Guest Commentary written by
Misty McAfee
Misty McAfee is a Los Angeles marketing strategist and writer.
In the past seven months, I’ve applied for 736 jobs. And I don’t know how I’m making rent in June.
I’m 55; I’ve worked since I was 14. I raised a son who graduated from a UC school. I paid taxes for four decades. I spent more than 20 years building a career in marketing, communications, events and brand strategy in California.
I’ve been using artificial intelligence tools since before most people knew what to call them. I integrated AI into workflows, marketing strategy, research and communications work because I believed staying current was the price of staying employed.
This is the part that’s hard to explain to people who haven’t lived it. I’ve revised my resume countless times. I’ve optimized LinkedIn. I’ve researched applicant tracking systems. I’ve networked and tailored every application.
The advice is endless and always about what I should do differently: Have you updated your LinkedIn? Have you reached out to your network? Have you tried applying to smaller companies?
Nobody stops and says: “Wait. We’re the fourth largest economy in the world and this is happening to someone who worked for 40 years and paid taxes and did everything they thought was correct.” The conversation never gets that far.
The dominant public narrative around unemployment still assumes a personal failure of adaptation. If someone can’t find work, the assumption is that they failed to evolve, failed to learn, failed to stay current. That story is convenient because it locates the problem in the individual and keeps it there.
I’m the worker the story said would be fine. I’m far from fine.
I started by applying for six-figure director level roles. When those didn’t land, I moved to manager positions. Then coordinator positions. Then hospitality work. Then catering jobs at hotels. The result across seven months and 736 applications was one Zoom interview.
Applications vanish into automated systems. Any sign of a human being on the other end has disappeared. Jobs are reposted after you’ve already applied. After months of applying, many postings begin to feel less like opportunities and more like data collection systems.
Meanwhile, California’s economic messaging stays relentlessly triumphant. Gov. Gavin Newsom boasts that California’s gross domestic product has grown to $4.25 trillion. Nvidia became the first company to surpass a $4 trillion market valuation, generating more than $2 million in profits per employee. And investment in AI reached more than $200 billion in 2025, up sharply from the year prior.
At the same time, more than 118,000 tech jobs were eliminated nationwide in 2025. California accounted for more than half of those losses. The companies cutting those positions cited AI as a primary cause.
What’s less clear is what happens to the workers being replaced along the way. I still believe I’ll work again. I still apply every day.
Before writing publicly about any of this, I sent an email to Newsom, gubernatorial candidate Katie Porter, Rep. Ted Lieu, Rep. Ro Khanna, and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass. I told them exactly what I’m telling you. I asked them one question: What’s the plan?
Only Bass’s team responded. They sent an automated email with a list of employment resources. I clicked the link. The page said, “Error, not found.”