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Hello, everyone. I'm Kimberly Adams. Welcome back to Make Me Smart, where we make today make sense. And I am Rima Kheir. I'm in for Kai Risdahl. Thanks, everyone, for listening. Today is Thursday, May 8th. And we're going to unpack some clips from this week's news today. And then we'll do some smiles because we all know we need them. Yes, we do. So first up, we have tariffs, because why not? It's what we live for these days. Um,
When President Trump put a pause on a lot of these so-called Liberation Day tariffs, his administration promised that there would be something like 90 deals in 90 days with other countries because the idea was we're going to put these like wild tariffs on and everyone's going to come crawling to us for a deal. And so today he actually announced something.
sort of the first new trade deal, this one with the UK. Here's Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick talking about it in the Oval Office this morning. We feel really good about the deal. You've heard the prime minister. He feels really good about the deal, right? And we started at 10% and we ended at 10%. And the market for America is better. And this is a perfect example of why Donald Trump produced Liberation Day.
So the reason I said a sort of deal is because the deal is not signed yet. What was announced was the outline of a trade agreement with the U.K. But some of the details that we know so far is that, yes, there is still a 10 percent blanket tariff on U.K. imports that's going to stay in place. But the auto tariffs are going to be adjusted so that the first 100,000 vehicles imported from the U.K. from British car manufacturers are going to be
are going to be subject to that 10% rate and then additional vehicles beyond that are going to face 25% rates. The UK has supposedly agreed to create more opportunities for US farmers and producers.
to allow them to export things like ethanol, beef and other agricultural products. Now, Trump has already indicated that the terms of this deal are not what other countries should expect, that they basically is framing them as pretty generous terms. And one of the reasons for that is because, and this is important to note, the U.S. actually has a trade surplus with the United Kingdom, not a deficit, which is what he complains about on a regular basis.
Yeah, that's such an important thing to know. I feel like that often gets missed in the headlines that we sell more to them than we buy. Right. So like we are like that means American companies are already doing well in that relationship. And I feel like I've seen a couple of people know on social media that the UK makes up just about 3% of our total global trade. So which is not a lot. Yeah. And so I yeah, I think those just are important stats to note. Yeah.
when it's framed as a way to fix unfair trade. It's not, it's not totally adding up. Yeah. There's a lot about this whole process that hasn't really been adding up. Yeah. All right. We can move on from tariffs though. So I feel like between yesterday and today I'm on the like, but why is everything so expensive beat? Cause yesterday I was talking about housing and today I want to talk about the cost of childcare. Yeah.
It's a topic that has come up on my show, This is Uncomfortable, which I'll get more into in a minute. But there was this report that came out recently from Redfin, and it found that sending two kids to daycare now costs more than rent in most major U.S. metros. Yeah.
So like in places like Denver, Seattle, San Francisco, families pay nearly as much for child care as they do in rent, you know, because housing is expensive and so is child care. Apparently, San Francisco tops the list. And just looking at the report right now in Denver, for example, sending two kids can cost about twenty eight hundred dollars a month. Yeah.
And, you know, it's partly why, I mean, there are a lot of reasons why people pay close attention to what's happening at the federal level. But lately, we've been seeing a lot of talk around Head Start. So just yesterday, I talked about the White House budget summary. And one thing a lot of people were bracing for was major cuts to Head Start, which is that's the early education program for low income families, because there was a leaked proposal suggesting that the program might be defunded entirely. But
That didn't happen. You know, Head Start was not mentioned in the budget summary. And who knows what Congress will do. But either way, teachers and advocates are still worried about the future of the program because the administration apparently has already closed several regional offices and is laying off staff, which has led to all sorts of things like funding delays and threats of some closures. And even, you know, even before Trump, you'd see Head Start in the news all the time because the program was dealing with staff shortages and had to close down some of its preschools because of rising costs.
And so, like I said, part of the reason why I want to talk about this today is because I also wanted to tee up the episode that we just released, I guess, last week on This is Uncomfortable. So it gets at how unaffordable child care can be. And I talked about
It's, again, more on, like, the emotional side of that story. But I talked with one woman. Her name is Hannah. And she found this really creative and unexpected solution. So here's the backstory. I don't know how much you know, but...
Ever since she was a kid. Well, I know because I listened to the episode. Oh, you listened to it? Not everybody else. Not everybody else has. So give us the background. Yeah. So basically, I talked with this woman, Hannah, and ever since she was a kid, she was like, I just want to be a mom. And so she made this promise to herself. She was like, when I turn 30, I am going to do IVF if I'm still single. I'm going to do IVF and have kids. So she turned 30, did IVF. She had twins. She had a lot of pregnancy complications, which meant that she
delivered early, like two months earlier than anticipated. And, um,
One of the main problems she came across was that her employer insisted that her maternity leave had to start right after she gave birth, but her babies were in the NICU for two months. And so by the time they were released from the NICU, she only had like one or two weeks left of maternity leave. And suddenly she found herself in this... It's so wild. I just... I can't even imagine. That sounds so incredibly stressful. And so she...
suddenly found herself in this position, you know, single mom, two kids, she's working for this tech company. She moves in with her mom temporarily, but she's like, okay, I guess I just, and she was just so set on becoming a mom that she didn't really look at the cost of childcare. And so she was like, okay, I guess I have to just go into debt to afford childcare. Until one day she had this brilliant idea. She was like, oh, my best friend, who's also her coworker, was burnt out at work. He was looking for a new job.
And so she floated this idea. She was like, "What if you quit your job and took care of my kids?" And he was like, "You know, that's not such a bad idea." Here's a clip of them talking about it. I wanted to help her get back at home as fast as possible.
And I knew that the biggest roadblock was getting childcare. I was feeling the same way. I was like, what can I do to get Briar out of his really bad situation? I was like, look, your leave's coming up like two weeks. Like, I'll put in my two weeks and like, we'll just start it. We'll just do it. I was just like, let's do it. We're doing it. We're getting you out of this situation. We're getting me out of this situation. You tell me how much your rate is and I will pay it every week.
Okay, so since you listened, Kimberly, you know what happens. I do know what happens. Yeah, I don't want to give away the ending because there's an unexpected twist, but the arrangement goes really well, better than they could have imagined. And I'm curious what you think of the story, but it's one of those stories that is very heartwarming in a lot of ways, but also kind of bleak. Yeah, I mean, it definitely had like a good outcome, but it
Also is just so it's it's kind of like when you see those like, oh, this person raised, you know, a hundred thousand dollars on Kickstarter to, you know, get them out of this crisis. And it's like or we could have a social safety net or we could have, you know, fund things. And so it's like great that this worked out. But the solution is not a solution.
Their solution is not a solution to the larger problem, right? And the fact that she had to go or they had to go to such extremes to function in an economy that is just not built for parents. Our systems are not built to support people having kids and yet –
You know, we're hearing particularly from this administration, they want more people to have kids. You know, I think it's worth noting that the one of the Pulitzers this year went to this amazing ProPublica investigation about, you know, kind of mothers and in particular women denied abortions and childbirth.
being forced to be mothers and the economic consequences of that and the emotional and physical consequences of that. And there's a really amazing photo essay attached to one of these stories about a woman who was forced to give birth in Tennessee, I think it was, and
The baby was born early and there were all these complications and they were already in debt and it just took them from a vulnerable financial situation to an absolute economic crisis. And there were all of these other negative consequences attached to it that, you know, were just – it was just wild. So, yeah, I mean it's a great story and it's heartwarming, but it just kind of reveals the depth of the problem. So, yes. Very well said.
Got to check that out, though, the ProPublica. Oh, yeah. So good. We need some smiles. Let's smile. Let's smile.
So I was scrolling through the socials and came across this very entertaining Instagram reel about where this woman was basically the premise is she said, what if we used makeup metaphors at work the same way that men use sports metaphors and they're glorious.
I know we want to move forward with this, but are we adding the foundation before the primer here? I'm seeing buying signals too, but the deal's not over till we add our setting spray. I want to make sure we're finding that balance between dewy and greasy. I understand all of those references, but I'm sure that so many people do not. And I, you know what, it's just great to kind of turn some of these stereotypes on its head, you know, because it's
Sports metaphors are just considered to be a totally fine thing to use. And I remember one time I attempted to use a sports metaphor in a pitch memo that I wrote because way back in the day at Marketplace, we used to have to write these pitch memos in the morning with the stories that we might want to do. And I think I –
I made some sort of football reference that was just absolutely wrong. And one of our editors just, he wrote me a very kind note and he was like, I don't think that means what you think it means. And I was just like, and that is the last time I try to use a sports metaphor. And then you're like, well, I think we should,
Oh, I was going to make a joke. I was going to say you should have responded and said, well, I think we should contour this story. Go full glam into this meeting. Yeah. Yeah. So these posts are by Ari Kramer on Instagram and I'm sure on other socials as well. Really funny. And actually Sephora commented on some of them. Oh, really? They made me chuckle. That's fun. We should try it. We should go into meeting. Yeah.
Yes, let's do that the next All Staff and just start making makeup metaphors. Right. We should smudge the edges in Q3. Okay. All right. I'm going to stop. Yeah.
All right. What's my smile? Oh, okay. So I read a couple articles and saw on social media that Casey Johnston, are you familiar with her? She is a writer and she has, yeah, she has this column called Ask a Swole Woman. And she just came out with a new book called Physical Education, How I Escaped Diet Culture and Gained the Power of Lifting. So she talks a lot about strength training and lifting. And I'm very intrigued and excited to check that out. There's
an excerpt of her book on the cut that we can link to plus maybe something else. But it sounds like... Hi. Hi.
Our tax has brought me a toy to throw. He said, it's time to play. He said, I don't know why you're all talking so much. But it sounds like her book, which is like part memoir and part science journalism, it like makes the argument for why strength training can offer us so much. And so she talks about how like it helped her build not only physical strength, but also emotional strength and energy.
you know, moved away from being, you know, depriving herself of food and counting calories. And she talks a lot about how like muscle mass is connected to things like our metabolism and brain activity and,
I think it's really neat that she came out with a book. I'm excited to check it out. You know, I've personally struggled to have a consistent exercise routine my entire life. And I recently discovered, right? It's so hard. But I was like talking with some friends a couple months ago and they like threw some kind of astonishing facts at me about how we lose our muscle mass over time. And I was like, oh, I gotta get serious about this. And so I started doing weightlifting just like very, very casually. And
And just like one class a week. Sorry. And I love it. How's Sim Sim doing, by the way? You know, I'm surprised she hasn't. Sim Sim's my cat. I'm surprised she hasn't come to bother me. Usually whenever I record, she's like, all right, it's time to sit on your laptop.
All right, we can wrap. I'm sorry. He's doing the absolute most today. Okay, so that is it for this Thursday. Tomorrow, I'm going to be joined by Sabree Beneshour for Economics on Tap. Our YouTube live stream starts at 3.30 Pacific, 6.30 Eastern. We'll have more news, drinks, and a game. Make Me Smart is produced by Courtney Bergseger. Our intern is Zohan Malik. Today's episode was engineered by Drew Jostad.
I don't even have the credits on my script anymore. I don't know what they are. Marisa Caprera is our senior producer. Bridget Podner is the director of podcast. And Francesca Levy is the executive director of digital. And Artax is our, the cutest cat. Mascot, sure. Mascot, yeah. ♪
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