Voters say their most important issue in this presidential election is the economy, and with less than a week until Election Day, they are about to be given a lot of homework. There will be a rush of economic reports dropping before November 5, and you’re about to see a lot of data condensed and stripped of context for headlines and speeches.

As if there wasn’t enough chaos, the Boeing strike and aftermath of Hurricanes Helene and Milton will likely muddle some of the data. In the final stretch of automated texts asking for $20, here’s an economy vibe check:

What we know already. Two new reports released yesterday seemed to signal a positive-but-cooling labor market. The Conference Board said its consumer confidence index rose 9.5 points to 108.7, the biggest jump since 2021. That number is still below pre-pandemic levels, but the number of consumers who expect a recession within the next year dropped to its lowest level since the survey started asking the question in July of 2022.

The Labor Department also released the JOLTS report yesterday, showing that last month had the lowest number of job openings in more than three years.

What’s still ahead? The US government will release its first estimate of last quarter’s GDP growth today, which is expected to be a healthy 3%, according to a Bloomberg survey. A report on Thursday measuring personal consumption expenditures is expected to show inflation dropping to 2.1% in September, tantalizingly close to the Fed’s 2% goal.

The big one on Friday: October’s jobs report will offer a blurry look at the labor market, with an expected 4.1% unemployment rate (the lowest preelection unemployment rate in 24 years) but a sluggish job growth rate because of the strike and hurricanes.

Bottom line: It’s hard to say whether the deluge of percentage point changes will make a difference to voters, especially in this tight election. Gas prices, which presidents have little control over, are nonetheless near a three-year low.—MM

JPMorgan is suing customers over “infinite money glitch.” It turns out that banks don’t just let people steal money from ATMs. JPMorgan filed lawsuits in three federal courts against customers who allegedly took thousands of dollars from machines by depositing bad checks and withdrawing funds in an illegal loophole that went viral on TikTok earlier this year. One Houston, TX, man owes JPMorgan nearly $300,000, the bank said. Though the suits are civil, JPMorgan has referred cases to law enforcement and is still investigating thousands of other incidents across the US. The bank wants the stolen funds returned with interest.

Google weathered a bumpy quarter to beat earnings estimates. Google parent Alphabet reported Q3 earnings yesterday, besting analyst forecasts with over $88 billion in revenue, which sent the stock up in after-hours trading. Google’s third quarter was full of challenges: It restructured teams to optimize for the AI race and faced multiple antitrust lawsuits, one of which found the company guilty of being an illegal search monopoly. But the tech giant appears no worse for wear thanks to increases in Cloud and YouTube ad revenue. In other earnings news, Chipotle missed expectations in its first report since CEO Brian Niccol defected to Starbucks.

TGI Fridays closed dozens of stores ahead of rumored bankruptcy. Like many chain restaurants, the spot where your entire high school would get dinner before going to the movies on a Friday night is having a tough go of it. TGI Fridays abruptly closed ~50 locations this week, CNN reported, as the casual chain known for its endless apps reportedly weighs bankruptcy. Fridays had 270 locations in the US at the beginning of the year but is down to 164 today amid competition from lower-cost restaurants and a mounting pile of debt. Red Lobster, Buca di Beppo, and other formerly popular casual dining chains have already filed for bankruptcy this year as consumers shift their spending habits to save money.—AE

X is behaving like someone three drinks in at dinner with the inlaws: simply incapable of avoiding political talk. The Elon Musk-owned social platform showed a constant stream of political content to new users who chose nonpolitical interests when registering on the app, according to an experiment the Wall Street Journal ran this month.

Apolitical? What’s that?

The newspaper set up 14 accounts on X with chosen interests like “travel” and “crafts” that have nothing to do with partisan sparring and then used AI to analyze the content they encountered while scrolling on the For You Page:

• While less than a third of posts the algorithm showed were political, they reappeared so frequently that roughly 50% of the posts in the feeds ended up being politics-related.
• While the most-encountered account was Kamala Harris’s official campaign page, KamalaHQ, the majority of the most frequently appearing political accounts promoted right-wing views.

The findings undermine X’s assurances to skittish advertisers that users’ feeds are mostly nonpolitical.

Meanwhile…the reach of politicians’ posts has declined since last year, but the most viral tweets from congressional accounts came from Republicans, according to a Washington Post analysis. It’s unclear whether the trend reflects user preferences or the inner workings of X’s algorithm, since WaPo did not find evidence of direct manipulation.—SK

Five bean salad may be the new steak tartare. A group of scientists working on the next iteration of US dietary guidelines recommended that Americans limit their red meat intake and increase plant consumption, drawing ire from the beef industry, which is still recovering from a chicken boom in the ’90s.

A push for plants: In draft recommendations to the USDA and the Department of Health and Human Services, scientists suggested that new guidelines should encourage Americans to limit their red meat intake in favor of a “plant-forward” diet. This would move beans, peas, and lentils from the vegetable category to the protein category, in front of meat, poultry, and eggs, to address cardiovascular risks associated with eating red meat.

But…the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA) is pushing back, warning that these guidelines would put Americans at risk of nutritional deficiencies. The NCBA criticized plant-forward suggestions as “out of touch” and “impractical” since 80% of the US population eats meat.

There’s precedent: In 1977, the USDA recommended that Americans eat less red meat and more poultry to reduce the risk of heart disease. By the ’80s, beef consumption was down 20%, and 15 years after the guidelines changed, chicken became more popular than beef. If the same thing happens again, a Len-Til-A could be in your future.—CC

Find someone who loves you as much as a 6'4" tight end loves sealed peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with the crust removed. Smucker’s Uncrustables have long been a favorite snack of NFL players since they’re great on the go and athletes can inhale large quantities of them at once like a sandworm from Dune. But now we know just how much pro footballers love the pocket-sized noshes: According to The Athletic, NFL players consume 80,000 Uncrustables per season, or roughly the weight of three Travis Kelces every week. The Denver Broncos led the way last year, eating 700 sandwiches per week, while the New Orleans Saints were the least uncrustable, consuming just 50/week—probably because there is real food to eat in New Orleans. Smucker expects the product to reach $1 billion in annual revenue soon.—AE

Unless you have space tourism cash, you may not see how space exploration benefits Earthlings beyond satellite internet and neat Insta reels from the ISS.

But a novel push to build factories in orbit might change how you think about the billions of dollars being poured into rocket launches. Pioneering scientists, engineers, and entrepreneurs hope to harness the zero-gravity environment to produce items that are either extremely impractical or impossible to make on Earth, from cutting-edge cancer drugs to game-changing semiconductors.

Read more about the budding orbital industrial revolution here.