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1.1 million
Companies said they laid off 153,074 employees last month, the most since 2003, according to a report the consulting firm Challenger, Gray and Christmas published yesterday. That’s nearly triple the number of jobs cut in September, and it puts the total for the year through October at almost 1.1 million jobs lost—44% more than in all of 2024. Most of October’s redundancies came from just two industries. Warehouses were the biggest job cutters last month with 48,000 layoffs, followed by 33,000 in tech. Amazon, UPS, Paramount, and Target were just some corporate names that announced layoffs last month.
$279 billion
“Most of the publicly identified donors to President Donald Trump’s White House ballroom have high-stakes business before the administration, ranging from billions in government contracts to federal investigations into their companies,” the Washington Post reports. “More than half of the companies that donated are facing or have recently faced federal enforcement actions tied to alleged wrongdoing that includes engaging in unfair labor practices, deceiving consumers and harming the environment.”
18
“President Donald Trump littered his new ’60 Minutes’ interview with a wide-ranging assortment of false claims, the vast majority of them previously debunked,” CNN reports. “We counted at least 18 inaccurate assertions.”
~42 million
“Millions of low-income Americans are losing access to food aid as the nation’s largest anti-hunger program goes dark for the first time,” Politico reports. “Congress failed to reopen the government before funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program ran out Saturday. A federal judge, in an eleventh-hour decision, directed the Trump administration to use emergency funds to pay for food aid in November — but even that wasn’t enough to prevent the immediate lapse of benefits, which officials say could take weeks to resume.”
$14 billion
“The U.S. economy will lose between $7 billion and $14 billion due to the federal government shutdown, according to a new report released by Congress’s nonpartisan bookkeeper,” the Washington Post reports.
-18
The Economist finds President Trump’s net approval rating is -18 (39% approve, 57% disapprove) — the lowest it has been since his inauguration and three percentage-points lower than at any point in his first term.
50% to 41%
A new Quinnipiac poll finds Democrats leading the generic congressional ballot by nine points, 50% to 41%.
56%
A new Public Religion Research Institute poll asked people if Donald Trump is a “potentially dangerous dictator whose power should be limited before he destroys democracy” or if he’s a “strong leader who should be given the power he needs to restore America’s greatness.” Americans chose the “dictator” option by a strong margin, 56% to 41%.
15%
A new Gallup poll finds just 15% of Americans approve of the job Congress is doing. And in what may be an ominous sign for Republicans, the share of GOP voters who view Congress favorably dropped 21 points to just 33% in the poll conducted just after the shutdown began — a stark shift from a high of 63% earlier this year, after Republicans gained control of both chambers.
62%
A new PRRI poll finds 62% of Americans believe the U.S. is headed in the wrong direction, fueled by dissatisfaction with President Trump’s impact on the economy, immigration, race relations and the nation’s global standing. Even among Republicans, a significant share — nearly 30% — gave Trump low marks on the economy and how the government is functioning. A new AP-NORC poll found 69% of Americans thought the nation was headed in the wrong direction and 30% in the right direction.
