• Business Insider has been covering stories of federal workers fired by the White House DOGE office.
• Some readers told BI they had limited sympathy.
• They said their private sector careers hadn't guaranteed job security or retirement.

In April, I wrote about a federal worker who was five months shy of eligibility for a full pension of $6,000 a month when she was fired in the DOGE cuts.

I received nearly 100 emails from readers, and almost all expressed how little sympathy they felt.

"Welcome to the real world," several said.

"Go get a job and work till you're dead like the rest of us," another wrote.

"National Steel went bankrupt. US Steel bought them for nothing. Thousands lost what was promised to us," another said.

Of course, not everyone feels this way. I tend to get more emails from people with negative responses to stories than from those who aren't bothered. But I was curious to learn more, so I spoke with six of the people who were critical of the federal worker.

They were over 60 and lived in California, Nevada, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Maryland. Four were retired, and most lived on fixed incomes much lower than the pension the subject of my story would have received. They all said they didn't want their tax dollars to pay for high salaries and generous benefits for certain government employees when private sector workers aren't afforded the same rewards. They also questioned whether some government jobs were needed at all. All but one voted for now-President Donald Trump in this past election.

While news of federal firings has slowed down, DOGE's purging of the government workforce is not over. The cuts happening now are more permanent and methodical, and the Trump administration is planning to reclassify some workers to make them easier to fire. The six people I spoke with said what DOGE is doing to the federal workforce is par for the course in the private sector. Several had lost their pensions because their employers went bankrupt or stopped paying into them and switched to the less-generous 401(k) model.

Leslie Swor, 70, retired seven years ago after a career in the Coast Guard, an independent securities regulator now known as FINRA, and then Oracle. To supplement her income, Swor works a contract job as a school crossing guard in East Los Angeles, California. She told me public sector workers shouldn't expect to have a "hefty" pension for life. After all, private sector workers don't take that as a given.

Swor said she had "fabulous benefits and annual raises and bonuses" early in her career in the private sector. In 2007, when she became an administrative assistant at Oracle, those benefits were no longer the norm.

"Life for us out here in the private sector, in my experience, seemed to get much worse," Swor said.

They think federal salaries and benefits are overly generous compared with the private sector

The readers I spoke with were surprised that the subject of my story, Katherine Ann Reniers, was making so much money in a government job, in addition to generous benefits, and said the private sector had not been as cushy.

Reniers, a fired US Agency for International Development worker, earned a base salary of $177,000. In addition to a pension, she and other federal workers have the Thrift Savings Plan, which is similar to a 401(k). In that plan, the government matches a small percentage of an employee's contributions. Reniers would have qualified for federal health insurance for life if she had hit two decades of service.

Nearly 20 years ago, Reniers took a pay cut to leave the private sector, dropping from $150,000 to $54,000 in annual pay to get on a path that she saw as stabler for her family in the long run. At first, she moved every two to four years, sometimes to countries that had high rates of violent crime and lacked decent healthcare. In 2010, she was pregnant when she was assigned to Haiti after a devastating earthquake. Reniers, now 53, rose through the ranks to become a USAID division chief and lives in Maryland.

Swor said her perception of federal employees was that they traded higher private sector salaries for more stability and better benefits. That's largely true for federal workers with a bachelor's degree or above. A Congressional Budget Office analysis of fiscal 2022 data found that federal workers who graduated from college had lower salaries but better benefits — including health insurance, retirement, and paid leave — than their counterparts in the private sector. Public sector jobs also tend to be held by white-collar, highly educated professionals. Reniers, for example, has a master's degree, speaks four languages, and has a lot of work experience in Africa and Europe.

For workers with only a high school education, the federal government, on average, offers better pay and benefits than the private sector.

Mike Knouse, a 62-year-old landscaper from Maryland, was also frustrated by what he viewed as generous public sector compensation. He's worked for 40 years at private companies but said he never had a pension or more than two weeks of paid vacation. His current employer doesn't offer a 401(k).

Salaries and benefits for 2 million federal employees, including military and civilian personnel, accounted for about 4.3% of the nation's $6.8 trillion in annual spending in fiscal 2024. According to the CBO, social safety net programs like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, nutrition assistance, and benefits for veterans and military personnel account for more than 50% of the US budget.

If DOGE does find savings, Knouse would like to see lower taxes, better healthcare for retirees, and more Social Security.

"I'm hoping that he could also cut the pay scale for federal employees, or any future hiring by the federal government, because it's got to balance out," Knouse said, referring to Trump and the DOGE office's cuts.

Some questioned whether tax money should pay for pensions

In general, full-time federal workers can start receiving their full pension once they hit the minimum retirement age of 62. Those who've worked two decades or more for the federal government can retire earlier. Foreign service officers at USAID and the State Department — as well as law enforcement officers, firefighters, and air traffic controllers — can retire after 20 years and qualify for larger pension payouts after hitting that anniversary.

I asked the people I interviewed how they viewed federal pensions and whether they wished the private sector still offered them. These "defined benefit plans," which guarantee a certain payout, have become less common in the private sector as employers have adopted more "defined contribution plans" like 401(k)s or employee stock ownership, which offer varying payouts based on the market.

Swor, for her part, was OK with pensions being eliminated in both sectors.

"I think people might be waking up that this is our money," Swor said of federal pensions. "Why not just receive Social Security?"

Richard Myers, a 67-year-old retired commercial real estate developer in Nevada, felt conflicted about the federal pension system. On one hand, he understood that the government has to provide good benefits to attract talent. But it seemed overly cushy to him that certain workers could retire with a full pension — maybe even at 45 if they entered the government young enough — and go on to have another career.

Ultimately, he said he understood a pension like this for military or law enforcement officers, as well as someone like Reniers, who had to move around a lot overseas at the government's request.

"After 20 years, you've probably paid your dues," Myers said. "But someone with a desk job in Washington, DC?"

He said he joked with his friends that there would be a revolution in the US — not rich versus poor but public sector versus private sector, because workers in the latter category arriving at retirement age will be asking, "How do they have all this extra money?"

They asked whether the US needs all the current government jobs

While most people I spoke with didn't completely agree with the way the Elon Musk-linked DOGE office was implementing the cuts, the pursuit of finding and eliminating government waste appealed to them. So did Trump's "America First" mantra, which partly explained their skepticism of USAID.

Cynthia Bean, a 64-year-old from Indiana, said she had never heard of the agency and didn't understand why "billions of our tax dollars are being funneled through it to nonprofits in other countries."

Bean, who owned a real estate title business for 20 years, said she voted for Trump because he talked about running the US government like a business.

She said she didn't have a problem helping other countries prevent and treat HIV/AIDS or other diseases. People also need water and power, she added. Some 83% of USAID programs, including those that invested in disease prevention and clean water, have been cut by the Trump administration.

Joyce Weaver, an 80-year-old senior home care aide in Pennsylvania and a Democrat who voted for then-Vice President Kamala Harris, said the government may be overspending on millions of federal employees.

"What Trump is doing needs to be done but not with so much pain for so many and so much danger for the whole country," Weaver said.

Trump's criticism of federal workers, including calling them "crooked" and "dishonest," and Musk's suggestion that some government roles are "fake jobs" resonated with several of the people I interviewed.

"We do need government jobs, and I don't care what anyone says, they do deserve a pension," Paul Alto, 61, who lives in Cleveland, said. "But I think there are a lot of jobs that were made up."

As for Reniers, she recognized she's more privileged than most but said that's not all due to government pay and benefits. She has homes in Maryland and Belgium because of her inheritance. To address that inequality, she said, Americans should support taxing the rich.

"Why aren't Americans fighting for pensions at their own companies, as opposed to saying federal workers like me shouldn't get a pension?" Reniers said. "In America, so many people are working so hard for low wages. I get there's a discrepancy between them and the wealthy. So I'm like, let's tax the rich."

• Ebonye Zeno left Los Angeles for Albuquerque, seeking affordable housing and cleaner air.
• Zeno was among a wave of people who left California during the pandemic in 2020.
• Albuquerque has a climate action plan, lower housing costs, and better air quality.

Ebonye Zeno spent four hours a day commuting in Los Angeles traffic to get her daughter to private school.

Then the pandemic hit, and their worlds went remote. Like so many other Americans, they realized: "We could live somewhere else," Zeno, 51, said.

After three decades in LA, Zeno said it felt like the city's seasons — rather than being spring, fall, or winter — instead were marked by extreme weather: flooding, mudslides, wildfires, and earthquakes. She was also tired of expensive housing, traffic, and polluted skies.

"We have so much smog in LA that you hardly ever see a blue sky," Zeno said, adding that it exacerbated her daughter's allergies.

Zeno was among a wave of people who left California during the pandemic in 2020, the first year in recorded history that the state's population declined. That trend reversed in 2024, when California's population once again ticked up. But Zeno said she has no regrets about leaving.

Federal data analyzed by the American Lung Association shows that LA has some of the worst air quality in the US due to pollution from busy highways and ports. Mountains surrounding the city trap the smog. Meanwhile, researchers are studying how toxic wildfire smoke affects local residents. Air pollution increases the risk of premature births, lung and heart disease, and premature death.

Zeno, a single mom, also said she wanted to buy a home and find a more affordable private education for her daughter. Despite earning six figures a year for much of her career in tech, Zeno said homeownership in LA was always out of reach.

She outlined her priorities and started researching cities in Arizona, New Mexico, and the Pacific Northwest. Albuquerque topped the list for its mild weather, climate action plan, and cheaper cost of housing and private schools.

First-time homeowner in Albuquerque

Even though Zeno's annual income in the tech industry is about $300,000, she said it still wasn't enough to buy a home in LA while also paying for her daughter's education.

Before moving to Albuquerque, Zeno was renting a home in South Pasadena in 2020, where the median home value was higher than $1.2 million that year, according to Redfin.

Zeno was also paying about $40,000 a year for her daughter's private school so she could have a smaller classroom with individual attention that she said LA public schools couldn't offer.

After moving to Albuquerque, Zeno was able to buy a 3-bedroom, 3-bathroom home for $360,000 and find a private school for nearly $28,000 a year.

"I can actually save money now, and my daughter is thriving," Zeno said.

A citywide climate plan

Another reason Zeno chose Albuquerque is that city officials and New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham have climate action and land conservation plans.

Albuquerque unveiled a plan in 2021 to expand solar power, public transit, and electric vehicles. Zeno owns an EV and wanted to make sure the city she moved to was investing in new charging infrastructure. New Mexico has a lot of solar power companies, as well.

"Politics played a pretty big factor in my decision," Zeno said. "What kind of humanity was in the city we'd live in?

Albuquerque is vulnerable to climate risks like extreme heat, drought, and wildfires. But it doesn't have scorching hot temperatures like those seen in Phoenix, because Albuquerque sits at a higher elevation.

Albuquerque is also less likely to burn than LA, where rapid shifts between flooding and drought create ideal conditions for blazes.

"Our leaders are actively pursuing renewable energy, and New Mexico has a lot of tribes who understand the need to conserve land," Zeno said. "And I didn't realize just how affordable it'd be until I got here."

Do you have a story to share? Contact this reporter at [email protected].

• President Donald Trump has repeatedly said he'll deliver lower interest rates and lower prices.
• But the economic jitters caused by his tariff policies are working against both aims.
• Businesses and shoppers are souring on their economic outlooks, and the Fed is in wait-and-see mode.

President Donald Trump won the White House on the promise of an economic boom shortly after taking office.

So far, his chaotic trade policy has had the opposite effect.

Economists and policymakers have warned that the chances of a US recession are rising. Even if it isn't showing up in the hard data just yet — job growth beat expectations in April and inflation cooled in March — consumers, businesses, and markets are showing early signs of pulling back due to uncertainty around the effects of tariffs.

For months, Trump has been urging the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates, arguing the US economy is strong. But since December, the central bank has been in a wait-and-see mode. Following Wednesday's decision to keep interest rates steady, Chair Jerome Powell's main message was that Trump's trade policies were causing too much chaos for the committee to make any moves.

"I think there's a great deal of uncertainty about, for example, where tariff policies are going to settle out," he added. "What will be the implications for the economy, for growth, and for employment? I think it's too early to know that."

Trump blasted the decision in a Truth Social post on Thursday, calling Powell a "FOOL, who doesn't have a clue."

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has also said the administration is focused on lowering the 10-year Treasury yield — the interest rate on US government bonds — as a gauge of economic health. Yields shot up as the trade war escalated in April, but have since fallen.

If interest rates came down, that would likely spur more business investment and consumer spending by making borrowing money cheaper. However, if higher demand raises prices for energy, food, and other household staples, that risks pushing inflation back up. The Fed is tasked with managing this balance.

The new tariffs — a big escalation from the previous US trade policy — are expected to raise prices in the coming months. Trump slapped 145% tariffs on imports from China, and most other countries face a 10% baseline tariff. Canada and Mexico are exempt. But those two countries did get hit with a 25% tariff on the cars, steel, and aluminum they send to the US. Both China and Canada have retaliated with their own levies on certain US goods.

On Thursday, the US and UK — one of the largest customers of US goods — announced a trade deal that Trump said would expand American exports of beef, ethanol, chemicals, machinery, and other industrial products.

The Fed, businesses, and shoppers sour on tariff flip-flops

In addition to keeping the Fed from delivering the lower interest rates Trump wants, the tariffs may be starting to dampen consumer enthusiasm.

Trump has acknowledged that the tariffs could lead to some constraints on consumers, but that may be the trade-off to pave the way for a longer-term boom due to more balanced trade, Trump said on NBC's "Meet the Press" on May 4.

"I don't think that a beautiful baby girl needs — that's 11 years old — needs to have 30 dolls," Trump said. "I think they can have three dolls or four dolls because what we were doing with China was just unbelievable. We had a trade deficit of hundreds of billions of dollars with China."

There are anecdotal signs that Americans are feeling the impact of Trump's trade policies. The University of Michigan consumer sentiment index has fallen each month this year. Sentiment was better at the start of 2017, when Trump was first in office, despite higher unemployment rates and comparable inflation.

Spending by low- and middle-income Americans has fallen off this year, while wealthier consumers are status quo.

People started panic-buying cars and electronics. At least a dozen companies have already announced price increases. By next week, the Port of Los Angeles expects cargo volumes from Asia to plummet 35% compared to the same time last year due to tariffs.

• The Federal Reserve has held interest rates steady amid economic uncertainty and trade tensions.
• Job growth exceeded expectations, and inflation cooled. But tariffs' impact remains unclear.
• Economists expect prices to rise.

The Federal Reserve has held interest rates steady for the third time this year as the US economy is roiled with uncertainty.

While job growth in April beat expectations and inflation cooled in March, the data doesn't reflect the full impact of President Donald Trump's tariffs on goods from China and most other countries. Fed Chair Jerome Powell in recent months has said the central bank is waiting to see how Trump's trade policies affect the economy.

The Federal Open Market Committee announced Wednesday that interest rates would remain at 4.25% to 4.50%, in line with market predictions. CME FedWatch, which estimates interest-rate changes based on market moves, projected a 98% chance before the announcement that the Fed wouldn't change rates.

Trump has called on the Fed to cut interest rates, saying on Truth Social that oil and grocery prices are down and the US is "getting RICH ON TARIFFS." But economists don't think the price drops will last, especially after Trump's newest round of tariffs in April.

"That was nice, but don't get used to it," Greg McBride, Bankrate's chief financial analyst, said last month on X in response to the consumer price index falling in March to 2.4%, the lowest level in four years. The index is a gauge for inflation that measures the average change over time in the prices Americans pay for goods.

McBride added: "Consumers, businesses, & the Fed are bracing for higher prices in the months ahead."

Trump slapped 145% tariffs on imports from China, and most other countries face a 10% baseline tariff. Canada and Mexico are exempt. But those two countries did get hit with a 25% tariff on the cars, steel, and aluminum they send to the US. Both China and Canada have retaliated with their own levies on certain US goods.

Trade war fears have contributed to rising risks of stagflation, in which economic growth stalls and prices keep rising. That scenario would effectively paralyze the Fed, which can't respond to both problems at once.

• GenZers working in clean energy are facing multiple career roadblocks.
• The Trump administration slashed Biden's big energy investment and fired thousands of workers.
• Two laid-off federal workers said they are optimistic and open-minded, despite the setbacks.

In just four months, Aaron Yang's young career in renewable energy had hit the highs and lows you might expect of a more seasoned worker.

Yang, 22, graduated from New York University in December and landed a job at the Department of Energy in an office doling out grants to nascent clean technologies like hydrogen, advanced nuclear, and long-duration battery storage.

By April, he had been fired, rehired, and accepted a voluntary buyout under President Donald Trump and Elon Musk's efforts to shrink the federal government. Renewable energy programs were a top target, with Trump on January 20 signing an executive order freezing funding authorized by the Inflation Reduction Act, President Joe Biden's signature climate law. Since then, thousands of federal employees working on clean energy, environmental justice, and climate science have been terminated.

"Throughout college, I worked toward this career path," Yang told Business Insider in April at a career fair in Washington, DC. "Then I got into the DOE and felt that was a huge achievement. So to then immediately get laid off has been tough to reconcile."

Yang is among many Gen Zers entering a job market defined by hiring slumps in industries like tech, finance, and consulting. The upheaval in Washington has further clouded their career paths, particularly in the renewable energy industry, as tariffs and frozen federal funding have led companies to delay new projects or scrap them altogether.

White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers cited Friday's strong jobs report to say that Trump was bringing jobs back "and making America the world's manufacturing powerhouse once again." A DOE spokesperson told Business Insider that the department was still reviewing its organizational structure to align with the president's priorities.

"The American people provided President Trump with a mandate to govern and to unleash affordable, abundant, and secure American energy," they said, adding, "No final decisions have been made and multiple plans are still being considered."

Canceled clean energy factories

At a job fair during DC's inaugural Climate Week, more than 50 companies and trade associations met some 1,200 job seekers. They lined up to chat with firms including Amazon, the solar manufacturer Qcells, and Arcadia, an AI analytics platform for energy.

Zainab Mirza organized the job fair for Clean Energy for America, a trade group that lobbies Congress and the administration on issues like protecting tax credits for renewable energy.

Mirza experienced similar career setbacks as Yang. She graduated from American University in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, which thwarted her plans to pursue a career in international development overseas. In February, she was laid off from the DOE's Loan Program Office, where she had just become a full-time employee after being a contractor for two years.

The slashed investments go beyond the federal government. In the first three months of 2025, companies canceled, closed, or downsized projects totaling nearly $8 billion in investment. This affected 16 new factories for electric vehicles, batteries, and hydrogen — more than three times the cancellation rate over the previous 30 months, according to an analysis by E2, a business group that advocates for clean energy, and the think tank Atlas Public Policy.

"If this self-inflicted and unnecessary market uncertainty continues, we'll almost certainly see more projects paused, more construction halted, and more job opportunities disappear," Michael Timberlake, spokesperson for E2, said in a statement.

Between January 2024 and March 2025, the number of new job postings across renewable power — including solar, wind, nuclear, hydropower, and geothermal — dropped by more than 20%, indicating a slowdown in labor demand, an analysis Revelio Labs conducted for BI showed.

Some companies continue to invest in the energy transition. In March, 10 solar, EV, and transmission manufacturing plants were announced, which, if built, could create 5,000 permanent jobs. That includes Tesla's plans to build a battery factory near Houston.

Billions of dollars deployed

Despite the hurdles, Mirza was optimistic about the future. While the DOE is expected to be less active and shift away from wind and solar projects, it may help finance nuclear, geothermal, and power grid resilience.

Katie Mehnert, CEO of ALLY Energy, an online career and networking platform, said the energy industry is always changing. Mehnert lives in Texas, where layoffs are also hitting the oil and gas sector. The rise of artificial intelligence is ushering in another transformation of how businesses operate. But there will be jobs, Mehnert said. ALLY recently partnered with Parallell, an AI-driven jobs platform that aims to make job hunting more efficient and better match people's expertise to openings.

"We need more energy, we need sustainable energy, we need affordable energy," Mehnert said. "And there's plenty of money that's been deployed. Now we need to find the best talent and match them with opportunities quicker. That way, we can minimize the disruption in job marketing and people's personal lives."

Mirza, for her part, encouraged young people to be open-minded to positions they may not have considered.

"I'm not sure where I want to go next," Mirza said. "I've had a blast putting this event together. I think that people here can meet with employers they might not have heard of or thought about, or a skill that they haven't developed. There are upskilling opportunities. There are incubators. Maybe you've had an idea for so long, and now you can test it out."

Yang said he's open-minded, too. Although his time at DOE was focused on long-duration energy storage like batteries, he is open to other technologies. During his undergrad internships, Yang worked on transmission infrastructure, sales teams, and policy development.

For now, Yang decided to accelerate his pursuit of a master's in energy, policy, and climate at Johns Hopkins University while looking for a full time job. He's come close several times, but ultimately, someone with more experience was hired.

"That's no fault of my own," Yang said. "There are a ton of talented people out there right now, and I haven't worked full-time yet. So I'm cautiously optimistic. I don't know what my future holds."

Do you have a story to share? Contact this reporter at [email protected].

• Gov. Mike Braun is set to sign a law requiring tech firms to cover 80% of new power costs.
• But critics argue the bill won't shield residents from higher bills, including for nuclear power.
• Big Tech companies like AWS and Google plan to invest about $15 billion in Indiana.

Indiana is on the front line of a question facing the nation as it races toward an AI future: Who should pay for the electricity needed to fuel the technology?

Gov. Mike Braun is expected to sign a bill that would require large energy users like Big Tech's AI data centers to cover 80% of the costs of new power needed to run them if they seek a faster regulatory approval process, making it the first state to do so.

A second law Braun recently signed allows utilities to pass the cost to consumers of exploring a source of power that isn't operating at scale in the US yet. Big Tech companies have bet that a new generation of "small modular nuclear reactors," or SMRs, could soon provide around-the-clock power to data centers.

Consumer advocates said the two bills will ultimately hike energy bills for everyday Hoosiers and put them on the hook for nuclear projects that may never get up and running.

The debate in Indiana reflects one playing out across the country over the cost and environmental implications of the spike in energy demand from AI data centers.

Kerwin Olson, executive director of Citizens Action Coalition, a consumer advocacy group, called the bills "a disaster for Hoosier ratepayers" and said it will "exacerbate the utility affordability crisis."

Republican Rep. Ed Soliday, who co-sponsored the bills, other GOP lawmakers, and a trade group representing utilities in Indiana argued the bills contain sufficient safeguards for consumers and that SMRs are the future of clean and affordable energy as demand from data centers and new manufacturing plants grows.

Indiana's $15 billion data center pipeline

While Indiana doesn't top the list of major US data center hubs, the Rust Belt state is attracting more development due to tax incentives and a reliable power supply.

Big Tech companies, including Amazon Web Services, Google, Microsoft, and Meta, plan to invest about $15 billion combined in Indiana. In January, President Donald Trump announced that a billionaire in Dubai planned to invest $20 billion in data centers across the US, including in Indiana.

Data centers require around-the-clock electricity to power and cool the racks of servers fundamental to cloud computing and storage. These projects could demand thousands of megawatts of electricity by 2035 — more power than the nearly 7 million residents in Indiana combined, according to utility forecasts analyzed by the Citizens Action Coalition.

A bet on small nuclear

So far, most of the demand is expected to be met by fossil fuels. But many tech companies and utilities have promised to shift to cleaner energy and are therefore exploring SMRs, which don't produce carbon emissions.

SMRs are about one-third the size of traditional nuclear power plants, which could make them less expensive and quicker to build. To date, none are operating in the US, and only a few exist in Russia and China. It's unclear when the first plant might come online, with forecasts range from five to 15 years.

Cost estimates for SMR projects vary widely, from $2.4 billion to $4 billion, depending on the start-up.

A law Braun signed in April allows utilities to recoup the costs of exploring SMR projects from customers, even if they never supply power to the grid.

The utility Indiana Michigan Power is evaluating the potential of SMRs at a coal-fired plant in Rockport, and the aerospace manufacturer Rolls-Royce is considering SMRs for a plant in Indianapolis.

Soliday told Business Insider that allowing utilities to recover dollars from customers in real time for their early-stage activities will save Indiana residents money in the long run. Otherwise, utilities would have to fund the projects by raising capital, leading to extra costs that residents would ultimately pay for, he said. Soliday added that state regulators must approve the costs and determine they aren't overly expensive for customers.

Democratic Rep. Matt Pierce, who opposed the law, said it isn't fair to let utilities burn money investigating a technology that may never produce power, and then charge customers for it. Pierce noted that a federally funded SMR project by NuScale Power in Utah was canceled in 2023 due in part to escalating costs.

Braun appeared to agree in February, when he told News 10 that he supported nuclear power but that utilities should shoulder the costs. "They are out there as investor-owned, and some of that is going to have to be the risk that they take," Braun said.

When asked why he signed a law allowing the opposite, Braun's spokesperson, Griffin Reid, said it would address Indiana's high energy demand.

"Indiana is committed to pursuing diverse generation options, from fossil fuels to renewable energy to nuclear power, wherever they prove practical," Reid said.

Critics call out loopholes

Consumer advocates said the other bill passed by Indiana legislators isn't broad enough to shield residents from higher energy bills to cover the cost of new infrastructure for AI data centers.

While the bill requires tech companies to pay for 80% of the new power generation needed to serve them, this requirement is not guaranteed to apply to every project.

Danielle McGrath, president of the Indiana Energy Association, said in an email that the 80% requirement only applies if utilities pursue the new voluntary, fast-tracked approval process for big power projects.

"The legislation addressed concerns expressed by some large customers that speed was critical to their decision making and that longer timelines could serve as a deterrent to locating their projects," McGrath said.

Pierce and Olson said utilities can pursue other pathways outside the new fast-track process to recover the costs of new power plants and other infrastructure, which could ultimately raise customer rates. That includes special contracts hidden from public view that may not require large energy users like data centers to pay 80% of the bill.

Soliday told BI that the 80% cost-share applies no matter what pathway utilities seek to get projects approved by state regulators.

"You are not going to get any utility to build in the state of Indiana for a large load customer without that customer paying 80%," Soliday said. "Whether they take plan A or B to get there, they're paying it."

New infrastructure needed to serve Indiana Michigan Power's pipeline of data centers could cost up to $1 billion, according to a cost-share agreement the utility reached with the Citizens Action Coalition, Amazon Data Services, Google, Microsoft, and others.

Do you have a story to share? Contact this reporter at [email protected].

• Malahki Thorn moved to Puerto Vallarta to escape California wildfire risks and start a new business.
• Puerto Vallarta's real estate market is booming, attracting Americans looking to retire affordably.
• Thorn bought a house away from the tourist areas and is part of a community of local professionals.

Malahki Thorn vividly remembers flames encroaching on his house in the wilderness of northern California.

It was 2015, and the Saddle Fire burned about 1,500 acres in Hyapom, a small town about six hours north of San Francisco. Over nearly three decades, Thorn had watched as blazes became more frequent and destructive, polluting the air with smoke for months at a time.

Thorn, 52, said sheriffs managing the emergency response told him to evacuate. Otherwise, he should write his Social Security number on his arm just in case they needed to identify his remains.

"I just remember thinking, 'I'm not ready to start over,'" Thorn told Business Insider. It felt like too much change, he said, having recently separated from his partner of 17 years. "I didn't know where to go, with three dogs and three cats and my Toyota Tacoma."

Thorn said surviving that experience and then struggling to find affordable home insurance made it clear that living in Hyapom was too risky.

"I couldn't figure out how I was going to have an enjoyable retirement," Thorn said.

In 2023, Thorn sold his house in Hyapom and permanently moved to Puerto Vallarta on Mexico's Pacific Coast, where he'd vacationed for many years. Thorn considers himself a "climate mover" who escaped the wildfire risks of California. He also joins many Americans who are relocating in search of a lower cost of living. Thorn said paying less for housing, food, and utilities allowed him to pursue entrepreneurship.

He told Business Insider what it was like to choose where to live, start a business as an expat, and make friends in Puerto Vallarta.

Starting a business in Puerto Vallarta

Before making the move, Thorn spent a couple of years going between California and Puerto Vallarta to network in the real estate industry.

He connected with a real estate agent in Puerto Vallarta who helped him secure several online interior design projects in the area, including oceanfront condos. Since then, he co-founded RavenThorn Group, which includes his design business, a carpentry studio for custom furniture, construction, and property management.

Puerto Vallarta's real estate market is booming, with the inventory of 1 and 2-bedroom condos soaring by 105% from 2023 to 2024 and gated luxury communities rising in value, according to local realtors and finance professionals at TheLatinvestor. The short-term rental market saw a 5% increase in tourists during that period.

"A lot of buyers also undertake renovations because the price of property in Puerto Vallarta is less expensive than in America," Thorn said. "You can't find oceanfront anything in America for $600,000. So people have some money to spend. It's like a gold rush here with the construction and all the people moving here."

'I didn't want all my friends to be retired Americans'

Thorn hired a local immigration attorney to advise him on how to legally live and work in Mexico. He applied for temporary residency and work visas, as well as a unique tax identification number and a local bank account.

Thorn said he decided to buy a house away from Puerto Vallarta's main tourist areas to make friends with locals and network with working professionals. He's happy with that decision, even though he said it requires being more vigilant about safety.

"I think it's possible to come here and live a very insulated lifestyle inside a gated community or condominium," Thorn said. "I chose to live differently. I didn't want all my friends to be retired Americans."

Thorn said he never expected he'd leave California. Now he's grateful he moved before wildfires get worse and that he was able to start a new business venture.

While little data indicates that climate risks like hurricanes and wildfires are directly causing massive migration, Thorn's story suggests that they may become more of a factor.

"It hasn't been completely easy," Thorn said. "But I feel grateful I had the courage to come. If I had waited until my house burned, I might not have had these options."

Do you have a story to share about moving? Contact this reporter at [email protected].

• Katherine Ann Reniers' abrupt layoff from USAID will cut her monthly pension earnings.
• She joins many Americans who are worried about having enough money to retire.
• Reniers last day at USAID is July 1 under a plan by Elon Musk's DOGE to shrink the agency.

When Katherine Ann Reniers bought a house in Rockville, Maryland, two years ago, she thought her financial future was mapped out.

Reniers, 53, was on track to have served two decades in the federal government in November 2025. At that point, she'd be eligible for a pension that paid out nearly $6,000 a month and covered health insurance, according to documents reviewed by Business Insider. Those monthly retirement checks would rise for every year Reniers worked beyond her 20-year anniversary.

Reniers' plans abruptly changed in March, when she received emails notifying her that her position at the US Agency for International Development would be abolished on July 1 as part of sweeping layoffs known as a reduction in force ordered by the White House's DOGE office — five months short of Reniers' 20-year anniversary.

The gap means Reniers won't be able to receive her full federal pension until she's 62, and based on federal rules for foreign service retirement, her monthly payments will be an estimated $3,000 less than she planned.

"I've been panicking," Reniers, a single mom of two children, told BI. "I realized it wasn't enough to cover my monthly mortgage and medical bills."

Reniers is among tens of thousands of government employees whose lives have been upended by DOGE's moves to shrink federal agencies and cut costs. The changes are creating economic uncertainty for many Americans, especially those close to retirement.

An administration official told BI that "the State Department is committed to offering additional resources and benefits to ensure the safety and security of USAID employees transitioning from service."

Reniers thought she was 'essential'

After DOGE arrived at USAID in January, chaos ensued. Employees received the "fork in the road" email offering full pay and benefits through September to those who voluntarily resigned. They were temporarily locked out of computer systems and told to stay home as the Washington, DC headquarters was shut down.

In February, Reniers said leadership initially told her that she was an "essential" employee. Reniers rose to be division chief for Europe at USAID's Bureau of Humanitarian Assistance. The bureau provides food, water and sanitation, shelter, and emergency healthcare to people facing various crises around the world. Reniers' division covered Ukraine, Turkey, and other countries.

It made Reniers think she was safe from widespread layoffs.

"So I did not take the Fork, and now I'm shooting myself in the foot," Reniers said.

On February 24, Reniers received an email stating that she was being placed on administrative leave and that a subordinate would take over her duties. On March 27, she was informed that her position was being abolished.

Another email asked employees to volunteer to "support critical work" while the agency shifts tasks to the State Department. Reniers said she plans to return for a few weeks because her colleagues are burned out and need help.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio on March 28 notified Congress of the reorganization and previously said about 83% of the agency's programs had been cut.

Backup plan

Meanwhile, Reniers said she's had panic attacks while trying to figure out a backup financial plan. She wasn't planning to retire for at least another four years, when her son will graduate from high school.

Now that Reniers won't reach 20 years of federal service, she estimated her pension benefits will be about half of what she would've qualified for in November. For foreign service employees with less than two decades of service, monthly retirement calculations follow this formula: an employee's highest annual salary, multiplied by 20, multiplied by 1%, and divided by 12. Reniers earned $177,200 a year, making her new pension a little under $3,000 a month under that formula.

If she had made it to 20 years, that 1% would instead have been 1.7%. That higher rate, along with a supplemental annuity, would have given her a pension of around $6,000 a month — about double what she expects to get now.

Further, while she could have retired at any time after her 20th anniversary and received that full pension, she won't be eligible for the smaller pension until she turns 62.

Reniers will receive a severance package worth one year's annual salary and is also planning to sell an apartment she owns in Belgium to help establish a financial safety net for monthly expenses.

"I'm lucky I have that, so I can make sure to keep my home in Maryland," she said. "How do I find a job with a similar salary when I'm 53 with a disability?"

When Reniers is 59, she can start receiving payments from a separate federal retirement account known as a Thrift Savings Plan without penalty. At 62, her pension and Social Security kicks in.

In the near term, finding affordable health insurance is Reniers' top concern. She was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis several years ago and has biweekly injections of medication to manage inflammation and joint pain. Once she is laid off on July 1, she'll have federal health insurance through the end of the month but then need to find another policy for her family, which will likely be more expensive.

"I'm so angry right now," Reniers said, adding that participating in protests and talking to lawmakers on Capitol Hill is helping ease some of the anxiety. "That's what I want to spend my time on."

Do you have a story to share with this reporter? Email [email protected].

• Trump's tariffs on imports may raise prices for groceries like coffee and seafood.
• Most US fresh fruit, coffee, and seafood are imported, and much of it will face 10% tariffs.
• Canada and Mexico are exempt from certain tariffs, providing a buffer for some US imports.

President Donald Trump promised to make Americans' grocery bills more affordable. But his sweeping tariffs on imports of everyday staples like fresh fruit, coffee, and seafood are expected to raise prices, food industry analysts and retailers have said.

Most of the fresh fruit, coffee, and fish Americans consume are shipped from overseas from places such as Peru, Chile, and Indonesia, federal data shows. Meanwhile, France and Italy are among the top suppliers of wine to the US market. Vanilla, a key ingredient in pastries and other sweets, mainly comes from Madagascar.

On April 2, Trump, on what he called "Liberation Day," announced a 10% baseline tariff on imports from nearly all countries. Some countries were hit harder than others, including a threatened 20% tariff on products from the European Union and a 46% tariff on Vietnam.

As the stock market plummeted, Trump on Wednesday announced a 90-day pause on those steeper tariffs — except on China, which faces an even higher 145% rate — but kept a 10% tariff intact on most other countries.

"A 10% tariff is still likely to pose inflationary pressures on food prices, but with much less intensity and speed than the much higher rates included in the country-specific tariff list," Andrew Harig, the vice president of tax, trade, sustainability, and policy development at the Food Marketing Institute, a trade group representing grocery chains and food manufacturers, told Business Insider.

Harig added that while the 90-day pause is a good thing for retailers and consumers, the ongoing uncertainty over US trade policy will be challenging for them to navigate.

"For a company to change where they source product, they really need to know what the market is going to look like on a broader time horizon than three months," Harig said.

Kush Desai, a White House spokesperson, said in a statement that "Chicken Little 'expert' predictions" didn't pan out during Trump's first term and will not during his second term when the president "again restores American Greatness from Main Street to Wall Street."

Over the past five years, grocery staples like eggs, coffee, and olive oil have gotten more expensive thanks to a confluence of issues, including the bird flu outbreak, supply-chain disruptions from COVID-19, weather disasters in some countries, and broader inflation.

Fresh fruits like bananas, pineapples, and avocados could see price hikes quickly because they don't have a long shelf life. Suppliers can't build up large inventories of produce and try to sell them later if prices rise because of tariffs.

For packaged foods, it could be months before costs go up. How much depends on whether importers, manufacturers, and retailers spread out the additional cost hikes, Harig added.

He said one silver lining is that agricultural and other goods from Canada and Mexico that comply with those countries' free trade agreements with the US are exempt from higher tariffs. Most of America's fruit and vegetable imports come from those two countries, and Canada is also a top supplier of fish.

Here are five grocery items that likely will be more expensive:

Coffee

The US relies on Brazil, Colombia, and several other Central American countries for much of its coffee supply. These countries, as well as Kenya and Ethiopia, are now facing 10% tariffs.

"Coffee is seasonal, so at this time of year, coffees from Ethiopia and Kenya are in some stage of transport," Noah Namowicz, the chief operating officer and a partner at Cafe Imports, a Minneapolis-based company that sources coffee from 24 countries, told BI. "They will be subject to these tariffs, in addition to most Central American coffees."

Coffee growers in Peru and Brazil typically start shipments in August and September.

Namowicz said the coffee industry was already experiencing unprecedented cost increases this year because of a drought in Brazil and a typhoon in Vietnam that shrunk production. Adding tariffs to the equation exacerbates the costs.

"Ultimately, the average cup of coffee or a bag in stores in cafés is going to increase," Namowicz said.

He added that the US produces some coffee in Hawaii and California, but the climate is not ideal for growing coffee elsewhere in the country.

Bananas and broccoli

Mexico and Canada are the top suppliers of US fruit and vegetable imports overall, and most agricultural goods are exempt from Trump's new tariffs.

However, federal data shows that Guatemala, Ecuador, and Costa Rica are leading exporters of bananas. Guatemala is also the third-largest exporter of fresh and chilled broccoli and cauliflower to the US.

Bananas are the most popular fruit in the US, and the majority are imported. While broccoli and cauliflower are grown in California year-round, it isn't enough to meet all of the US demand.

Wine

Wines and all other products imported from France and Italy — the two largest suppliers to the US — will be hit with 10% tariffs. Wines from Argentina, Chile, and New Zealand will likely be more expensive, as well.

"Previously, when the cost of those wines went up, consumers switched to California wine," Harig said. "But then sometimes you see those costs go up, too, because there's more demand. So it creates a little bit of a counterintuitive result."

Harig said wine goes through a multistep distribution process, through shippers, receivers, brokers, and distributors. Each player may absorb some of the tariff increases to limit the impact on consumers.

Seafood

The US relies on other countries to feed Americans' growing appetite for seafood. About 80% of US seafood comes from abroad.

India, Ecuador, Indonesia, and Vietnam are the top suppliers of shrimp — the most popular seafood in the US — while Chile and Norway export a lot of farmed salmon.

Do you have a story to share about how the tariffs are affecting your finances or business? Email this reporter at [email protected].

• The struggle to get and keep home insurance has been plaguing areas prone to floods and wildfires.
• Severe thunderstorms are also hiking home insurance premiums across the Great Plains and Midwest.
• Most Americans can't get a mortgage without home insurance.

Homeowners who live far from California wildfires and coastal flooding are experiencing some of the largest spikes in insurance premiums.

While the average cost of home insurance is rising in nearly every ZIP code across America, new research shows that the biggest percentage increases between 2021 and 2024 were in Utah, Illinois, Arizona, Pennsylvania, and Nebraska.

"Premiums have been rising faster in Heartland states than coastal states," Douglas Heller, director of insurance at the Consumer Federation of America and coauthor of the research, told Business Insider.

The findings show that the home insurance affordability crisis extends far beyond Gulf Coast states prone to hurricanes and flooding or California towns vulnerable to wildfires — which often make the headlines. Extreme thunderstorms with wind, rain, and hail are also causing billions of dollars in losses in states between the slopes of the Rocky and Appalachian mountains.

The disasters, combined with inflation and the rising costs of rebuilding homes, are driving up premiums and forcing some insurance companies to scale back coverage in risky areas or drop customers altogether. The consequences could be significant because most Americans can't get a mortgage without home insurance, and areas deemed too risky to cover could see property values drop.

"This insurance crisis is not a coastal crisis," Heller said. "It's not a Republican or Democratic state crisis. It's touching every corner of the country. These dramatic rate hikes are making this critical tool of financial security inaccessible because it's too costly."

Why home insurance premiums are rising so quickly in many states

The Consumer Federation of America found that between 2021 and 2024, average home insurance premiums in Utah jumped 59% to nearly $1,800 a year. In Arizona, they rose 48% to more than $2,200 while Illinois saw a 50% spike to nearly $2,950. In Pennsylvania, average premiums rose 44% to nearly $2,000, and in Nebraska, they rose 35% to $5,127.

Florida has the highest premium in absolute dollars, averaging nearly $9,500 in 2024, but its average rates rose by a smaller percentage compared to some other parts of the country.

J.P. Morgan published a report on March 31 that similarly found states, including Colorado, Utah, Nebraska, Iowa, Minnesota, and Illinois, experienced the largest percentage increases in home insurance costs between 2019 and 2024.

Deadly thunderstorms with high-speed winds, rain, hail, and tornadoes — what scientists call "severe convective storms" — have ripped across a wide swath of the Midwest and the South this year. In 2020, thunderstorms caused more than $11 billion in damage after tearing through states including South Dakota, Nebraska, Illinois, and Indiana, according to a federal tally.

"In the last few years, those big losses happening in the Heartland are from severe convective storms, and those are the ones that are driving premium increases," Sarah Kapnick, global head of climate advisory at J.P Morgan who authorized its report, said.

Climate scientists have long warned that wildfires, drought, and hurricanes are becoming more frequent and destructive as the planet warms mostly due to carbon emissions from fossil fuels.

Kapnick said it's more challenging to determine the climate connection to the convective storms and future risks because they are more local. Climate models often don't capture weather events on such a granular scale.

Scientific research is starting to get stronger. Kapnick cited a study suggesting hailstones will get bigger due to climate change. However, research stops short of connecting historical changes in tornadoes to a warming world.

Kapnick said insurance premiums are also rising fast in Heartland states because their markets are less regulated compared to places like California, which limits how much insurers can hike rates. National insurers can pool risk across states and raise premiums in place with fewer cost restrictions.

The home insurance crisis is expected to worsen

Still, Heller said it's hard to capture the full causes and scale of the home insurance crisis because there isn't much publicly available data.

The average annual premiums in his report don't reflect what customers actually paid. His group purchased "test quotes" from Quadrant Information Services, which maintains an up-to-date database of rates and pricing algorithms from most of the nation's major insurance companies.

These test quotes are created by plugging a typical homeowner into pricing algorithms that insurance companies filed with state regulators between December 2021 and August 2024. Heller said all quotes in his report were based on a consumer with a mid-tier credit score and a home with a $350,000 replacement value.

The Treasury Department and the National Association of Insurance Commissioners in January published an analysis of 246 million insurance policies sold between 2018 through 2022 — the most comprehensive look to date. They found that homeowners who live in areas with the highest expected losses from climate-related disasters paid 82% more for insurance than those in areas with the lowest expected losses. Nonrenewal rates were also higher in the riskiest areas and insurance claims are frequent in regions affected by wildfires and severe convective storms.

But it's unclear whether that data collection will continue, Heller said. Meanwhile, the home insurance affordability crisis will likely get worse as the planet warms. Since 2013, the United States has recorded 178 billion-dollar disasters, five times the amount recorded in the 1980s. The rising disaster risks led some insurers to stop selling policies in parts of Florida and California, which will only get worse after wildfires decimated communities in Los Angeles in January.

The Treasury Department and NAIC didn't respond to a request for comment.

Kapnick said insurance companies and policymakers need to find ways to ensure properties are more resilient to extreme weather to reduce damages.

"One of the easiest indicators of expected loss is, how old is your roof? When was it last replaced?"

Kapnick said insurers could offer homeowners discounts if they invest in resilience and states can also fund such projects.

Do you have a story to share about home insurance? Contact this reporter at [email protected].

• Kyla Denwood and Lindsey O'Neal were part of a prestigious foreign service fellowship until DOGE cut USAID.
• The White House said a USAID foreign service fellowship wasn't in the national interest.
• Now they'll enter a tough job market for young grads.

After years of preparing for a career in the US foreign service, Kyla Denwood and Lindsey O'Neal were set to head overseas in June for their first assignment.

Denwood and O'Neal had just completed a competitive, two-year graduate fellowship sponsored by the US Agency for International Development. The fellowship provided up to $104,000 in tuition, living expenses, and internships to 30 students. Fellows then served at least five years in the USAID Foreign Service.

"This is something I've been working toward for years," Denwood, 26, a graduate of Georgetown University, told Business Insider. "I was almost there. To just have it blow up is not a good feeling."

Those plans evaporated within days, following the Trump administration's decision to gut USAID's staff and programs.

"During the pandemic, there was one reality one day, and then a completely different one the next day," O'Neal, 29, a graduate of American University, said. "It was such a stark change. That's how this feels."

Denwood and O'Neal are among millions of students graduating into a precarious job market, including some who had positions lined up at federal agencies only to have them rescinded by Elon Musk's DOGE. As hiring in white-collar professions slowed in recent years, young grads had increasingly been applying to entry-level jobs in government, according to the job site Handshake. Now, what was once considered a more secure career path has been upended.

Denwood and O'Neal are now searching for backup plans in the private or nonprofit sectors, where they'll have to compete with thousands of other foreign service professionals who've also lost their USAID jobs. While Denwood and O'Neal are hopeful that their expertise in business development and urban ecology, respectively, will have broad appeal, they are equally as worried about a long-term setback in their career.

The USAID Donald M. Payne International Development Graduate Fellowship Program targets students from backgrounds historically underrepresented in foreign service who demonstrate financial need. A Trump administration official told Business Insider in an email that it was "determined to not fit within the standards" laid out by Secretary of State Marco Rubio for US foreign assistance, which "must make the United States stronger, safer, or more prosperous."

On March 10, Rubio announced that 83% of USAID's programs were being canceled, and the remainder would be absorbed into the State Department.

"The 5200 contracts that are now canceled spent tens of billions of dollars in ways that did not serve, (and in some cases even harmed), the core national interests of the United States," Rubio wrote in a post on X. "Thank you to DOGE and our hardworking staff who worked very long hours to achieve this overdue and historic reform."

Cuts to US foreign service overseas

Both Denwood and O'Neal were raised by single moms. Denwood said she lived in working-class neighborhoods around the US while O'Neal grew up in a Puerto Rican enclave in Palmetto, Florida. They said the fellowship gave them a pathway to graduate school and the US foreign service that otherwise wouldn't have been feasible.

O'Neal had been a Peace Corps volunteer in Botswana. She applied twice for the Payne fellowship before winning the award. During grad school at American University, she spent a summer internship in Cairo shadowing USAID officials who were trying to help finance projects related to water, food, and energy security.

Denwood specialized in business and economic development and spent a summer internship in Ghana and Togo working with farmers and manufacturers trying to expand trade with the US. She planned to continue that work as a USAID private enterprise officer in Africa, which has some of the fastest-growing economies in the world.

That future came to a halt on February 26, when USAID officially terminated the Payne fellowship, according to a letter viewed by Business Insider.

Piper Campbell, chair of American University's Department of Foreign Policy and Global Security and a former US ambassador, said international development is critical to US national security. This includes disease detection and response and strengthening foreign markets for American businesses.

"Republican and Democratic administrations over the last 60 years have consistently cited the three D's — development, diplomacy, and defense — as critical tools of national security," Campbell said. "So it's surprising to me to hear an administration taking such a radically different approach.

Campbell added that she attended a recent conference in Seol among international security leaders, where Chinese officials were "grinning" during discussions about the US retreat from foreign aid because they are eager to fill the gap.

Campbell said slashing USAID programs, including the Payne fellowship, undermines US interests abroad.

'This is all I've been preparing for'

Tonija Hope, director of Howard University's international affairs center, helps students plan their careers.

"How do I counsel students who for so long I've told to consider USAID? Where do they go now?" Hope said. "They can't consider USAID or any of the companies or organizations that worked with the agency. There was a whole ecosystem that is gone."

Hope said that without USAID funding, fellows who are halfway through their graduate degrees are scrambling to find money for tuition and living expenses. Many universities can cover a year of tuition, Hope said, but not living expenses.

Miguel Lua-Reyes, 31, is a Payne fellow pursuing his graduate degree at Texas A&M University's Bush School of Government and Public Service. He said he hasn't received any communication from USAID about what he thought would be a paid summer internship abroad, funding for a second year of grad school, and a foreign service appointment after graduation.

Lua-Reyes said Texas A&M officials have assured him they would try to provide support, including matching the funding provided by the Payne fellowship. However, that aid is dependent on the availability of funding, Lua-Reyes said.

"I left a career in K-12 and higher education when I accepted the fellowship," Lua-Reyes, who said he applied three times before being accepted. "I wanted to continue the same meaningful work I had done as a Youth in Development Volunteer with the Peace Corps in Guatemala."

Denwood and O'Neal said they felt fortunate to have finished their graduate degrees before DOGE arrived in Washington, DC. But O'Neal said that gratitude is also overshadowed by enormous uncertainty about the future.

"I don't know what I'm going to do," O'Neal said. "On one hand, it feels like a blank slate. On the other hand, this is all I've been preparing for and it's my dream job. I can't imagine another career that fits what I'm built for."

Do you have a story to share about the Trump administration's cuts to federal jobs and programs? Contact this reporter at [email protected].

• Trump's tariffs have led some companies to announce that they plan to raise prices.
• Even before his so-called "Liberation Day," companies warned they would pass costs on to shoppers.
• BI is keeping track of companies that said they'd raise prices due to tariffs.

Prices are expected to go up this year as many companies signal plans to raise them in response to President Donald Trump's slew of tariffs.

While firms raise prices for many reasons, some were blaming price hikes on tariffs long before Trump's so-called "Liberation Day" on April 2, during which he announced a 10% baseline tariff on imports from most countries, except Canada and Mexico, and a host of "reciprocal" tariffs on top of that.

The situation is fluid. China, for example, now faces tariffs of 30%, down from 145%, after striking a trade deal with the US that does not restore the de minimis exemption. Autos are another area of focus after Trump announced a 25% tariff on all car imports into the US, though he's since exempted imports of cars and car parts from Mexico and Canada.

"April 2, 2025, will forever be remembered as the day American industry was reborn, the day America's destiny was reclaimed, and the day that we began to make America wealthy again," Trump said during his remarks.

Some economists have said that Trump's tariffs — and the uncertainty with his overall trade policy — could lead companies to raise prices on the goods they produce. Many companies have already indicated that price hikes are coming.

Toward the end of 2024, some companies began to warn that they would consider raising prices on consumers if Trump implemented his broad tariff proposals. While it's still possible they could absorb some of the costs of the tariffs, here are the companies that have warned of price increases in recent months.

Shein and Temu

The two Chinese retailers released almost identical notices on April 16, both reading: "Due to recent changes in global trade rules and tariffs, our operating expenses have gone up."

"To keep offering the products you love without compromising on quality, we will be making price adjustments starting April 25, 2025," Shein's statement said.

Shein, a fast-fashion retailer, and Temu, a marketplace for everything from home goods to electronics, promised their US customers eight final days of low-price shopping.

In addition to hiking tariffs on Chinese imports, Trump also cracked down on the de minimis trade loophole that allowed small parcels under $800 to enter the US tax-free. Shein and Temu were large beneficiaries of this loophole.

Ford

Bloomberg reported that the automaker plans to raise prices on new gas and electric cars starting in May unless Trump gives the industry some relief from tariffs.

Ford, in a memo to dealers viewed by Bloomberg, said that the company anticipates "the need to make vehicle pricing adjustments in the future, which is expected to happen with May production." Prices won't change for vehicles in inventory now.

On April 14, Trump told reporters that he was contemplating a temporary tariff exemption for autos to give manufacturers more time to move production to the US — but no blanket exemption has yet been instituted.

Conagra

Conagra Brands CEO Sean Connolly told Reuters on April 3 that the food company may have to hike prices to offset the cost of tariffs on ingredients like cocoa, olive oil, palm oil, and a type of steel used for its canned products.

Connolly said that Conagra, which makes products such as Hunt's ketchup and Chef Boyardee, imports tin plate steel for its canned food and tomatoes from Mexico.

It was too early to tell how big price hikes on the company's food products would be, he added. During an April 3 earnings call, he stressed that the trade situation remains "volatile" and changes hourly.

Volkswagen

According to a memo first reported by Automotive News, Volkswagen said it would place an import fee on vehicles made outside of the US in response to Trump's 25% tariff on car imports.

Kjell Gruner, Volkswagen's North America chief executive officer, recently said the carmaker would keep prices steady through the end of May but that they could increase in June.

Best Buy

Best Buy CEO Corie Barry said during the company's March earnings call that Trump's tariff plans are likely to increase prices.

"Trade is critically important to our business and industry. The consumer electronic supply chain is highly global, technical and complex," Barry said. "We expect our vendors across our entire assortment will pass along some level of tariff costs to retailers, making price increases for American consumers highly likely."

Target

Target CEO Brian Cornell told CNBC in a March interview that Trump's 25% tariff plan on goods from Mexico and Canada would likely result in price increases on produce.

"Those are categories where we'll try to protect pricing, but the consumer will likely see price increases over the next couple of days," Cornell said.

Stanley Black & Decker

Donald Allan, the CEO of the manufacturing company Stanley Black & Decker, said during a February earnings call: "Our approach to any tariff scenario will be to offset the impacts with a mix of supply chain and pricing actions, which might lag the formalization of tariffs by two to three months."

Allan had previously told analysts in an October earnings call that the company had been evaluating "a variety of different scenarios" to plan for new tariffs under Trump.

"And obviously, coming out of the gate, there would be price increases associated with tariffs that we put into the market," Allan said, adding that "there's usually some type of delay given the processes that our customers have around implementing price."

Walmart

On May 15, Walmart executives said price increases were likely to spike even higher, blaming Trump's ongoing trade war.

"Even at the reduced levels, the higher tariffs will result in higher prices," CEO Doug McMillon said during the company's first quarter earnings call.

US sales were boosted by shoppers looking to beat tariff-related price hikes — but despite strong first-quarter results, Walmart's chief financial officer, John David Rainey, said the extra costs are too great for the company to take on without passing part of the burden on to consumers.

"We're wired for everyday low prices, but the magnitude of these increases is more than any retailer can absorb," he said.

Columbia Sportswear

Tim Boyle, the CEO of Columbia Sportswear, told analysts on an October earnings call that the company was "very concerned about the imposition of tariffs. " He said that while he considered Columbia adept at managing tariffs, "trade wars are not good and not easy to win."

Boyle also told The Washington Post in October that the company was "set to raise prices."

"It's going to be very, very difficult to keep products affordable for Americans," he said. He later said in a February interview with CNBC that "we need some surety about what is going to happen" before making price changes.

AutoZone

Philip Daniele, the CEO of the auto-parts company AutoZone, told analysts on a September earnings call that tariff policies had "ebbed and flowed over the years," and if Trump implemented more tariffs, "we will pass those tariff costs back to the consumer."

"We generally raise prices ahead of that," Daniele said, adding that prices would gradually settle over time. "So, that's historically what we've done," he said.

A 25% tariff on car imports is expected to increase manufacturing costs by anywhere from $4,000 to $12,000.

Procter & Gamble

P&G, the consumer goods company behind brands like Tide and Charmin, is looking at raising prices on new and existing products.

CEO Jon Moeller told CNBC that price hikes are "likely."

"We will have to pull every lever we have in our arsenal to mitigate the impact of tariffs within our cost structure and P&L," P&G's CFO, Andre Schulten, said on a call with reporters.

The company is evaluating "exactly what is the right plan by brand, by market, what combination of pricing, over what period of time," Schulten added.

Ferrari

Italian luxury carmaker Ferrari said in March it'd raise prices by up to 10% on certain models imported to the US starting April 2.

The change was made "based on the preliminary information currently available regarding the introduction of import tariffs on EU cars into the USA," the company said.

Hermès

Eric du Halgouët, executive vice president of finance at the company, told analysts on a call in April that Hermès, the luxury retailer known for its iconic Birkin handbags, hadn't yet been impacted by the tariffs, but said the company would raise prices in the US in May.

"The price increase that we're going to implement will be just for the US. Since it's aimed at offsetting the increase in tariffs, that only applies to the American market," du Halgouët said on the call.

Nintendo

While Nintendo's highly anticipated Switch 2 console won't see a price hike over tariffs, Nintendo said accessories for the Switch 2 "will experience price adjustments from those announced on April 2 due to changes in market conditions."

"Other adjustments to the price of any Nintendo product are also possible in the future depending on market conditions," the company added in its announcement.

The company also delayed preorders for the Switch 2 in the wake of the tariffs.

How have prices affected you? Reach out to [email protected].

• NOAA, the agency that tracks extreme weather, has lost more than 1,000 employees since Donald Trump took office.
• Current and former employees worried about less accurate forecasts and aviation issues.
• Agency changes, like stricter rules around travel, are making it harder for those left to do their jobs, some employees said.

As California recovers from devastating wildfires and hurricane season fast approaches, President Donald Trump and the White House DOGE team are slashing the workforce at the federal agency responsible for monitoring extreme weather.

Business Insider spoke to more than a dozen current and former employees of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration who said that staff and policy changes were making their day-to-day jobs more challenging. They worried about how the upheaval would affect Americans' safety — especially as hurricane and tornado seasons rapidly approach.

Andrew Hazelton, a former NOAA hurricane modeler who was fired in February alongside other probationary employees, was blunt: If forecasts and hurricane warnings go downhill, he told BI, "we could see loss of life as a result."

The agency's reach extends across the country and the globe. Besides its work on extreme climate conditions, NOAA provides the data that powers the weather app on your phone, alerts pilots to turbulence, and helps farmers know when to plant to keep American agriculture rolling.

"It really, truly affects every single American every day," a former probationary employee said. (Some employees we spoke to asked to remain anonymous.)

Before Trump took office in January, NOAA employed around 12,430 people, according to a congressional report. More than 1,000 employees have departed through layoffs or buyouts, said JoAnn Becker, the president of the National Weather Service Employees Organization, a union representing NOAA employees. More than 600 were terminated in February and about 500 took the administration's buyout offer, according to previous reporting.

Between the uncertain future for probationary employees, voluntary early retirements and buyouts, and Trump's ongoing government-wide reduction-in-force effort, the agency may shrink further.

"We would like to just go on and do our jobs and save people's lives," an employee at the National Weather Service, a department within NOAA, said.

Outside of staffing cuts, some employees said stricter rules around travel and expense budgets have made it difficult to do the jobs that are vital to protecting people from natural disasters. Expiration dates for contracts marked as "urgent" are also coming up soon, according to internal documents viewed by BI.

An "extensive process was conducted to ensure that mission-critical functions to fulfill NOAA's statutory responsibilities weren't compromised," a Trump administration spokesperson told BI in a statement. The spokesperson declined to provide additional details about the process.

Susan Buchanan, a NOAA spokeswoman, said that the agency remains dedicated to its mission. A spokesperson for the Department of Commerce, which oversees NOAA, did not respond to a request for comment from BI.

For those who remain, the show must go on, even as resources and staff dwindle.

"We are catching a lot of balls, with very little people," a NOAA employee said. "Eventually one of them is probably going to fall."

Aviation at risk

Several people who spoke to BI expressed unease over how the staffing cuts and operational changes at NOAA could affect the aviation industry.

Though flying remains the safest mode of transportation, a National Weather Service employee who's worked at the agency for more than a decade said that if the turmoil at the agency continues long term, "I don't know if I'd trust getting on a plane."

NOAA assists with running aviation-specific weather models for pilots, helping them track things like turbulence. Its data "ripples right through the whole system," Brad Colman, the former president of the American Meteorological Society, said.

"If systems are degraded, a turbulence forecast may go down in quality, and uncertainty is increased," Colman said. "There's more exposure, more risk."

A spokesperson for the Airline Dispatchers Federation told BI in an email that NOAA provides dispatchers with "essential tools," including turbulence, wind, and weather forecasts.

"Virtually all" of the weather data for domestic flights comes from NOAA, and its data is "fundamental" to daily operations, the spokesperson said. The organization hasn't yet noticed operational impacts but warned that "even subtle degradations could affect our operations."

The Federal Aviation Administration did not respond to a request for comment.

Meteorologists who work for airlines receive foundational data from NOAA to develop their forecasts, the spokesperson added, noting that smaller airlines will likely face more challenges if NOAA's data degrades — potentially creating a disparity in safety across the industry.

Or as Tom Di Liberto, a former public affairs official and climate scientist who was fired in February, put it: "There's a reason why a lot of weather forecast offices are close by or at a major airport."

Less reliable forecasts

Staffers affected by the terminations weren't just at NOAA's headquarters in Maryland; they were stationed in regional offices across the country.

One office in Alaska stopped launching daily weather balloons to collect data for forecasts, Larry Hubble, an upper air program manager in the state, said. On March 20, the National Weather Service temporarily suspended weather balloon launches at offices in Nebraska and South Dakota, while seven other sites are scaling back to one launch a day instead of two because of staffing shortages.

Other instruments, like radars on commercial aircraft and satellites, also collect data. The NWS employee of more than a decade said that balloons are one of the most accurate methods of weather measurement, and if they're scaled back, "they're going to start seeing the degradation of the models and the forecast is going to lose its accuracy."

"If you degrade our capabilities, our warnings get weaker and people and property get compromised," a NOAA employee told BI. "Damages are going to increase, people are not going to get out of harm's way, and they're going to die."

The Government and Accountability Office said in a March report that staffing shortages and aircraft maintenance problems in recent years had already hampered hurricane hunters' ability to perform their jobs — well before DOGE ever came knocking on doors.

The private sector depends on NOAA

The changes at NOAA will likely ripple across the private sector, affecting a range of industries, some employees told BI. The reinsurance industry, for example, uses NOAA data to help confirm damages from natural disasters and dole out funds. Construction workers rely on NOAA data to figure out where to build new projects.

The economic implications are vast — NOAA's products impact more than one-third of the country's GDP, according to the agency's website.

"If you take out NOAA, the private sector cannot do what NOAA does," Di Liberto said. The agency operates thousands of weather balloons, hundreds of buoys, 10 airplanes, and 18 satellites and makes that information accessible to the entire public — not just those who can pay for it.

The spokesperson from the Airline Dispatchers Federation said that private weather companies provide helpful supplemental services, but they ultimately rely on NOAA's raw data.

"There is simply no replacement for NOAA's comprehensive data collection infrastructure," the spokesperson said.

Additional reporting by Juliana Kaplan.

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• Emily B. Brown lost nearly $63,000 in contract work for federal foreign aid agencies.
• Brown specializes in gender equality and social inclusion — initiatives that Trump is eradicating.
• She's part of the ripple effects of Trump's slashing of federal spending and crackdown on DEI.

Emily B. Brown has been a self-employed consultant long enough to know that her cash flow is often feast or famine. But what she couldn't prepare for was the dismantling of federal agencies that funded much of her work.

In February, she lost all of her contracted income for 2025 — a ripple effect of President Donald Trump's government spending freeze and cuts to US foreign aid.

Because she owns her own business, Brown isn't eligible for unemployment benefits. She's had to pick up two part-time jobs in retail and as a scuba diving instructor to pay her basic expenses like rent.

"I have to support myself," Brown, who lives in Key West, Florida, said. "I haven't worked in any industry but politics and foreign aid since I was 21."

Brown is among the thousands of American workers at home and overseas whose lives were upended by Trump's 90-day freeze on foreign aid, the termination of 83% of the US Agency for International Development's programs, and the gutting of nearly all of USAID's 10,000 personnel.

Trump and Elon Musk's White House DOGE office argue the moves put "American interests" first and reduce wasteful spending, while opponents of the administration's actions are raising alarm that the US will cede global influence to China and are already causing preventable deaths overseas.

"President Trump serves the American people, not government contractors who want to make a buck off of taxpayers through DEI and other programs that do not align with the America First agenda," White House Deputy Press Secretary Anna Kelly told Business Insider in a statement. "He is implementing policies that drive private sector growth, uplift small businesses, and level the playing field for American companies on the world stage."

The administration and DOGE have been hit with a flurry of lawsuits challenging the USAID shutdown and efforts to shrink the federal workforce. While the fate of US international development plays out in the courts, Brown's career path is in limbo.

DEI work dries up

Brown, 39, has worked in international development for more than a decade and specializes in gender equality and social inclusion.

She lined up three contracts for 2025, totaling about $63,000, funded by USAID and the Millenium Challenge Corporation, an independent foreign aid agency that awards grants to lower-income countries to promote economic growth, reduce poverty, and root out corruption.

Starting in late January, that work came to a halt — zeroing out Brown's expected earnings, according to documents reviewed by Business Insider.

Brown shared e-mails showing that her contract with a USAID-funded program was terminated as of February 13. It was an anti-corruption program aimed at countering illicit money laundering in industries like shipping ports and real estate. Brown was assigned to Albania, which is trying to enter the European Union by 2030, and Ghana. She was set to travel to Albania and conduct gender analyses to identify who was most vulnerable to corruption or exploitation when she got an order to stop working.

Brown said she hasn't been paid for the work she completed in January and shared an invoice showing she is owed nearly $3,700 — a month's worth of her expenses by the Millenium Challenge Corporation, a partner of USAID.

Emails show that Brown's two other contracts with the Millenium Challenge Corporation are on hold while they are reviewed by the Trump administration. Brown was going to conduct research on the barriers that girls, women, persons with disabilities, and others face in accessing secondary education in Timor Leste and Gambia. The research would help MCC plan for potential investments in those countries.

"My expertise is in gender equality and social inclusion," Brown said. "What that means in international development programming is making sure that US-funded programs reach the most in-need and at-risk. That is generally women, children, and people with disabilities."

Brown said the Biden administration's focus on equity created a lot of opportunities for her consulting services. But after Trump won the election, she started to see that work dwindle. Even if the MCC investments do move forward, Brown said she's worried her expertise won't be needed anymore as the Trump administration eradicates diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives across the federal government.

"At the end of 2024, organizations were starting to become a little more cautious," Brown said. "Then post-election, much more cautious with how they were investing funds in consultants with gender and inclusion expertise."

Brown said the weeks after her contracts dried up were dark. In Key West, there aren't many workers reliant on the federal government like her, so few understand the grief she's feeling. She also feels scared about the future because Trump and DOGE are targeting civil society organizations that don't align with their agenda. She described it as "authoritarian."

"It wasn't until I started getting out on that dive boat at least once or twice a week in the sun and in the water that I started to feel a little better emotionally and physically," Brown said. "I still choke up on my free days."

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• Chris Gates left Miami Beach for Santa Fe due to climate concerns and cost savings.
• Florida's flood risks and rising insurance costs made Gates worry about retiring there.
• Gates saves $1,000 monthly in New Mexico in HOA fees and home insurance.

After living in Miami Beach for two decades, Chris Gates was fed up.

The 61-year-old pharmacist had met with city officials and sent letters advocating for Miami to invest more in climate solutions, only to watch Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis roll back state climate actions and scrub any mention of climate from many laws.

"I saw the writing on the wall," Gates told Business Insider. "I'm five years away from planned retirement, and I was worried about the cost of living and my quality of life. I've been through flooding in South Beach and still see people posting pictures of the same problems."

Gates said he considers himself a "climate mover" in deciding to relocate to Santa Fe, New Mexico in 2023. Florida's vulnerability to the climate crisis, combined with rising costs of living and being closer to his mom and brother, were the main reasons he left Miami Beach. Now Gates is saving about $1,000 a month on home insurance and HOA fees, according to documents shared with BI. He also feels safer knowing that New Mexico has a statewide climate plan.

Gates joins many older Americans who've moved in search of a lower cost of living for retirement, but is rare in that he left Florida — which still has a fast-growing population. While there's little data indicating climate risks like hurricanes and wildfires are directly causing massive migration, Gates's story suggests it may become more of a factor.

Saving $1,000 a month

Gates sold his condo at a luxury building in South Beach for $710,000 in December 2022, according to documents reviewed by BI, earning him about $415,000 in net profit. That year, his HOA fees were nearly $1,200 a month and covered amenities like a pool and gym. Condo insurance was about $190 a month.

He rented an apartment for a couple of years in Santa Fe before buying a $227,000 fixer-upper in February. The HOA fees are about $250 a month and insurance is $72. There aren't many perks, like a gym, pool, or management office, Gates said, but he has more peace of mind.

"If I were to stay in Florida until I'm 90, chances are a lot of bad stuff will happen," Gates said. "That's just my opinion and climate scientists agree. I'm not a millionaire, so I'm not gonna put all my eggs in one basket down there."

Rising risks and costs

While Miami is carrying out its own climate action strategy, Gates wanted faster progress on installing solar panels on government buildings and new infrastructure to protect properties from flooding as hurricanes become more destructive. The extreme weather, among other factors, is also making home insurance more expensive in Florida.

Miami's average elevation is six feet, and scientists predict sea levels will rise by the same amount by the end of the century. Sea levels in Miami already rose about six inches between 1986 and 2016. Meanwhile, the frequency of flooding from high tides has increased by over 400% in Miami Beach since 2006.

The city has been investing in a climate resiliency strategy, including raising roads and installing water pumps. In February, local commissioners also unveiled plans for more than $1 billion in anti-flooding water and sewer projects, which will be paid in part by hiking residents' utility rates every year through 2030, the Miami Herald reported. Residents said it would make the city less affordable at a time when rent, HOA fees, and insurance are all rising.

That cycle worried Gates, as well.

"Taxes and other bills will have to go up a lot to cover for these infrastructure projects," he said. "I don't want to be caught up in this cycle."

Gates acknowledged that New Mexico comes with its own risks, including wildfires. But he feels better knowing that there's a statewide plan to slash greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to extreme weather led by Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham.

"Moving to New Mexico made me feel like I'm part of the solution rather than part of the problem," Gates said. "I know that every time I pay my electric bill, my utility is switching to renewables faster than many places in the country."

Have you moved for financial, lifestyle, or climate reasons? Contact this reporter at [email protected].

• Big Tech's secretive electricity deals with utilities may raise costs for Americans, Harvard researchers reported.
• Data centers could consume 12% of US electricity by 2028, up from 4% in 2023.
• Researchers call for more scrutiny of contracts to protect consumers from higher bills.

Tech companies racing to secure power for their data centers have struck dozens of secretive electricity deals with utilities that could cost average Americans a "staggering" amount, Harvard research found.

With data center construction on the rise and utility costs top-of-mind for many Americans, the Harvard Electricity Law Initiative reviewed 40 special contracts that state regulators have approved between utilities and data centers. If these contracts offer discounted electricity rates to data centers, and new power grid infrastructure is needed to serve them, other customers may end up paying for the shortfall through higher utility bills.

But it's nearly impossible to know the exact price tag of any cost shifts because the terms of these special contracts are hidden from public view, the report found. State regulators usually approve utilities' requests for confidentiality, limiting public scrutiny. That means billion-dollar contracts are getting approved without a transparent accounting of the costs and benefits, researchers said.

"When we have potentially billions of dollars going through these secret contracts where there's just not a lot of investigation about what's going on, we think there's reason to be suspicious that utilities may be offering discounts that are subsidized by everybody else," said Ari Peskoe, director of The Harvard Electricity Law Initiative and coauthor of the paper with Eliza Martin, a legal fellow.

The report lands as data center construction is booming, in part to serve Big Tech's artificial intelligence race. Some AI data center complexes need as much power as entire cities and by 2028, the industry could account for 12% of US electricity consumption — up from 4% in 2023, according to federal estimates. The trend is leading some citizens, state policymakers, and at least one utility to try to shield households from rising bills.

Utilities and tech companies have told Business Insider that the contracts they negotiate should cover the costs of any power grid upgrades required to serve data centers. Lucas Fykes, director of energy policy for the Data Center Coalition, which represents companies including Amazon Web Services, Google, Microsoft, and Meta, said in an emailed statement that the industry is committed to paying its full cost of service.

Fykes added that the Harvard research overlooks a finding in Virginia — the world's largest data center market — that the industry is paying the appropriate costs for its energy use. In December, an independent study commissioned by Virginia's Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission found that rates "appropriately allocate costs to the customers responsible for incurring them, including data center customers."

The report also said that data centers' increased energy demand will likely increase costs for everyone, including residents and businesses. A large amount of new power plants and transmission lines will be built that otherwise wouldn't be needed, if not for data centers. A typical residential customer in Virginia could see an extra $14 to $37 each month on their utility bill by 2040. The report said creating a separate category for data centers and changing the way costs are allocated across customers could help insulate households from statewide cost increases.

Peskoe recommended greater scrutiny and regulation of special contracts, as well.

"We didn't realize how extensive these secret contracts were," Peskoe said. "The more we dug, the more we kept finding."

Regulators are required to protect the public from 'cutthroat' practices. Researchers are skeptical.

State and federal regulators allow most utilities to spread the cost of power grid upgrades across their customer base. This is typically done through what's known as a rate case increase, a lengthy and public process at state public utility commissions. Consumer advocates, environmental and industrial groups, and other outside parties regularly intervene.

By contrast, most of the special contracts that Peskoe and Martin reviewed were approved by public utility commissions with "only cursory analysis" and little or no public evidence to back up claims that data center energy costs would be isolated from other customers' bills. While regulators in many states are required to protect the public from "cutthroat" practices that harm ratepayers, Peskoe said he's skeptical.

Peskoe said state regulators can face political pressure to approve big economic investments already touted by elected officials for their economic impacts. He added that utilities have a long history of "exploiting their monopolies" to attract competitive lines of business.

Peskoe pointed to an antitrust lawsuit that a small non-profit utility brought against Duke Energy. Court documents revealed that Duke offered Fayetteville, North Carolina, a special contract with a $325 million discount and acknowledged that it would lose $100 million on the deal, but planned to recoup those losses by raising rates on other customers. Duke Energy, which argued its conduct was legitimate price competition and lawful, petitioned the Supreme Court to review the case in February.

Duke declined to comment, and the Edison Electric Institute, a trade group that represents investor-owned utilities, didn't return a request for comment.

While the case doesn't involve data centers, Peskoe said it illustrates how utilities compete for big energy customers and can hide how they pass those costs onto other customers.

The Harvard study said states could have stricter rules for special contracts, similar to those in Kentucky, where public utility commissioners only allow utilities to offer discounted rates for five years, and there must be more than enough power supply available on the system. The rate also must exceed the utility's costs to serve the customer, the study said.

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• Brenda Duncan Cusick moved from California to Arizona due to rising wildfire risks and living costs.
• Cusick's monthly expenses dropped by a couple of thousand dollars living in Prescott, Arizona.
• After retiring from the insurance industry, she started a local food tour.

After living in Moorpark, California, for nearly two decades, Brenda Duncan Cusick had become an expert in wildfire evacuations.

Cusick, 61, told Business Insider that she's had to flee the home she shared with her husband and two children at least five times. Moorpark is an hour's drive northwest of Los Angeles, close to where the deadly Woolsey Fire in 2018 destroyed tens of thousands of homes. Over time, she saw how the blazes were becoming more difficult to control.

The wildfires also affected Cusick's career as an insurance agent. Between 2015 and 2023, she sold homeowners, commercial, and auto policies, including for Farmers Insurance. But it became harder to keep and attract clients as rates tripled in some cases due to a combination of factors, including fire risks, the rising costs of reinsurance, and California regulations, Cusick said.

"I lost a lot of sales because people wanted to save on their insurance, but I would advise they carry more coverage," Cusick said. "They'd own a $1 million home and a small business, and I'd tell them they could lose everything they've worked for for being underinsured."

Cusick said that rising wildfire risks — combined with higher insurance premiums, utility bills, gas prices, and car registration fees for her family of four — made her realize it was impossible to retire in California.

She's not alone. Hundreds of thousands of Californians have moved out of the state in recent years, often driven by high prices and, in some cases, natural disaster risks.

Residents have among the highest average energy bills in the country, in part because utility companies have spent billions of dollars on wildfire-related costs that are partially passed on to customers. California also has aggressive climate policies that make oil and gas more expensive.

When the COVID-19 pandemic gave Cusick and her husband the freedom to work remotely in 2020, they decided to sell their home and move to Prescott, Arizona. They joined the many older Americans who have flocked to Arizona for retirement, citing lower costs of living and comfortable weather. While there is little data indicating climate-fueled disasters are directly causing massive migration, Cusick's story suggests that the costly ripple effects of wildfires on insurance and utility bills may help motivate people to leave their longtime homes.

Saving thousands a month and starting a local food tour

Cusick said that at first, it was "daunting" to consider leaving her home state.

"But once we did, we realized that there are so many lovely places to live all over the US," she said, adding that her monthly expenses have dropped by a couple of thousand dollars.

They downsized from their 4-bedroom, 3-bathroom home in Moorpark to a 3-bedroom, 2-bathroom property in Prescott. Cusick said selling their California home gave them enough cash for a large down payment on the new place in Arizona. Their monthly mortgage payment is now $1,672, compared to $3,309 in California, according to bank statements reviewed by Business Insider. Their utility and HOA bills in Arizona average about $373 a month, while in California, they could range from about $400 to $1,200.

Cusick said Prescott reminds her of growing up in California.

"It's a very western town in the mountains of Arizona," she said, noting that Prescott is surrounded by a national forest.

Prescott was the capital of Arizona Territory until the late 1800s, and every Fourth of July, it hosts a big rodeo. The downtown reminds Cusick of a Hallmark move, she said. Prescott's history, cooler summer temperatures, and location between Phoenix and the Grand Canyon help it attract thousands of tourists every year.

After Cusick retired from the insurance industry, she got involved with a local charity and started the Prescott Food Tour.

"It's completely the opposite of selling boring, impossible insurance," she said. "I by no means make anywhere near what I did before, but when you're retired, you get to do things like this."

Do you have a story to share about leaving an area prone to wildfires or rising home insurance costs? Contact this reporter [email protected].

• Indiana's data center boom requires a lot more power, and it risks saddling customers with the cost.
• State lawmakers are considering a bill to put tech companies on the hook for 80% of project costs.
• Data centers may need more power than all of Indiana's 7 million residents combined.

When President Donald Trump in January announced a deal with a billionaire in Dubai to build data centers across the US, it immediately raised alarm bells in Indiana.

Trump said the state and seven others were part of the first phase of the $20 billion foreign investment plan. It could add to Indiana's growing fleet of data centers under construction by companies including Amazon, Microsoft, and Google, which need huge amounts of computing power for the artificial intelligence boom. The growth risks saddling residents with hundreds of millions of dollars in additional costs through higher energy bills.

The situation has set off a debate in Indiana over who should foot the bill for the new power plants and transmission infrastructure needed to serve data centers. A bill moving through the Indiana legislature would require tech firms like Amazon, Microsoft, and Google to cover 80% of project costs, which, if enacted, would make it the first state to do so. At the same time, the bill would allow Indiana utilities to try and pass the costs of building smaller nuclear reactors to customers. Tech companies hope these early-stage energy solutions could someday supply cleaner, around-the-clock power to data centers.

It's a mixed bag for Indiana residents that consumer advocacy groups oppose, and underscores a dilemma many states across the country are confronting: how to hold tech firms accountable for their power-hungry data centers and their promises that AI will be powered by green energy. So far, fossil fuels like natural gas and coal plants are expected to meet the demand.

"If companies want to build a data center here, and we have to build new power generation for them, then they need to share in that risk," Indiana Rep. Ed Soliday, a Republican who authored the bill, told Business Insider. "There are a couple of data center folks that have said, 'Oh no, that's not fair.' Yes, it is. Grandma down the street shouldn't have to pay for your dreams."

Indiana courts power-hungry data centers

While Indiana doesn't top the list of major US data center hubs, the Rust Belt state is emerging as another player for many reasons. Indiana has a reliable power supply from coal and natural gas and can draw electricity from two regional grids. That state has a low risk of natural disasters that could disrupt that supply. Indiana lawmakers in 2019 exempted data center equipment and energy use from sales taxes. Land is also cheaper than other parts of the country.

Those perks have attracted large data centers to northern Indiana. Last year, Amazon Web Services started construction on an $11 billion data center campus in New Carlisle. Google announced plans to build a $2 billion data center in Fort Wayne. Microsoft is planning a $1 billion data center in LaPorte; Meta is investing $800 million in a campus in southern Indiana that could operate by 2026.

Projects in the pipeline could consume more electricity than the nearly 7 million residents in Indiana combined by 2035, according to forecasts by state utilities analyzed by the Citizens Action Coalition of Indiana, an advocacy group that opposes data center development in the state.

The coalition has called for a moratorium on new data centers until state leaders can study their potential impact on the electric grid and utility bills. But as more projects enter the pipeline with support from state officials, the coalition last year intervened in negotiations between a utility and the data center industry — including Amazon Web Services, Google, and Microsoft — aimed at ensuring the companies pay a fair share for their energy use and associated power grid infrastructure upgrades. The parties in November reached an agreement aimed at shielding Indiana customers from some of the extra costs by requiring large data centers each month to pay at least 80% of their contracted electricity use, even if they don't use it. New transmission infrastructure and power generation to serve data centers could cost up to $1 billion, the agreement said.

Indiana regulators approved the settlement in February. The utility, Indiana Michigan Power, initiated the changes to what its big industrial energy users pay after forecasting that data centers could increase peak electricity demand by 150% by 2030, to more than 7,000 megawatts. That's equivalent to power for about 4.6 million residents in the state or two-thirds of Indiana's entire population. And that's just one utility's service area. The Northern Indiana Public Service Company's latest forecast shows data centers could double its energy demand by 2035.

Andrew Williamson, Indiana Michigan Power's directory of regulatory services, said in written testimony that the magnitude of demand for electricity was unprecedented and unlike any previous energy load additions the utility had ever experienced.

'More harm than good'

Rather than striking deals utility by utility, consumer advocates said a statewide law could better protect Indiana residents from rising energy bills associated with new data centers.

But the bill moving through the state legislature falls short, said Ben Inskeep, program director of the Citizens Action Coalition of Indiana. He said the bill contains a loophole, in that it doesn't cover special contracts utilities can negotiate with data centers for electricity rates. The bill also would create an expedited process for approving new power generation by a utility that wants to connect large energy loads like a data center, which Inskeep worried wouldn't allow enough time for public input. The coalition also wants lawmakers to eliminate provisions allowing utilities to seek permission from state regulators to recover up to 100% of the costs of building small nuclear reactors from customers.

"We need state policymakers to be thinking about these issues in a comprehensive way," Inskeep said. "But we want to make sure what they do doesn't create more harm than good."

Indiana Gov. Mike Braun told News 10 in February that he supported nuclear power but that utilities should shoulder the costs.

"I'm hesitant about putting that solely on the back of the ratepayers," Braun said, adding that the utility companies will have to absorb those costs through "capitalism."

"They are out there as investor owned, and some of that is going to have to be the risk that they take," Braun said.

The bill passed the House on February 13 and was referred to a Senate committee. The Indiana legislature is in session through April.

Meanwhile, the data center boom shows no signs of slowing in Indiana and across the US, including from foreign investors eager to get a stake in the AI race.

Hussain Sajwani, a real estate tycoon dubbed the "Donald of Dubai," has business deals with Trump and Elon Musk. Whether Sajwani's planned $20 billion investment in data centers is getting underway in Indiana is unclear, but for Inskeep, it wasn't surprising.

"Oh, here comes another one," Inskeep said of his initial reaction. "At this moment in time, we're just seeing so many data centers flood into Indiana that's a bit overwhelming. And it's really hard to fathom the magnitude of the impacts."

Google declined BI's request to comment, Microsoft didn't respond, and Amazon and the Data Center Coalition did not send comment by the time of publication.

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• High energy costs burden much of the US, with Hawaii and Connecticut having the highest average bills.
• Extreme weather, volatile gas markets, and infrastructure investments are driving up utility costs.
• Renewable energy expansion in states like Colorado helped moderate cost increases.

Where you live can impact how much you pay for utilities.

That's because the price of electricity depends on more than just the price of oil and gas. It is also affected by local utilities' investment in infrastructure, whether the state is vulnerable to extreme weather, and the amount of renewable energy that powers the grid.

The most recent data published by the Energy Information Administration, a US government agency, showed that residents of Hawaii, Connecticut, and Alabama had the highest average monthly electricity bills in 2024. Utah, New Mexico, and Colorado had the lowest average bills.

As energy bills have risen even faster than overall inflation in recent years, the greatest burden falls on the lowest earners, who tend to spend a larger share of their budgets on utilities. While President Donald Trump has promised to slash energy prices in half by pursuing a "drill, baby, drill" agenda on oil and gas, energy analysts and economists told Business Insider it's not that simple.

Extreme weather combined with exploding costs to upgrade the infrastructure that delivers electricity across the country are fueling higher prices. Renewable energy has helped moderate prices in some states, but looming tariffs on Canada and Mexico combined with skyrocketing energy demand from data centers may only increase costs.

Energy experts shared some of the biggest factors driving energy costs and explained why there are disparities among states.

The cost of extreme weather and volatile gas markets hit low earners the hardest

Since January 2020, consumer energy services costs have risen about 34%, compared to a 23% increase in overall prices, Bureau of Labor Statistics data showed. Additionally, the Bank of America Institute found that the median utility bill payment for electricity, gas, and water rose 6% in January compared to a year earlier, double the 3% rise in overall inflation during this period.

These cost increases have hit people with the lowest incomes the hardest. A Bank of America Institute note said that in 2023, US households with annual incomes below $50,000 spent 6.8% of their earnings on natural gas and electricity costs, compared to 1.2% for households with annual incomes more than $150,000.

While it's no surprise that using more fuel or electricity can spike customers' energy bills, analysts told Business Insider that extreme weather, volatile oil and gas prices, and utilities' growing investments in the poles, wires, and big transmission lines that deliver power to homes are all contributing to increased costs.

Freezing winters — like the subzero temperatures that blanketed the US this year — and scorching summers can spike the demand for heat and air conditioning and hike costs. Utilities are investing in aging infrastructure that carries electricity from power plants to communities and can recover those costs from their customers. Oil and gas, which still supplies the majority of US electricity, is a volatile market vulnerable to global shocks like Russia's war in Ukraine.

Those shocks hit New England hard. The region, which includes Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont, gets more than 50% of its power from natural gas. And unlike states such as Pennsylvania or Texas — where natural gas is underground in the region — a lot of the fuel for New England states is imported. This partly explains why energy costs are higher compared to the rest of the country, said Dan Dolan, president of the New England Power Generators Association, a trade group.

Dolan said wholesale electricity prices have fallen over the last two decades, but that's been offset by transmission costs soaring 800% between 2004 and 2023, data from New England's regional transmission organization showed.

"We've also seen a dramatic increase in the spending at the distribution level as we build out more substations, poles, and wires to highly electrified homes and businesses," Dolan said. "Those combined elements — transmission and distribution — now make up the largest single segment of the vast majority of electricity rates across New England."

Dolan added that New England states have more aggressive climate policies, including participation in a regional cooperative that caps carbon emissions from power plants and requires them to pay for every ton they emit — another cost that's passed on to customers.

On the opposite coast in California, extreme weather is driving higher utility bills, which averaged $159 a month in 2024. Utilities have spent billions of dollars on wildfire-related costs that are partially being passed on to consumers, said Brendan Pierpont, director of electricity modeling at Energy Innovation, a non-partisan energy and climate policy think tank.

Those costs include investments in preventing wildfires, like managing vegetation that can catch fire and burying power lines underground, as well as legal liabilities for blazes caused by their infrastructure.

Renewables can slow rising costs

Pierpont added that some states, including Colorado and New Mexico, have been able to moderate rising electricity costs in part by expanding solar and wind power.

"Many of the states with the cheapest power and lowest rate of increases have easy access to high-quality wind and solar resources," he said, citing a paper he authored last year.

Johanna Neumann, senior director of Environment America's Campaign for 100% Renewable Energy, said states that generate the highest percentage of their electricity from renewable energy sources have electricity rates that are below the national average, pointing to Iowa, South Dakota, and Oklahoma as examples.

"Renewables actually reduce wholesale electricity costs and reduce our dependence on notoriously volatile natural gas," she said.

However, not all states that have heavily invested in renewables have electricity rates lower than the national average. Neumann pointed to Hawaii as one example, where she said benefits from renewables investments are being offset by continued reliance on imported oil.

"These fuels have to be shipped to the island across long distances, leading to higher electricity costs," she said.

Texas is in a category of its own because the state's power grid is isolated from other regional ones. A deadly winter storm in 2021 that knocked out power and sent electricity prices soaring prompted state regulators to direct power plants to better prepare for extreme weather.

While Texas has abundant natural gas resources and is a leader in solar and wind development, the state aims to build more fossil fuel and small nuclear power plants to meet growing demand, said Michele Richmond, executive director of the Texas Competitive Power Advocates, which represents companies that produce power, including natural gas, wind, and nuclear.

Richmond added that Texas has a competitive, deregulated energy market that dispatches the cheapest power first to help offset some of the cost pressures. But it isn't immune from rising prices.

"We believe that having a diversified fuel mix is good for reliability because the wind doesn't blow all the time, and the sun doesn't shine all the time," Richmond said.

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• A Department of Energy employee took the federal government's "fork in the road" offer.
• He said the resignation process was rushed and he's doubtful he'll be paid through September.
• Some 75,000 federal workers have accepted the deferred resignation program, the administration said.

When a program manager at the Department of Energy received the Trump administration's "fork in the road" resignation offer, his first reaction was defiance.

"My initial thought process was 'I am not going to do this because I don't want to let them win. They can fire me, but I'm not leaving,'" the program manager told Business Insider, adding that he wanted to stay and protect a clean-energy program he oversaw. "But it became pretty demoralizing and clear that wasn't a realistic option."

The DOE employee said he decided to take the buyout offer — known as deferred resignation — in February after his eight-person team was "decimated." He said it seemed unlikely that the department's career leadership could shield employees from President Donald Trump and Elon Musk's efforts to slash the federal workforce and eliminate climate- and DEI-related programs.

The DOE employee requested anonymity for fear of retaliation. BI verified the DOE employee's identity and viewed his signed deferred resignation agreement.

According to the Office of Management and Budget, about 75,000 federal workers had accepted the offer as of February 13. That's about 3.75% of the federal workforce, shy of the White House's goal of 5% to 10%. Agencies have additionally fired thousands of workers, mainly probationary employees who were hired or promoted in the past two years — moves that have attracted legal challenges.

The DOE employee said he was impressed by how many federal workers wanted to stay in their jobs because they care about public service. He worried that the Trump administration's gutting of federal agencies would fuel its narrative that the government is inefficient and ineffective, a view he disagreed with.

"Trump and Musk are creating those conditions by removing staff and pausing grants and requiring them to remove all the DEI efforts," the DOE employee said. "Before, things were functioning decently well."

3 strikes and he's out

The beginning of the Trump administration brought three events that tipped the scales for this DOE employee.

First, right after the inauguration, Trump signed executive orders that paused his team's work, as it paused funding authorized by Congress under the Inflation Reduction Act and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, former President Joe Biden's landmark climate accomplishments.

Second was what he saw as mistreatment of his colleagues. The DOE fired probationary employees on his team who'd been on the job less than a year. The DOE employee said that even if their work resumed in the coming months, he wasn't sure there would be enough staffers to implement it. The DOE employee also disagreed with directives to remove pronouns from federal email signatures.

"I wasn't willing to do that because it created a hostile work environment for the people who worked for me," he said.

Finally, the DOE employee is remote and thought he would eventually be fired if he refused to return to the office as directed by Trump's executive order.

'I am almost positive that I will not get paid through September'

The DOE employee described the deferred resignation process as rushed and lacking clear guidance.

He submitted his request to the Office of Personnel Management and then signed a four-page agreement with the DOE. The agreement said he would be placed on administrative leave until September 30 and be paid his current salary "subject to the availability of appropriations."

The DOE employee said he didn't know he had to request administrative leave until he had already been locked out of federal computer systems. His last day was Friday, and his pay is biweekly. His first paycheck for administrative leave should arrive in the coming weeks.

"I'm questioning whether the administration will fulfill the agreement," the DOE employee said. "I am almost positive that I will not get paid through September."

'It's a tough job market'

The DOE employee said he planned to start applying for jobs in case the Trump administration doesn't hold up the agreement.

But that presents other risks. The deferred resignation agreement requires federal workers who take another job to get approval from the ethics counsel regarding "outside activity," and the DOE employee said it was unclear whether those requests would be approved.

Ideally, he could find a position in clean energy that pays a similar amount as his federal job so he could leave the deferred resignation program altogether. The DOE employee falls on a pay scale ranging from $123,000 to nearly $160,000.

"I think it's a tough job market," the DOE employee said, adding that clean-energy companies and organizations might not be hiring given the Trump administration's attacks and the uncertainty about grant funding.

"The prospects of working in clean energy — the thing I care about — seem terrible at the moment," he said.

The DOE employee said many companies and nonprofits were also still waiting for their federal grant funding to be unfrozen.

"It's an anxious time," he said. "Where can I go that takes advantage of my skills but also has some sort of longevity?"

Do you have a story to share about the deferred-resignation program? Contact this reporter via email at [email protected] or Signal at cboudreau.37. Use a personal email address and a nonwork device; here's our guide to sharing information securely.