Running the numbers on deportation, interest rates and math

0:01NPR.

0:11This is The Indicator from Planet Money. I'm Waylon Wong. And I'm Darian Woods. It has been an extremely busy week in the news, and we have got it all covered on Indicators of the Week. We are here to recap a few of the top numbers in this slew of flooding the zone that we have seen. That's right. And here to bail us out with a bucket is our Planet Money colleague, Amanda Ronchick. I brought more than just one bucket. I brought a bunch of buckets. You're here on the arc. You're going to save us. Going to try. It's been a lot of news this week. Today on the show, we're going to pass some mysterious Fed speak from the central bank, and we'll look to the costs of deportations plus some bad math scores.

1:01This message comes from NPR sponsor Zendesk, introducing the next generation of AI agents built to deliver resolutions for everyone. With an easy setup that can be completed in minutes, not months, Zendesk AI agents resolve 30 % of interactions instantly, quickly giving your customers what they need. Loved by over 10 ,000 companies, Zendesk AI makes service teams more efficient, businesses run better, and your customers happier. That's the Zendesk AI effect. Find out more at Zendesk.com. All right, indicators of the week. Let's start with you, Ellen. All right, so the Federal Reserve, you might have seen, kept interest rates unchanged this week.

1:39This is a pause after three consecutive rate cuts. And here is what jumped out at me. In the Fed's statement about leaving rates the same, it said, quote, inflation remains somewhat elevated. Last month, the Fed's statement said, quote, inflation has made progress, dot, dot, dot, but remains somewhat elevated. Those three words, has made progress, were cut from the Fed's most recent statement. That's my indicator, three words. Yeah, I don't understand what the Fed was trying to say with that has made progress. Does that mean inflation is progressing and is worse? Is inflation better? Like, am I supposed to freak out?

2:15Yeah, I had yada, yada, yada, the progress part. And what it said in the earlier statement was has made progress towards the 2 % target. I see. And then it took out the reference to progress towards the target in its most recent statement. Yeah, and the consumer price index is ticking up. In December, it was 2.9 percent. It was a smidge higher than the previous month. So not in the right direction. Yeah. And Fed Chair Jerome Powell was asked about this change in wording during the press conference. And he said they just wanted to shorten the sentence and, quote, this was not meant to send a signal.

2:52Everything sends a signal. Does he not know at this stage? I'm surprised the briefing room didn't rise up in a great uproar and say, But everything you do sends a signal. Poor man, though. He can't even do an edit without it being evaluated. No, it's true. And, you know, throughout the press conference, you know, because it's been such a chaotic week, obviously there were so many questions about, like, the new administration's policies. And what do you think the impacts of tariffs and deportations on the economy will be? And Jerome Powell just had to hold the line and not make any big statements.

3:24And he was like, we are in wait and see mode. We look at a range of possible outcomes. He's like, I'm not going to comment on that. We don't know what's going to happen. OK, but does he say, oh, yeah, Trump called me and asked me to lower interest rates? Is that one of the things that he said? He was asked about this and he said he's had no contact with the president. And then after the press conference, Trump went on Truth Social and posted a diatribe against the Fed. The president said, quote, because Jay Powell and the Fed failed to stop the problem they created with inflation, I will do it.

3:54End quote. So as Powell is fond of saying, we will wait and see on what the president does. Now, deportations, a very big pillar of Trump's agenda and something that would really affect the country and the economy. Amanda, that's what your segment's about. Yes. My indicator of the week is a large dollar amount. It is$26.9 billion, which is how much Homeland Security says it is going to need in its first year to do all of the detainments and deportations that the Trump administration has been promising. Otherwise, they say it will be impossible. So it was$26.9 billion. You said it was large. How large compared to the size of their budget?

4:34Yeah, yeah. It is truly a lot. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, also known as ICE. ICE's budget is$8 billion a year, so that's quite a lot of money. And it's also like a much bigger number than has been floated out in the media. But NPR's Ximena Bustillo managed to get this internal memo from ICE. and in it they detail how much they think the mass deportation is going to cost and what they're going to need. So deporting somebody is complex. There are arresting agents, local law enforcement sometimes, there's the courts, they have to hold people, maybe fly them somewhere. I can imagine the costs stack up.

5:13Yeah, and a lot of the old numbers that have been floating around were based on a calculation of a much smaller number of beds that would be needed to detain people. Plus, this week, the Lakin-Riley Act became law. This is going to expand the scope of who can be deported. So crimes like shoplifting, now that can lead to deportation. Plus, you don't have to be convicted necessarily. So all of these deportations, this is going to cost a lot of money. And you said the memo was really detailed, right? So what else was in there? They say they're going to need 26 more airplanes, more than 7 ,000 lawyers, another 10 ,000 people to enforce this law.

5:49and they think an additional 110 ,000 detention beds. And where's the money going to come from? That is a very good question. ICE is under the Department of Homeland Security, as are a bunch of agencies that I'm sure you've heard of, things like FEMA, the Coast Guard, TSA, which does, you know, airport security. And there's been talk for about a year now about moving money from these branches into ICE's budget. And of course, right now, House Republicans are reportedly working on figuring out ways to fund a variety of Trump proposals, including these mass deportations. And so, again, a big part of Trump's promises.

6:28And so not surprising that they're trying to find ways to fund it. That's right. Thanks, Amanda. No problem. Darian, what's your indicator? My indicator is 28 percent. This week, only 28 percent of American eighth graders met the standard of math proficiency. That's according to the Department of Education's National Assessment of Educational Progress, or NAEP. And this number is a slight improvement over 2022, but it is still down from the pre-pandemic times from 2019 when 34 % of pupils were proficient. Oh man, I had an eighth grader during this time period. I wonder if he took this test. Potentially.

7:06Oh my gosh. Oh man. So what's your insight, Amanda, as a parent of an eighth grader? My insight is that the pandemic was really hard. We're still feeling effects from it. Yeah, for sure. Like Zoom hangover. Absolutely. And that's what educational experts seem to be saying. And you see this big break after 2019. But the slide actually started a lot earlier than that, over a decade ago. And you would hope that the country was building basic math skills and not just because math is intrinsically fun. I do agree with you, but I will say that whenever I tell my kids, like, don't you like doing fractions?

7:39Fractions are so fun. She gets so mad at me. They don't understand. Okay, well, here's another argument, how good you are at math has pretty strong correlations with how much you earn later in life. You could try that way then. Okay, I think that she will find that motivating. So there's a study that looked at the 2022 results and it compared the eighth graders' test scores against census data historically. And it found that if the post-pandemic decline in math scores were permanent, it would shave off around$20 ,000 from each student's lifetime earnings on average. Oh, my goodness. Wait, let me do the math on this.

8:18I think that's a 1.6 % decline. Is that right? Okay, computer. Amanda, you may be looking at the report. Not that I doubt your super math skills. Thank you. And you know, this$20 ,000 loss is not just bad for the individual worker, but it speaks to the productivity of the country's entire workforce for the future. High stakes. This is dramatic. Really? Okay, I'm afraid to ask, but how do we compare to other countries? Yeah, so when you look at international comparisons of math scores, they typically show countries like Japan and the Netherlands and Canada. Amanda, you'll be happy. These countries typically do better.

8:59And this does mean that the U.S. is at a competitive disadvantage in this respect against these countries. Darian, come on, end with a little bit of hope for us, please. Is there any hope to be had? So look, we have some hope. I'm going to spotlight Alabama. This is the only state where fourth graders' math scores are actually higher than pre-pandemic levels. Wow, one state out of 50. It might have something to do with the 2022 law that was passed aiming to improve math proficiency for young learners. Yeah, maybe you can send me some of the paperwork to give to my eighth grader, my recently finished, my former eighth grader.

9:35Why don't you send your recent eighth grader for, I don't know, summer camp in Alabama? There we go. Summer math camps. What every child wants. Everybody here clearly loves summer math camp. That's fun for us. This episode was produced by Corey Bridges with engineering by Gilly Moon. It was backtracked by Sierra Juarez. KK Cannon is our show's editor and the Indicator is a production of NPR.