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Economy
US Added Just 29,000 Jobs, Wage Growth Hit New 5-Year Low Last Month as Trump Economy Teeters
"It’s a stalled economy—and working families are stuck in it," said one economist.
Oct 02, 2026
A Friday report from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics showed that the American job market is running on fumes.
According to the BLS, the US economy added just 29,000 jobs in September, which was well below economists' forecasts of 90,000 jobs added on the month.
Additionally, employment numbers for previous months were revised downward by a total of 60,000 jobs, and BLS now estimates that the economy posted a net loss of 10,000 jobs in July and a net gain of 133,000 jobs in August.
In a Friday social media post, economist Bill McBride noted that the economy over the last year has only created 496,000 jobs, which averages to roughly 41,000 jobs per month. For comparison, the economy created an average of 186,000 jobs per month in the last year of former President Joe Biden's term.
Heather Long, chief economist at Navy Federal Credit Union, called the latest jobs numbers "mediocre," and pointed out that wage growth in September posted just a 3% yearly gain.
"That’s a new five-year low," Long remarked, "and it’s wiped out entirely by ~3.4% inflation."
Tahra Hoops, director of economic analysis at Chamber of Progress, also pointed to wage growth failing to keep up with inflation, which she said "gives credibility to the negative consumer sentiment" expressed in recent surveys.
Kyle Moore, chief economist at The Century Foundation, said that the weak wage growth on the month doesn't tell the full story of the stresses working-class Americans are facing because the numbers "leave out debt, all the bills families have to pay before they can spend any of their paycheck."
"A worker with debt often can’t afford to miss a paycheck, and therefore can’t afford to quit a bad job or push for a raise," Moore explained. "That is exactly what we see in today’s job market, with hiring stalled, the quit rate stuck at 1.9%, and wage growth falling as prices climb. Mounting debt, sluggish hiring and real wage growth, and weak social support all disempower workers."
Moore criticized President Donald Trump and his administration for trying to spin their economic policies as successes given the current numbers.
"Until the Trump administration confronts the reality that debt is eating into workers’ gains—wage gains that are now non-existent, in real terms, for the typical worker," said Moore, "the gulf between how this administration spins the economy and how working families actually experience it will continue to widen."
White House National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett didn't heed Moore's advice on this matter, and continued boasting about the state of the economy during a Friday interview.
"If you look at the data from this week, it's proving that Trumponomics is really working," said Hassett, "and this is one reason why markets are celebrating so much."
Kevin Hassett responds to a bad September jobs report: "If you look at the data from this week, it's proving that Trumponomics is really working ... we're very very happy"
The Fox News host responds by saying "you're bullish and I expected that" pic.twitter.com/bVdTFnteHc
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 2, 2026
Breyon Williams, chief economist at Groundwork Collaborative, called the weak jobs report emblematic of how the economy as a whole has performed during Trump's second term.
"There’s a clear pattern in the Trump economy," Williams explained. "One sector is creating most of the new jobs, unemployed workers can’t find new jobs, and Americans are seeing their paychecks eaten up by the president’s high prices. When businesses are barely hiring and raises aren’t keeping up with rising prices, it’s a stalled economy—and working families are stuck in it."
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Under Jayapal Bill, Every AI Company Would Need a Public Charter to Operate in the US
"For too long, we’ve allowed a few Big Tech companies to dominate the market."
Oct 01, 2026
Rep. Pramila Jayapal on Thursday unveiled a bill aimed at reining in the artificial intelligence industry that would force every AI company operating in the US to obtain a public charter.
According to Jayapal (D-Wash.), the charter system will be similar to the one long used in the US to regulate banks, which must submit to certain regulatory obligations before being allowed to operate.
"The crux of this bill is simple," said Jayapal. "If you want to be an AI company in this country, you have to obtain a public charter that has a broad set of terms and conditions to operate and ensure public benefit without the harms."
The Washington Democrat said the charter approach was needed given the broad reach large technology companies already have over every aspect of life in the US, and she argued it would be a more proactive alternative to the piecemeal approach US lawmakers have taken to regulating Big Tech.
"For too long, we’ve allowed a few Big Tech companies to dominate the market," she said. "They have used mass surveillance to steal private information, labor, and creative work, building trillion-dollar empires on our tracked personal lives. AI corporations and Big Tech are now following that same playbook."
Under the charter system, tech companies would be banned from practices such as surveillance pricing to charge individual consumers different prices based on their personal data and financial histories.
The system would also establish stronger liabilities for AI companies that commit harmful acts, and particularly egregious actions could be punished by removal of firms' charters, which would essentially be a corporate death penalty.
Jayapal's proposal would also put the government in charge of every step of the AI safety review process and would include "round-the-clock federal oversight, testing in government facilities and approval to release, adversarial stress tests, and a government-controlled kill switch," according to her office.
The proposed framework earned praise from former Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan, who argued that American voters have already "paid an extraordinary price for Big Tech's self-regulation."
"For generations we have required banks, drug makers, and nuclear operators to meet public terms before they do business," Khan added, "and AI companies should be no different."
Sacha Haworth, executive director of the Tech Oversight Project, also gave the Jayapal plan kudos, saying it would "establish desperately needed rules of the road, punish AI companies that release dangerous products, and create the clear public benefit that the American people are calling for."
"Companies have continually pulled the rug out from under families, workers, and small businesses to build powerful and unaccountable Big Tech monopolies that dictate to us how we should live our own lives," Haworth emphasized. "Enough is enough."
Although President Donald Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) have publicly opposed legislative restrictions on the AI industry, the bill comes as Democrats are aiming to win congressional majorities in the November midterm elections.
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'I Know Where I Want to Live': Ex-Venture Capitalist Explains Why He'd Be Happy to Pay California Billionaire Tax
"I believe it's a patriotic duty to pay taxes, and I do so with pride. Our tax system favors wealthy people, and the least we can do is pay up rather than try to avoid it."
Oct 01, 2026
As some of California's richest residents pour tens of millions of dollars into defeating a proposed billionaire tax, one former venture capitalist is making a remarkably different argument: He is perfectly happy to pay it—and he's not alone.
John O'Farrell, a former partner at Andreessen Horowitz, explained Wednesday in a 12-post thread on the social media platform X why he supports the California Billionaire Tax Act, commonly known as Proposition 40, which is on the state's November midterm ballot.
O'Farrell's argument contradicts the chorus of Silicon Valley billionaires and their allies who warn that taxing billionaire wealth would drive the ultra-rich out of California.
"I know where I want to live," he wrote.
"I've been fortunate to benefit from tech wealth. I'm not even close to being a billionaire, but I could easily afford to pay the wealth tax—and any billionaire certainly can—without the slightest effect on my lifestyle," O'Farrell said. "I support a wealth tax at my wealth level also."
Introduced by the Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West, Prop 40 would impose a one-time 5% levy on people worth $1 billion or more, with an option to pay the tax in annual installments of 1% over five years.
The proposal would require the state to spend 90% of revenue from the tax on healthcare and the rest on food assistance and public education. Proponents say the tax would raise roughly $100 billion in revenue. Critics argue that it could drive wealthy residents and investment from California and stall economic growth.
"I find the knee-jerk opposition of some ultra-wealthy people to the idea of paying any new tax deeply disappointing," O'Farrell said in his thread. "To be honest, I can't understand it. They have so much money they couldn't spend it in multiple lifetimes."
Inequality.org, a project of the Institute for Policy Studies—a Washington, DC-based progressive think tank—exposed 22 California billionaires who have poured more than $150 million into defeating Prop 40, "with more rolling in every day," as Chuck Collins wrote for the group.
"These 22 include a prince, several private jet-flying chums of Jeffrey Epstein, and a bunch of crypto and tech bros designing the [artificial intelligence] future for the rest of us," Collins noted. "On January 1, 2025, these 22 billionaires had a combined wealth of $439.8 billion. By September 1, 2026, their wealth had grown to $722.1 billion. In a little under 20 months, their combined wealth increased $282.6 billion, a gain of over 64%."
O'Farrell's social media thread pointed out how "our tax system favors wealthy people."
"I believe it's a patriotic duty to pay taxes, and I do so with pride," he wrote, adding, "the least we can do is pay up rather than try to avoid it."
"Paying taxes is ultimately a matter of self-interest," he contended. "What kind of society do we want to live in? One that rewards achievement but also emphasizes fairness and opportunity for all—or one in which you have to cower in a bunker and live in fear of the pitchforks?"
"One enables the pursuit of happiness for all," he concluded. "The other, just the pursuit of endless wealth."
Prop 40 is backed by numerous progressive groups including the Teamsters union, California Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), and Our Revolution, as well as individual progressives such as Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), and Democratic congressional candidate Connie Chan, who is running to replace retiring longtime San Francisco congresswoman Nancy Pelosi.
Sanders, Khanna, and others—including Congresswoman Aisha Wahab (D-Calif.), Democratic congressional candidate Randy Villegas, and California insurance commissioner candidate Jane Kim—are set to speak at a series of rallies for Prop 40 starting Saturday in San Francisco.
O'Farrell isn't the only wealthy Californian who supports Prop 40. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, whose fortune has soared into the hundreds of billions of dollars, has said he is “perfectly fine” with the proposed tax, telling Bloomberg that he and his family “chose to live in Silicon Valley” and that whatever taxes California applies, “so be it.”
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Ahead of High-Stakes Election, Analysis Details Economic Gains of Brazil Under Lula
"The past almost four years have seen Brazil accomplish a great deal in terms of bringing people out of poverty, creating jobs, curbing hunger, and raising standards of living."
Sep 30, 2026
An analysis released Wednesday documents some of the major economic gains that Brazil has made over the past four years during the third term of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who is currently in a close battle for reelection against rival Flávio Bolsonaro.
The analysis, published by the US-based Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), finds that, between 2022 and 2025, the Brazilian economy grew by a cumulative 8.9%, easily outpacing the average rate of growth in other South American countries.
This growth has been coupled with a drop in the unemployment rate, which has fallen from more than 9% in the second quarter of 2022 to just 5.4% in the second quarter of 2026.
Both poverty and food insecurity fell dramatically in the first two year's of Lula's term, the analysis finds, and in 2025, "Brazil was removed from the Food and Agriculture Organization’s Hunger Map after chronic undernourishment fell below 2.5%."
CEPR's report also gives credit to Lula's policies for improved economic conditions, including a new minimum wage law, an expanded maternity leave program, and increased average payments to low-income families given through the Bolsa Família program.
The economy during Lula's term is far from perfect, however, and the report flags high interest rates set by Brazil's central bank as a key factor in raising consumers' borrowing costs and increasing the rate of household delinquency.
CEPR also noted the negative impact of online betting apps, which Lula has pledged to ban starting next month, on Brazilian workers.
"Brazilian households lost an estimated R$62.5 billion (US$11.2 billion) to online betting in 2025," the report says, "while some 802,000 Bolsa Família households spent more than 2% of their income on betting in January 2025."
Jake Johnston, CEPR's director of international research, said that "the past almost four years have seen Brazil accomplish a great deal in terms of bringing people out of poverty, creating jobs, curbing hunger, and raising standards of living."
"This was done," Johnston added, "despite the lingering impact of the Covid pandemic, external economic shocks that affected the global economy, and excessively high interest rates."
The first round of Brazil's presidential election is set to take place on Sunday, and recent polls show Lula with a narrow lead over Bolsonaro, son of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who is still serving a criminal sentence for efforts to instigate a coup after his loss in the 2022 election.
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Citing 'Civilizational Extinction Risk,' Khanna to Intro Bill to Ban Recursive AI
"The tech lords use jargon to confuse. They count on the tech illiteracy of the elected class. They hope we won’t look under the hood," said US Rep. Ro Khanna.
Sep 29, 2026
US Rep. Ro Khanna announced plans on Monday to introduce what he described as "the most comprehensive... legislation to date" regulating the artificial intelligence industry.
In an interview with CNBC, Khanna (D-Calif.) said that he wanted to enact at least a temporary ban on recursive AI that is capable of improving itself and modifying its objectives without human input.
Such a ban would be in effect until the federal government had created proper guardrails on the technology, CNBC reported.
“There’s actually a civilizational extinction risk,” Khanna told CNBC, referring to the dangers of recursive AI. "There's a safety risk of loss of control, and then there’s a misuse risk, and we need to take both seriously."
Khanna's bill would also create a new federal agency tasked with crafting and enforcing safety measures on AI models, with independent auditors embedded in every frontier lab that would report directly to the agency.
The legislation wouldn't just create regulations for the AI industry, but also criminal penalties for AI developers who "disable safeguards, kill switches, logging or containment systems, or who knowingly deploy an unauthorized system," CNBC reported.
Promoting the coming bill in a Tuesday social media post, Khanna argued that Big Tech could not be trusted to regulate itself.
"The tech lords use jargon to confuse," Khanna wrote. "They count on the tech illiteracy of the elected class. They hope we won’t look under the hood. They know they can’t gaslight me."
While multiple polls have shown that putting guardrails on the AI industry is politically popular, Republican Party leaders have said that no regulations for the industry are coming so long as they control the White House and the US Congress.
In a Tuesday interview with CNBC, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said he hoped that any guardrails put on AI are "voluntary" on the part of Big Tech companies.
Two weeks ago, Johnson said in an interview on CNN that federal regulations of the industry made little sense because "Congress is obviously less qualified than the people who are pushing this frontier to know the ins and outs of it."
President Donald Trump on Tuesday expressed a similar sentiment, telling reporters outside the White House that Big Tech could be trusted to be responsible with the powerful technology it is creating.
"They're outstanding people," Trump said of the tech executives. "They don't want anything to go wrong. I mean, their companies are at stake, if something goes wrong, their companies are at stake. They're not going to let that happen. This is going to be all for the good... they're really going to be policing each other."
Trump on big tech: "They don't want anything to go wrong. Their companies are at stake. They're not gonna let that happen. They're really gonna be policing each other." pic.twitter.com/wP6vfPcavz
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 29, 2026
Earlier this month, Trump suggested in a social media post that his own intellect was singlehandedly capable of regulating AI, a technology so complicated that even its own creators have acknowledged difficulties in understanding it.
"The only control or ‘guardrails’ that AI needs is a STRONG AND SMART (High IQ!) PRESIDENT,” Trump wrote, “and the USA has that, in spades!"
Trump's hands-off approach to regulating AI isn't just being challenged by Democrats such as Khanna.
According to a Monday report from The Associated Press, Pope Leo XIV reiterated his call for placing safeguards on AI to ensure that it benefits humanity.
Specifically, the US-born pope pointed to recent "concerns raised by many of the experts, specialists in AI," which he said "should be taken seriously."
Pope Leo said warnings that AI could threaten humanity should be taken seriously, rejecting the claims that concerns are 'fake news' and urging leaders to work together on safeguards https://t.co/7qVpNAXYKM pic.twitter.com/Cds6gf5vef
— Reuters (@Reuters) September 29, 2026
"I don’t think that that is ‘fake news’ as some have said," the pope added, in a veiled reference to Trump, "to try and cause whether financial or other some other kind of benefit."
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As Affordability Crisis Grows Under Trump, Workers Are Losing Half Their Income Gains to Debt Payments
"Families are going further into the red just to cover basic essentials, all while the Trump administration touts hollow talking points about a booming economy."
Sep 29, 2026
Research published Tuesday shows that more than half of the income gains seen by the typical American worker since 2022 has been swallowed by debt payments, as high and still-rising costs of housing, groceries, utilities, and other essentials force families to turn to credit cards and other sources of borrowing to stay afloat.
The new report released by The Century Foundation and Protect Borrowers estimates that take-home income for a typical US household rose by approximately $109 per month while the average worker's debt payments rose by $57. In households with a single earner, the groups noted, "52 cents of every dollar a worker gained went to paying down their debt before they could actually spend it on other things."
In two-income households in which both earners faced the average debt payment increase, "the household’s entire real income gain was lost to debt, and then some."
Credit cards and auto loans—which often come with extremely high interest rates—account for most of the debt burden carried by typical US households, which have seen their debt payments grow more than eight times as fast as their income over the past four years, according to The Century Foundation and Protect Borrowers.
"The economy is rigged against working families, and this report shows one big reason why," US Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), the top Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee, said in a statement. "For the typical worker, more than half of every dollar of income growth is going right back out the door in debt payments. Instead of letting lenders rip off families, [President] Donald Trump and congressional Republicans should act today to protect families from getting trapped in cycles of debt, including a cap on credit card interest rates.”
Trump repeatedly vowed during his 2024 presidential campaign to cap credit card interest rates at 10%, but he has since done nothing substantive to fulfill that promise as the nation's credit card debt crisis continues to spiral amid deteriorating economic conditions, with sluggish hiring and inflation—fueled by the president's illegal war on Iran—outpacing wage growth.
"Families are going further into the red just to cover basic essentials, all while the Trump administration touts hollow talking points about a booming economy and fails to deliver on promises to lower costs,” said Aissa Canchola Bañez, policy director for Protect Borrowers. “Today’s report shows just how dire the affordability crisis is for working people who are being forced to surrender their hard-earned income gains to paying off debt and padding the pockets of credit card executives and debt collectors."
"Growing household debt is burying America’s workers," she added, "and policymakers must take action to get them real relief."
The new research warns that, in the absence of ambitious policy action, the debt emergency facing working-class US households "is about to get worse," with many student-loan borrowers about to be forced into expensive repayment plans due to the Trump administration's assault on Biden-era relief efforts.
"Cancelling student and medical debt, capping interest rates, and restraining employer debt traps are all examples of solutions available to provide help to struggling households," the new report states. "We should also address the ways workers end up in debt in the first place through stagnant wages, eroded bargaining power, and lack of public provisioning. Together these interventions represent a coherent alternative to the status quo so that economic growth is measured by what workers actually keep and not just by what employers pay."
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US Food Banks Under Strain as Trump Policies Drive Up Costs
"It’s really hard for people in the United States to understand the scale of hunger."
Sep 28, 2026
Two of President Donald Trump's signature policies—the illegal war with Iran and cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program—are putting pressure on food banks throughout the country in the form of higher demand from clients and increased shipping costs.
In a Sunday report from Meidas News, reporter Scott MacFarlane published interviews with several food bank officials who said the increased cost of energy caused by Trump's Iran War has strained their ability to serve their communities.
From a demand side, more families have been relying on food banks because the increased cost of gasoline has left them with less money to spend at the grocery store.
And from a supply perspective, record-high diesel prices have hurt food banks' budgets by increasing transportation costs for staple items.
Craig Rice, chief executive officer at the Manna Food Center in Maryland, told MacFarlane that his organization is "seeing so many people come to us, who’ve never come to [the food bank] before."
"It used to be people who were working hourly-wage jobs," Rice added. "Now we see people who are salary employees. They may have been stable at one price, but suddenly they’re impacted by gas prices."
Amy Beros, president of the Food Bank of Central and Eastern North Carolina, similarly told MacFarlane that organizations in her region have seen demand for food services increase by between "20% to 60%" over the last year.
"It’s really hard for people in the United States to understand the scale of hunger," Beros said, "because it doesn’t look like it looks on TV."
The strain on food banks isn't just limited to one state or region.
Greta Faworski, associate director of Kalamazoo Loaves and Fishes, said in an interview published Monday with Michigan advance that she's seen a 56% increase in people who are reaching out to her organization for help.
Faworski said the recent surge in demand was akin to what she saw last year during a nationwide delay in SNAP benefits in the wake of a federal government shutdown.
"On an average day, we serve about 800 people a day," explained Faworski. "When there was notification because of the government shutdown that November SNAP benefits would not be released on time, in one week, we saw an increase to where we were serving 1,200 people a day."
The problem is expected to grow more acute because state governments starting next month will have to pay for a largest share of SNAP administrative costs due to provisions in the 2025 One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
A report published last week by Spectrum News 13 put a spotlight on how surging diesel costs are squeezing food banks in central Florida.
Greg Higgerson, chief development officer for Second Harvest Food Bank, told Spectrum News 13 that his organization's fuel bill is "somwhere around $15,00 per month," which he said was "up significantly from this time last year."
And like food banks elsewhere in the US, Higgerson said, the Second Harvest Food Bank is being forced to pay higher costs as demand for its services is going up.
“It’s going to be harder to make ends meet in the next few months,” Higgerson said. “There’s going to be more people. We know that, we see it already, and it’s going to cost more to help those folks.”
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12-Point 'Shopper's Bill of Rights' Proposed to Guard Against Corporate Greed in the Digital Age
"Shoppers shouldn’t have to outsmart an algorithm, decode the fine print, or fight their way out of a subscription just to get a fair deal."
Sep 28, 2026
Groundwork Collaborative on Monday unveiled a proposal for a "Shopper's Bill of Rights," which it said would shield US consumers from rampant corporate greed.
Noting the long history of consumer protection legislation, Groundwork Collaborative makes the case that new rules are desperately needed in an era where companies can use artificial intelligence to construct elaborate pricing schemes aimed at extracting every last dollar from shoppers.
The group cites its own past work documenting Instacart's use of AI to target specific shoppers with higher prices to argue that corporate America badly needs stronger oversight to stop them from gouging consumers.
"Instacart is hardly a lone actor," the group writes. "Unchecked pricing shenanigans are spreading to every corner of our economy, and consumers are rightfully angry."
With this in mind, Groundwork Collaborative proposes 12 regulations aimed at protecting consumers from getting relentlessly nickel-and-dimed by big corporations.
The first proposal is giving consumers the right to an all-in price, meaning companies must let shoppers buy a good or service for its advertised price without tacking on assorted fees.
"The takeout order that looked like a quick fix for a hectic night can double in price once delivery fees pile up," the group explains, "while a few clicks to buy concert tickets can leave a fan staring at a final box office bill that is more than 25% higher than the base price that lured them in. This deception is lucrative, as hidden fees get shoppers to spend 20% more than they would if they saw the full price upfront."
Another proposal takes on the kind of surveillance pricing documented in Groundwork Collective's Instacart report, where companies use consumers' personal data to individually increase prices based on a number of factors in their personal browsing and shopping histories.
"Rapid advances in cloud computing, data collection, surveillance technologies, and artificial intelligence now equip companies to purchase, track, store, and analyze consumers’ personal data at an unimaginable scale," the group writes. "Armed with troves of personal data, companies can increasingly determine your particular pain point: how much you, specifically, can be pushed to pay."
Groundwork Collaborative recommends banning surveillance pricing altogether, while also cracking down on companies' powers to collect and sell consumers' personal browsing data.
The group also says that lawmakers should look into stopping dynamic pricing schemes, which don't target consumers on an individual basis but nonetheless make unpredictable prices changes depending on a wide number of factors.
While dynamic pricing was originally designed for industries to handle scarcities, Groundwork Collaborative notes that it has since spread to businesses that are in no danger of facing product shortages.
"Grocery stores are not rationing cans of beans and Wendy’s is not running out of fries," the group explains. "Still, shoppers have no way to tell the difference. Pricing algorithms are a black box, so when the price spikes, you have little way to know whether supply actually tightened, demand really surged, or the company simply spotted an opportunity to squeeze you."
Here is a full list of policies Groundwork Collaborative is proposing:
- Right to an All-In Price: The Price You See Is The Price You Pay
- Right to a Fair Price: Pricing Products, Not People
- Right to a Predictable Price: Reining In The Dynamic Pricing Rollercoaster
- Right to Cancellation: Cancel With a Click
- Right to Repair: If You Own It, You Can Fix It
- Right to Your Own Agent: AI That Works For You, Not The Corporate Bottom Line
- Right to Resale: What You Buy Is Yours to Sell
- Right to a Level Playing Field: Giving Small Businesses a Chance to Compete
- Right to Comparison Shop: Taking the Guesswork Out of Comparison Shopping With Unit Pricing
- Right to a Refund: Ending The Runaround on Refunds
- Right to Proper Billing: Know What You Owe and Why
- Right to a Competitive Price: Bring Antitrust Into the 21st Century
Lindsay Owens, president and CEO of Groundwork Collaborative, accused corporate America of "deploying a dizzying array of tricks and tactics to reinvent the ripoff and squeeze American consumers," and said it's well past time for the government to step in.
"Shoppers shouldn’t have to outsmart an algorithm, decode the fine print, or fight their way out of a subscription just to get a fair deal," Owens said. "Policymakers should put simple guardrails in place to protect consumers from the high-tech ways corporations are gouging us—the Shoppers’ Bill of Rights is a good place to start."
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'Maybe Trump’s Neighbors Know Something He Doesn’t': Palm Beach County, Home to Mar-a-Lago, Passes Data Center Moratorium
Trump has said that communities that don't want data centers "want to end up being backwards and poor."
Sep 25, 2026
President Donald Trump has said every American should want a data center in their town. But his home county in Florida just voted to block them.
In a 6-0 vote, commissioners in Palm Beach County—home to the president's luxurious private club and second residence, Mar-a-Lago—voted to enact a one-year moratorium on the construction of new "large-scale" data centers that use at least 50 megawatts of power.
The moratorium, approved on Thursday, came after Palm Beach residents expressed concerns shared by Americans around the country who’ve seen data centers move into their communities. Palm Beach already has some smaller data centers. But in July, it rejected a proposal for the 600MW Project Tango, following warnings about its potential effects on local wetlands and on families’ pocketbooks.
"Many communities want the economic benefits that data centers bring, but we all fear the higher power bills, the negative environmental impact, disruptive noise, and the depletion of water resources," explained one supporter of the moratorium at a county commission meeting on Thursday, according to the local ABC affiliate.
A poll conducted last month by Embold Research and published by Heatmap Pro found that 75% of Americans now oppose the building of AI data centers in their area, including 61% who registered strong opposition. Aversion to data centers crosses party lines, with majorities of Democrats, Republicans, and independents viewing them negatively.
As AI companies spend tens of millions bankrolling Trump and Republican candidates, members of the president's Cabinet, including Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and Energy Secretary Chris Wright, have scoffed at Americans' concerns about the tremendous water and energy use of data centers, which have been well documented as jacking up utility prices.
In a social media post last month, Trump himself said the only reason communities would not want a data center nearby is if they "want to end up being backwards and poor." Before that, he said that "smart communities" were "begging for them."
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who has become one of Capitol Hill's leading critics of data centers and the artificial intelligence models they power, has said that if Trump truly finds data centers so desirable, he should “lead by example” by having his friend and megadonor, tech billionaire Elon Musk, build one at Mar-a-Lago.
"Trump says communities that oppose data centers will end up 'backwards' and 'poor,'" Sanders remarked Friday on social media. "Yesterday, Mar-a-Lago’s own Palm Beach County passed a year-long ban on these facilities."
"Maybe," the senator said, "Trump’s neighbors know something he doesn’t."
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'Is the President Telling the Truth?' Sanders Corners Trump FDA Nominee on His Bogus Drug Price Claims
"Wow! The American people are so excited to know now that!" US Sen. Bernie Sanders sarcastically said of Trump's false prescription drugs claim.
Sep 24, 2026
Sen. Bernie Sanders on Thursday grilled President Donald Trump's nominee to lead the US Food and Drug Administration about the president's false claims about the price of prescription drugs in the US.
During a Senate confirmation hearing, Sanders (I-Vt.) asked Dr. Heidi Overton about Trump's boast at this year's State of the Union address about giving Americans the cheapest medications of any country in the world.
“President Trump has claimed... that he took prescription drugs from the highest price in the entire world to the lowest,” Sanders said in an incredulous tone.
“Wow!" he continued sarcastically. "The American people are so excited to know now that we pay the lowest prices in the world for prescription drugs.”
BERNIE SANDERS: Trump claims we pay the lowest prices in the world for prescription drugs. Wow! Is the president telling the truth?
FDA NOMINEE HEIDI OVERTON: There has been immense progress--
SANDERS: Do we pay the lowest prices like the president said? You just told us you… pic.twitter.com/X7gWNbSmik
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 24, 2026
"What do you think?" Sanders asked Overton. "Are we paying the lowest prices in the world for prescription drugs?"
"Senator... there has been immense progress, especially on individual products," Overton replied. "Right now, 89% of branded drugs have signed agreements to lower their prices and make that available..."
Sanders at this point interjected.
"Do we pay the lowest prices?" he asked. "The president said it. He's your boss... He just said we pay the lowest prices in the world for prescription drugs. It's true or it's not true. Is it true?"
"Senator, we have seen..." Overton began.
"Is it true that we pay the lowest prices in the world for prescription drugs, as President Trump has said?" Sanders persisted.
"So, senator, the results that we have seen for the American people... have dropped prices," she replied. "And right now [the Consumer Price Index] says that, for the first time in 60 years, prescription drug prices have gone down by 3%."
"Which may have something to do with the legislation that we passed several years ago," said Sanders, in reference to provisions in the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act that granted Medicare the power to negotiate lower prices for certain prescription drugs.
Even if Trump's policies were solely responsible for a 3% drop in drug prices, that would not make them the lowest in the world by any stretch of the imagination.
A 2024 study from the RAND Corporation found that Americans pay nearly three times as much for prescription drugs compared to the rest of the world.
Sanders' office last year released a report showing that, during the first year of Trump's second term, drug companies raised prices on 688 medications, with a median increase of 5.5%.
Trump has a long history of making false claims about reducing prescription drug costs, and has even said that he has slashed them by as much as 600%, which would mean that pharmaceutical companies are paying consumers to take their medications.
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'Dangerous for Democracy': Paramount Merger Opponents File Emergency Motion to Fight Settlement Deal
"We believe the consent decree fails to meaningfully address or mitigate the harms that will be caused by this monopoly merger."
Sep 24, 2026
Update (1:40 pm ET):
A coalition of advocacy groups fighting the Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery merger said Thursday that the judge overseeing the case granted their emergency motion to allow opponents of the combination to file briefs against a settlement reached earlier this week by Paramount and a dozen state attorneys general.
“The consent decree the state AGs agreed to in a backroom deal is weak, unenforceable, and leaves workers, journalists, and consumers in the dust," members of the anti-merger coalition said in a statement. "The settlement fails to address the grave dangers this merger poses—and no amount of spin can change that. Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín’s ruling will allow the public to weigh in on this important issue and ensure the interests of those who will actually pay the price for the Ellisons’ sweetheart deal that the AGs failed to adequately represent are heard. We look forward to explaining that in further detail in our brief due at midnight tonight."
Earlier:
Opponents of Paramount's proposed acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery filed an emergency motion in federal court on Thursday asking the judge overseeing the merger proceedings to grant them an opportunity to formally oppose a settlement deal that Paramount reached earlier this week with a coalition of state attorneys general, led by California's Rob Bonta.
The merger opponents' filing asks Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín of the US District Court for the Northern District of California to give them "an opportunity to be heard" before she rules on the proposed consent decree between Paramount and the 12 state attorneys general—a deal that drew widespread outrage. The anti-merger coalition—which includes Free Press, the Committee for the First Amendment, the Future Film Coalition, and other groups—described the tentative deal as "dangerous for democracy."
The coalition's filing was submitted shortly before a court hearing that's scheduled to begin at 2:00 pm ET. Martínez-Olguín set the hearing to "address certain outstanding questions regarding the factual and legal underpinnings of the parties’ proposed consent decree."
Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, a constitutional rights litigator who serves on the steering panel for the Committee for the First Amendment, said in a statement that "we believe the consent decree fails to meaningfully address or mitigate the harms that will be caused by this monopoly merger to the entertainment industry, diverse storytelling, independent filmmaking, consumer interests, a free press, First Amendment rights, and fundamentally, democracy."
“It does not serve to benefit anyone except the owner family of Paramount and those holding political power, who will use this corporate consolidation as a proxy force for First Amendment suppression of disfavored expression and viewpoints," Verheyden-Hilliard added.
Paramount is headed by David Ellison, the son of billionaire Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, one of the richest people in the world and a megadonor to President Donald Trump.
If Martínez-Olguín approves the proposed consent decree and the merger is finalized, Paramount would control both CBS and CNN, as well as other major media properties such as HBO.
As part of the consent decree, Paramount committed to "News Editorial Independence Boards" for CBS and CNN comprised of five "established journalists." Critics, including the Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF), have characterized the proposed editorial independence boards as "worthless" and a potential "First Amendment nightmare."
“The solution for the Ellisons letting Donald Trump and [Federal Communications Commission Chair] Brendan Carr police journalism is not to let attorneys general and judges police journalism too,” said Seth Stern, chief of advocacy at FPF, part of the anti-merger coalition.
“It’s to keep the government out of the newsroom, period," Stern added. "No one seriously believes the Ellisons (or their rumored new investor Elon Musk) will do that, with or without a self-appointed sham editorial board, which is why this merger cannot proceed.”
The League of United Latin American Citizens and a group of religious leaders filed a separate motion on Thursday asking Martínez-Olguín to "defer entry of the decree" to "ensure this court has sufficient opportunity to consider the important issues raised" in the case.
"The proposed consent decree raises grave doubts whether the parties' settlement adequately addresses the harms alleged in the plaintiff states' complaint," the filing reads.
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