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Jeanine Herbst (0:13)
Terms apply details@capitalone.com Live from NPR News, I'm Jeanine Herbst. The Department of Agriculture has started to issue guidance on how states should implement new work requirements for people who get food assistance through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance program, or SNAP. As NPR's Maria Godoy reports, estimates suggest the new rules could result in some 2.4 million people losing benefits each month.
Maria Godoy (0:42)
The changes to SNAP were included in the massive spending and tax bill President Trump signed into law this summer. Under the new rules, most able bodied adults without dependents must now prove they work, volunteer or take part in a training program for at least 80 hours a month in order to keep their SNAP benefits. The changes removed previous exemptions for many parents of teens, veterans, people experiencing homelessness, foster youth and adults between the ages of 55 and 65. The USDA says states have a 120 day period to implement the changes. Maria Godoy, NPR News.
Jeanine Herbst (1:20)
The Trump administration says the U.S. citizenship and Immigration Services agency, or U.S. citizenship U.S. cIS, will now have its own law enforcement agents who can make arrests and carry firearms. NPR's Jasmine Gars reports. It's a shift for the agency, which reviews applications for immigrants to become naturalized citizens and issues green cards.
Jasmine Gars (1:42)
USCIS has up until now been kept separate from making immigration arrests and enforcing deportations. Under the new rule, the agency will be able to add special agents who can carry firearms and execute search and arrest warrants. In a statement, the Department of Homeland Security called it the dawn of a new era and said the rule will allow USCIS to, quote, thoroughly fulfill its national security, fraud detection and public safety missions. The rule will go into effect after 30 days. Jasmine Garsd, NPR News, Washington.
Jeanine Herbst (2:17)
Employers added far fewer jobs than expected last month. The Bureau of Labor Statistics says employers added 222,000 jobs in August, down from the nearly 80,000 jobs that economists were expecting to have been created. NPR Scott Horsley has more on what that means for possible rate cuts.
Scott Horsley (2:38)
Forecasters were already betting that Fed policymakers would cut interest rates by at least a quarter percentage point at their next meeting, which is in less than two weeks to prop up the job market. After today's report, some investors think the Fed could even go further and order a super sized half point rate cut. The reason the Fed has been keeping interest rates this high for this long is to fight inflation so long as the job market was holding up, you know, policymakers felt like they could take their time before making a change. Now with these cracks appearing in the job market, the Fed is being pulled in two different directions, and that's not a comfortable place for the central bank to be.