• Wilbur Ross, former Commerce Secretary and a key architect of Trump’s first-term trade policy, describes Trump’s current tariff strategy as a deliberate evolution: moving faster, hitting harder, and using broader executive powers to impose tariffs for both economic and diplomatic leverage.

The Trump administration’s use of tariffs has sparked debate over the ultimate goals of its economic strategy. However, a former cabinet member and key trade advisor to the President has suggested there is an underlying logic to the approach.

Since winning the Oval Office, President Trump has announced an evolving range of policies with economic sanctions spinning higher on some trade partners while others have been granted pauses.

Many of the announcements have not come through official White House channels, for example Trump threatened a 50% tariff on the EU in April in a bid to get European negotiators to the table—all posted on his social media site, Truth Social.

Indeed, Trump has come under scrutiny from Beijing, arguably the most critical region for the U.S. to make a deal, who claim America’s tariff tactics have been “coercion and blackmail” when instead it should “convey information to the Chinese side … through relevant parties.”

But Wilbur Ross, Trump’s former Commerce Secretary under the first administration, says there’s a clear tactic at play beneath Trump’s bluster.

The 87-year-old banker turned D.C. power player said there is an “art” to Trump’s dealmaking, as White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt has suggested, telling Fortune in an exclusive interview: “Well, everybody’s reaction to [tariffs] was first shock and amazement, but the actual retaliatory measures that they put in were fairly modest—even China didn’t match in dollar for dollar.

“There’s a real reason for that, I think the other countries, as they’ve thought about it, have recognized that while they have to talk very bravely for their domestic political constituencies … they also recognize that at the end of the day, they can’t afford a tit-for-tat escalating trade war with us.”

And this was a fact Trump was relying on, continued Secretary Ross: “One of the earliest things he put in was that 10% tariff on everything from everywhere. 

“Nobody is even complaining about that anymore. When you think about it, in the normal course, getting quietly to do a 10% tariff on everything from everywhere was a huge achievement, even if he didn’t get anything else. But because he followed it with these much more extreme things, it makes the 10% look like it’s not such a big bother.

“But it’s a huge number, and he’s been collecting it every day.”

Indeed, imported goods alone into the U.S. in 2024 stood at $3.36 trillion—even before tax, duties and levies were collected (worth $82 billion) and before imported services are added to those figures.

Even 10% of near-$3.4 trillion is an eye-watering sum to add to federal budgets, though some items like autos and steel are even higher. Indeed nations like China, Canada and Mexico are all already subject to more than the baseline 10% universal tariff.

‘A more adventurous path’

When Secretary Ross spoke to Fortune in a previous exclusive interview earlier this year, he said President Trump would be all the more confident in his second term because he now better understands the inner-workings of Washington D.C., and has a stronger mandate courtesy of a solid election sweep.

And President Trump’s tactics, which have included everything from threatening a 25% hike on Apple’s iPhones specifically to raising sanctions to more than 150% on China at some points, reflect the path Secretary Ross expected.

After all, Secretary Ross was one of the key allies in Trump’s team when renegotiating America’s position on the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). At the time, Trump was a fierce critic of the deal with Mexico and Canada and wanted to withdraw from the agreement and begin negotiating from there.

Secretary Ross felt the better tactic was to threaten such action and keep an exit as a last resort, an opinion that Trump eventually came around to agreeing with.

Likewise, having been appointed in 2017 Secretary Ross oversaw the tariff action in the first Trump administration which included sanctions on Chinese goods as well as aluminum and steel more widely.

“He has started out on a much more adventurous path than last time,” Secretary Ross told Fortune this week. “Broader in scope and more extreme in terms of the numbers themselves.”

Trump has three objectives, he adds: Shrinking trade deficits, producing revenue to offset his ‘One Big, Beautiful Bill’ and achieving other diplomatic purposes such as the flow of fentanyl into the U.S. and global defense spending.

“He has a much more fulsome, much more complicated agenda than before,” Secretary Ross explains. “It’s also different in … that last time I was very careful to set the groundwork to do public hearings, stakeholder meetings, to do written reports, to set a whole record so that under the Administrative Procedures Act we would be relatively safe from people trying to knock it out in court.

“This time, they did a very different thing. They went in mostly just by his say so using the IFA, the Emergency Powers Act, and they ran into a snag at the Court for International Trade.”

This snag may alter the course of tariff reaction on the account of businesses, he added, because their investment timelines may shift based on when the tariffs are legally approved.

But Secretary Ross added: “Most people are operating under the assumption that sooner or later, he’ll get something like what he was looking for … and therefore, while it’s slowed down a bit, don’t think it will derail [trade talks] because [foreign governments] also know there are other ways he could punish them rather than just the tariffs. 

“So it’s a bump in the road, but I don’t think it’s a huge pothole that would wreck the car.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

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• JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon warned that the economic stimulus from the pandemic has run its course, leaving consumers with depleted savings and raising concerns that inflation could rise while employment falls, posing a challenge for the Federal Reserve’s dual mandate.

For months, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell has been nervous that the two sides of the Federal Open Market Committee’s dual mandate will end up in opposition.

Now, JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon has suggested he’s right: The Wall Street veteran sees inflation going up and employment rates coming down, a headache indeed for the FOMC chairman.

Dimon suggested the upset has been brewing for some time, as opposed to being symptomatic of recent volatility in economic and foreign policy.

What is driving the billionaire banker’s fears is that the pumps used to boost the economy during the pandemic have finally run dry, and consumers are at last likely to pay the price.

Thus far, Wall Street giants have been pleasantly surprised by the robust health of consumers, which prevented the economy from free-falling into a hard landing and recession.

But it seems the economy hasn’t escaped without any significant scars, with Dimon telling Morgan Stanley’s U.S. Financials conference this week the mood is “okay,” explaining: “So the consumer had money, wages are pretty good, unemployment is pretty good, they’re spending it … All the extra money from COVID is kinda gone, so the lower-end folks … have normalized.

“At the upper end, the consumer is still traveling and spending some money, their jobs are there. Their home prices are way up, their stock prices are way up, it’s looking pretty good.”

But Dimon also noted that sentiment has fluctuated since Trump took office. Per the University of Michigan’s consumer sentiment barometer, for example, the index dropped from 71.7 in January 2025 to 52.2 by April, but has since stabilized.

The stock market has similarly fluctuated, wiping billions off the net worth of some of the world’s richest people before ballooning back up again. The S&P 500, for example, is up 2.6% for the year to date at the time of writing.

“The corporate side’s the same thing,” continued Dimon, per a recording obtained by Fortune. “Sentiments dropped, sentiments are coming back up, but business is still okay.

“But the buts are real—I’m not trying to be negative. We spent $10 trillion … Well, of course consumers have more money, we gave it to them. Of course businesses are doing better, consumers spent the $10 trillion—that goes right through P&Ls in every industry out there.

“And then we had QE [quantitative easing] … and the real reversal is just starting.”

Dimon’s $10 trillion figure is understood to refer to the global spending governments committed to boosting their economies during the pandemic.

He added: “Then you have all these really complex, moving tectonic plates around trade, economics, geopolitics, and future factors, which I think are inflationary: military, restructuring of trade, ongoing fiscal deficits, so it’s okay, but whenever you say ‘consumer sentiment’ remember neither consumers nor businesses ever pick the inflection points, they never have.

“If you’re looking for that inflection point … they’re not going to tell you that, you’re going to see real numbers, and I think there’s a chance real numbers will deteriorate. Employment will come down a little bit, inflation will go up a little bit—hopefully, it’s just a little bit.”

Worry about the ‘big ones’

Dimon added he wouldn’t worry about smaller fluctuations in metrics such as inflation and the employment rate, but would be more focused on wider issues (as he calls them, the “big ones”) like geopolitics, trading partnerships, and the militarization of the world.

This will be no surprise to those who have avidly read Dimon’s shareholder letters over the past few years.

In his most recent letter, for example, he cautioned the White House against pushing key allies too far away: “Keeping our alliances together, both militarily and economically, is essential. The opposite is precisely what our adversaries want.”

“This is going to be hard, but our country’s goal should be to help make European nations stronger and keep them close. If Europe’s economic weakness leads to fragmentation, the landscape will look a lot like the world before World War II.”

He added: “Economics is the longtime glue, and America First is fine, as long as it doesn’t end up being America alone.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

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• President Trump’s tariff strategy was based on the belief that China, heavily reliant on the U.S. market, would absorb higher export costs and be forced to negotiate. However, recent data shows Chinese exports to the U.S. have sharply declined as China diversifies to other markets, undermining Trump’s leverage and casting uncertainty over the future of U.S.-China trade relations despite a temporary truce.

When President Trump announced his tariff regime, he said China would have to “absorb” the increases to export prices and would be forced to the negotiating table to agree to new trading terms.

After all, he reasoned, China is reliant on the U.S. as its greatest export market and would have to reshape its entire economy if it didn’t agree to a deal.

So, despite wanting to rebalance trade with economic partners, Trump’s strong hand relied somewhat on the notion that Chinese businesses needed to keep selling to U.S. companies and consumers.

But as negotiations rumble on and evolve, that foundation has shifted. Data released Monday reveals Chinese exports to the U.S. fell by more than 34% in May 2025 when compared year on year.

Exports to the U.S. also dropped a little over 20% in April, signaling a conscious shift away from the reliable U.S. consumer toward other markets.

These new pockets of potential for Chinese exporters include Africa, where exports were up more than 30% in May year over year, and Canada, where exports are up 20% in May compared with the same month last year, per analysis from FX and international payments specialists Convera.

The diversification away from the U.S. for Chinese exporters could be interpreted as undermining Trump’s seat at the negotiating table in Beijing, said Convera’s lead FX and macro strategist, George Vessey.

He tells Fortune: “I think the data may be seen as undermining Trump’s position and ability to hurt China. Still, given the disinflationary impact this is expected to have on other countries, it raises the risk of the trade war escalating elsewhere with other countries forced to impose their own tariffs on China. 

“There was already growing evidence that China is successfully diversifying its trade relations, becoming less dependent on the U.S. as the destination of its manufactured goods. The share of the U.S. in overall Chinese exports has fallen from around 23% at the beginning of the century to 16%.”

He also provided a caveat to the data, saying: “It’s worth noting that Chinese exports to the U.S. always fall around the Chinese New Year (generally February) but usually rebound strongly by now. This year, the post–Chinese New Year rebound simply hasn’t happened. Although there was a surge in U.S. imports in Q1, nearly all came from Europe rather than from China.”

Reestablishing truce

The data may have come at a convenient time for Chinese officials, who are meeting with Trump aides to discuss a deal in London.

To recap, currently the tit-for-tat trade war between Beijing and Washington, D.C., has entered something of a truce, with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announcing a 90-day pause in May.

Both sides agreed to lower their rates by 115%, meaning Bejing faces a 30% tariff and the U.S. faces a 10% tariff.

As officials met in the U.K. this week, analysts had hoped for some further evidence about what an eventual deal would look like.

Instead, they received a reiteration of the truce already announced and a framework with little detail about future proceedings.

President Trump said that a deal was “done,” pending sign-off from President Xi. Rare earth magnets would be “upfront” in the agreement, he added, leading some to speculate that the U.S. had agreed to commitments such as letting Chinese students into its universities.

As Deutsche Bank’s Jim Reid wrote in a note sent to Fortune this morning: “Overall, this left a sense that the two sides had reestablished the trade truce that was signaled in Geneva last month, but with the path forward towards any genuine trade normalization still unclear.”

Vessey chimes: “Trade talks between major economies remain pivotal, shaping inflation and global market dynamics. We’ve heard some positive developments over the past week, but until there’s more clarity, investor sentiment may pivot back to macro drivers.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

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• Google is introducing a voluntary exit program for select U.S. teams and tightening its return-to-office policy for remote employees living near offices, aiming to streamline operations without losing top talent. While the company emphasizes it wants high performers to stay, it’s also offering a “supportive exit path” for those misaligned with its strategy amid growing pressure from the accelerating AI race.

Google is once again walking the tightrope that corporate America has been struggling with since the end of the pandemic: How do you invite some staff to leave, without your best employees walking out the door?

Indeed, how do you ask employees to return to the office without your best hires going in search of new pastures?

And with the AI race gathering pace with every quarter, losing valuable human resources to fierce competitors could have a tremendous impact.

These questions and concerns are clearly top of mind for the Big Tech giant, which sent out a memo to staff in the U.S. this week indicating buyouts were available to certain teams—notably within its knowledge and information and central engineering units, in addition to marketing, research, and communications.

Similar moves were already announced by Google’s Platforms and Devices team, as well as its People Operations team, earlier this year.

In addition to announcing the “voluntary exit program,” Alphabet-owned Google also said staff in some teams will also have to come to the office more often, though did not specify which departments would be affected when asked by Fortune.

This change of rules will impact remote staffers who live within 50 miles of the office, and will be asked to return to their in-person desks on a hybrid schedule. The policy change is not a company-wide alteration.

“Earlier this year, some of our teams introduced a voluntary exit program with severance for U.S.-based Googlers, and several more are now offering the program to support our important work ahead,” Google spokesperson Courtenay Mencini told Fortune. “A number of teams are also asking remote employees who live near an office to return to a hybrid work schedule in order to bring folks more together in-person.”

The severance packages are available to U.S.-based individuals regardless of their role or level, seeking to leave the Mag7 company whether for personal or professional reasons.

Finding the balance

The problem with opening up buyout conversations with staffers does mean that talented individuals may just take up their employer on the offer.

Indeed, a working paper published last year from Mark Ma, associate professor of business administration at the University of Pittsburgh, and colleagues found prominent technology and finance companies that implemented return-to-office (RTO) mandates lost their most skilled and senior employees. 

This seems to be a situation Google is aware of and is trying to navigate. Per CNBC reporting, which viewed the memo from Google executive Nick Fox announcing the changes, the tech leader wanted to be “very clear” he hopes high performers will stay.

“If you’re excited about your work, energized by the opportunity ahead, and performing well, I really (really!) hope you don’t take this! We have ambitious plans and tons to get done,” Fox wrote, per the memo reviewed by CNBC. “On the other hand, this [voluntary exit program] offers a supportive exit path for those of you who don’t feel aligned with our strategy, don’t feel energized by your work, or are having difficulty meeting the expectations of your role.”

On the RTO changes, Fox added (per the memo reported by The Verge) “you’ve heard me say that I believe we innovate better and make decisions faster when we’re working together in the office” and continued teams are working to ensure the sites were ready for an influx of new visitors.

The goal, he wrote, “is to ensure that everyone on our team is fully committed—it’s not to achieve a headcount target. In fact, we continue to hire where needed, and we expect to backfill many of the exited roles—which will also create new opportunities for internal mobility and growth.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

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• Elon Musk, after weeks of publicly criticizing President Donald Trump—including calling for his impeachment and denouncing a key spending bill—has abruptly walked back his attacks, apologizing on X and deleting his most incendiary posts. This rare reversal appears driven by the potential impact on Musk’s business interests and his long-standing, if now strained, relationship with Trump.

Almost as quickly as it began, Elon Musk’s onslaught against President Donald Trump has come to an end.

Over the past few weeks the Tesla CEO has swung from one of the Oval Office’s staunchest supporters to one of its most vocal critics, not only urging voters to rebel against the Trump team’s key spending bill but also claiming—without evidence—that President Trump’s name is mentioned in the Epstein files.

But in the early hours of this morning the Space X founder walked back some of his comments, posting on X (the social media site he owns formerly known as Twitter): “I regret some of my posts about President Donald Trump last week. They went too far.”

I regret some of my posts about President @realDonaldTrump last week. They went too far.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 11, 2025

For Musk, such a public apology against a prominent political figure is almost unheard of. Musk has previously told former Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau that it “doesn’t matter what you say” and called for British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer to go to jail, saying he was “evil.” He also said U.K. parliamentary under-secretary for the home office, MP Jess Phillips, should be imprisoned and “thrown out.”

No such apologies were issued to these politicians.

And yet President Trump has extracted a 180 degree turn from the richest man on the planet, likely owing to the previously firm partnership between the duo and—critics might suggest—because of the pain the White House can inflict on Musk’s private interests.

The friendship between Musk and Trump began back on the campaign trail, with the billionaire entrepreneur backing the then-Republican nominee to the tune of tens of millions of dollars.

Musk also suggested the idea of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) which would supposedly axe $2 trillion from federal spending, and was appointed to lead the team when Trump secured the Oval Office.

Things have gone downhill since there, however. Musk began publicly feuding with Peter Navarro, a top Trump advisor, saying he was “truly a moron.”

That was in response to Navarro claiming that the American people knew Musk—the richest man on the planet—is not a “car manufacturer” but a “car assembler.” In April Musk then began wielding the “fake news” line against Navarro, saying that his claims about Tesla are “demonstrably false.”

At the time the White House shrugged off the sparring, with Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt saying: “Boys will be boys.”

But Musk’s public criticism of the Trump administration didn’t stop there: He also criticized Trump’s tariff plans (supported by Navarro) and reportedly advised the White House against such a strategy.

Speaking with Italy’s Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini in April, Musk said: “I’m hopeful for example with the tariffs…that at the end of the day…it is agreed that Europe and the U.S. should move, ideally in my view, to a zero tariff situation—effectively creating a free trade zone between Europe and North America.”

Criticism heats up

But it was since officially leaving Washington D.C. as a special government employee that things really went south.

Last week Musk labelled Trump’s “Big, Beautiful Bill” as an “abomination,” urging voters to protest the policy, adding online: “Call your Senator, Call your Congressman, Bankrupting America is NOT ok! KILL the BILL.”

He continued: “[The bill] more than defeats all the cost savings achieved by the @DOGE team at great personal cost and risk.”

The Tesla CEO then claimed Trump could not have won last year’s election without him, as well as asking voters to rebel against the Big, Beautiful Bill.

Musk even went as far as calling for Trump to be impeached, and baited the Oval Office to cancel government contracts with his private entities. 

Trump hasn’t been silent on the matter but has been somewhat more tempered. Although warning that Musk’s federal contracts could be due for a review, the president added recently he “wasn’t thinking” about the Tesla CEO and hopes he does well with his EV-making company.

“I have no intention of speaking to [Musk],” Trump added in an NBC News interview this weekend. “I think it’s a very bad thing, because he’s very disrespectful. You could not disrespect the office of the president,” he added.

Some tensions seemed to cool following an interview of Vice President JD Vance, in which he said: “I don’t want to reveal too many confidences but [Trump] was getting a little frustrated, feeling like some of the criticisms were unfair coming from Elon…the president doesn’t think that he needs to be in a blood feud with Elon Musk, and I actually think if Elon chilled out a little bit, everything would be fine.”

Musk reacted to a clip of this interview on X, responding “cool.”

In a further deescalation yesterday, prior to his apology, Musk also shared positive reaction to the White House’s response to the L.A. protests and deleted his posts about Trump and Epstein.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

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• The feud between Elon Musk and Donald Trump appears to be cooling off, with Musk recently expressing support for the White House’s stance on immigration protests in Los Angeles and engaging positively with posts from President Trump and VP JD Vance. Despite a dramatic fallout over federal spending, Musk has since deleted inflammatory posts and responded amicably to conciliatory comments from Trump’s camp, signaling a possible reconciliation.

The so-called “blood feud” between Tesla CEO Elon Musk and President Donald Trump may already be simmering down, after the richest man on the planet returned to endorsing the actions of the White House.

In recent weeks the political partnership that was Musk and Trump broke down in spectacular fashion over the Oval Office’s ‘Big, Beautiful Bill.’

Musk felt the package undermined the work he had done with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to reduce spending and the federal deficit, though Trump claimed the SpaceX founder went “crazy” after finding out the bill cut certain electric vehicle mandates.

But even in the last 24 hours the sharpest rebukes between the pair seem to have been walked back and in some cases, rescinded.

Musk seems to have reconnected with the work of the White House due to the protests currently happening in Los Angeles against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

The Neuralink founder has long pushed for tighter border controls into the U.S., and this was among the political common ground which led to him supporting Trump in the 2024 elections.

Musk’s repatriation into team Trump began with the X owner screenshooting a post from the president’s Truth Social platform. In the post, Trump wrote: “Governor Gavin Newscum and ‘Mayor’ Bass should apologize to the people of Los Angeles for the absolutely horrible job that they have done, and this now includes the ongoing L.A. riots. These are not protestors, they are troublemakers and insurrectionists. Remember, NO MASKS!”

The Tesla CEO also reshared a post from Vice President JD Vance, adding it to his timeline with two American flags.

The post from Vance itself contains a further screenshot from Trump’s Truth Social, in which he claims “order will be restored, the illegals will be expelled and Los Angeles will be set free.”

The post from Vance accompanying Trump’s post reads: “This moment calls for decisive leadership. The president will not tolerate rioting and violence.”

And a further indication of the thawing relations between Musk and his former colleagues in Washington D.C. was his response to a JD Vance interview published at the weekend.

Speaking on podcast ‘This Past Weekend’ with Theo Von, Vance said: “I don’t want to reveal too many confidences but [Trump] was getting a little frustrated, feeling like some of the criticisms were unfair coming from Elon…the president doesn’t think that he needs to be in a blood feud with Elon Musk, and I actually think if Elon chilled out a little bit, everything would be fine.”

Reacting to the clip, Musk wrote: “Cool.”

Perhaps the most notable of Musk’s actions has been to delete the most salacious of his posts on X, which claimed the president’s name is in the Epstein files.

The post—shared with no evidence—was slammed as “BS” by Vance.

Musk vs Trump so far

The spat between Musk and Trump has unfolded a breakneck speed since the man worth $356 billion left Washington D.C., rescinding his title as a special government employee.

The partnership between the duo hasn’t always been smooth sailing, with Musk making his opinions of some major Trump 2.0 policies clear. He wasn’t a fan of tariffs, for example, and publicly sparred with a top Trump advisor, Peter Navarro, on the issue.

While White House Press Secretary Karoline Levitt laughed off that feud as “boys will be boys” she did have to respond more forcefully when Musk’s ire was directed at the Oval Office.

The Tesla CEO has variously claimed Trump could not have won last year’s election without him, as well as asking voters to rebel against the ‘Big, Beautiful Bill’ saying it is a “disgusting abomination.”

Musk even went as far as calling for Trump to be impeached, and baited the Oval Office into cancelling government contracts with his private entities.

Trump hasn’t been silent on the matter but has been somewhat more tempered. Although warning Musk’s federal contracts could be due a review, the president added he “wasn’t thinking” about the Tesla CEO and hopes he does well with his EV-making company.

“I have no intention of speaking to [Musk],” Trump added in an NBC News interview this weekend.

“I think it’s a very bad thing, because he’s very disrespectful. You could not disrespect the office of the president,” he added.

And even if Vance is hoping Musk will return to the fold, Trump added to NBC he believed his relationship with the CEO is over.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

© ALEX WROBLEWSKI, ALLISON ROBBERT—AFP via Getty Images

• A recent study by SmartAsset found that single adults with no kids (SINKs) in the U.S. need an average income of $102,648 to live comfortably, far above the national average salary of $59,228, with affordability varying significantly by state. While earlier research suggested happiness plateaus at a certain income, newer studies show that for many, happiness continues to increase with higher earnings, especially beyond $100,000.

If you feel like you simply haven’t got enough money in the bank to enjoy a comfortable life, you’re not alone.

A recent study from financial advisors SmartAsset found that even in America’s most affordable state, West Virginia, single adults with no kids (SINKs) need to earn at least $80,829 to live comfortably.

By SmartAsset’s metrics, this means being able to afford some lifestyle benefits such as hobbies and vacations, as well as financial goals such as retirement savings and education funds. Moreover, that salary also needs to cover housing, groceries, transportation and medical expenses.

The study was modeled on the popular 50/30/20 budget rule, which suggests allocating 50% of income to necessities, 30% to discretionary spending, and 20% to long-term goals like retirement savings or paying off debt.

For some people, a vacation and the ability to save for older age are a given of employment.

Yet for a huge portion of society, living a secure financial life is the definition of the American Dream.

The average wage needed to comfortably live in America as a single adult is now more than six figures: $102,648, according to SmartAsset.

This is a far cry from the average salaries of Americans.

In June 2024, Fidelity analyzed the Bureau of Labor Statistics to discover that the average salary for workers in the U.S. is $59,228—a fraction of the average funds needed to live comfortably in any state SmartAsset analyzed.

Men fared relatively better than women, taking home a median wage of $1,227 per week or $63,804 per year. For women, that figure stood at $1,021 per week or $53,092 per year—approximately a fifth less than their male counterparts.

Hawaii was the least affordable state for staffers to live comfortably and save for the future. There, staffers need to earn a little over $124,000 to enjoy a holiday, pay their bills, and save for the long term.

For a family of four, that figure skyrockets to over $294,000.

Massachusetts was the second-most expensive state and the state where it is most costly to raise a family, coming in at a little over $120,000 per SINK and near $314,000 for a family.

The most affordable state in the U.S. is West Virginia, where a SINK can live comfortably on just under $81,000 a year.

However, it’s not the most inexpensive state to raise a family. That goes to Mississippi, where SINK’s need $86,320 to live comfortably alone, but families need $186,618.

Other more affordable states for both single workers and families include Arkansas, North and South Dakota, Kentucky and Alabama.

Comfort or happiness?

Of course, some Americans will not just aspire to be comfortable financially but want to earn enough to make them happy.

Previously, barometers have suggested that a certain figure can be attained to achieve happiness, and then the effects of more money don’t improve outlook.

For example, in 2010 the late Daniel Kahneman, a winner of the Nobel Prize in economics, and his colleague and fellow Nobel Prize winner Angus Deaton, found that happiness increases with income up until $75,000, after which it plateaus.

But in 2021—more than a decade later, a new study discovered that for some people the limit on how much money could improve people’s happiness does not exist.

University of Pennsylvania professor Matthew Killingsworth found that happiness increased alongside income with no limit.

A further study, submitted a year later, discovered that correlations between money and happiness were split into three groups based on well-being: the least happy, the middle-range happy, and the most happy.

Economists found that happiness rose with income until $100,000 for the least happy group and then plateaued. For those in the middle range of emotional well-being, happiness continued increasing linearly with income with no limit. For the happiest group, happiness rose and accelerated once they were past $100,000.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

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• Vice President JD Vance acknowledged the deepening feud between Elon Musk and President Trump but emphasized his hope that Musk could eventually reconcile with the Trump administration, praising Musk’s past efforts with DOGE and calling him a “transformational entrepreneur.” While defending Trump and dismissing Musk’s Epstein-related claims as baseless, Vance warned that Musk’s aggressive political stance could backfire, both for his companies and the broader national interest.

It’s been pointed out by many spectators that the feud between the world’s richest man, Elon Musk, and arguably the world’s most powerful man, Donald Trump, is not going to end well for any involved.

And JD Vance, Trump’s political right hand, agrees.

The Tesla CEO and the president have fallen out to a major extent, at first over the White House’s “One Big Beautiful Bill,” which Musk says will undo all the work of his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

But since Musk’s departure from Washington, D.C., several weeks ago, his attacks on President Trump have continued to ramp up. He has encouraged voters to outright rebel against the bill by contacting their political representatives, with Trump saying he was “disappointed” in Musk for such statements.

The man worth $342 billion hit back that Trump would have lost the election without his backing, with the president then threatening to terminate a host of government contracts to Musk’s private entities.

In response, Musk claimed that the president’s name was in the Epstein files—a gibe he provided no evidence to support. Speaking in an interview this week, Vice President Vance said any notion that Trump did “anything wrong with Jeffrey Epstein” is “BS.”

Yet while the relationship between Musk and Trump seems to have gone past the point of no return, Vance says he still wants to see the SpaceX founder come back to the fold of the Trump 2.0 team.

“My basic read on it, first of all I’m the vice president to President Trump, my loyalties are always going to be with the president. Elon [is] an incredible entrepreneur. I think DOGE was really good. The effort to root out waste, fraud, and abuse in our country was really good,” Vance told the This Past Weekend podcast with Theo Von.

“I hope that eventually Elon kind of comes back into the fold. Maybe that’s not possible now because he’s gone so nuclear—I hope it is,” Vance added.

Musk’s decision to go “nuclear,” as Vance describes it, may not prove to be in the best interest of his companies, such as Tesla and Space X, which may now draw the attention of the Oval Office for the wrong reasons. As a result of this concern, in the past five days alone the share price of Tesla has sunk more than 14%, with Musk’s net worth taking an eye-watering hit as a result.

Vance suggested that Musk may be shooting from the hip instead of assessing the ramifications of going head-to-head with the White House, adding, “Elon’s new to politics…I think part of it is this guy got into politics and has suffered a lot for it.”

Indeed, even prior to a spat with the White House, Musk was suffering for his political interests. While he headed up DOGE, people protesting his work and the Trump administration began targeting Tesla by damaging cars, showrooms, and charging points—not only in the U.S. but also across Europe.

“The process in D.C., if you’re a business leader you probably get frustrated with that process because it’s more bureaucratic [and] slow moving. So I think there’s some frustrations there,” Vance added. “But I think it’s huge mistake for [Musk] to go after the president like that. I think that if he and the president are in some blood feud, most importantly it’s going to be bad for the country but I…don’t think it’s going to be good for Elon either.”

A good but not perfect bill

Concerns have been raised about the bill on account of the fiscal ramifications of the largest tax breaks “in history,” with previous projections from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) finding the legislation would add $3.8 trillion to the deficit while proposed cuts to Medicaid would shave only $1 trillion in spending.

However, the Trump administration said statements such as “the One Big Beautiful Bill increases spending” and “the One Big Beautiful Bill adds to the deficit” are false. For example, the White House points to the CBO’s predictions that while tariffs will shrink the economy it will also reduce federal deficits by $2.8 trillion (the inclusion of the Big Beautiful Bill in its modeling is not mentioned).

“I think that it’s a good bill and it does a lot of good for the American people,” Vance continued. “Look, Elon’s entitled to his opinion. I’m not saying he has to agree with the bill or agree with everything that I’m saying, I just think it’s a huge mistake for the world’s wealthiest man—I think one of the most transformational entrepreneurs ever—to be at war with the world’s most powerful man who I think is doing more to save the country than…anybody in my lifetime.”

He added, “I don’t want to reveal too many confidences but [Trump] was getting a little frustrated, feeling like some of the criticisms were unfair coming from Elon…the president doesn’t think that he needs to be in a blood feud with Elon Musk, and I actually think if Elon chilled out a little bit, everything would be fine.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

© Justin Merriman—Bloomberg via Getty Images