Q1 dealmaking takes a dive

Q1 dealmaking takes a dive

Released Wednesday, 2nd April 2025
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Q1 dealmaking takes a dive

Q1 dealmaking takes a dive

Q1 dealmaking takes a dive

Q1 dealmaking takes a dive

Wednesday, 2nd April 2025
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0:00

Hello listeners, our goal at

0:02

marketplace is to raise the

0:04

economic intelligence of the country,

0:06

and that goes for teens

0:08

and young adults too. The

0:10

newest season of Financially Enclined,

0:12

hosted by Janelli Espinal, tackles

0:14

topics like how to align

0:16

your values with your money

0:18

decisions, the skill of negotiating,

0:20

and what you can get

0:22

out of internships. Financially Enclined

0:24

is presented in partnership with

0:26

Green Life, the debit card

0:28

and money app for teens.

0:30

Greenlight helps teens learn to

0:33

earn, save, spend wisely,

0:35

and invest. Tune into

0:37

financially inclined wherever you

0:39

find your podcasts. It's

0:42

Tariff Day, again. From

0:44

American Public Media, this

0:47

is Marketplace. In

0:57

Washington, D.C., I'm Kimberly Adams in

0:59

for Kaia Rizdahl. It's Wednesday, April

1:02

2nd. Good to have you along.

1:04

President Trump announced a new round

1:06

of tariffs this afternoon, what he

1:09

called discounted reciprocal tariffs, but including

1:11

tax rates ranging from 10 to

1:13

almost 50% on goods coming from

1:16

America's trading partners. The president also

1:18

highlighted the 25% tax on imported

1:20

cars and auto parts that's scheduled

1:23

to kick in just after midnight

1:25

tonight tonight. One of the president's

1:27

stated goals for all these tariffs

1:30

is to get more companies to

1:32

make more products here in the

1:34

United States. And to do that,

1:36

many would need to build new

1:38

factories and hire a whole lot

1:40

of people to work in those

1:43

factories. But are there enough workers

1:45

with the right skills to fill

1:47

all those hypothetical new manufacturing jobs?

1:49

Marketplace's Samantha Fields has more. The US

1:51

once led the world in manufacturing.

1:53

These days, China does. But Willie

1:55

She at Harvard Business School says

1:58

we still make plenty of things.

2:00

We do have a large auto

2:02

industry. We do do vehicle assembly.

2:04

So it wouldn't be hard to

2:06

make even more cars here, he

2:08

says. The workforce already exists. But

2:10

there are lots of other things

2:12

that we don't make much of

2:14

in the US. Take semiconductor chips.

2:17

Some of the most advanced packaging

2:19

in semiconductors requires things like advanced

2:21

ceramics. We lost those skills are

2:23

actually, especially for some of the

2:25

newer materials. We never developed those

2:27

skills in the first place. That's

2:29

true of other high-tech products too,

2:31

says Ben Armstrong at MIT's Industrial

2:34

Performance Center. Things like magnets, which

2:36

are really critical for batteries and

2:38

other core electronic technologies, we've really

2:40

lost the capacity to build in

2:42

the U.S. He says it's possible

2:44

to build that capacity here, either

2:46

again or from scratch. But it

2:48

takes a long time and it

2:50

takes really significant investment. Likely from

2:53

the government and from companies. To

2:55

recruit and train thousands of workers

2:57

in new kinds of manufacturing, What

2:59

they often do is they bring

3:01

people who are experts from where

3:03

they're based, often in Asia, and

3:05

they come to the US to

3:07

train this new workforce and get

3:09

them up to speed. This is

3:12

a years-long process. There is already

3:14

some infrastructure for large-scale workforce development,

3:16

says Arthur Wheaton, at Cornell's School

3:18

of Industrial and Labor Relations. We

3:20

have unions, a lot of them

3:22

have apprenticeship programs that are designed

3:24

already, and partnerships with community colleges

3:26

across the country have been very

3:29

beneficial. But he says companies will

3:31

probably wait until US policy is

3:33

clear. The tariffs would need to

3:35

be in place for an extended

3:37

period of time with some expectation

3:39

that they won't change. For companies

3:41

to feel like it's worth investing

3:43

in workforce development, and for workers

3:45

to feel like it's worth training

3:48

for those jobs. I'm Samantha Fields

3:50

for Marketplace. Wall Street today spent

3:52

most of the day waiting on

3:54

and trying to predict the tariff

3:56

news. We'll have the details when

3:58

we do the numbers. Staying

4:20

on the topic of the American workforce,

4:22

one subset of the population having a

4:24

tough time of it in the labor

4:26

market as of late is Generation Z,

4:28

folks born between 1997 and 2012. According

4:30

to last month's data from the Bureau

4:33

of Labor Statistics, the unemployment rate for

4:35

Gen Z was 8.3 percent, more than

4:37

double that of the headline unemployment rate.

4:39

Connor Sen wrote about Gen Z's job

4:41

frustrations in Bloomberg the other day. Connor,

4:43

thanks for joining us. Thanks for having

4:45

me. So how does Generation Z view

4:47

this economy? Very poorly. We saw that

4:50

in November's elections and they've had a

4:52

reason to feel negative because not just

4:54

the same inflation and high interest rates

4:56

that everybody else has been having to

4:58

deal with over the past couple years,

5:00

but because we're in this labor market.

5:02

best characterized as low hiring, low firing.

5:04

If you're 40 or 50, you might

5:07

care more about the low firing part.

5:09

It's like, OK, I have a job.

5:11

Layoffs aren't that high. I'm safe. But

5:13

if you're in your early 20s, what

5:15

really matters to is that hiring rate,

5:17

because you're entering the workforce, trying to

5:19

move up in your career. And right

5:21

now, that's very difficult. So you write

5:24

that unemployment rates are higher for younger

5:26

workers right now, but is there anything

5:28

else to suggest that Gen Z is

5:30

worse off than other generations when they

5:32

first entered the workforce? Hire housing costs

5:34

and interest rates are probably the big

5:36

ones. I would characterize myself as an

5:38

elder millennial, so in the late 2000s,

5:41

early 2010s, we had a pretty tough

5:43

too. on the job market side, but

5:45

at least interest rates were low and

5:47

rents were relatively low, or at least

5:49

they hadn't gone up like crazy yet

5:51

and housing prices as well, whereas now

5:53

Gen Z has both low higher the

5:55

tough labor market plus high costs so

5:58

they're getting squeezed on both sides. What

6:00

in particular makes this labor market so

6:02

hard for Gen Z to break into?

6:04

It's because interest rates are so high

6:06

as the Fed seeks to control inflation

6:08

which means that a lot of parts

6:10

of the economy are frozen and waiting

6:13

for lower rates or something to pick

6:15

up and so if your company you

6:17

might say well things aren't bad enough

6:19

for me to have to lay people

6:21

off but they're not good enough to

6:23

make me higher either and so if

6:25

you're 21-22 looking to get hired, there's

6:27

just not a lot of demand for

6:30

you right now. You have the federal

6:32

government that's been cutting back and there's

6:34

no reason to think they're going to

6:36

be hiring any time soon. Universities are

6:38

cutting back. And also there's the looming

6:40

threat of AI and what that means

6:42

for workers, especially in white collar sectors.

6:44

So maybe companies that ordinarily would have

6:47

hired might say, well, let's try to

6:49

figure out a way to do this

6:51

with AI rather than taking on a

6:53

20 something. Now you and I are

6:55

both elder millennials and we entered the

6:57

workforce during a pretty tough economic period

6:59

people found a way around that but

7:01

what are the long-term consequences for this

7:04

group of not being able to find

7:06

a job right away? So to your

7:08

point I think because we all went

7:10

through not we all but many of

7:12

us went through this 10 or 15

7:14

years ago it feels like it's kind

7:16

of a bad day of Knowing that

7:18

if you don't move up in your

7:21

career, when you're young, it tends to

7:23

have long-term consequences on your lifetime earning

7:25

potential, you get more into debt, you're

7:27

not saving, you're not building networks, you're

7:29

not getting experience, and so it really

7:31

is a big setback. And it's hard

7:33

to know exactly right now what makes

7:35

things get better, certainly this year, because

7:38

I think corporate America came into the

7:40

year with a lot of optimism about

7:42

a deregulation tax cut agenda. That would

7:44

be good for growth, and instead it

7:46

feels like it's uncertainty and tariffs instead.

7:48

And so there's not really a reason

7:50

to think that hiring will pick up

7:53

this year. And so now you're already

7:55

thinking about 2026 and it's only early

7:57

April. So if somebody were 22 and

7:59

said, what should I do? It's hard

8:01

to say, we'll wait for next year,

8:03

but that kind of feels like in

8:05

a lot. that's the story for hiring

8:07

managers. You point out in your piece

8:10

that when the job market for young

8:12

workers has looked like this in the

8:14

past, it's a bit of a warning

8:16

sign for the broader economy. Why is

8:18

that? Well, typically young people just sort

8:20

of feel the trends in the labor

8:22

market more significantly because they're the ones

8:24

who, again, most people in their mid-career

8:27

aren't switching jobs as much and they're

8:29

kind of more settled. But if you're

8:31

young, it's often kind of last hired,

8:33

first fired. And so if companies aren't

8:35

hiring, they're not getting in. And if

8:37

they are trying to lay people off,

8:39

they might be cutting their youngest least

8:41

experienced workers who aren't yet providing a

8:44

lot of providing a lot of least

8:46

experienced workers who aren't yet providing a

8:48

lot of value to their companies to

8:50

their companies who aren't yet providing a

8:52

lot of value to bigger cuts later.

8:54

So if we're in that kind of

8:56

trimming the young people more generally. Conerson

8:58

is a columnist for Bloomberg. Thank you

9:01

very much. Thanks for having me While

9:23

some spent today waiting to see

9:25

what President Trump had to say

9:28

about tariffs, gamers had their eye

9:30

on a different hyped-up announcement. Japanese

9:32

gaming giant Nintendo unveiled details about

9:34

its new switch-to, the successor to

9:37

the now eight-year-old Nintendo switch, which

9:39

is among the best-selling video game

9:41

consoles of all time. The switch-to's

9:43

release is set for June 5th,

9:46

and there's a lot riding on

9:48

the rollout. Marketplace of Savannah Peters

9:50

has more. This time, five years

9:52

ago, Nintendo was having a moment.

9:55

The company's profits tripled between March

9:57

and September. of 2020. We saw

9:59

a massive influx of new players,

10:01

hours and dollars into gaming. Matt

10:04

Piscatella, an analyst at the research

10:06

group Circana, says Nintendo and other

10:08

gaming companies, have held on to

10:10

most of those players, but they've

10:13

got a lot more competition for

10:15

their hours and dollars. Now that

10:17

we can, you know, go outside.

10:19

Getting back to that growth has

10:22

been a big priority and a

10:24

big challenge. So the industry is

10:26

looking for a jumpstart. This morning's

10:28

hour-long video preview of the switch

10:30

too shows off new video chat

10:33

and game sharing features. Introducing Game

10:35

Chat, a new feature. Audrey Chee

10:37

Reed, an analyst at Forrester, says

10:39

the industry wants us to think

10:42

of gaming as social. It's about

10:44

entertainment not just for yourself, but

10:46

how you can share that experience

10:48

with your friends and with your

10:51

family. and turn the people around

10:53

you into gamers who will also

10:55

spend money on new titles and

10:57

consoles. Like a lot of money.

11:00

The announced price point of $450

11:02

is, I think, pretty rich. Jost

11:04

Van Drenen, a video game expert

11:06

at NYU, was predicting more like

11:09

400 for the new switch. If

11:11

you were hoping we'd get through

11:13

one story without saying the T-word,

11:15

it's time to cover your ears.

11:18

I think that that has to

11:20

do with tariffs. The switch, like

11:22

other major gaming consoles, is manufactured

11:24

in China. Van Drenen says the

11:27

higher price tag won't keep die-hards

11:29

from standing in line on release

11:31

day, but it could put off

11:33

the more casual gamers the industry

11:35

is really trying to reach. I'm

11:38

Savannah Peters for Marketplace. In

11:57

the last few years American companies have

11:59

haven't had much of an appetite for

12:01

mergers and acquisitions. The latest tariffs are

12:04

just part of the economic uncertainty American

12:06

companies have had to manage. We've also

12:08

had elevated interest rates, and the hard

12:11

line the Biden administration took against deals

12:13

it argued would reduce competition. Dealmakers had

12:15

hoped that 2025 would be the year

12:18

that MNA finally roared back. But so

12:20

far... Not so much. The first quarter

12:22

of this year was the slowest in

12:25

more than a decade when it comes

12:27

to mergers and acquisitions, according to the

12:29

research company Deal Logic. Marketplace's Justin Ho

12:32

looked into why deal makers are still

12:34

holding off. Showing out millions, if not

12:36

billions, if not billions, of dollars to

12:38

buy another company can be an extremely

12:41

risky move. Drew Pascarella, who teaches finance

12:43

at Cornell University, says for one, the

12:45

companies might find out they have bad

12:48

chemistry. In M&A you're taking on something

12:50

that you don't really fully understand. At

12:52

the time you've acquired it, there are

12:55

a lot of employees that have not

12:57

worked under your employee. There's a different

12:59

culture. There's also the risk that after

13:02

the companies tie the knot, the broader

13:04

economy turns south. Pascarella says that's why

13:06

companies have to be confident that the

13:09

opportunity to say increased sales or expand

13:11

the product line through a merger or

13:13

acquisition is worth the risks. But if

13:16

that sort of opportunity is a little

13:18

bit murkier, if you don't exactly know

13:20

what tomorrow is going to look like,

13:22

your desire to take on those downside

13:25

risks, you know, becomes lessened. Problem is,

13:27

this year, figuring out what tomorrow is

13:29

going to look like has not been

13:32

easy. For instance, look at how volatile

13:34

the stock market's been day to day.

13:36

Pascarella says that's made it harder for

13:39

companies to agree on purchase prices. If

13:41

you think a stock is worth $100

13:43

and you make an offer for $100

13:46

and the stock drops to 80 or

13:48

goes up to 120, that conversation becomes

13:50

a lot more difficult. And then, of

13:53

course, there's all of the uncertainty around

13:55

tariffs. You know, if I'm going to

13:57

buy, let's say a company and I

13:59

suddenly see... that it's selling products in

14:02

jurisdictions that are going to impose tariffs

14:04

on those products, that the value of

14:06

that company is going to go down.

14:09

That's Afra Afsharipor, a law professor at

14:11

U.C. Davis. She says countries might respond

14:13

to the Trump administration's tariffs by cracking

14:16

down on M&A deals. You could see

14:18

this coming from Canada. You could see

14:20

it coming from the UK. You know,

14:23

there are a lot of other regulatory

14:25

tools that other jurisdictions have as well

14:27

that will sometimes have an impact on

14:30

M&A deals, even if it's too large

14:32

US companies. Asharipur says the regulatory situation

14:34

in the US isn't clear either. In

14:36

February, the Trump administration said it's holding

14:39

on to the Biden administration's merger guidelines,

14:41

which call for a stricter look at

14:43

deals that could reduce competition. But then,

14:46

in March, President Trump fired two Democratic

14:48

members of the Federal Trade Commission, which

14:50

is partially responsible for enforcing those guidelines.

14:53

I think people expected that there would

14:55

be a lot more regulatory certainty, and

14:57

I think that is not bearing out

15:00

so far. As a result, companies that

15:02

might be interested in making an acquisition

15:04

are basically just sitting on their hands

15:07

right now, which might be what U.S.

15:09

regulators are hoping for. A lot of

15:11

these mergers and acquisitions are actually within

15:13

the same industry, and these often result

15:16

in a larger market power for a

15:18

single firm. John Bye, a finance professor

15:20

at Northeastern University, says on the other

15:23

hand, a slow M&A market can make

15:25

the economy less efficient. That's because companies

15:27

often buy other firms to try to

15:30

run them better. So from the acquiring

15:32

firm's perspective, if they spot a inefficiently

15:34

managed firm, they know they can do

15:37

something with it. Is it distribution? Is

15:39

it brand image building? Is it management

15:41

practices? All of that means less M&A

15:44

activity could take a chunk out of

15:46

corporate profits. I'm Justin Ho for Marketplace.

16:05

Coming up? There is no

16:08

benefit to a Chapter 13

16:10

trustee to dismissing a case.

16:12

Getting debt relief is harder

16:14

for some than for others.

16:17

But first, let's do the

16:19

numbers. markets ended up

16:21

ahead of the president's tariff

16:23

announcement this afternoon although futures

16:26

dropped as the details started

16:28

coming out but the Dow

16:31

Jones industrial average finished up

16:33

235 points six-tenths percent to

16:35

close at 42,225 the NASDAQ

16:38

was up 151 points nine-tenths

16:40

percent to finish at 17,601

16:42

and the S&P 500 rose

16:45

37 points seven-tenths percent to

16:47

end at 5670. early earnings

16:50

showed the effect of the ongoing

16:52

backlash against Elon Musk, including a

16:54

13% drop in deliveries worldwide. But

16:57

the share price ticked up on

16:59

reports Musk might leave his post

17:01

in Trump's administration. Tesla grew five

17:04

and three-tenths percent. Bonds rose, the

17:06

yield on the 10-year keynote fell

17:08

to 4.12% and you were

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This is Marketplace. I'm Kimberly Adams.

19:36

The Doge-led downsizing of the

19:39

federal government continues, and earlier

19:41

this week, thousands of workers

19:43

at the Department of Health

19:45

and Human Services suddenly found

19:48

themselves unemployed. The layoffs reportedly

19:50

include about 20 employees who

19:52

oversaw a program called the

19:54

Low Income Home Energy Assistance

19:56

Program, or LIHEAP, which provides

19:59

money to... states, territories, and

20:01

tribes so they can help families

20:03

keep their homes warm or cool

20:05

depending on the season. Marketplace's Henry

20:08

Ep reports, officials are now worried

20:10

about that program's future. Congress

20:12

appropriated about $4 billion for

20:14

LIHEAP this fiscal year. Every

20:16

state, tribe, and territory gets

20:18

a set amount. Says Mark

20:20

Wolf, head of the National

20:22

Energy Assistance Directors Association, or

20:24

neota. That depends on several

20:26

factors, including climate. So a state

20:29

that's extremely cold will receive

20:31

more money than say a state that's

20:33

more moderate in its temperature. Same thing

20:35

with a state that becomes extremely

20:38

hot. In many states people

20:40

who qualify for LIHEAP apply

20:42

for assistance through local non-profits.

20:44

And then we request money

20:46

from the state and the state

20:48

issues payment to us and we

20:51

in turn make those payments to

20:53

utility vendors primarily. Gene Logan is

20:55

the executive director of the Community

20:57

Action Agency of Siouxland in Sioux

20:59

City, Iowa. Laheap recipients end up

21:02

with a credit that offsets part

21:04

or all of the utility bill

21:06

for heating or cooling their home.

21:08

Logan says it can be a

21:10

financial lifeline. It makes the difference between

21:13

whether or not people have their medicines

21:15

and they fall behind on their other

21:17

bills, whether or not they even eat.

21:20

So a lot of the day-to-day work

21:22

of LIHEAP happens at the state

21:24

and local level, but federal administrators

21:26

play a crucial role, says Mark

21:29

Wolf at Niata. There is no way

21:31

to allocate the funds without the federal

21:33

staff. There is no way to oversee

21:35

the program. Wolf says there's still

21:37

nearly $400 million appropriated by Congress

21:39

for this year that has not

21:42

yet been distributed. The Department of

21:44

Health and Human Services did not

21:46

respond to a request for comment.

21:48

In Minnesota, Lissa Polish at the

21:51

State's Division of Energy Resources says

21:53

if those funds don't get released...

21:55

In very real terms, this means

21:57

that potentially thousands of households won't...

21:59

be able to get the

22:02

energy assistance that they need

22:04

to pay their energy bill.

22:06

And it's still winter

22:09

heating season in Minnesota.

22:11

Temperatures in the Twin

22:13

Cities today are only

22:15

in the 30s. I'm

22:17

Henriette for Marketplace. We

22:31

were talking earlier in the show

22:33

about the economic conditions creating a

22:35

rough go of it for younger

22:38

workers, many of whom are relying

22:40

on debt to get by. and

22:42

debt can pretty easily spiral out

22:44

of control. Last year, more than

22:46

a million U.S. households filed for

22:48

bankruptcy, and while entering bankruptcy, can

22:50

be painful and leave a lasting

22:52

financial scar, it's often a needed

22:54

last resort for people trapped in

22:56

a cycle of debt. But that

22:59

scar can be more severe for

23:01

some than others. A recent study

23:03

in the National Bureau of Economic

23:05

Research found that non-white households who

23:08

file for a common bankruptcy protection

23:10

were significantly more likely than white

23:12

filers to have their case dismissed

23:15

without any debt relief. Marketplace's

23:17

Matt Levin looks at the

23:19

causes and consequences of racial

23:21

bias and bankruptcy. North Carolina

23:24

bankruptcy attorney Ed Bolt says

23:26

he's never really seen overt racial

23:28

bias from judges or other officials

23:30

in his bankruptcy cases, but he

23:32

has seen some instances where his

23:35

black clients seem to get more

23:37

questions about what they're spending money

23:39

on. I have had at our firm an experience

23:41

where there was a black woman

23:43

who was driving a BMW or

23:46

maybe it was a Mercedes and

23:48

that was problematic. Of course driving a

23:50

BMW while petitioning for bankruptcy naturally

23:52

raises eyebrows, but bolts had plenty

23:55

of white clients at similar income

23:57

levels where nice cars seem like

23:59

less of an issue. It did start to

24:01

feel like there was a little bit

24:03

like, why are you driving this car, right?

24:06

And, you know, we had other people

24:08

where they weren't getting the same pushback.

24:10

For individuals, the two most common

24:12

flavors of bankruptcy are Chapter 7,

24:15

which is mostly lower-income debtors without

24:17

major assets like cars and homes,

24:19

and Chapter 13, which is designed

24:22

to help protect those assets via

24:24

a payment plan. Sasha Indarte is

24:26

a finance professor at the University

24:29

of Pennsylvania's Warden School and co-author

24:31

of that new study. So when

24:33

we look at Chapter 13,

24:35

which is about 30% of

24:37

consumer bankruptcy cases, we see

24:39

that minority filers are 13

24:41

percentage points more likely to

24:43

be dismissed, meaning that they're

24:45

denied debt relief. meaning their

24:47

debt is not forgiven. When the

24:50

study controls for other characteristics, like

24:52

income level or whether a file

24:54

or hires an attorney, the racial

24:56

disparity narrows to three and a

24:58

half percentage points. But Indarte says

25:01

that's still meaningful, and it's not

25:03

just the race of the person

25:05

going through bankruptcy that matters. We

25:07

found that the race of the

25:09

legal officials that they interact with

25:11

in the bankruptcy process that can

25:14

be predictive of success in their

25:16

bankruptcy case. Meaning whether their debts

25:18

are eventually forgiven. Lon Jenkins

25:20

doesn't really buy the study's conclusions.

25:22

He's head of the National Association

25:25

of Chapter 13 trustees. Trustees are

25:27

basically the legal administrators for bankruptcies.

25:29

Most of them are white. And

25:31

they have a lot of discretion

25:33

over when to tell a judge

25:36

that someone is missing their bankruptcy

25:38

payments. There is no benefit to a

25:40

Chapter 13 trustee to dismissing a case.

25:42

Trustees make their money from a

25:45

percentage of the payments made

25:47

during bankruptcy. So there's no

25:49

financial incentive for trustees to

25:51

recommend denying bankruptcy protection. Jenkins

25:53

says most of the time

25:55

his staff tracking late payments

25:57

isn't even aware of a

25:59

file. race. He argues it's

26:02

not that trustees are

26:04

explicitly or implicitly biased.

26:06

There are systemic factors

26:08

that may make minority

26:10

debtors more likely to miss a

26:12

payment. Individuals who are

26:14

in those minority categories typically

26:16

earn less, typically have less

26:19

family wealth and certainly have

26:21

fewer safety nets if something

26:24

goes awry. It's important to remember

26:26

here the whole point of

26:28

bankruptcy, forgiving some debt that

26:30

otherwise borrowers would have very

26:32

little hope of ever paying off.

26:34

Elizabeth Gonzales is a consumer attorney

26:37

for the non-profit law firm public

26:39

council. So bankruptcy for those individuals

26:41

is a way to have that

26:43

lifeline, that I don't have to

26:46

worry about my way just being

26:48

garnished or my bank account being

26:50

levied, or frankly just being hounded

26:52

by creditors. Compared to unsuccessful

26:54

bankruptcy filers, studies show people

26:56

who get debt relief through

26:59

the courts not only have

27:01

higher incomes in the future,

27:03

their children will have higher

27:05

incomes when they're adults. I'm

27:08

Matt Levin for Marketplace. This

27:26

final note on the way out

27:29

today, many Americans have been

27:31

trying to get ahead of

27:33

President Trump's tariffs by stockpiling

27:35

things they suspect might get

27:37

more expensive or making big

27:39

purchases before they get even

27:41

priceier. A survey from CNET

27:43

found 38% of US shoppers

27:45

felt pressured to buy something

27:47

in advance of potential tariff

27:49

price increases, especially electronics like

27:51

smartphones, laptops, and home appliances.

27:53

Our media production team includes

27:55

Brian Allison, Jake Cherry, Jessen

27:57

Dooler, Drew Jostat, Gary

28:00

O'Keefe, Charles. Carlton Thorpe,

28:02

Juan Carlo

28:05

Cerado, and

28:07

Becca Weinman.

28:09

Jeff Peters

28:11

is the

28:13

manager of

28:15

Media Production,

28:17

and I'm

28:20

Kimberly Adams.

28:22

We'll be

28:24

back tomorrow,

28:26

everybody. If

28:29

there's one thing we know about

28:31

social media, it's that misinformation is

28:33

everywhere, especially when it comes to

28:35

personal finance. Financially inclined from marketplace

28:38

is a podcast you can trust

28:40

to help you get serious about

28:42

your money so you can build

28:44

a life you've always dreamed of.

28:47

I'm the host Janelius Pinal, and

28:49

each week I ask experts important

28:51

money questions. Like how to negotiate

28:53

job offers, how to choose a

28:55

college that you can afford, and

28:58

how to talk about money with

29:00

friends and family. Listen to

29:02

financially inclined wherever you get

29:04

your podcasts.

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