NPR.

Robert, you look beach ready today.

I got my hat, umbrella, sunscreen, triple protection, and a little sand-colored beach reading.

The beige book. What is more perfect for the beach than an obscure government document about current economic conditions?

I hope it's not too depressing. In celebration of summer, I am only reading the parts that aren't all doom and gloom.

So it's a brief read. Oh, excellent. Well, we can honor the more unexpected and obscure parts of the book this time.

Take it away. It's the Magi Awards. Our eight times a year salute to the art and science of telling stories about the economy.

I'm Robert Smith.

And I'm Waylon Wong.

And this time, we are going to use the beige book to transport us to a magical place where the tariffs can't touch us.

The port of Baltimore.

Just one warning before we leave, don't wear your pajamas. That will make

way more sense after the break. Always good to remind everyone how this award show works. There are

12 regional banks in the Federal Reserve System. Each one studies their local economy and brings back stories of what they see.

They publish them in a document known as the Beige Book, and we give awards to the best stories.

Our runner-up award goes to the Minneapolis Fed, and they notice something pretty funny about the job market.

Now, we all know that a few years ago, there were tons of jobs and businesses were

desperate. Back then, people were getting hired without fixing up their resumes, or even

dressing up for job interviews. Yeah, their resumes were in comic sands, and no one cared, but that

has changed. These days, the job market is tighter, and you got to clean up if you want to get

hired. And so the Minneapolis

Fed wrote this in the beige book about the new reality at job fairs. A Wisconsin contact reported

...