First Friday: Why Americans Are More Pessimistic Than Ever

Afford Anything

Paula Pant | Cumulus Podcast Network

Entrepreneurship, Business, Investing

4.6 • 3.4K Ratings

🗓️ 4 July 2025

⏱️ 39 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

#622: #622: The headlines said America added 147,000 jobs in June. The reality? Private companies actually cut 33,000 positions. Grad students just lost access to unlimited borrowing. Parent PLUS loans now cap at $65,000. And tariffs are about to jump as high as 70 percent. Everything is changing at once — taxes, tariffs, student loans, and immigration policy. And data from the University of Michigan says that consumers feel more pessimistic than they did six months ago. Welcome to the 4th of July First Friday episode. On America's 249th birthday, we unpack these economic stories. Timestamps: Note: Timestamps will vary on individual listening devices based on dynamic advertising run times. The provided timestamps are approximate and may be several minutes off due to changing ad lengths. (0:00) Introduction (1:19) Historical trivia about the Declaration of Independence (2:28) Three presidents died on July 4th — statistical improbability explained (4:24) Trump signs domestic policy bill extending 2017 tax cuts (6:13) Student loan changes — borrowing caps and repayment plan eliminations (8:53) Tariff pause expires July 9th, new rates announced (12:00) Original tariff rates and Lesotho example breakdown (16:26) June jobs report headlines versus private sector reality (22:54) ADP reports private job losses while government hiring grows (26:46) Consumer confidence drops 18 percent since December (30:59) Inflation expectations versus actual 2.4 percent rate (34:19) Fed takes wait-and-see approach amid policy uncertainty (36:58) Labor market stagnation mirrors Federal Reserve strategy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Happy 1st Friday, 4th of July Independence Day.
0:04.4	This is the day when the founding fathers officially announced through the Declaration of Independence
0:09.5	that the 13 colonies were breaking free from the authority of the British crown.
0:15.1	Happy Birthday America.
0:17.2	And First Friday is, of course, the one day of the month when this podcast takes a departure
0:23.2	from our regular programming to share a monthly macroeconomic update.
0:28.3	And this year, they've joined forces.
0:31.1	So welcome to the 4th of July, First Friday, on the Afford Anything podcast.
0:36.6	This is the show that knows you can afford
0:38.9	anything, but not everything. The show covers five pillars, financial psychology, increasing
0:43.4	your income, investing real estate and entrepreneurship. And as I mentioned, once a month on
0:48.1	the first Friday of the month, we pause our typically Evergreen programming to share a snapshot about what's happening in the
0:56.2	economy in the markets over the span of the last month. And so welcome to the 4th of July 1st
1:01.8	Friday. It's a big day. President Trump is expected to sign his new domestic policy bill
1:07.2	into law this afternoon. We'll unpack what's inside of that later in the show.
1:13.2	Tariffs are going to go back into place starting July 9th. The 90-day pause on tariffs, which was
1:19.3	implemented in April, is set to expire five days from now on the 9th of July. We're going to talk
1:24.2	more about that. The jobs report is incredibly nuanced and I want to unpack
1:28.2	beyond the headlines to see what's really going on in our jobs market. We're going to talk
1:32.4	about housing. We're going to talk interest rates. We're going to talk about the strength of the
1:35.9	U.S. dollar. But before we get to all of that, I want to share some Fourth of July trivia.
1:41.0	Let's start with a quick history lesson. What was happening around this time 249 years ago?
	...

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