#wage stagnation

#wage stagnation

Your $45K starting salary looked decent on paper until reality hit. The reality is that's the same $15/hour everyone was making in 2008. And it sucked then. Rent swallows half your paycheck before you even think about groceries. Student loans demand their monthly tribute like a financial overlord. And that emergency fund your parents keep mentioning? Please. This isn't an avocado toast issue. This is a laptop is required to function at work... even apply to work... issue.

US President Donald Trump's tariff policies, imposing levies as high as 50% on the United States' trading partners, have not proven compatible with his campaign promise to turn the US back into a "manufacturing powerhouse," as Friday's jobs report showed. The overall analysis was grim, with the economy adding just 22,000 jobs last month, but manufacturing employment in particular has declined since Trump made his April 2 "Liberation Day" announcement of tariffs on countries including Canada and Mexico.