participate in America.😆
And yet, every morning millions of people still get up. They clock in. They open the store. They teach the kids. They fix the roads. They care for patients. They drive the trucks. They answer the phones. They build the houses they increasingly cannot afford to buy.
That is resilience.💙
America’s workers have spent years adapting to higher prices, housing shortages, insurance bills, expensive commutes and an economy that regularly congratulates itself before asking anyone whether they can afford it.
So this Labor Day, forget politicians taking credit for your work. They can keep their speeches.
You built it. You stocked it. You taught it. You repaired it. You served it. You delivered it. You cleaned it. You coded it. You cared for it. And you kept the damn lights on, and held your head up high while you were doing it!
Labor Day belongs to you!
While we celebrate you, and while you enjoy the one holiday specifically created to celebrate working people, many of whom are, naturally, still working today, we thought you could use a laugh!! 😂
Below we’ve a little extra of everything, because you’ve earned it. Variety memes, calls and comments from the Danger Corps, and the usual dangerous fun to celebrate this Labor day, even if celebrating feels hard these days. You Deserve It. ✊
Let’s get dangerous!💙
Does the Dangerous Daily Memeletter help you laugh through the absolute insanity? Please consider becoming a paid subscriber. You’ll unlock our exclusive Sunday issue, more than 50 bonus episodes, and help us spread some much-needed laughter during a genuinely scary time.
We are LIVE every Thursday at 5 PM PST/ 8PM EST
Join us on YouTube and Substack.
🔔 Make sure to hit the bell to get notified for occasions just like these!
Our public Danger Corps Facebook group a great place to connect with the Danger Corps family. It’s already over 5K+ members strong and growing every day! Click here to join.
📞 Jackie from Indiana: Her Husband Works 84 Hours a Week and They Still Struggle
📞 Anonymous: A Medical-Field Degree, 30 Years Experience, and Still Underpaid
A Loving, Unfiltered Tribute to Gloria Steinem 💙
💙🧡💙
We’ll have another members only video this week! In the meantime, give the ASMR a try, if you haven’t already! You’ll feel right at home. It’s a Dangerous Guarantee 🫧
90 Minutes of Americans LOSING IT Over Trump 🤣
Back to back calls to The People’s Hotline will make you laugh, cry and feel inspired.
Sunny & Mitch gave us their gold! I think we’re all ready to see him cart-away in an off-gold painted box 🤣 Thanks for being part of the family and the Australian Branch of the Danger Corps 🌞
🫧🫧🫧
📝 Thank you Rich! Your perspective is shared. Your forward thinking and willingness to have the difficult conversations necessary is the work desperately needed. It’s not for everyone 🤣, so those willing and able are holding the line 🧡
🫧🫧🫧
A Message to You All:
We’re SO grateful and we see all the work you ALL do individually as Danger Corps Members. Don’t forget Activism IS Work, too! Thank you for taking the term “community” and molding it into something sturdy, strong, encouraging, and the most important thing, LOVING. Paid member or not, you all have a place here. And we’re happy to be with YOU.💙🧡
🫧🫧🫧
Hold on to your light Danger Corps! 🌞
Together, we’ll guide more to the Dangerous Side.
We’re officially under 60 days from the Midterms! Make sure you’re prepared for whatever these clowns throw our way ✊
🗳️ Check Your Voting Registration and So Much More Here! ☑️
If this Labor Day MemeLetter helped make the state of things slightly less unbearable, consider becoming a paid subscriber and help keep The Dangerous Ones loud, independent, and dangerously funny. You’ll unlock the Sunday Meme-letter housing bonus content, exclusive footage, host updates, plus everything else we make for the Danger Corps! We’d love for you to join the family.
Thank You to those of you who are already Members! We can’t do this without you!💙
Let’s get into fun trouble together,
Jim, Tiffany and Nick ❤️
Call us and say what’s on your mind:
503-212-4600 leave msg.
*You can remain anonymous
where's Mitch?
TRUMP, says our country is hot, can someone explain the climate change to this idiot!