“When President Trump said he would enact sweeping tariffs and crack down on immigration, dire warnings rang out in the construction industry,” the New York Times reports.

“The policies threatened to push up building costs and deprive the industry of a crucial pool of labor when high interest rates were already depressing building activity.”

“Those forces are converging on builders, weighing them down in a potential drag on the economy. Higher import taxes on steel, copper, lumber and other materials are lifting construction prices and interrupting some jobs. Immigration enforcement is worsening worker shortages and delaying projects.”

“Nearly one year since Donald Trump won the 2024 presidential election, Americans’ concerns and anxieties about high bills, inflation and the cost of living that helped propel him back to the White House now loom over the upcoming elections in New Jersey and Virginia,” ABC News reports.

“How acutely voters are grappling with those challenges — and who they hold responsible for them — could shape the outcome of the major gubernatorial races, and with them, the trajectory of both parties heading into the 2026 midterms.”

“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.”

“For President Donald Trump, it was a brief musing to reporters on Air Force One about his plans to import beef from Argentina. For dozens of farm-state Republicans who have held their tongues as key Trump policies battered their constituents, it was the final straw,” Politico reports.

“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.

“Data went dark this month. The government shutdown is halting the collection and release of statistics tracking the job market, public health and crop production, as well as other economic indicators,” Axios reports.

“The numbers are critical for understanding what’s happening in the U.S., particularly at a moment of rapid change in both government policies and in the job market.”

“Thanks to Trump’s tariff wars, China has essentially stopped buying American soybeans, dealing a significant financial blow to American farmers. China used to purchase 54 percent of the U.S. soy crop, but since the Trump administration imposed punishing tariffs on the nation, China has all but ceased buying American soy, getting their soy from Brazil instead,” Rolling Stone reports.

“Confronted with this fact by host Martha Raddatz on ABC’s This Week, Trump Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent — a former hedge fund manager who boasts a net worth of more than $500 million and who rents $25 million in farmland out to soybean farmers — tried to paint himself as the common farmer who understands American farmers’ ‘pain.’”

Said Bessent: “Well, Martha, in case you don’t know it, I’m actually a soybean farmer. So, I have felt this pain, too.”

“Consumer prices rose 3.0% in September from a year earlier, the Labor Department said Friday, hotter than August’s increase of 2.9%,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

“Economists and policymakers are paying close attention to the latest inflation report for clues on the state of the economy and the direction of interest rates. Hiring slowed to a crawl during the summer, prompting the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates in September.”

“The report is out more than a week late because a government shutdown has stopped work on economic data.”

G. Elliot Morris: “New polls from Gallup and YouGov show Democrats pulling ahead of Republicans as the party voters trust more to handle the economy. And the raw polling data in the Virginia governor’s race shows lower-income voters flocking to the Democratic candidate for governor, Abigail Spanberger, in protest of Trump’s trade and economic policies.”

The deadline for U.S. colleges and universities to sign a deal with the Trump administration — the “compact” devised by the Department of Education in exchange for priority treatment on federal grants — is today, NPR reports.

Nine schools originally received the “compact,” which would force schools to prevent transgender individuals from certain restrooms and sports, limit international student enrollment and adjust admission criteria. Six of those schools have already rejected the proposal.

“More Americans are struggling to make their monthly car-loan payments, a sign that lower-income consumers are under growing financial pressure,” the New York Times reports.

“The share of subprime auto loans that were 60 days or more past due reached a high of nearly 6.5 percent in January and has lingered near that level, according to Fitch Ratings. Repossessions have swelled, more drivers are trading in vehicles that are worth less than they owe and lenders such as CarMax and Ally Financial have warned investors about auto loan performance.”

“President Donald Trump says he beat inflation. But several conventional measures of rising prices paint a different picture,” the Washington Post reports.

“Most experts agree inflation has picked up in recent months, in part because of Trump’s tariffs. Economists expect more tariff-driven price increases in the months to come.”

Americans are growing increasingly concerned about their ability to find a good job under President Donald Trump, an Associated Press-NORC poll finds, in what is a potential warning sign for Republicans as a promised economic boom has given way to hiring freezes and elevated inflation.