Unemployment Steady -- Employers added just 177,000 jobs in April, 51,000 jobs lower than the March report, but better than forecasts had predicted. The unemployment rate of 4.2% was unchanged from March, the Labor Department reports. On APM’s Marketplace Thursday host Kai Ryssdal noted that effects of the tariffs on unemployment won’t show up until the May report next month. In Friday’s report the Labor Department singled out a decline in federal government employment against gains in health care, transportation and warehousing and social assistance. [CHART: Bureau of Labor Statistics]
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Trump Wants Big Cuts – Presidents’ budget blueprints are considered to be symbolic ‘wish lists,’ but it may take a stronger Democratic opposition to hold back more of President Trump’s priorities than of any his predecessors. The Trump budget blueprint for fiscal year 2026 calls for slashing non-defense discretionary spending by more than $160 billion, a 22.6% cut from projected fiscal year 2025, The Wall Street Journal reports. His “political priorities” would feature serious cuts to federal environmental, renewable energy, education and foreign aid programs.
And then there’s this … Trump on his Truth Social Friday morning, according to the WSJ: “We are going to be taking away Harvard’s Tax Exempt Status. It’s what they deserve!”
Not to mention public radio, TV … Trump issued an executive order overnight Thursday-Friday that would remove federal funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which funds approximately 1% of NPR (though local radio stations, especially in small, rural markets depend on the federal funding) and 15% of PBS. This has been an issue for hard-right Republicans for many decades.
“Unlike in 1967, when the CPB was established, today the media landscape is filled with abundant, diverse and innovative news options,” the EO reads.
The Trump White House also seeks to claw back about $1.1 billion in funding already approved for the CPB for two years.
Perhaps savings could pay for this … During his first term, President Trump was dazzled by a military parade he attended on the Champs-Elysees with French President Emmanual Macron on Bastille Day, July 14, 2017. Trump has yearned to duplicate the military pomp & circumstance ever since. Well, it turns out that Trump’s birthday coincides with the US Army’s 250thanniversary.
The Associated Press reports it has obtained detailed US Army plans for a “potential” military parade for June 14, 2025, when Trump turns 79. It calls for “more than 6,000 soldiers, at least 150 vehicles, 50 helicopters, seven bands and possibly a couple thousand civilians” along the National Mall in Washington, according to planning documents dated April 29 and 30 obtained by The AP.
These plans, it must be noted, have not been approved. But we will hear more over the next couple of months.
--Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa