| Today was Jobs Day, which is weird, because it’s not the first Friday of the month. It’s the first Thursday of the month, but since tomorrow is a federal holiday — happy 249th birthday, Uncle Sam! — we got the data a day early. Jonathan Levin — and nearly every other Fed-watcher on the planet — was pleasantly surprised by June’s unemployment rate of 4.1%, a number that he says is “just about as good as it gets.” But if that’s the case, then why do the vibes feel so … off? We already heard about deep layoffs at Microsoft and signs of weakness with private payrolls this week, yet the economy apparently added 147,000 jobs in June. What’s the disconnect? For one, Jonathan says the unemployment rate step-down seemed to partly stem from a cohort he calls “discouraged” workers — people who want a job but have given up hope of finding one. “All in all, this looks like a labor market that’s stuck, lacking the churn and growth opportunities that we expect from the US economy,” he writes. “It’s not collapsing, and that’s wonderful news given the many uncertainties around, but it feels extraordinarily frustrating to some.” Young people are having a particularly hard go of it. Interestingly, Allison Schrager says their some of their dissatisfaction has led to the rise of more populist politicians: “Many children of middle- and upper middle-class households went to college expecting to have a career that brought wealth and status. But there are a limited number of ‘elite’ jobs. The result is a surplus of aspiring elites who end up resentful and blame a system they deem unfair.” Yet Beth Kowitt says even the elite-elite — people who are lucky enough to have cushy boardroom gigs that pay around $300K a year — are falling out of love with the job. In the words of British politician Robert Boothby, such roles used to be “total heaven, like having a permanent hot bath.” Yet “today it’s more like a cold shower,” says Beth. “Board work has never been so demanding and time-consuming, in part because there’s always a crisis on the horizon.” Activist sharks. DEI purges. ESG backlash. AI threats. Wartime worries. These are the things that Beth says keep board directors up at night. Tariffs very well might be on the top of their list of fears. Bloomberg’s editorial board says the trade war could blow a hole in the global economy, and Conor Sen says executives in America’s automobile heartland are spiraling. “Michigan and Ohio, which combined account for 25% of the 1 million motor vehicle and parts manufacturing jobs in America, now have some of the worst employment trends in the country,” he writes. Boosting those jobs was one of Trump’s signature policy promises, and yet the latest figures are uninspiring: It all adds up to a US labor market that may look healthy as a horse, but is actually hiding a host of strains.  Photographer: Andrew Harnik/Getty Images North America First Lady Melania Trump spent her Thursday at the Children’s National hospital in Washington, decorating rocks and chatting with patients about everything from slime to sports. She even took them on little field trip to a healing garden, where they stuck mini American flags and pinwheels into the ground. Sounds like a very wholesome visit! Yet it’s a shame that not everyone is taking pediatric care so seriously. Around 17 million Americans — many of them children — will be without health insurance under the GOP’s “Big, Beautiful Bill,” which passed with a 218-214 vote in the House this afternoon. In a sad twist, Lisa Jarvis says rural America (the very people who voted Trump into office) will be hit the hardest. “These communities tend to have fewer hospitals and providers and those that do exist often operate on razor-thin margins — especially when they are disproportionately reliant on revenue from Medicaid. Such financial challenges have prompted more than 150 hospitals to close since 2010,” she writes. More facilities could get shutter with the cuts. A dearth of hospitals means more maternity deserts, which put mothers at a 13% higher risk of a preterm birth. “Imagine, as one Colorado doctor described, a woman giving birth alongside the highway amid an 85-mile drive to the nearest birthing center.” Although Republicans have launched a $50 billion fund to help rural hospitals stay afloat, Edwin Park, a health policy researcher at Georgetown University, says that’s “a highly inadequate fig leaf.” Cl0se to $1 trillion is needed for mitigation. Then there are the kids outside of the country. Mihir Sharma says Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s decision to withdraw US funding from GAVI, a life-saving global vaccine alliance, “is both immoral and dangerous” and “may kill far more children than anything he has so far tried at home.” How many children? Mihir says the fallout might be even bigger than the USAID program cuts, which could lead to more than 14 million extra deaths globally by 2030. “If Kennedy is allowed to follow his anti-science instincts then the US will be left unhealthier, less respected and poorer — and a million children in the rest of the world will never live to see adulthood,” he concludes. | 
