Everybody held their breath for yesterday’s employment data as if it were a hint from the teacher about what might be on the test, since the jobs report is one of the last economic signals the Fed gets before it decides how much to cut interest rates by later this month. And it was...just okay.

The Labor Department said that the economy added 142,000 jobs in August, which was fewer than economists expected, bringing the three-month job creation average to its lowest since mid-2020.

• As a sign that the summer was a tougher time to send out resumes than previously thought, the June and July jobs numbers were revised down by a total of 86,000.
• On the bright side, the unemployment rate expectedly ticked down to 4.2% in August—the first decrease in months—while average hourly earnings rose 0.4% last month and 3.8% over the year, outstripping inflation.

The middling jobs snapshot comes on the heels of a reported decline in factory orders last month, another sign the economy is getting wobbly.

Who hired and fired? The construction industry cranked up hiring, adding 34,000 employees last month, while leisure and hospitality gained 46,000 workers. Meanwhile, manufacturing and retail shed 24,000 and 11,000 jobs, respectively.

Homework for the Fed

No one is asking if the Fed will lower interest rates at its meeting this month, but everyone is wondering how big the rate cut will be. Shortly after the jobs data dropped, Fed Governor Christopher Waller said he was “open-minded about the size and pace of cuts.”

Though some economists think the lukewarm labor market could pave the way for a more aggressive 0.5% cut this month, investors seem to believe the latest job snapshot has made a smaller cut of 0.25% more likely (but they’re more bullish on bigger cuts later on).

For now, Wall Street is skittish…and reacted to the jobs report by continuing this week’s stock sell-off.—SK

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Unfortunately, Akkermansia, a keystone strain for gut health, can decrease by 90% as you age.^ But here’s some good news: Pendulum has a multistrain probiotic formulated with beneficial bacteria that naturally increases GLP-1.*

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Curb those cravings.

Trump hush money sentencing delayed until after the election. Yesterday, the judge overseeing the case in which Donald Trump was convicted of falsifying business records to hide a hush money payment to porn actress Stormy Daniels pushed his sentencing to Nov. 26. Judge Juan Merchan said the purpose of the delay was “to avoid any appearance—however unwarranted—that the proceeding has been affected by or seeks to affect the approaching presidential election.” It’s a win for Trump, who is also trying to get his conviction thrown out based on the Supreme Court’s recent ruling that presidents have broad legal immunity (a decision is expected on that on Nov. 12).

Teen and father charged in Georgia school shooting. The 14-year-old accused of perpetrating the shooting that killed four people at Apalachee High School and his father, Colin Gray, who has also been charged with crimes in connection with the school shooting, appeared in court separately yesterday and did not enter pleas. In an unusual move, prosecutors charged the father with involuntary manslaughter and child cruelty for allowing his son to have an assault rifle despite knowing he was a threat. He could receive up to a 180-year prison sentence if convicted. His son is facing the possibility of life in prison on four felony murder charges.

7-Eleven owner rejects $38.6 billion takeover bid. Seven & i Holdings, the Japanese company that owns the convenience store chain, rebuffed a buyout offer from Canada’s Alimentation Couche-Tard, owner of rival Circle K. The company said the offer “grossly undervalues” it but that it remains open to negotiating and considering a better deal. The 7-Eleven owner also said the proposal didn’t sufficiently address the potential antitrust hurdles in the US for a tie-up that would create a chain with 100,000 stores globally.

Despite what a weekday walk by your local convenience store at around 3:30pm might suggest, teens are vaping less. Under 6% of middle and high schoolers self-reported that they vaped this year. That’s down from 7.7% last year and the lowest it’s been in a decade.

An annual survey about tobacco habits given to roughly 29,000 sixth- through 12th graders around the country via online questionnaire shows that most of the decline came from high school students, whose e-cig usage peaked at 27% in 2019.

The drop comes after years of public health campaigns aimed at warning kids about the dangers of vaping, crackdowns on flavored tobacco, and this Vine kinda making vaping look lame.

Big picture: Public health officials are celebrating it as a win, but every time they seem to stamp out one habit, new ones pop up. While less than 2% of teens said they used nicotine pouches this year, Zyn-maker Philip Morris just announced it’s going to build a $600 million Colorado factory to keep up with surging demand. Plus, disposable e-cigs like Chinese-produced Elf Bar, the most popular brand among young vapers, have managed to skirt multiple FDA bans.—MM

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Keeping an eye out for Selener may have been the best financial advice of the 2010s: Actress/singer/cosmetics mogul Selena Gomez is officially one of the youngest self-made billionaires in the US, Bloomberg reported yesterday.

It’s mostly thanks to her beauty empire. More than 80% of Gomez’s $1.3 billion net worth comes from her majority stake in Rare Beauty, the $2 billion mid-priced makeup company she founded five years ago, per Bloomberg. It now generates more revenue than Jessica Alba’s and Lady Gaga’s cosmetics brands:

• Since Gomez is the third-most-followed person on Instagram, her brand has more reach than the typical A-lister’s self-plug.
• She’s able to leverage exposure across other business ventures. After Rare Beauty’s launch, Gomez posted social clips of her applying the brand’s makeup before taping her Max show, Selena + Chef.

The rest of her fortune mostly comes from…endorsement deals, touring (which she hasn’t done since 2016), and her mental health startup, Wondermind. Albums, acting, streaming royalties, and real estate collectively account for <5% of Gomez’s loot, making her $6 million/season salary for the Emmy-nominated Only Murders in the Building seem almost pro bono.

Zoom out: There is no shortage of celebrities trying (and often failing) to diversify their incomes via cosmetics startups. Even Brad Pitt has given it a shot.—ML

Gouda news for cheese lovers: You’re not alone in your devotion to dairy you can sink your teeth into. The average American now eats ~42 pounds of cheese a year, an amount that exceeds butter, ice cream, and yogurt combined, according to Bloomberg. It’s also more than double the amount of cheese Americans were chowing down on when the government began keeping track in 1975—an even more impressive leap when you consider that fondue parties were de rigueur back then. And the dairy industry is leaning into this growing love for the hard, soft, and stinky as milk-drinking declines. Of the $8 billion worth of dairy-product projects scheduled to get up and running in the US between 2023 and 2026, more than half are facilities dedicated to cheesemaking, the trade group the International Dairy Foods Association says.