How inflation can molt into heavy consumer debt. I'm David Brancaccio. President Trump and Trump

advisor Elon Musk are intensifying their program to end the jobs of federal employees. A new strategy is to let go people on the job for less than a year. People with called probationary status. Marketplaces Nova Saffo has the details.

At the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, workers who are categorized as term employees have been

sent layoff notices. That's according to Reuters. Term employees are full-time workers on a

contract. This would be a new category of worker affected on top of the expansion administered

yesterday by the White House Office of Management and Budget. The OMB issued a directive to lay off

recently hired employees on probationary status, usually those at agencies one year or less

who have not yet gained conionally enacted civil service protections.

The Department of Veterans Affairs confirmed

that it had laid off 1,000 probationary workers.

Democratic Senator Patty Murray,

a member of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee,

identified those fired as researchers

working in areas such as opioid addiction,

prosthetics, and burn pit exposure.

There were reportedly thousands of workers fired at the Forest Service, which manages the

nation's forests in response to wildfires, and thousands more at the Energy Department.

I'm Nova Software for Marketplace.

The following is not the ratio you're looking for. A third of Americans have

more credit card debt than emergency savings, according to a new poll commissioned by Bank Rate.

Now, that's actually a slight improvement over the last two years. It's seen as a sign higher

prices are stuck in household budgets in the form of debt. Here's Marketplace's Henry Epp. Bank rate has measured

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