Marketplace

A lot of people are anxiously waiting for tomorrow’s June jobs report. Especially the Federal Reserve. But today we got a lot of confounding, contradictory indicators moving up and down and all around this tight labor market. We’ll tell you everything you need to know. Plus: A look at the state of the car market, and a conversation with an artist who took a job in the Alberta oil sands to pay off her student debt fast.

Global temperatures were the highest ever recorded Monday … until yesterday, which was even hotter. More “hottest days ever” are coming, so today we’ll look at their economic impact. But first, we’ll examine the warning signs in commercial real estate and manufacturing. Plus: Meta’s audience gives its rival to Twitter an edge over the rest of the pack.

We know it sounds strange, but the Federal Reserve wants to see higher unemployment in Friday’s jobs report to show that its fight against inflation is working. Then, climate change isn’t making hurricanes more frequent, but it is making them more severe. What to expect from this year’s season. Plus, how a formerly enslaved man helped Black families build generational wealth. And later, feral cats for hire!

Thousands will become U.S. citizens tomorrow at special celebrations across the country. But high application fees make naturalized citizenship unattainable for some of the more than 9 million immigrants who are eligible. Plus, what to expect from Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s trip to China and this fall’s student loan repayment restart. Later: Christmas shopping? Already?

While the pace of price increases is slowing at home, today we’ll map out where inflation is fading, where it still hurts and where it’s actually welcome news. Also on the show: wading into the economic impact of the recent Supreme Court decisions in the Weekly Wrap and examining the FAA’s funding ahead of Fourth of July travels.

The Supreme Court decision to strike down race-based college admissions didn’t come as a surprise to many. Today, we examine the economic ripple effects the decision could have, shrinking the talent pipeline for businesses and making U.S. companies less competitive internationally. Plus, the Federal Reserve could use an infrastructure upgrade and what the Barbie Dreamhouse reveals about American culture and real estate.

President Joe Biden on Wednesday pitched his economic plan, which he’s branded “Bidenomics.” Remind anyone of “Reaganomics”? The association between the terms— and contrasts between the philosophies — may just be the point. Also on the program: a surge in labor action, electric grids at risk, discord within OPEC+ and racial bias in home appraisals.

New Case-Shiller data suggests that home prices are rebounding after a moderate dip, and that’s in the face of high mortgage rates. Still, the story is different in different regions. We’ll also examine Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s planned trip to Beijing, dig into the business of getting kids to school and look at a new law that aims to better protect pregnant workers.

American workers are stubbornly resistant to giving up working from home. That’s a huge problem for commercial real estate owners and the regional banks that finance them. So what happens when office buildings become ghost towns? Plus, China encourages young workers to move to the countryside, local governments look to employ gig workers and states attempt to modernize unemployment insurance services.

New data indicates that American manufacturing is shrinking. The index of leading economic indicators has been signaling recession for more than a year. But what about consumer spending? Or the tight labor market? We called up some forecasters to sift through this pile of data and talk about the challenges of predicting where the economy is going right now. Plus: We meet the AI chatbots that lawyers are already using and take a closer look at how the economic boom in Houston is leaving the working class behind. But first, our panel of experts recaps a big week for the Federal Reserve.