Melanie Ehrenkranz isn’t a stranger to job instability. In the decade she’s worked in media, she’s seen countless smart and creative friends lose their jobs during mass layoffs.

When it happened to her in 2023, it sparked an idea: Ehrenkranz decided to create a resource for people going through layoffs to discuss the thorny parts of getting the news — the indignity of being let go over a video call, who they told first, getting into company gossip with ex-co-workers, and what they named their commiseration group chats.

In other words, all the things you want to spill but can’t post on LinkedIn.

By August 2024, Ehrenkranz launched Laid Off, a Substack newsletter that aims to be “the coolest place on the internet to talk about being laid off.” She runs the newsletter on top of her day job as as head of content and community at Business Class, which makes online courses for entrepreneurs.

Readers of Laid Off, now more than 6,000 of them and growing, get weekly spotlights of people’s layoff stories and how they’re handling them.

“This is something I wish I had,” Ehrenkranz, 35, tells CNBC Make It.

Most of the Laid Off readers work in tech, followed by news and media, health care, advertising and then retail.

A majority discuss being laid off in 2024 — at home via Zoom, while on a group conference call, via an email. Many responded to Ehrenkranz’s recent survey to say joining the Laid Off community has given them a cathartic, almost fun, place to reflect on the experience as a group.

“I don’t want this to be depressing or bleak,” Ehrenkranz says. “Obviously it’s a really deflating experience and traumatic, but I think we can also create a fun, cathartic community.”

Spinning the layoff experience on its head, and detaching the self-blame and guilt that often goes with it, can make it feel less isolating and taboo, Ehrenkranz adds.

She hopes that readers see “all these really smart, cool, successful people” telling their stories in their own words. “We’re all doing our best. We might have been at the top of our game. We’ve been laid off. And I think that also helps to re-wire your brain that might be [wondering]: What did I do wrong to deserve this? And the answer is nothing.”

Laid Off’s paid subscribers (for $5 per month) also get access to a Discord channel, a community of over 700 users who trade layoff horror stories but also tips on navigating today’s challenging job market.

The conversations show a shift in the layoff environment. While early pandemic days helped more people uncouple their job loss from their self-worth, and the post-Great Resignation job cuts ushered in a new era of vulnerability in LinkedIn posts, the chatter around losing your job these days feels a little more confrontational.

As Ehrenkranz puts it, “I think a lot of people are feeling angry.”

It’s “almost impossible” to scroll on LinkedIn without seeing a connection writing that they’ve been laid off, Ehrenkranz says: “Being bombarded with these stories and images and Open to Work banners, it does start to kind of strip away that shame. And underneath that shame, I think, is this righteous anger.”

The rising anger is coinciding with companies like Meta and Microsoft saying they’re laying off people due to poor performance. Meanwhile, tens of thousands of public servants have been fired, some under the guise of unsatisfactory employee assessments, as the Trump administration works to slash the size of the federal workforce.

But those who received pink slips aren’t going quietly, and at times are publicly challenging the evaluations of their work.

Angry posts are less targeted toward the messiness of a mass layoff, and more so toward “executives who made a decision to de-value work [employees] believed was important, or decisions executives made that put the company in a precarious place, and it cost people their jobs, but not necessarily the people at the top.”

Additionally, “people are really angry at the systems in place that are supposed to protect you when you don’t have a job,” Ehrenkranz says. “Health care is a really big conversation, and it’s very tied with their employment in this country, and so I think a lot of people are upset about care that they and their loved ones can no longer get.”

Continuing layoff news is rattling those on the job hunt and workers clinging to their jobs alike. U.S. employers announced as many as 172,017 job cuts in February, according to Challenger, Gray and Christmas — the highest monthly total since July 2020.

And with economists reviving fears of a recession, the job-search hunger games could get even tougher.

When you’re “competing with all of these people laid off for the same job, it does make you start to question whether the traditional stories you’re told, of working hard to get XYZ, are actually true,” Ehrenkranz says.

Job loss could lead some people to redefine what their version of success looks like, Ehrenkranz says, which could mean changing careers or striking out on their own and starting a new business.

Within the Laid Off community, she’s seen more people asking questions about how to pivot into a new career, take on new side projects and part-time jobs, monetize side hustles or start something new altogether.

“There’s a lot of entrepreneurial spirit that comes out of these layoffs, whether that be out of necessity or innovation,” she says. “People have to pay the bills.”

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On January 22, Andrew Nettels spent the morning onboarding for his Honors Program role with the Department of Justice. Later that day, an email put his future on hold.

The third-year law student at George Washington University had his full-time offer with the Department of Justice rescinded due to the federal government’s hiring freeze. He was planning on starting after his graduation in the spring.

“At first, I thought it was an error,” says Nettels, 25. “It was several days before I realized it wasn’t.”

Nettels is one of many early-career professionals affected by the freeze, confirmed by rescission letters which CNBC Make It reviewed.

The National Association for Law Placement says around 1,000 law graduates in the class of 2023 joined the federal government, including 250 placements into honors programs, which are highly competitive, entry-level fellowships. The total number of graduates entering federal government jobs has remained relatively steady since 2018, according to NALP data.

Some, like Isaiah Gonzales, a third-year law student at the University of Vermont who had an Honors Program offer with the Department of Justice rescinded, signed long-term leases in anticipation of their jobs. While Gonzales, 28, says he was able to get out of the lease, the disappointment of losing his “dream job” stung.

“I was distraught,” Gonzales says. “I worked my whole three years in law school to get this and somehow, with the strike of a pen, it’s been taken away from me.”

Interns have been affected, too. Austin Mun, a second-year law student at Seton Hall, had a summer offer with the IRS rescinded. He says he was looking forward to taking a role with the agency, which he says has a “good re-hiring policy.”

He immigrated to the United States from South Korea when he was in middle school and planned on being the first in his family to buy a house if he received a full-time offer. Now, he fears those plans are in jeopardy.

“That job security is gone, so all that dream is gone,” says Mun, 31.

He has found summer employment with the insurance company AIG but is “not sure how well it translates into full-time, like [the] IRS does.”

Many students decided to forego other opportunities in the private sector and with state and local governments in favor of the federal government offers. Now, a lot of them say they are left without a backup plan.

“When I accepted the offer with the government, I didn’t apply to a lot of other places that I could have,” says Michael Stile, 25, a second-year student at Seton Hall who also accepted a summer role with the IRS. And now it’s too late: “A lot of firms and everything that I could have applied to, the applications have closed.”

The rescission of offers has left schools and industry professionals scrambling to help students find work, as well as recent graduates who were laid off.

Students with rescinded job offers aren’t just scrambling to find a new position. Many now don’t know in which state they are going to take the bar exam, which often takes place in February and July, Nettels says. Where they take the bar determines the states in which they are licensed to practice law — and not every state has reciprocity. For example, if you are licensed to practice law in Washington, D.C., you would have to retake the bar to practice law in California.

Daniela Kraiem, assistant dean for career and professional development at American University, says the school has tapped into its alumni network to help recent graduates and students find replacement opportunities.

“In this case, we’ve especially reached out to our state and local government alumni, looking around for people who can provide similar training experience [to the federal government],” Kraiem says. “We’ve already had a couple of students obtain new job offers that way, through our alumni network, word-of-mouth.”

These efforts aren’t limited to just American University; they’re nationwide. Kraiem was one of more than 100 people on a recent call hosted by the NALP, she says, focused on sharing what strategies schools, non-profit organizations, and recruiters are using to help place candidates affected by the hiring freeze.

“It’s amazing to see the support of the legal community,” she says.

Industry professionals, like Caroline Ciraolo, have also extended resources. Ciraolo, who specializes in tax law and is a partner at the law firm Kostelanetz LLP, initiated the email address taxhiring25@gmail.com to help provide employment opportunities for those affected by downsizing at the IRS and Department of Justice tax division.

“This began with a feeling of frustration,” says Ciraolo in an emailed statement to CNBC. “Rather than simply complain, the tax bar decided to act.”

Candidates send an email with their resume, a writing sample, their offer letter and offer rescission. After filling out a survey, they are entered into a spreadsheet, where employers can access their materials and get in contact with them.

Between Feb. 8 and Feb. 28, approximately 100 candidates, including Mun and Stile, reached out to the email address, according to Ciraolo. So did 50 employers.

The employers include “law and accounting firms, academia, for-profit and non-profit entities, and state tax authorities,” Ciraolo says. They offer a variety of positions including one-year fellowships, summer internships, and even some full-time permanent positions.

“As tax professionals, we are raised to support mentor, sponsor, and train the next generation,” Ciraolo says of the group’s efforts. “If we do nothing … we will lose future tax practitioners, professors, judges and government leaders.”

“Several” candidates have found opportunities through the email address as of March 13, Ciraolo says.

Nettels is still in the job search. He started a support group chat with other students to “talk about what we’re going through” and discuss potential opportunities. He estimates that there are 100 members to-date.

Gonzales, one of those members, says he’s “grateful” for it and other help he’s received. He recently accepted a role with the Albany County Public Defender’s Office in New York.

“It’s such a terrible situation,” Gonzales says. “But at the same time, it has truly shown what the legal community can do in terms of supporting each other.”

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If you’re thinking of starting a new business and need advice on what to do, your first move should be turning to an artificial intelligence chatbot tool, like OpenAI’s ChatGPT or Anthropic’s Claude.

That’s according to Steve Blank, who has written four books on the subject of entrepreneurship. He helped build eight different tech startups, of which he co-founded four, before retiring over two decades ago. His final startup, business software company Epiphany, sold to SSA Global Technologies for $329 million in 2005.

Blank is currently an adjunct professor at Stanford University, where he teaches courses on innovation and his Lean Startup method.

For years, Steve Blank has advised students and the founders he advises to “get the heck outside” of the office or classroom to talk to actual potential customers and find out what it is they want and build their prospective businesses accordingly. Now, he says, AI’s generative tech can make that process even more effective.

“AI [is] a force multiplier to everything you do,” Blank tells CNBC Make It. “AI could help you figure out where to get outside, probably faster than anything else. If you have a business idea, [ask] something like ChatGPT: ‘I have Idea X, has anybody done it? Why hasn’t [it] worked? Where should I best do this?’”

In addition to summarizing market research and offering feedback, some AI chatbots can write you a whole business plan. That free feature in ChatGPT, as well as in other platforms like Grammarly and Canva, can help give you a significant boost without the need to pay thousands of dollars for a freelance business consultant, Blank says.

“Just imagine you have Steve Blank over your shoulder, helping you ask these questions,” says Blank. With AI, “you have at your fingertips a pretty good consultant [who] in the past would have charged you $10,000.”

Though they have made rapid advances in recent years, AI tools are still far from foolproof. Their responses frequently include errors known as “hallucinations.” Blank advises that anyone turning to AI for a business plan take recommendations with a grain of salt.

“Somewhere between 10% and 50% of their answers are bullshit, sure. And the problem is you don’t know which ones,” Blank says. One 2023 study from AI startup Vectara found that chatbots hallucinate as much as 27% of the time, while a recent BBC study found that roughly half of AI assistants’ answers to news-related questions contained errors.

Even if they’re far from perfect, though, Blank argues that these tools still have plenty of value, particularly for first-time entrepreneurs who want to move forward with a business idea and aren’t entirely sure what steps to take. He compares getting business feedback from AI tools to “having a pretty smart friend who’s kind of riffing.” Maybe every single suggestion they have isn’t brilliant, but they could give you some good starting points you might not have thought of on your own.

“If you take everything at face value, you might drive over the cliff, but they’re giving you some great ideas to think about, particularly if you’ve really never done this before,” Blank says.

Feed a few simple initial questions into an AI tool, he suggests: The answers generated can help give you some clarity about whether there is a legitimate “product-market fit” for your idea. For example:

• “I’m thinking about starting ‘X’. Can you find me a business model?” 
• “Who should be my first customers?”
• “What do they care about most?”
• “Who should I test these hypotheses on [and] how can I find them?”

AI-generated insights should never be a stand-in for boots-on-the-ground research, Blank says — putting in that work remains essential for any entrepreneur mapping out a new business. The crux of the “lean startup” method Blank has taught for decades is speaking with a cross-section of potential customers and clients as early in the ideation process as possible, and then using their feedback to determine the viability of any concept.

AI still “doesn’t eliminate the need for getting out and testing the fundamental assumptions,” Blank says. “Whether it’s a restaurant or a consulting business or gardening store or whatever, you have a set of assumptions. The most important one is: ‘Well, who are my customers?’ And the second one is: ‘What do they want?’”

Answering those questions before moving ahead with a business idea is essential, because they speak to the fundamental focus and strength of any potential business, Blank says. Not doing so is a major mistake that can doom a new company before it launches.

That said, prospective business owners who are unwilling to use AI tools put themselves at a distinct disadvantage, too, Blank says.

“You don’t want to compete with someone who has an AI at their shoulder, because they’re acting like they have a team of 20 people coaching them,” says Blank. In addition to testing the hypothesis of a business idea, after all, AI assistants can help overwhelmed founders handle aspects of their business’ finances, administrative tasks and web design.

“If you don’t want to use it as a tool,” fine, Blank says. “No one is going to stop you not wanting to succeed.”

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Nearly 43 million Americans owe a total of $1.6 billion in federal student loans as of the end of 2024, according to Department of Education data.

A number of factors determine how much debt borrowers wind up with and how quickly they’re able to pay it off, including how expensive their schooling was and whether they had savings or scholarship earnings to pay tuition up front.

Similarly, your city’s local cost of living and average earnings can play a role in your ability to pay down debt. 

Student loan borrowers in Maryland, which has a higher cost of living than many states and a large population of college graduates, have the highest average outstanding balances, according to a recent SmartAsset analysis of ED data. 

The 844,600 residents with federal student loan debt in Maryland owe an average of $43,867, the most in the U.S., SmartAsset finds. Borrowers in Georgia follow closely with an average outstanding balance of $42,135. Virginia is the only other state where the average balance sits above $40,000.

Here’s the average federal student debt balance in all 50 states.

You may assume younger borrowers who recently graduated and may not be making a lot of money would have larger debt balances, but that’s not the case.

Nationally, borrowers ages 24 and younger owe an average of just over $14,000 in federal student debt, compared with an average of over $43,000 among borrowers ages 62 and older, according to federal data. 

Some of those older borrowers took out loans to help someone else, like a child or grandchild, pay for college. But most are still in debt from their own education, a recent National Consumer Law Center study found.

President Joe Biden and his administration took steps toward lowering both the number of borrowers with outstanding debt and the total balance through loan forgiveness programs, but progress on that front that seems less likely under President Donald Trump.

The Biden administration cleared debt balances for over 5 million borrowers through Public Service Loan Forgiveness, disability and closed school discharges, income-driven repayment plans and other initiatives.

But the Trump administration has so far moved to eliminate some of those pathways to forgiveness by proposing stricter requirements for PSLF and moving to limit income-driven repayment plan options.

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