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Experience limitless customization. Boost your creativity and efficiency with AI tools for every part of your business journey. Scale up with built-in SEO, e-com, and scheduling features. Put more of you in your business. Go to Wix.com and do it all yourself. Hello, everyone. I'm Kimberly Adams. Welcome back to Make Me Smart, where we make today make sense. And I'm Rima Grace. Thank you, everyone, for joining us on this Thursday, July 3rd.
Yes, it is a news and smiles kind of day, one day out from the 4th of July. So let's get into it. Rima, why don't you go first? All right. I want to talk about the jobs report that came out today because it gives us a pretty good snapshot of how the economy is holding up right now. And overall, the numbers are looking pretty good. So hiring in June was better than what economists expected. The economy added 147,000 jobs last month.
And we saw the biggest gains in health care and in state and local governments. The unemployment rate, it fell slightly to 4.1 percent from 4.2 percent. Still means, you know, we're in a pretty good territory, historically speaking. One area where we did see job losses, though, was manufacturing. Employment there fell for the second month in a row, which could be a sign that manufacturers might be holding off on hiring because of all the uncertainty around tariffs.
Also, you know, not a lot of growth in leisure and hospitality either, which coincidentally or not so coincidentally are sectors that rely heavily on immigrant labor. So that could be a sign that Trump's crackdown on immigration is affecting the job market. But if you take a step back looking at these numbers, hiring is still solid. And that tells us something that even with all of the economic headwinds, the uncertainty around tariffs, the cuts to the federal government, the high interest rates, despite all of that,
It doesn't seem as though employers are really pulling back in a big way. And meanwhile, Trump, he has been putting a lot of pressure on Fed Chair Jay Powell. Trump wants the Fed to cut interest rates to make borrowing cheaper. And he is pretty angry that Powell isn't doing that, especially as the government is trying to pass this massive package of tax cuts that's going to balloon the deficit and drive up the cost of paying interest on the national debt bill.
But Jay Powell has been like, nope, we're not doing that. He says, keeps saying that, you know, as long as the economy is in decent shape, the smart move is to wait to get more data before making any changes. And honestly, with a jobs report like today's, I think it's going to be harder to make the case for the Fed to make the case that it needs to lower rates right now.
You know, it's interesting. We got the jobs report today because of the holiday that's coming up tomorrow. Usually we get it on a Friday. And, you know, everyone can be forgiven if you've got a little bit of whiplash when it comes to jobs numbers, because you might be thinking to yourself, didn't I just hear that the jobs report was worse than normal? And today they're saying it's better than expected. And that is because there are a bunch of different ways that we look at jobs numbers. So today, this was the jobs report out from the federal government.
which looks at the number of people out there looking for jobs in the month of June in particular, and that encompasses everything, right? But yesterday we got the ADP jobs report. Now that is a set of data that looks just at private sector hiring. And Rima, you were just saying that one of the big areas of growth in these jobs numbers that encompasses everything was in state and local government hiring. And so when you're not looking at that,
and you strip out that state and local government hiring, then you get a jobs report that looks more like ADP's numbers, which says that the private sector lost 33,000 jobs in June, as the headline on CNBC says, badly missing expectations for a 100,000 increase. So...
This is really interesting because you do have growth in certain areas like health care, like you were just saying, Reema, and in state and local governments, I guess, trying to shore up some of the losses on the federal side. I think a lot of that hiring was in education in particular. But then, you know, the private sector is kind of stagnating a bit, it looks like. And that was a big miss in the ADP jobs report. I will caution folks because I know there's been a lot of talk about
about can we trust the government data given all the cuts? Oh, go ahead then. No, no, you're right. Because I do see a lot of folks on social media being like, yeah, can we, the numbers look so different. Like, can we actually trust the government numbers? And I was looking into this this morning myself and I,
My take is yes. Like there isn't a lot of evidence right now that there's political interference happening. There was a good article about this in The New York Times earlier this month about whether we can trust a jobs report from the Trump administration. And the reporting found that we can. But there are some concerns that there's this gradual erosion happening in the quality of government data because of other reasons. Is that what you were going to say? Yes.
No, what I was going to say is that this is just not a data point, you know, that folks, because I think it would be very easy to be like, aha, ADP said this and the government said this. This means the government's lying. No, they're looking at different sets of information. One includes state and local government hiring. The other one does not. And that accounts for that big difference in the numbers. But both of them tell us interesting stories about the overall economy, which is why it's good to look at lots of different types of data. Yeah.
So my news is actually kind of tied to something in that Wall Street Journal article that you linked to talking about the jobs numbers. There was a really interesting section in it. It says...
The immigration crackdown could also mean far less job growth is needed to keep the unemployment rate steady. The decline in the unemployment rate in June, and we're talking about the federal numbers here again, was driven in part by a drop in the number of people looking for work.
In a report Wednesday, economists from the Brookings Institution and the American Enterprise Institute concluded that net immigration to the U.S. this year will likely fall to zero or be negative. They think that the U.S., as a result, might need to add only as little as 10,000 to 40,000 jobs in a month in the second half of 2025 to keep the unemployment rate steady. So let me zoom out a bit here.
We look at unemployment rate based on the number of people looking for jobs. If there are fewer immigrants, if immigrants who maybe used to be working and looking for jobs are not because they're terrified of ICE coming to get them or people are self-deporting or fewer people are entering the country looking for work, that
That means that those the unemployment rate continues to stay low, even if we're not growing the same number of jobs that we used to because you don't have to offset as many job seekers. So I think that was really interesting because one of the things as much as we've been talking about this reconciliation package, which I think we're still waiting for the House to vote on it at the time we're recording this.
One of the interesting parts of it that we haven't dug into very much yet is what that bill has in it in terms of border security and funding for immigration enforcement programs.
And I saw a really interesting article in Tech Policy Press that is talking about how the Republican budget bill signals a new era in federal surveillance. So there's about $175 billion, at least in the Senate version of the bill, to enforce the anti-immigration agenda and the crackdown on immigration.
on people who are in the country illegally. And a lot of that is going to surveillance and technology to track people, right? And,
There's an interesting section here. It says DHS, the Department of Homeland Security, is already buying sensitive corporate data on individual purchases and movements such as airline data. It's now seeking the ability to unify and analyze this trove of information. The government is expected to add other sources of federal data such as social security and tax information on citizens and non-citizens alike. A March 2025 Trump executive order directs the government to remove corporations
quote, unnecessary barriers to data sharing and access between departments and ensure that the federal government has unfettered access to comprehensive data from all state programs that receive federal funding, including, as appropriate, data generated by those programs but maintained in third-party databases. I bring all this up
To point out that the federal money that is being allocated to be spent to crack down on undocumented immigrants or people who are here illegally is also effectively going to be used to gather data on all of us. So that is happening. Wow, that is very important. And it's striking how something framed as immigration enforcement can end up reaching so much further because these kinds of surveillance systems are,
They could make people, immigrants and U.S. citizens, think twice before handing over their personal information. It might make them hesitate to file taxes or to report crimes or to apply for basic benefits because they're afraid the information might be used against them. So I think it's really important that you pointed that out. And, you know, history shows us that once these tools are in place, they also are rarely limited to their original purpose. So it's worth paying attention to. I'm glad you pointed that out.
Yeah, it reminds me of all those stories post 9-11 of people who randomly ended up on the no-fly list for reasons they couldn't understand. American citizens as well as non-Americans and people, and it just got wildly out of control at one point. I mean, I know plenty of people who ended up on those lists. Yeah. Yeah. All right. All right. Let's move on to some smiles. Let's smile.
Okay, for our smiles today, we are going to try something new. We want to hear from you about recent wins in your life, like something that just made you feel good about yourself. Did you learn how to cook a new recipe? Did you keep a plant alive way longer than you thought you would? Maybe, you know, do you crochet and you learned a new stitch or conquered a video game that you've been
playing, got a new job, threw a great party. I don't care anything that you feel like a win in your life. We want to hear about it, big or small. I love this. I love that we're doing this. So tell us about your wins. We'll celebrate them on the show. You can email us at makemesmartatmarketplace.org or you can leave us a voicemail at 508-UBSMART. All right. And we are going to go first. Rima, tell us about a recent win in your life. As you were listing off those things, I was like, oh.
I just got back into crocheting last night after a break. But the thing I actually want to talk about, though, was I've talked about this on the show, but I've gotten into gardening this summer. It's my first time really digging into it, pun intended. And I've been watching a lot of YouTube videos and a lot of Monty Dom, who hosts Gardener's World. Anyway, recently I've gotten into aquatic plants because I think they're really beautiful and
And they're also just really beneficial. It can be a good breeding ground for insects and for wildlife. You can attract dragonflies. Anyway, so I've had this in my head for a while and I'm like, Karima, just get the aquatic plants, get the container that you need for it. And I've just been putting it off, putting it off. And then finally, the other day, I was like, get off the couch, just do it.
And I went to a farm store because I'd been putting it off because I wanted a container that was big enough, but also not going to cost me $100. And so I finally found one at this farm store, went to the nursery, got some water lilies and some flowers.
water lettuce and papyrus and then put it all in the backyard yesterday. And I feel so good that I finally did it. I'm going to still like dig up a hole and do some landscaping around it, but I'm really excited. That's fantastic. And congratulations on your win. I'm very happy for you. Thank you. My
My one is a little bit smaller, but it was quite an accomplishment. I was doing a lot of traveling over the last couple of weeks and just really overwhelmed with all this stuff with the reconciliation bill and work-related things and also kind of running around. I just had a million errands. And so I hadn't done laundry in ages. And so...
Earlier this week, I got all of my stuff together and I finally sorted and I did seven loads of laundry and got everything done. And I put it all away within like the same day, which is unheard of. I feel like doing the laundry is one thing, but then putting it away is like a completely other thing. Yeah.
And so I did all of the laundry and I put it away and I felt like a freaking hero to myself. I mean, truly, that has also been on my to-do list and putting it off. I'm like, I really need to clean my bedsheets. That's amazing. I feel inspired. Yeah. You too can do your laundry and put it away in the same day. Yeah.
But we want to hear your wins. We really do. And as you can see from us, it doesn't have to be a big thing. Whatever makes you feel like a win. Because it's also going to help us out because sometimes it's hard to find a smile these days. So we will take them from you all. Yes. All right. That's it for us today. Tomorrow we'll be off for the holiday, but we'll be sharing an episode from the latest season of Marketplace's Kids podcast, Million Bazillion, that might help you talk about what's going on with tariffs to young ones in your life. So look out for that in your feeds.
Make Me Smart is produced by Courtney Bergseger. Today's program was engineered by Justin Duller. Daisy Palacios is our supervising senior producer. Nancy Fergali is executive producer of Marketplace Shows. And Joanne Griffith is our chief content officer.
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