Well, this is an unusual first Friday because we don't have a jobs report, but we do know that in

October, U.S. companies announced more job cuts in a single month than they have over any single

month of the last 20 years. In other words, October was peak job cut month. By contrast, private

payrolls, as reported by ADP, rose by 42,000 in October, so we have a little bit of

conflicting data. Some pessimistic, some optimistic. We're going to take a deeper look at that in

today's episode. We also have a new Fed rate cut, some mixed signals in the housing market, and

good news about prescription drug prices. We're going to cover all of that in today's

first Friday economic update. Welcome to the Afford Anything podcast, the show that knows

you can afford anything, not everything. This show covers five pillars, financial psychology,

increasing your income, investing, real estate, and entrepreneurship. It's double-eye fire.

I'm your host, Paula Pant. I have a

master's in economic reporting from Columbia. Typically, on our Tuesday episodes, we normally

answer questions that come from you, and on our Friday episodes, we normally interview guests.

But there's one exception, and that exception is the first Friday of every month. That's when we host a special first Friday macro economic update,

taking a wide lens look at the economy around us.

So welcome to the November 2025, first Friday economic update.

We'll start with a look at jobs, because if you want to understand what's happening in the

economy, don't look at the stock market, look at the bond market, and look at jobs. And this

month is unusual because typically the Bureau of Labor Statistics puts out its jobs report on the

first Friday of every month, which is why we host these episodes on this day, but we don't have that this month.

Instead, what we do have is a report from a private payroll processor called ADP.

They independently measure the jobs market through weekly payroll data from more than 26

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