• On Friday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics will publish the much-watched jobs report for February.
• Federal workforce terminations led by the White House DOGE office largely won't be reflected.
• Though Trump and DOGE have sparked thousands of firings, they will likely still show up as employed.

The impact of Donald Trump's cuts to the federal workforce largely won't yet show up in the economy's monthly employment report card, due to the timing of firings and data collection.

It matters because large-scale job losses are one early sign of a weakening economy. And as Trump's new tariffs have some worried about an uptick in inflation, Americans will be watching the economic data closely in the coming months for signs of a downturn.

For now, however, economists told Business Insider that the federal government job cuts inspired by Trump's DOGE office likely won't show up in the official unemployment figures just yet.

Many DOGE firings won't be in the February jobs report

The Bureau of Labor Statistics will publish the closely watched US jobs report on Friday, showing how the labor market changed last month. The two surveys behind the numbers capture a snapshot of the economy in the middle of the month. Since many of the DOGE-inspired employment cuts happened during and after that period, they won't show up until the jobs report that's set to come out the first week of April.

Daniel Zhao, lead economist at Glassdoor, said many of the fired government workers would still be considered employed in the household survey, which is used to estimate the unemployment rate. The reference week for this month's report, or period when the Census Bureau and BLS are out asking Americans if they have a job, was February 9 to February 15. Many of the cuts fell during or after that week, and any government employees who were still working for at least part of that week will show up as employed in the coming jobs report.

For example, the Department of Veterans Affairs dismissed over 1,000 people on February 13 and over 1,000 on February 24. The Internal Revenue Service made job cuts on February 20.

"It's unlikely cuts that happened between February 12 and February 20 would show up in the February jobs report," Zhao told BI.

The second survey behind the jobs report, which canvasses business establishments across the country, has a similar timeframe. The survey, which uses the pay period including the 12th of the month, will likely not show most of those government terminations on Friday either.

Despite the timing of the surveys, Julia Pollak, chief economist of ZipRecruiter, told BI that February's change in federal employment could end up being quite a bit lower than what's been seen in the past couple of years.

"As of mid-February, about 75,000 federal workers had resigned under the Trump Administration's 'deferred resignation' program," Pollak said. "It is unclear whether these people will still be counted as being on payroll."

In April, BLS will publish the jobs report covering the state of the market in mid-March, which will likely show a drop in federal employment. Gregory Daco, EY's chief economist, told BI that the cuts to the federal workforce "will undoubtedly impact the March payrolls print, but we don't know by how much."

DOGE cuts aren't expected to dent future jobs reports much either

Among DOGE's first targets were probationary workers who have typically been in their roles for only a short period of time. Even if the Trump administration cut all of the roughly 200,000 federal workers who have been in their roles for under one year, the impact on the overall workforce wouldn't be too large. Daco said federal employment accounts for less than 2% of US employment.

David Kelly, chief global strategist at J.P. Morgan Asset Management, said in a note that "contrary to popular opinion," federal government civilian employment "has not been rising quickly in recent years." BLS data showed 3 million federal employees in January, which has grown by just 1.6% from a year ago.

That doesn't mean the recent terminations won't affect Americans and government functions. IRS workers told BI they expect tax season will be affected by the terminations of probationary workers. Kelly said that "the volume of layoffs and quits will likely slow many of the functions of the federal government, ultimately impacting both private businesses and American citizens."

More turnover is expected in the federal workforce this year. A memo from the Office of Management and Budget and the Office of Personnel Management said agencies should "seek reductions in components and positions that are non-critical" in addition to considering areas to consolidate, including management, and put together reorganization plans by March 13. The Department of Education proposed a "one time offer in advance of a very significant Reduction in Force" to employees.

Additionally, Pollak said that there could be job losses in the private sector ahead because of contractors who may be affected by cuts to budgets and programs.

• After a monthlong delay, Trump on Tuesday added tariffs on Canada and Mexico.
• Trump added to existing China tariffs, too.
• Here are the goods imported into the US the most from these three countries.

When evaluating how President Donald Trump's new tariffs on Canada, China, and Mexico could affect Americans, start by looking at the goods imported most from those countries.

The biggest categories are oil, electronics, and vehicles.

After a delay in February, the 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico went into effect Tuesday through an executive order. There's one big exception: Energy imports from Canada have a 10% tariff.

The president also doubled China tariffs to 20% as he continued to push for stronger drug policies, particularly to stop the flow of fentanyl into the US.

The White House's fact sheet on the latest tariffs said Trump would use emergency economic powers to implement these tariffs to crack down on drug trafficking. Both Canada and China have announced retaliatory tariffs on the US, and Mexico's president said she would announce on Sunday the country's next step on tariffs.

The tariffs could affect a wide variety of goods Americans use daily. The Census Bureau reported that in 2024, the US imported over $1.3 trillion in goods from China, Mexico, and Canada combined.

From Canada, the top 2024 imports included over $98 billion worth of crude oil and about $28 billion in passenger cars.

In 2024, the US imported nearly $67 billion worth of car parts from Mexico, along with $43 billion worth of computers, $14 billion worth of medicinal equipment, and $12 billion worth of crude oil.

China, meanwhile, is a major supplier of electronics to the US. The census data showed that in 2024, the US imported $64 billion worth of cellphones and other household goods from China, $34 billion in computers, and about $31 billion in games, toys, and sporting goods.

Some companies had already been preparing to increase prices as a result of Trump's tariff plans on the campaign trail. Real estate consultants previously told BI that Trump's trade plans, particularly his 25% tariffs on steel, were set to make rent and condo prices more expensive.

Target CEO Brian Cornell told CNBC on Tuesday that the tariffs could lead the company to raise prices on fruits and vegetables.

"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, adding: "If there's a 25% tariff, those prices will go up."

Additionally, the levies could amplify economic strains between the US and its trading partners. China said Tuesday that it would impose additional tariffs of 10% to 15% on some US imports starting Monday.

Trudeau said in a statement on Monday that Americans would feel the pain from Trump's tariffs: "Because of the tariffs imposed by the U.S., Americans will pay more for groceries, gas, and cars, and potentially lose thousands of jobs."

Companies and economists have said that more tariffs would increase consumer prices. BI previously reported that broad tariffs were likely to increase prices across the board, including for clothes, footwear, computers, and video games.

Trump previously denied that would be the case. "I am going to put tariffs on other countries coming into our country, and that has nothing to do with taxes to us. That is a tax on another country," Trump said in an August speech. But he told reporters in early February that Americans would experience "some pain" as a result of the tariffs, adding that they would overall benefit the country.

The tariffs implemented during Trump's first term did not significantly influence inflation, but his recently announced tariffs are broader and could have a larger impact on prices.

• Steph Thompson is doubling down on side hustles after they helped her earn money while studying.
• She has completed surveys, checked out stores as a mystery shopper, and sold digital products.
• She discussed with Business Insider her favorite gigs she has tried.

Many people are stuck in rigid 9-to-5 jobs. Others crave a more flexible schedule and move on to freelance work. Steph Thompson, 31, prefers having a mix of side hustles.

Thompson, who lives in Australia, said side gigs allowed her to support herself while working on a one-year academic program.

"When I had a more free week I could devote more time to it and when I didn't have spare time it didn't matter, the side hustles would always be there waiting for me," she said.

She made more than $5,000 between January 2024 and this past January from different side hustles, such as completing surveys, participating in user-generated content, referrals, and selling digital products. Thompson completed her program in November, and now she's doubling down on side hustles. Many people work a side gig while holding down a full-time job, and some side hustlers are stay-at-home parents looking to make some money. Some have quit their jobs to focus on side-hustle earnings.

Thompson encourages people to find a side gig that matches their interests and schedule.

"There is going to be something out there for most people," she said. "You may have to hunt for it a little bit, but you will find something out there that suits your personality, suits your brain, suits your time."

Below are a few of the gigs Thompson has tried and why they might be enjoyable for others.

Testing and reviewing products and services

UserTesting, a platform that says people can make money in their spare time by testing and providing feedback on products and services, is one of Thompson's favorite side hustles. She made over $400 in the past year on the platform.

Some assignments may involve giving feedback on camera or through a microphone, while others are surveys where that's not necessary.

Karan Mavai, vice president of product management at UserTesting, said "think-aloud tests" are the most popular on the platform. "Contributors speak their thoughts out loud while navigating a digital experience, prototype, or application," Mavai said, adding that the customer seeking feedback then gets a recorded session of screen interactions and verbal feedback.

"I like being on video, and I like chatting with people, so it really suits my personality," Thompson said about UserTesting and market research side hustles.

She also likes User Interviews, another platform where you can provide your thoughts. There are various ways to earn through the platform, including online surveys, focus groups, and multiday studies. Some studies require having a webcam to participate, while others may involve talking on the phone.

"If you like giving your opinion on things, it's the side hustle for you," Thompson said.

She said the pay can be lucrative; the platform says the average pay is more than $50 and paid through gift cards. Thompson has made some money from referrals to User Interviews and participating in studies. Her earnings ranged from $10 for a 15-minute study to $50 for a longer study. She has found that opportunities may happen during business hours, so she said it might be a good gig for someone who can fit in participation during the day.

Mystery shopping

Thompson said mystery shopping is an easy side gig to try because you could find opportunities through an app and then quickly start an assignment. She has made 6 Australian dollars, or about $4, for one mission and AUD$8 for another. The missions involved taking photos of the chocolate and sweets areas of two different stores to capture how they were displayed.

Thompson thinks this side gig is ideal if you often go grocery shopping. "They're a great little add-on to your day where it doesn't really have to take you too far out of your way to earn a couple extra dollars," she said.

Digital products

Thompson has also earned money from selling a meal planning template and a budget spreadsheet, both of which are digital products. Over seven months, she earned about AUD$1,418 from all her digital products.

"It's stuff that I made for myself and ended up going, 'Oh, actually, other people might want this too,'" she said.

Ebooks, budget trackers, printable planners, and art can be sold as digital products. Thompson thinks you don't need a large audience to get started with selling digital products.

"If you go with where your interests are, you'll tend to make better products, I think, because it's actually come from genuine interest," she said.

Surveys

Thompson said that while surveys can be a good side hustle option, she finds them boring. While surveys aren't her favorite side gig, she does like two platforms in particular: Prolific and Australian platform Octopus Group.

"If you keep an eye out for the ones that pay better, that tends to be an OK use of your time," Thompson said about survey platforms in general.

Prolific's site says the minimum payment is at least $8 an hour per task, but Prolific told BI many pay more than that. Prolific said studies usually are between five minutes to half an hour.

Thompson thinks survey sites would be ideal for someone hoping to make a bit of extra money or doesn't have a ton of time to set aside.

"It's definitely not the most lucrative side hustle, but at the same time, if you are the type of person that can sit and watch TV and scroll on your phone at the same time, you'll be fine," she said.

Delivery

While some people may enjoy making some extra cash from delivery jobs, it can also mean investing some of your money back into it. Thompson said with a delivery side gig you're likely accruing more costs than other side-hustle options because you will need to factor in gas prices, car maintenance, and other costs.

Food delivery is one option, such as Uber Eats. Thompson thinks Uber Eats can be a fun option if you enjoy driving. She said it can be a side hustle that can be easy to get started with if you pass the background check, but she doesn't think it's as good an option as it used to be.

"I haven't done it a lot in the last year or two because the pay rate has definitely started to not make it as worth the time and the effort when there are other options available," she said.

• 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.

Do you have a story to share about your utility bills? Contact these reporters at [email protected] and [email protected].

• In a Wednesday memo, Trump administration officials advanced a plan for federal staff reductions.
• The memo said departments across agencies should prepare to cut staff and reorganize by March 13.
• Federal workers told BI they were frustrated but not surprised by the planned restructuring.

President Donald Trump's administration officially announced its plan for federal staff reductions in a Wednesday memo, telling agencies to prepare to cut staff and reorganize their departments by March 13.

Federal workers who spoke with Business Insider after the memo was announced said the move was "crazy and illogical." Still, some were determined to continue working until they were removed from office.

The memo, sent by the Office of Management and Budget and the Office of Personnel Management, didn't identify specific targets for cutbacks, which they described as advancing the White House DOGE office efficiency initiatives. But during a cabinet meeting on Wednesday, Trump suggested as an example that as much as 65% of staff at the Environmental Protection Agency could be cut.

"As outlined in yesterday's memo to agencies, this administration has created a thoughtful, phased process to carry out workforce restructuring that will reduce unnecessary waste and bloat while continuing to deliver high-quality services to the American people," an OPM spokesperson said in a statement.

Representatives for the White House and OMB didn't immediately respond to requests for comment from BI.

"I think what is going on is unfair to us. I have been told my job is exempt, but I truly don't believe it," an employee from the Department of Veterans Affairs said. "I know that we are shorthanded but also don't trust the government or my supervisors here. I have seen nothing in writing. That scares me also."

One NASA employee described it as "ungenerous to the point of cruelty."

"Not only do they want people to lose their jobs, they want them to lose their jobs quickly," they said.

Another longtime federal worker, meanwhile, told BI they had "no faith that this will be fair or measured."

The memo outlines a timeline for most agencies — with exemptions for federal law enforcement, military, border security, and US Postal Service employees — to prepare and execute a layoff and reorganization strategy. Agencies must submit their restructuring plans by March 13 and "outline a positive vision for more productive, efficient agency operations" by April 14, with an implementation deadline in September.

"My thought is, "Will I be out of a job come April?" one Department of Defense employee said. "At this point, conversations revolve around, if I exit the workforce, will I reenter it? As a military spouse, that is not a given."

"Throwing military families into financially unstable situations is a great way to thank them for their service — and their votes," the employee added.

The memo also requires field office operations to be consolidated or closed, which one employee of the Social Security Administration said would impact frontline offices that handle claims and issue Social Security cards, as well as disability hearing offices that handle appeals of unfavorable decisions in disability cases.

"So, the people who complain about long wait times and nobody answering the phone are talking about those entities, maybe there are a lot of layers of bureaucracy above us, but those exist to provide support for us frontline people," the Social Security Administration employee said. "This is crazy and illogical, motivated by a blind, stupid hatred of the public sector as a whole."

An Internal Revenue Service employee told BI that "it will take years, if not decades, to fully recover" from the federal government cuts.

"Americans are going to feel this very deeply," they said. "Services are going to be nonexistent."

An employee from the Department of Housing and Urban Development said they were prepared to be moved to a different department after a meeting with their supervisor about the memo.

"There's so much confusion — respond to the productivity email, don't respond, and now being told to get ready to move departments — I see how this Elon tactic can mentally drain you because this week was so hard to log in and be productive," the HUD worker said.

The restructuring memo came just days after the White House DOGE office sent a weekend email asking all federal employees to list what work tasks they had accomplished last week, prompting confusion among some employees about how and whether to reply outside their chain of command.

While some federal workers who previously spoke with BI said the confusion created by the emails and subsequent conflicting guidance from department heads had caused them to reconsider their work in the government, others said they were resolved to stick it out.

"I've never seen morale so low in my 18 years of service," an employee from the Bureau of Reclamation said, adding that they "believe we are witnessing the final days" of their agency.

Still, they said they saw their department's work protecting water resources as essential for the country and had no plans of stopping unless they were forced out of public service.

"They'll have to fire me," they said.

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• If you've been fired for performance, you can do a few things before applying to new work.
• You can talk to someone you trust about what your performance is really like.
• Be ready to talk about your skills and why you're looking for work during an interview.

One of the toughest things you can hear at work is your boss saying you suck at your job.

Being told you're a low-performer, as thousands of former workers from Meta, Microsoft, and the federal government know firsthand, is rarely easy. That's especially the case if you believe the poor job assessment is unfounded.

In the vernacular of Elon Musk, it can mean workers find themselves at a fork in the road — and often jobless.

Being out of work after suffering a rhetorical body blow calls for self-evaluation, getting feedback from a mentor, and being careful about how you talk about your former job and employer, career experts told Business Insider.

Workers pushed out in a high-profile culling of ostensibly poor performers could struggle even more to find work, Dan Schawbel, managing partner at Workplace Intelligence, told BI.

"Employers know that that's the reason why they got laid off," he said.

That might necessitate that job seekers take special care. Here are four things to keep in mind.

Reflect on what happened and then take steps to improve

Before applying to jobs again, workplace observers suggested taking a step back and reflecting on what your former employer said.

Amanda Augustine, the career expert at TopResume, said it's important to think, "Was I really bad at this, or was I not doing a great job of communicating my work and my performance?" Whatever you learn, work on that in your next role.

If you were told you were underperforming in a particular skill, you could get a certification or complete some training to improve, Harshal Varpe, a career expert at Indeed, said.

Job seekers should also consider who can vouch for them.

"Your references are almost your living testimonial of what your performance has been," Varpe said.

Augustine suggested two potential job references: someone in human resources from your previous company or a former colleague who can attest to your skills. If you put down a former boss, a prospective employer "might get some insight" into your performance, she said.

Get an honest assessment from someone who knows you

Getting canned for falling short of an employer's expectations hurts. And, of course, there can be numerous reasons you drew the underperformer tag. Perhaps your skills weren't well suited for the role, or maybe your employer didn't give you what you needed to succeed, Vicki Salemi, a career expert with Monster, told BI. In some cases, that might be training or a set of clear expectations.

Finding a mentor or someone else you trust who knows your work can be a big help, she said, because you can ask the person for an honest assessment of your strengths and weaknesses.

"You might actually truly be a poor performer," Salemi said. If you get a sense that's the case, it's reasonable to ask how you might improve, she said.

If you believe your poor performance rating isn't justified or that you faced other obstacles, like an unreasonable workload, Salemi suggests gathering qualitative measures of your success and clearly defined accomplishments.

She said having specific examples in your back pocket will help "demonstrate that you are a strong performer."

Be careful with your digital footprint

Some workers Meta terminated after labeling them as low performers pushed back with LinkedIn posts asserting that they'd earned solid reviews.

That's a departure from a more discreet approach some fired workers might have taken in the past.

If you're planning to post about your termination, Augustine said to consider what you include because it reflects your professional — and personal — brand to prospective employers and others, such as people you're hoping to set up informational interviews with.

Instead of talking about your performance or calling out your past employer, Augustine said to talk about the kind of areas where you're seeking opportunities, what skills you are hoping to use, and, of course, that you are hoping for job leads.

"You want to be cognizant of what reputation you're promoting for yourself, how you're positioning yourself, and your experience to the world," she said.

Focus on your skills

Augustine said prospective employers usually ask candidates why they left a job or are seeking a new one. She advised answering with, "I'm now targeting roles that really leverage my X, Y, and Z skills, which are really strong," rather than discussing performance or badmouthing a former employer.

Salemi said that job seekers should have ready a simple statement that explains why they left their last role. It's similar, she said, to how you might be prepared to talk about employment gaps on your résumé. Salemi said that after briefly explaining why you left, it's time to shift toward the role you're seeking.

"You want to pivot to your top skills and strengths," she said.

Before landing a role, you can get insight into performance expectations during the job interview. Augustine said you can ask, "If I were to take on this job, what would you expect me to accomplish in the first three months or the first six months?"

She said this can help inform your relationship with your potential manager. Once you get the job, she said to align with your boss about your goals and how you should be communicating progress toward them.

Do you have a story to share about your job search? Contact these reporters at [email protected] or [email protected].

• A WalletHub analysis found Mississippi spends the highest share of its median household income on groceries among US states.
• West Virginia and Arkansas ranked second and third, while New Jersey came in at No. 50 on the list.
• The three states that spend the lowest percentage on groceries also have the highest earnings.

Retail food prices have increased across the US, but Mississippians are arguably feeling it the most at the grocery store.

WalletHub, a personal finance platform, recently released an analysis examining the share of median income residents of US states allocate to groceries, and those in Mississippi, West Virginia, and Arkansas are spending the highest percentages.

The company studied the prices of 26 common grocery items, including meat, dairy, fruits, and cleaning products, across all 50 states. It then combined the costs and compared them with the median household income in each state to identify where residents spend the highest proportion of their income on groceries.

Mississippi ranked No. 1 on the list for highest spending on groceries relative to income, with the cost of groceries reaching 2.64% of median monthly household income. West Virginia ranked No. 2 with 2.57%, and Arkansas ranked No. 3 with 2.49%.

You can hover over the map below to see the percentage of median monthly household income residents spend on groceries by state.

Despite Mississippi ranking highest on the list, the report said that "grocery prices in Mississippi are actually relatively low," with the state having the ninth lowest grocery prices in the US. WalletHub said in its findings that Mississippi is among the 10 least expensive states in 15 of the 26 products measured in the study, including items like margarine and dishwashing detergent.

However, a more significant factor is that Mississippi had the lowest median annual household income in the country, at $52,985 in 2022 dollars, per Census data spanning 2018 through 2022. That was well below the national median of $75,149.

"So even with relatively low grocery prices overall, Mississippians are spending a higher percentage of their income on groceries than people in any other state," WalletHub said.

WalletHub analyst Chip Lupo told Business Insider that the study compared the prices in each state to median annual income because it seemed to be a better indicator on a statewide basis than solely looking at grocery prices. Lupo said that the cost of grocery prices in New Jersey "won't mean anything to someone in West Virginia."

The report said that West Virginia is "around the middle or bottom of the country" for some of its grocery prices, although some products, like eggs and potatoes, tend to be more expensive. Still, West Virginia had the second-lowest median household income in the US, bringing in $55,217 annually.

Similarly, while Arkansas, which spends the third-highest percentage of its median income on groceries, is in the top 10 states with the cheapest groceries in the US, it has the third-lowest median household income, with $56,335 annually.

Meanwhile, New Jersey ranked No. 50 on the list, meaning its residents spend the lowest percentage of their income on groceries, with Maryland and Massachusetts placing right above it. All three states have the highest median annual household incomes in the country and spend between 1.5% and 1.54% of their median monthly household income on groceries.

Lupo suggested that those who want to see their spending go down should buy store-brand versions of products, buy in bulk, and look into reward programs for grocery stores they frequent. You should also budget carefully — and try to stick to it, Lupo said.

"That will keep you from splurging," Lupo said. "And most importantly, from making those impulse buys."

• The IRS fired probationary workers this week, claiming they weren't critical to tax filing season.
• The agency had already been struggling in recent years to keep up with tax return processing.
• One expert said there's no way to cut a large number of workers without affecting filing season.

Your tax return may languish on an empty desk at the Internal Revenue Service this season after the agency began firing workers this week.

An internal IRS email viewed by Business Insider said the agency would terminate probationary workers — typically employees who have been at the agency for less than a year — who were not "critical" to tax filing season.

Tax experts and IRS employees told BI they expected the terminations to result in delayed tax refunds, slower customer service, and a backlog in paperwork processing. Some spoke with BI under the condition of anonymity.

Natasha Sarin, a professor at Yale Law School, said there's "no way, in the middle of filing season, to cut a substantial number of IRS employees without having an impact on filing season," adding that it's an "all hands on deck" time at the agency.

Many Americans still file paper tax returns, a human resources worker at the IRS said, adding: "If there's not anyone there to process them, it's just going to be sitting."

A former Treasury official likened the situation to a business "eliminating your entire accounts receivable department," adding: "No business would say we have no interest in collecting the revenue that's due to us."

The IRS did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Kevin Hassett, the director of the White House National Economic Council, told reporters on Thursday that the estimated 3,500 firings "is a small number and probably you can get bigger, especially as we improve the IT at the IRS." He added that not all IRS employees working on taxes were "fully occupied."

In the wake of the pandemic, the IRS struggled with a backlog of millions of returns, taking months to process them, which caused economic hardship for some taxpayers.

Sarin, who served as a counselor to Janet Yellen when Yellen was the Treasury secretary, said that the terminations could throw the IRS back into the "dark ages." Taxpayers should be concerned about whether they'll be able to get in touch with the IRS, whether refunds will be processed in a timely manner, and whether the IRS website will malfunction during tax season.

A fired IRS worker said: "The long-term ramifications of this will be felt for decades."

They added: "There will continue to be processing delays due to incredibly outdated systems, and there will not be supported free filing for Americans due to budget cuts and lobbying by major tax software players."

"It's just going to slow the IRS down," one IRS worker who still has a job at the agency said, adding: "It's a shame that all the progress is going to reverse."

They were referencing increased funding from the Biden administration's Inflation Reduction Act, which was meant to mitigate staffing issues. Bolstered by the funding, hiring at the IRS in recent months focused on tax-evasion and fraud-detection staff.

Vanessa Williamson, a senior fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution and the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, said during a press call on Thursday that the expected terminations could "disproportionately affect enforcement."

"When you underpay and understaff the IRS, the agency doesn't have the power or the resources it needs to go after wealthy tax evaders with their high-priced lawyers," Williamson said.

"It's going to be incredibly harmful to efficiency at the IRS," the former Treasury official told BI. If the agency can't keep up with existing efficiency programs — like using artificial intelligence to target audits better — compliance will be less effective, they said.

Over the past couple of weeks, various federal agencies have fired their probationary employees as part of President Donald Trump's efforts to slash government spending by reducing the federal workforce. BI previously spoke with over half a dozen fired workers at agencies, including the US Department of Agriculture and the Department of Energy, who said they're planning to fight their terminations.

"We're not going to take this lying down," Melanie Mattox Green, a fired US Forest Service worker, told BI. "We all love our work, and we're planning on fighting and getting our jobs back."

The IRS HR employee said that these terminations, coupled with the federal hiring freeze, could put the IRS behind on its functions into next year.

"If you have filed, or will file a tax return, you are going to feel an impact," they said.

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• The IRS is the latest agency to be hit with probationary worker terminations.
• The firings come as agencies across the government have seen their workforces slashed.
• IRS staff were told of the cuts Wednesday in a memo asking them to be in the office Thursday and Friday.

An IRS worker woke up Thursday morning to find a slew of emails saying they were locked out of work software. By noon, they'd been fired.

"We've been waiting for the shoe to drop since Inauguration Day," an IRS probationary worker told Business Insider before termination letters were sent out. "It's been exhausting and at this point, we are all just ready for the Band-Aid to be ripped off."

Now, the proverbial Band-Aid is off.

A termination letter viewed by BI said the agency was removing probationary staff from their positions based on "current mission needs" and because their "continued employment at the Agency is not in the public interest."

It also said that the termination is "taking into account your performance," which an employee who received the letter called a "bullshit" reason. The letter added that employees can appeal with the Merit Systems Protection Board within 30 days of the termination notice.

Some probationary workers are still waiting to receive word on their terminations. One said that they "just want it to be done." Another is waiting in the office and said the mood is somber.

These terminations could specifically hit the jobs responsible for enforcement and tax evasion. One source who was fired told BI that they were tasked with investigating tax compliance and alerting the IRS of any findings of fraud or evasion.

Vanessa Williamson, a senior fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution and the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, also said on a Thursday press call that the terminations could "disproportionately affect enforcement" because the Inflation Reduction Act invested in new hires in that department. Firings are focused on probationary employees, many of whom are new hires who have been at the IRS for less than a year.

"When you underpay and understaff the IRS, the agency doesn't have the power or the resources it needs to go after wealthy tax evaders with their high-priced lawyers," Williamson said.

The firings were signaled earlier this week in a memo telling staff to come into the office Thursday and Friday and bring any "government-issued equipment."

It said coming in at short notice "may be an inconvenience, and we truly appreciate your flexibility."

"Under an executive order, IRS has been directed to terminate probationary employees who were not deemed as critical to filing season. We don't have many details that we are permitted to share, but this is all tied to compliance with the executive order," the email, sent Wednesday and seen by BI, said.

The extent of the cuts is unclear, but Office of Personnel Management data showed that 14,130 of the nearly 95,000 federal civilian workers for the IRS had less than a year of service as of May.

The Associated Press reported on February 15 that the agency was set to terminate thousands of probationary workers. On Tuesday, the president of the Kansas City National Treasury Employees Union local — the umbrella union for IRS workers, among others — said that probationary workers were set to be terminated.

A Q&A form sent to the managers of terminated IRS employees — reviewed by BI — on Thursday said that affected workers who were on leave would have their leaves canceled and are expected to report to the office to return their equipment. Employees will be paid for the full day on February 20, the form said, and they're expected to be notified of their terminations by noon that same day.

The National Treasury Employees Union, which represents IRS workers, already filed a lawsuit on February 12 asking a judge to deem widespread probationary worker firings — along with the "Fork in the Road" deferred resignation program — unlawful.

Representatives for the IRS, the White House, and DOGE did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The cuts at the IRS follow other agencies slashing their probationary workforce, including the Office of Personnel Management.

"Right now, I'm just going from crying to just trying to figure everything out," an OPM worker, who was terminated and is considering where to apply to next, previously told BI.

Some probationary workers from various agencies who were told they were fired on performance-based grounds are already pushing back, with some turning toward their unions and potential litigation.

One attorney expects more job cuts in the federal workforce and thinks they won't just be aimed at probationary workers.

"We're in the mass termination of probationary employees," Michael Fallings, a partner at the law firm Tully Rinckey PLLC, said.

"What's likely next is the reduction in force procedures, which is really the official, correct way to reduce the size of federal workforce that you even saw past administrations utilize," he added.

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• Many federal probationary employees have been let go, such as some OPM and Forest Service workers.
• BI looked at which states and agencies have the most federal workers who have been on the job for less than a year.
• Many work at the Department of Veterans Affairs and military departments.

The latest wave of federal government firings is focused on recent hires — thousands of whom work for military offices or live in California.

Workers are generally considered "probationary" if they have less than one year of experience in their current role; for some agencies the probationary period can be longer. These workers typically lack the ability to appeal their removal and have fewer protections.

As of May 2024, data from the Office of Personnel Management showed the government has more than 200,000 people in cabinet-level and independent agencies who have been working for less than a year.

Business Insider looked at the latest employment data from the Office of Personnel Management to get a rough sense of how many workers could be affected. As of May 2024, the OPM data showed the Department of Veterans Affairs had over 56,000 workers with less than a year of service, though the department has said many recent hires are exempt from the current cuts. Many other people work for military departments, with over 19,500 civilian workers in the Department of the Army.

The following chart shows departments and agencies with more than 1,000 civilian workers who had been there for under a year.

California and Washington, DC, are home to many federal workers with less than a year of service. OPM data showed that California had more than 15,000 people as of May 2024, DC had nearly 12,500 people, and Virginia had about 12,400.

While exemptions exist, including for many positions deemed critical, many people could be potentially susceptible. Some employees have been targeted for underperforming, though some have told BI they were fired even with strong performance reviews.

To be sure, agencies are handling probationary employees differently, and not all agencies have alerted staff of changes yet. Some agencies are preserving the overwhelming majority of their probationary workers, while others are letting go of larger shares.

"The probationary period is a continuation of the job application process, not an entitlement for permanent employment," an OPM spokesperson said in a statement. "Agencies are taking independent action in light of the recent hiring freeze and in support of the President's broader efforts to restructure and streamline the federal government to better serve the American people at the highest possible standard."

Some congressional representatives have argued that though federal law permits probationary employees to be fired due to performance, it doesn't permit mass firings without individualized performance reviews.

A statement from Everett Kelley, President of the American Federation of Government Employees, a federal workers union, said, "This administration has abused the probationary period to conduct a politically driven mass firing spree, targeting employees not because of performance, but because they were hired before Trump took office."

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Who has already been affected

As of Friday afternoon, departments and agencies such as the Department of Education, US Forest Service, and General Services Administration have begun firing probationary employees.

The Department of Veterans Affairs said on Thursday the department let over 1,000 workers go. The department argued the cuts would save over $98 million annually, though the vast majority of probationary employees kept their jobs.

"Those dismissed today include non-bargaining unit probationary employees who have served less than a year in a competitive service appointment or who have served less than two years in an excepted service appointment," a news release said, adding that a majority of the probationary workers were exempt because "they serve in mission-critical positions."

A few dozen probationary OPM employees were laid off Thursday afternoon and instructed to leave the building within half an hour. One OPM worker who had been working there for under a year and was let go this week said they thought they would be building a longer-term career at OPM.

"I always heard that federal jobs were good, the benefits were good, the pay was good," they said.

Firings of probationary employees have also rocked the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau, Department of Energy, and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Dennis Lapcewich, the vice president of the Forest Service Council of the National Federation of Federal Employees union, told BI the jobs of about 3,400 probationary workers were cut.

Are you a federal employee who has been let go? Reach out to these reporters to share at [email protected] and [email protected].

• Some red states might see a federal funding bump due to their higher birth and marriage rates.
• Trump's transportation secretary suggested pushing more infrastructure money to such places.
• More conservative states like Utah and the Dakotas could benefit from that plan.

Red states with high marriage and birth rates could see a big funding bump from President Donald Trump's new administration.

The day after Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy was confirmed, he released a memo with an unusual provision: Federal transportation grants and loans should give preference to projects in "communities with marriage and birth rates higher than the national average."

If implemented, the directive would likely redistribute federal funds to more conservative parts of the country, which tend to have higher fertility and marriage rates.

Utah, North Dakota, and South Dakota, which are red states, had some of the country's highest birth rates in 2022. Vermont, Oregon, and Rhode Island, which are blue states, as well as Washington, DC, had the lowest fertility rates that year.

Idaho, Utah, and Wyoming, all of which are red states, had the highest marriage rates in 2023 based on the share of each state's 15-year-old and older population who are married and not separated. Blue states New York and New Mexico were among the places with the lowest rates of married residents.

A DOT spokesperson said in a statement to Business Insider that "strong population growth" would be a factor in prioritizing funding. While birth rates contribute to population growth, internal migration and immigration tend to be larger factors. The department didn't say how it's measuring birth or marriage rates.

In a statement released alongside the memo, Duffy said his directive would restore "merit-based policies" at DOT. "The American people deserve an efficient, safe, and pro-growth transportation system based on sound decision-making, not political ideologies," he added.

The DOT memo appears in line with a desire for higher birth rates expressed by Trump administration leaders, including Vice President JD Vance and Elon Musk. Vance and Musk have for years voiced concerns over the US' falling birth rate, and Vance has denigrated political opponents who don't have children. Vance has also lamented the rise in divorce and the decline in marriage rates.

There's precedent for the federal government to leverage transportation funds to pressure local governments to take certain policy actions. The National Minimum Drinking Age Act, signed by President Ronald Reagan in 1984, required all states to set their drinking age for alcohol to 21 or risk losing some amount of federal funding for highway construction.

• Older Americans are facing career setbacks due to caregiving for aging parents, impacting finances.
• Many quit jobs or reduced their hours, unable to afford nursing homes for their loved ones.
• Some told Business Insider they weren't able to land back on their feet after taking years off.

Many older Americans are facing a difficult choice: leave behind a career they've built for decades to care for their parents, or stay at their job and cover the high cost of care.

In the late 1990s, Maylia Tsen's parents moved from New York to live with her in Southern California. Tsen said her mother was facing several health issues and that her area offered better access to healthcare. Tsen continued to work full-time as a VP of sales and marketing, but eventually, it became too difficult to balance the role with her caregiving responsibilities. Around 2005, she left the job she'd spent years working toward, which she said paid more than $150,000 annually.

"I couldn't take full-time hours," said Tsen, 63. "I couldn't make that commitment because I never knew what was going to happen with them."

About two dozen older Americans told Business Insider in responses to reader surveys about work and retirement that they moved, quit their jobs, or switched to a part-time work schedule to care for their parents. Many made the decision because taking on caregiving themselves was the most economical option, as they couldn't afford the high costs of nursing homes or other long-term care for their parents.

They're now earning less since they reentered the labor market or are struggling to get hired in the industries they worked in before stepping away.

Are you an older American who has struggled to secure work due to caring for parents? Have you struggled in general to find a job recently? To share your story, please fill out this form.

The most recent data on unpaid caregiving from the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed that over the combined years of 2021 and 2022, about 9 million or 21% of 55- to 64-year-olds provided eldercare, referring to unpaid care provided by family or friends to those 65 or older. This demographic did about four hours on average of eldercare each day.

A 2021 AARP report found, based on a survey of 2,380 caregivers, that they spent on average $7,242 annually of their own money. Among the 1,415 working caregivers in the survey, 29% had to take paid time off from work in the past year because of caregiving.

"It's been a real financial challenge and burden," said Tsen. "Caregiving has taken a toll on me, financially, physically, and mentally."

Tsen's mother died 11 years ago, but she still cares for her 97-year-old father. To facilitate her caregiving, she's turned down higher-paying work in favor of lower-paying jobs that offered her the flexibility she needed. To pay the bills, she's had to draw upon her savings and retirement funds.

Struggling to land work after a pause

Some people have continued to face career obstacles after scaling back their caregiving responsibilities. D. Peterson, 65, applied for jobs unsuccessfully for a year and a half after taking three years off to care for her mother.

Peterson, who lives in Georgia and asked to obscure her first name to protect her family's privacy, often switched jobs and worked as a leasing consultant, administrative assistant, and real-estate agent throughout her career. She made enough to live comfortably but called herself a "poor money manager" and said she didn't prepare well for retirement. Because of her financial situation and her mother's health, she moved in with her in 2010.

At the start of the pandemic, she quit her job where she was earning $40,000 annually to care full time for her mom, who was in her mid-80s. Once her siblings became more involved with caretaking in 2023, Peterson looked for work — only to realize that landing a role with a three-year gap and being close to retirement age would be challenging.

She wasn't familiar with the new hiring technology like online interviews, and there weren't many administrative assistant roles remotely or in her area. The available ones had hundreds of applicants. And because she switched industries during her career, she said she couldn't prove her authority in one field as easily.

Peterson landed a job at a library a month ago, which pays $11 an hour, but she injured her ankle two weeks in and said she's applying elsewhere. She doesn't foresee herself being able to retire as she relies on her $1,600 monthly Social Security checks.

"I'm trying to save as much as I can and finally put myself on a budget, but my main concern now is my mom, who's losing her memory and eyesight but doesn't want to go into assisted living," Peterson said. "It's hard to stay motivated when you feel like you don't have the skills or face age discrimination."

The labor market has been difficult for job seekers in general, including for older Americans, some of whom have taken huge pay cuts after a layoff or voluntary departure. Additionally, even though the unemployment rate is historically low, hiring rates have slipped from more than 4% a few years ago to 3.3% and 3.4% in recent months.

Rita Choula, senior director of caregiving for AARP Public Policy Institute, told BI that more companies should aim to support caregivers. This can look like offering leave for caregivers or changes to company culture to normalize caring for an older adult.

"It's great that you have vacation leave, but we really want caregivers who are under enough stress to be able to take that time for them to rest and reset," Choula said.

Only finding limited work options

Older Americans told BI that caregiving meant sacrificing career opportunities that didn't work with their schedules, often adversely affecting their finances.

"Many employed caregivers face strain in managing both caregiving and work responsibilities simultaneously," the AARP report said. "These consequences can lead to reduced job security, fewer employment opportunities, and ultimately, lower retirement savings."

In 2017, Robin, who asked to use her first name for fear of professional repercussions, sold her condo in the DC area and moved into a nearby one-bedroom apartment with her legally blind mother. She had just been laid off from her government relations job.

Robin, 62, said caring for her mother has had lasting effects on her career and earnings. To help pay the bills, Robin said she worked various retail jobs, including as a cashier at Walgreens. She said this income wasn't sufficient, and she had to deplete much of her savings and 401(k).

"During that time, I was unable to hold anything more than a part-time job," she said.

In 2022, Robin's mother died, which allowed her to pursue full-time government relations roles. But, despite her roughly 20 years of industry experience, she said she struggled to land a job.

"Employers just see the gap on your résumé, and they don't realize that your time was spent productively, but in a very different way," she said.

In September 2022, Robin enrolled in the Senior Community Service Enrollment program, which helps unemployed older people find work. She said the program helped her land a part-time data analytics role with the National Council on Aging — which she started in October 2023 — and that she's interviewing for a full-time position with the organization.

"I'm really hoping the job comes through," she said, adding, "I definitely have to recover my finances."

• Americans haven't seen this big of a monthly increase in egg prices in 10 years.
• The 15.2% jump brought egg prices to a record high in January.
• Gas and housing were two other pain points in January's 3% year-over-year increase in inflation.

The last time egg prices spiked this much in one month, Taylor Swift and Kendrick Lamar's "Bad Blood" dominated the airwaves.

Egg prices rose by 15.2% from December to January, the biggest month-over-month increase since June 2015. The average price of a dozen Grade A large eggs hit an all-time high of $4.95.

Egg prices contributed to overall inflation rising to 3% year over year in January and were a major driver of a jump in grocery prices. Eggs weren't the only category with a price spike — the Bureau of Labor Statistics said rising housing costs were responsible for almost a third of total inflation last month, and gas and energy prices crept up as well.

Still, a worsening bird flu crisis continues to hit shoppers in the egg aisle.

"The H5N1 bird flu sweeping through the U.S. agriculture industry is forcing farmers to cull infected birds and sending egg prices soaring, a big supply-side shock to food prices," Bill Adams, the chief economist for Comerica Bank, said in a statement.

To prevent hoarding, some grocery stores are cracking down on how many eggs a shopper can purchase at once. A Trader Joe's spokesperson recently told Business Insider that its limit was one carton per customer per day.

"We hope these limits will help to ensure that as many of our customers who need eggs are able to purchase them when they visit Trader Joe's," the spokesperson said.

Restaurants are also struggling with high prices. Waffle House recently added a temporary surcharge for egg orders.

"The continuing egg shortage caused by HPAI (bird flu) has caused a dramatic increase in egg prices," Waffle House told CNN. "Customers and restaurants are being forced to make difficult decisions."

Fresh whole milk and white bread are also more expensive than they were before the pandemic. The average price of coffee is higher than it was just a few years ago, too.

In a statement to BI, Mark Hamrick, Bankrate's senior economic analyst, described coffee and eggs as outliers that "can aggravate many consumers who sometimes mistakenly see the anecdotal cases of inflation as an indication of general inflation." He added that that's not always true.

"There are specific reasons why eggs and coffee have been moving up on their own, issues that are not easily resolved," Hamrick said.

• New CPI data showed inflation heated up at the start of the year.
• CPI increased 3% in January from a year ago, higher than the 2.9% forecast.
• On Tuesday, Fed chair Jerome Powell said that the economy is strong and the US isn't in a recession.

In January, inflation unexpectedly accelerated.

The consumer price index rose 3% from a year ago, data published Wednesday showed. That's above December's rate and the consensus expectation, both of which were 2.9%.

The CPI increased 0.5% over the month in January from December, above the forecast of 0.3% and recent month-over-month increases.

Core CPI, which excludes volatile food and energy prices, increased 3.3% in January from a year ago, above the forecast of 3.1%. It also rose 0.4% over the month, greater than the forecast of 0.3%.

Egg prices soared 15.2% in January from just a month prior and 53% year over year.

Rising rents and home prices continue to be stubborn problems. Shelter prices were up 0.4% over the month — a tick up from the previous month's 0.3% increase — and 4.4% over the year. BLS noted that the increase in housing prices accounted for "nearly 30 percent of the monthly all items increase."

Energy prices were up 1.1% over the month, largely powered by a 1.8% increase in gas prices.

The new data means inflation has heated up for four straight months.

"We want to see inflation move down, not up," Mark Hamrick, Bankrate's senior economic analyst, said in a statement to Business Insider before the new data was published.

Fed chair Jerome Powell said Tuesday in his regular semiannual testimony before the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs that the economy is strong and the US isn't in a recession.

"Labor market conditions have cooled from their formerly overheated state and remain solid," Powell said. "Inflation has moved much closer to our 2% longer-run goal, though it remains somewhat elevated."

CME FedWatch showed after the report a 97.5% chance of a hold in interest rates at the next scheduled Federal Open Market Committee meeting in March, up from 95.5% before the report. The FOMC held rates steady at its first scheduled 2025 meeting in January.

US 10-year treasury yields were up after the report, and stock futures slid.

The jobs report on Friday showed cooler job growth in January than expected, but unemployment cooled from 4.1% in December to 4%, and wage growth held steady.

"We're seeing economic activity staying healthy, and as a result of that, it takes a little bit of the urgency off of the Federal Reserve," Cory Stahle, an economist at the Indeed Hiring Lab, said after the jobs report was published on Friday.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

• Recent MBA graduates are having a harder time finding jobs than a couple of years ago.
• A white-collar hiring slowdown has impacted MBA graduates at schools like Harvard, Yale, and Stanford.
• We asked economists whether the hiring landscape could improve in the years to come.

The white-collar job market has gotten so competitive, that even MBA graduates — once thought of as having a leg up in hiring — are struggling to land jobs. Their troubles could stick around for a while.

Since July, Joshua has worked at Starbucks while he looks for a marketing job. In the fall of 2023, his contract position at PlayStation was cut and, despite working with a recruiting agency, he still hasn't landed a job in his chosen industry.

"I'm an MBA graduate in his 30s, living paycheck to paycheck, watching what feels like the rest of my colleagues and classmates move forward with their lives," said Joshua, who earned his business degree from Santa Clara University in 2021. His last name is known to BI but is being withheld due to fear of professional repercussions.

Job acceptance rates at some of the top business schools have declined in recent years. Much of it likely has to do with a slowdown in white-collar hiring overall, but other evidence suggests companies are hiring fewer MBAs. After all, they may require a higher salary than their peers at a time when companies are pivoting to invest in technology that promises to do the job cheaper than any human — no matter their degree level.

MBA graduates' job-acceptance rates are down in a slowing job market

Business Insider looked at the job acceptance rates three months post-graduation at the top 15 business schools from US News and World Report's 2024 ranking — and focused on the nine MBA programs with publicly available data going back eight years and Harvard, with data going back six years.

At eight of the 10 schools, the class of 2024's job acceptance rate was the lowest.

Economists told BI that elevated interest rates and companies' investments in artificial intelligence are among the factors that have led to slower hiring for MBA graduates.

Gracy Sarkissian, associate dean of Columbia University's career management center, said that while the three-month post-graduation job acceptance rate for the school's MBA graduates fell in 2023, employment reached pre-pandemic levels by the end of the year.

Dartmouth, Yale, Stanford, MIT, Dartmouth, the University of Michigan, the University of Pennsylvania, and the University of Virginia didn't respond to requests for comment. Duke and Harvard declined to comment.

The usual suspects for MBA hiring — consulting firms and Big Tech — are hiring fewer of them, the Wall Street Journal reported in January.

It's all part of an overall hiring slowdown. US businesses are hiring at nearly the lowest rate since 2013, per Bureau of Labor Statistics data.

While the overall US unemployment rate remains low compared to historical levels, many people who need a job are dealing with a considerably tougher market than a few years ago.

Are you an MBA graduate looking for a job? Are you comfortable sharing your story with a reporter? Please fill out this form.

Higher interest rates and economic uncertainty have slowed hiring for white-collar roles

Elevated interest rates have contributed to slower hiring in industries such as finance, tech, and consulting — sectors that attract many MBA grads, Kory Kantenga, head of economics, Americas at LinkedIn, told BI. Instead, healthcare, government, and hospitality have been dominating hiring since 2023.

In addition to higher interest rates, uncertainty about Trump administration policies and the impacts of AI have led some businesses to be more cautious about expanding their workforces, said Audrey Guo, an assistant professor of economics at Santa Clara University. She added tech companies that hired workers in droves during the pandemic — only to lay off many workers in recent years — may be looking to avoid this cycle in the current climate.

Allison Shrivastava, an economist with the Indeed Hiring Lab, said some companies could be slowing hiring because they're waiting to see if the economy can stick a "soft landing" — in which inflation comes down, the unemployment rate doesn't spike, and a recession is avoided. She said job openings for finance and tech roles on Indeed have fallen considerably from their peaks in 2022, to below levels seen in February 2020.

"If I were looking for a job in banking and finance or software development, I would expect it to definitely take longer than it did in 2022," Shrivastava said.

Finding work can be challenging even in sectors with more job openings. This includes management roles, where openings listed on Indeed are roughly 9% higher than they were in February 2020.

Dan Trujillo is trying to find one of those management roles. He was laid off in January from his role as a director of customer experience at a manufacturing company. He earned his Executive MBA from the University of Colorado a year earlier and said he struggled to land his previous job. "I applied to somewhere between 25 and 30 positions without ever hearing anything back other than a rejection email," said Trujillo, who's in his mid-40s and based in the Denver area.

Guo said some employers could be slowing hiring as they monitor the potential of AI tools in the workplace. Additionally, some companies' significant investments in AI could also be leaving them with less money to put toward hiring workers.

"I think the roles where we're seeing the biggest declines in demand now tend to be the ones that have really high returns to using AI," said Lisa Simon, chief economist at the workforce analytics company Revelio Labs. She cited software engineers and data analysts as two examples.

Rate cuts and an uptick in retirements could help job seekers

Looking ahead, Kantenga said that future Federal Reserve interest rate cuts could help improve labor market conditions for MBA graduates. CME FedWatch, which projects interest-rate changes based on market activity, forecasts a nearly 84% chance rates will be lower by the end of the year. However, Kantenga said uncertainties tied to the Trump administration could lead some employers to slow hiring until they have a clearer sense of what policies will be implemented.

Additionally, some changes to the current labor market could work in the favor of MBA graduates. Satyam Panday, chief US and Canada economist at S&P Global Ratings, said that an uptick in baby boomer retirements in the coming years could create a gap in the workforce that AI likely won't be able to fill — which could make it easier for some MBA graduates to find work. While some companies may be able to get by with fewer workers, Guo said they'll still need to invest in their leaders of the future.

"Companies will need to think about how to still preserve a pipeline of new workers so that, eventually, when the senior people retire or need to be replaced, there still is some pipeline of people with that experience," she said.

• The White House announced 25% tariffs on all steel and aluminum imports.
• The US is the world's top steel importer, sourcing mainly from Canada, Mexico, and Brazil.
• Higher tariffs may increase US inflation, affecting industries reliant on these metals.

President Donald Trump on Monday ordered 25% tariffs on all steel and aluminum imports, escalating his trade moves against some of the nation's closest allies.

Trump told reporters on Monday that he would announce "reciprocal tariffs," likely on Tuesday or Wednesday, on countries that have placed tariffs on US goods.

"If they are charging us 130% and we're charging them nothing, it's not going to stay that way," Trump said.

Steel and aluminum were among the first products that Trump targeted during his first term. He imposed tariffs of 25% on steel and 10% on aluminum but later granted some duty-free exemptions for trade partners, including Canada, Mexico, and Brazil.

This time, Trump said he is giving "great consideration" to an exemption for Australia — a country with which the US has a trade surplus.

"We have a surplus with Australia. One of the few. And the reason is they buy a lot of airplanes. They're rather far away and they need lots of airplanes," Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Monday.

Since companies tend to pass the higher price of tariffs on to their customers, the move could boost prices of construction, cars, and travel.

The US is the world's top importer of steel, which is used in a wide range of industries, from construction to automobile manufacturing.

Canada, Mexico, and Brazil were the US' largest steel and iron suppliers last year by dollar value, Census Bureau data showed.

Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, said in a Tuesday statement that tariffs hurt businesses and consumers.

"I deeply regret the US decision to impose tariffs on European steel and aluminum exports," she said. "Unjustified tariffs on the EU will not go unanswered — they will trigger firm and proportionate countermeasures."

Canada and Mexico were also among the top countries for aluminum and bauxite imports. The United Arab Emirates ranked No. 2, based on 2024 Census Bureau data by dollar value. Aluminum is used for aircraft construction, consumer products like cans, and construction, among other industries.

Shortly after taking office, Trump imposed a 25% tariff on most goods from Canada and Mexico. He later announced that those tariffs would be delayed 30 days after he reached a deal with both countries to strengthen border security.

Trump also placed a 10% tariff on imports from China, and China quickly announced retaliatory tariffs on coal, crude oil, agricultural machinery, and some vehicles. The tariffs announced Monday come in addition to the 10% tariffs on other goods, Bloomberg reported.

Charles Johnson, the president of the US Aluminum Association, said in a February 1 statement: "To ensure that American aluminum wins the future, President Trump should exempt the aluminum metal supply needed for American manufacturers, while continuing to take every possible action at the US border against unfairly traded Chinese aluminum."

Steel inflation may damp demand

There are fears that higher US tariffs on imports from key trade partners could drive up inflation in the US — at least in the short term.

"Constructing and ramping up new smelters/mills can take three or more years," Morgan Stanley analysts Carlos De Alba and Justin Ferrer said in a January 29 report. "Hence, any import tariffs applied to metals or mined products are likely to result in higher domestic prices for local buyers of these materials."

However, high steel prices could weigh on demand that has already been sluggish from the second half of 2024 due to US election uncertainty and seasonality, wrote analysts from the research firm CreditSights in a Tuesday note.

Meanwhile, it's unclear how Pittsburgh-based aluminum company Alcoa would restart capacity after scaling back in the US for years, they wrote.

But Trump's tariffs are politically strategic, the analysts wrote. The levies also curb transshipment through Canada and Mexico.

"The steel industry seems to becoming quasi-government-owned," wrote analysts from research firm CreditSights in a Tuesday note, citing the tariffs and the US blocking Nippon Steel from acquiring US Steel.

• Trump plans to impose a 25% tariff on steel and aluminum on Monday.
• Canada, Mexico, and Brazil are key US steel suppliers; Canada, the UAE, and Mexico lead in aluminum.
• These tariffs would likely lead to higher consumer prices on cars, homebuilding, and household goods.

President Donald Trump is planning to double down on his tariff agenda with a 25% levy on all steel and aluminum imports — a move that would likely make building construction and car assembly more expensive.

"Any steel coming into the United States is going to have a 25% tariff," Trump told reporters on Sunday, adding the blanket tariff would also apply to aluminum. He said he would formally announce the tariffs on Monday but has yet to clarify when the measures would be imposed.

Census Bureau data showed Canada, Mexico, and Brazil were the main suppliers of steel and iron imports to the US in 2024 by dollar value. Iron can be used to produce steel.

In 2024, Canada, the United Arab Emirates, and Mexico were the main countries behind US imports of aluminum and bauxite — a material used to create aluminum — by dollar value.

One of Trump's main goals early in his second term has been limiting foreign trade with an eye toward bolstering domestic industries. Many economists have said the brunt of tariffs could fall on American consumers.

If the steel and aluminum tariff plan is implemented, Americans can expect various consumer goods, like pipes and cooking utensils, to become more expensive because of lower supply, higher demand, and steeper import costs. The travel and construction industries are also likely to be affected.

Aluminum is primarily used to manufacture automobiles, airplanes, kitchen appliances, cans, and electrical transmission lines, per the US Geological Survey. Steel is also used in automobile production, as well as in the construction of bridges, buildings, and homes.

The metals tariff proposal comes days after a set of new 10% tariffs were implemented on China, which quickly retaliated with a 15% tariff on coal and liquefied natural gas and a 10% tariff on crude oil, agricultural machinery, and some vehicles. Additionally, the White House delayed a 25% tariff on Canada and Mexico after Trump made a deal with the nations' leaders on border-protection measures.

Trump's plan for metal tariffs also follows other big news in the steel industry. Japan's Nippon Steel announced on Friday that it would drop its nearly $15 billion acquisition bid for US Steel, ending a yearslong battle over American steel production. Nippon Steel said it would instead "invest heavily" in US Steel.

The president's new focus on metals tariffs shouldn't come as a surprise. During his first term in office, he imposed a 25% tariff on steel and a 10% tariff on aluminum. He later granted some duty-free exemptions to top trade partners such as Canada, Mexico, and Brazil. It's not clear whether he will do the same this time around.

The Trump administration did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

• A growing number of Americans have been told to return to the office full time.
• If you're not used to the daily commute or have never worked in person, you can prepare.
• You can test out commuting options and ask questions to someone who has more in-office experience.

So you've been told to return to the office full-time.

Maybe you're looking forward to the in-person interaction. Or perhaps you're worried about the commute, aren't sure about the dress code, or want to know if the policy is flexible.

John Morgan, president of Career Transition & Mobility and Leadership Development at LHH, told Business Insider that being in the office can be important for people starting out their careers because it can help with onboarding, creating connections, and understanding the workplace's mission.

Nicholas Bloom, a Stanford University professor and an economist, said being in the office can be helpful for innovation and mentoring opportunities, but many people like working from home because it gives them quiet time to focus.

Whatever your views on the policy, Business Insider spoke to experts to learn the biggest challenges of RTO and the immediate steps you can take to feel more prepared.

Plan out your commute and in-office schedule

If you're feeling hesitant about going back full time, Amanda Augustine, career expert for TopResume, suggested talking to your manager about whether you can gradually build up from one day a week to five days. She also suggested trying out commuting options to identify what works best for you.

"You may find you're a lot less miserable if you get to ride a train or take a bus or take some sort of mass transportation where you could take a nap or listen to a podcast or read a book or zone out or put your makeup on, whatever it might be so that you kind of have your own time and you don't have to worry about being on the road," Augustine said.

Brian Elliott, author of "How the Future Works" and CEO of Work Forward, said to discuss with your team which meetings everyone is required to attend.

"If you can at least adjust the commute times, that can be really beneficial," Elliott said. "Meaning, if I don't have to commute during rush hour both directions, my commute may cut from being an hour to an hour and a half to being half an hour long, and that's a huge benefit."

Kyle M.K., Indeed's talent strategy advisor, said to find out what resources are available, including commuter benefits at your workplace.

Ask about appropriate office attire

An Indeed survey about returning to the office, conducted by The Harris Poll from January 30 to February 3, found that 28% of remote or hybrid workers said the need to buy clothes would be a large barrier to fully returning to the office.

Your casual working-from-home clothes might not be appropriate in the office.

Augustine said it's OK to ask what you are expected to wear when working from the office.

"In some companies, jeans are fine, and in other companies, khakis and a blazer are as underdressed as you're going to get," she said.

Talk to your boss and coworkers about expectations

You should get clarity about the exact expectations for time in the office and your responsibilities.

Elliott suggested asking, "Hey, what results am I expected to achieve? And as long as I'm achieving those, can I have some degree of flexibility back in return for continuing to perform on a very high level?"

Some people, such as those who graduated from college during the pandemic, have only ever worked remotely. Augustine's advice for them is to seek out someone respected at their company who has had more in-office experience. She said you can ask this person what the typical attire was like before employees worked remotely, suggestions on concentrating while working from the office, and rules for decorating office space.

"The questions you ask this individual can really run the gamut, but the idea is to leverage their experience so your transition back to the office goes smoothly," she said.

She added you should also talk to your manager about the office, including how they prefer to communicate while working in person — over a messaging platform or face to face.

What to do if you don't want to return to the office

If you're frustrated by the new work policy but don't want to leave your job, Augustine said try viewing this as an opportunity.

"If you really love what you're doing and you don't want to leave, but you're upset about this, and it's pretty hard that there's not going to be any flexibility, then you're going to have to bite the bullet," Augustine said. "You're going to have to accept it."

If you still want to leave, be prepared for a competitive remote job market. Recent Indeed data showed a lower share of job postings advertising remote or hybrid options recently compared to 2022.

Elliott said job seekers are more marketable when they're holding a job.

Plus, there may be less enforcement of the mandate over time. "If it were me I would comply initially to see if the new mandate is going to be enforced," Bloom said in an email. "Often the enforcement is initially high but wanes over time. It also provides some time to actively search for another job."

Augustine suggested waiting to quit until you're financially secure unless the job damages your health. She said in the meantime to take inventory of your skills and strengths while considering your non-negotiables for your next job.

While many US workers are returning to an office after being remote for the past few years, Kyle M.K. of Indeed thinks this return-to-office trend will be short-lived, and employers will give employees some flexibility again.

"I think eventually employers are going to recognize that the well-being of their employees is far more important than any other assumption that they might have about what it takes to have a great workforce, and listening to their employees is probably going to be their best strategy moving forward," he said.

• The US economy added 143,000 jobs in January, missing the forecast of 169,000.
• Unemployment unexpectedly fell from 4.1% in December to 4%.
• The new jobs report included revisions to past job growth figures.

The US had disappointing job growth in January but a welcome drop in unemployment.

The economy added 143,000 jobs, below the forecast of 169,000. However, unemployment was expected to be 4.1% again but declined to 4%.

"Job gains occurred in health care, retail trade, and social assistance," a Bureau of Labor Statistics news release said on Friday. "Employment declined in the mining, quarrying, and oil and gas extraction industry."

Julia Pollak, chief economist at ZipRecruiter, described the labor market as tight and job growth as uneven.

She pointed out that goods-producing industries added no net jobs overall. Employment dropped by 7,000 in mining and logging but increased by 3,000 in manufacturing and 4,000 in construction.

"It is really struggling under the weight of high interest rates," Pollak said. "That pesky 10-year yield is killing investment in production."

December's job growth was revised from 256,000 to 307,000. November's gain was also revised, from 212,000 to 261,000.

It is typical for the monthly jobs report to include revisions for the previous two months of data.

The new jobs report brings in the BLS' annual revisions to previous job creation figures based on updated data from businesses. That includes revisions for 2024 and other recent years.

A majority of months in 2024 saw smaller job gains than previously reported.

The labor force participation rate ticked up from 62.5% to 62.6%. The employment-population ratio also ticked up from 60% to 60.1%.

Year-over-year wage growth was steady. Average earnings increased from $34.47 an hour in January 2024 to $35.87 an hour this past January. That's a 4.1% increase, same as December's increase.

Cory Stahle, an economist at the Indeed Hiring Lab, told Business Insider that job seeking can be tough depending on someone's industry.

"The labor market is solid, but for workers who are in a field like tech or marketing or some of these other areas where hiring has been lower, it maybe isn't going to feel like that," Stahle said.

He added that's not the same case for healthcare workers and people landing state and local government jobs. Healthcare in particular has had robust monthly job growth compared to other major areas of the job market.

Noah Yosif, chief economist at the American Staffing Association, said earlier this week that "labor market momentum in 2025 will depend on two key trends — lower labor costs for employers and higher confidence among employees."

Yosif added that "labor costs remain much too high for employers, and this week's quits numbers show that employees are still not confident in their prospects of finding a new position." Quits have been fairly steady and low compared to the Great Resignation, data up to December showed.

The next Federal Open Market Committee meeting, at which members will decide what to do with interest rates, is scheduled for mid-March. After the new jobs report, CME FedWatch showed a 91.5% chance of a hold in March, slightly up from the 85.5% chance earlier Friday morning. More economic data will be published before the meeting.

"With our policy stance significantly less restrictive than it had been, and the economy remaining strong, we do not need to be in a hurry to adjust our policy stance," Fed chair Jerome Powell said after the January FOMC meeting.

Markets were largely unaffected after the report. Stock futures barely moved, and bond yields ticked slightly up, suggesting that investors don't see the report as having too much of an impact on the Fed's plans for the rest of the year.

• The Bureau of Labor Statistics revises employment estimates annually with new data.
• This year's revisions could show much lower job growth in 2024 than previously reported.
• It's part of the BLS making employment estimates more accurate.

Friday's job numbers may not be what you expect.

The report is likely to show slower job growth from last year due to a regular update to the government's data — likely among the biggest payroll adjustments in years. But, if the numbers come as a surprise, they shouldn't raise alarm bells.

TL;DR: In the January jobs report, the Bureau of Labor Statistics revises the previous year's jobs figures with more complete numbers. This year, revisions are expected to show a double whammy of fewer jobs than previously measured and a larger overall population due to updates in Census Bureau numbers. It could all look like a weaker 2024 job market than previously measured.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics undertakes its benchmark revisions each year in the January employment report. The government recalibrates its basic estimates of job growth over the previous few years based on more complete data reported from businesses. This year's revisions are expected to show smaller job gains in 2024 than were previously reported.

The BLS has already provided an idea of how its new calibration will impact payroll data. A report released by the BLS in August showed that there were around 800,000 fewer jobs across the US economy in March 2024 than previously reported, a larger-than-usual decline relative to the earlier figure.

The headline monthly job growth numbers are based on a monthly survey of business establishments across the US. Any such survey measure represents an approximation of the underlying reality. The annual revisions recalibrate those surveys to more detailed but less timely measures of the full workforce based on administrative data like unemployment insurance records.

It's a bit like searching around for something in a dark room, versus turning on a light. While the initial jobs report gives the best and most timely estimate for employment across the world's biggest economy based on a relatively small sample of businesses, the revisions reflect additional and more complete information that takes a longer time to gather.

While these revisions happen every year, they've recently been relatively small. The below chart shows BLS payroll growth revisions for 2022 as reported in February 2023 and for 2023 as reported in February 2024. The revisions showed most months had larger job gains than reported earlier.

The household survey, which makes up the other half of the monthly jobs report, is also set to receive a major update.

That survey — which gathers information on Americans' socioeconomic health and provides the headline unemployment rate — will also be adjusted based on the Census Bureau's latest population estimates.

Updated Census estimates will likely result in a dramatic apparent uptick in population and employment after the Census Bureau improved how it measures immigration to the US, leading to a larger-than-usual adjustment to the underlying count of how many people live in the country. An apparent increase in employment between December and January would have more to do with those changes in the way the Census calculates population, not any real spike in the workforce. This also makes it difficult to compare household survey data accurately over time.

The likely upward jump in employment from the household survey and downward revision to payroll figures from the business survey could actually bring the two more in line with each other. For much of 2024, the business-derived employment figures suggested a rosier view of the labor market than those from the survey of workers. Combining the revisions together, we're likely to get a more coherent picture of a cooling but still decent job market.

Still, any substantial jumps in job numbers are likely a result of normal, regularly scheduled data recalibrations instead of unexpected economic conditions. Over time, recalibrations allow the Census and BLS to more accurately represent changes in America's workforce.