Mitchell Hartman

Across the country in Olympia, Washington, Chris Knudson owns three restaurants, a brew pub and two Italian restaurants.

I asked him, how's business right now?

Not awesome.

It's always a little bit slow in January, especially on the brewery side.

blame dry January for that.

But this January has been slower than last.

With inflation biting into consumers' paychecks, he sees diners going out less, ordering less extravagantly.

In Kansas City, Missouri, Emily Bordner is busy with her growing retail and wholesale jewelry business, EB & Co., which has four brick-and-mortar stores and 16 employees.

Sales boomed after Taylor Swift was spotted wearing one of Bordner's rings while cheering Travis Kelsey in the stands.

Last year, Bordner expanded, but also tariffs cut into her margins and consumers pulled back.

These business owners say it's not as hard to hang on to workers as it was a few years ago.

And Jim Piper says for his metal fabrication shop, gone are the days of scrambling to find skilled trade workers.

But for that, he'd need business to pick up.

I'm Mitchell Hartman for Marketplace.

Sharnice Mundell is 48, a homeowner and mother of three adult children, two of them living with her in Maryland.

A year and a half ago, she started a job as a member of the American Federation of Government Employees at the Federal Office of Personnel Management, working on health insurance contracts.

She was still a probationary federal worker in January 2025, right after the inauguration, when...

It was a short ride.

In mid-February, her job was eliminated, she was told in a prerecorded video.

Without income, she struggled financially.