Some good news if you’re an office worker who can’t stand your boss, commuting, or both: Your odds of returning to the office in the coming weeks are falling. Labor Day was supposed to be the big switch back to in-person work after 17 months of Zoom. Now, with the Delta variant surging across the country, many of America’s biggest corporations are pushing back their returns dates again—in some cases indefinitely.

For many Americans, buying fresh local food at one of the estimated 9,000 farmers markets across the U.S. is one of summer’s pleasures. But farmers markets aren’t just nice amenities. Over the past 18 months, many have filled food supply gaps caused by COVID-19 shutdowns.

Nothing gives you better clarity than a near-death experience. It awakens you to the frailty of life and the importance of living with purpose and meaning. The pandemic has been a wake-up call. It has shaken us out of our complacency. We have started seriously looking into the way we lead our lives. Many of us have decided that our jobs were dead ends, and quit in the “Great Resignation” wave.

When Matt Elliott started his career, you were expected to be at your desk from 9am to 5pm Monday to Friday. “I feel that’s being broken now,” he said. As Bank of Ireland’s chief people officer , he is encouraging staff to think about how they use the office when they finally reopen, not to come in for tasks they could do at home and save themselves a commute into the bargain.

All her life, Carole-Ann Warburton kept a little hope glowing at the back of her mind. “You’re living your life. And every now and then you think: ‘I have a dream.’” Warburton’s dream was to work in a bookshop.

Lazy, financially irresponsible, never happy ... stereotypes of Millennials are tough. But for young people, the real generation to blame is the Baby Boomers, due to their negative impact on today's economy.

We’re living longer, but not necessarily better. As the population over 65 in the United States is projected to double by 2060 — with one in five residents in retirement age — so will the number of Americans needing long-term care services.

Inflation surged in June at its fastest pace in nearly 13 years amid a burst in used vehicle costs and price increases in food and energy, the Labor Department reported Tuesday. The consumer price index increased 5.4% from a year earlier, the largest jump since August 2008, just before the worst of the financial crisis. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones had been expecting a 5% gain.

The pandemic changed everything… but most of all, it made us question the way we live

These workers will have major effects on cities and the areas outside them.

We were initially anxious about the introduction of robots into our workforce because of the potential disappearance of manual labor jobs. Robots would take over factories, we were told, they’d drive our cars and trucks, and they would do all of the cleaning that janitorial and domestic workers are currently hired to do.

If there’s one thing no one ever tells you about adulthood, it’s how easy it is to accumulate stuff. Let’s face it: Many families have tools, home décor, clothing, and seasonal storage crammed in closets, attics, and, of course, the garage.

There have been few moments in the history of work as pivotal as the one we find ourselves in now. It took a pandemic to normalise remote working, and, despite the fears of many CEOs, most organisations saw no demonstrable loss of productivity. Now, the global workforce is demanding its right to retain the autonomy it gained through increased flexibility as societies open up again. Pre-pandemic, it was not uncommon for an employer to ask staff to justify their need to work from home. Post-pandemic, employees may ask employers to justify the need to come into the office.

A growing sense of inequality is undermining trust in both society’s institutions and capitalism, according to a long-running global survey. The 2020 Edelman Trust Barometer – now in its 20th year – has found many people no longer believe working hard will give them a better life.

For many, moving out of the family home is a rite of passage, a sign that adulthood is just about to begin. Equally, however, there are plenty of reasons why somebody might move back in with their parents: after a break-up, to save money, for health reasons, or to care for ageing or unwell relatives. Anecdotally, the COVID-19 pandemic seems to have been another reason for such a move, with articles proliferating on children once more living with their parents and offering advice on how to deal with it.

“Employers are becoming much more cognizant that yes, it’s about money, but also about quality of life.”

For émigrés and exiles, pressure on families back home, social media intimidation, even kidnapping, have become a regular part of life.

Phil Mickelson just won the P.G.A. Championship at age 50. Tom Brady won the Super Bowl at 43. Serena Williams is a top tennis star at 39. Joe Biden entered the presidency at 78. Last year Bob Dylan released an excellent album at 79.

There is an entire ecosystem dedicated to gaming the credit card rewards system — the Points Guy, who has made himself a household name, and a web of websites and influencers who teach all sorts of tricks and hacks. What people might not realize is that the system is already gamed, just not in the way they think: Credit card perks reward rich Americans to the detriment of the poor. The $200 in cash back you got using your fancy new rewards card often comes at the expense of someone who can’t afford it.

The COVID-19 pandemic is shifting the shape of population in countries around the world, both in lives lost and in babies not born. We are becoming fewer even faster than before. More than a year after governments closed borders, shut down businesses and ordered people to stay home, the latest data show significant declines in fertility in some countries – declines that could become permanent. At the other end of life, so many people have died prematurely that life expectancy has gone down in some countries. This pandemic will influence the demographic makeup of countries, including Canada, for years to come.