Data Edition

Both The New York Times and Yahoo News just published chart breakdowns of how the pandemic changed America.

Social life: On average, we spend an extra hour and a half more at home than we did pre-pandemic.

Prices: Generally, economic growth has been strong in recent years as wages have gone up, and markets thrived. But inflation’s grip on consumer prices has kept many Americans from feeling the benefits.

Debt explosion: What was already steep spending turned volcanic during the pandemic, with historic stimulus measures sending costs soaring.

Schools: Pandemic disruptions sent public school enrollment into decline, and in many states, those students haven’t returned. Instead, homeschooling and other nontraditional models have gained ground.

The experts: Fumbled responses and shifting guidelines from health officials during the pandemic have given new life to anti-vaccine movements and eroded public trust in science and medicine.

Health: Since 2019, the number of Americans with disabilities has grown by 4 million.

Hollywood: With theaters shuttered and productions frozen, annual box office revenue plunged by $9 billion, and years later, the industry still hasn’t fully bounced back.

Five years on, we’re still figuring out new ways that the pandemic affected us. But contrast that with how fast the news cycle moves these days. The media’s attention span is bizarre: A candidate nearly takes a bullet to the face, and within days, the press moves on. But some random guy’s bad tweet? That’s a multi-week spectacle. The lesson is that if you want to make sense of what’s happening, tuning out the noise and keeping the long view is a necessity.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has repeatedly framed the administration’s trade policies as a win for “Main Street over Wall Street,” but do small business owners actually see it that way?

The big statistic: Per FedEx’s Small Business Trade Index survey from March 2024, 88% of small business and medium-sized firms rely on imported goods either “a lot” or “some.”

• So, we can expect that the high tariffs the administration is placing on foreign imports will impact these “Main Street” American businesses.

Bessent during a CNBC appearance this week: “I think if you want to buy things from other countries and you wanna bring it into America, then the price is gonna rise. But if you make it here, then, of course, the price won't won't rise. … There's no tariff if you make it here.”

A study from the Skeptic Research Center found that those who trusted mainstream media the most were also the most likely to downplay the financial toll of BLM protests, guessing the damage was under $1 million—when in reality, it exceeded $2 billion.

This isn’t meant to take shots at mainstream media respecters (who, polls suggest, tend to lean left). In fact, research shows that conservative audiences—Fox News viewers, for instance—have their own knowledge gaps. The more interesting food for thought isn’t who’s right or wrong, but how our media diets influence what we see and what we miss.

A new Gallup poll found Republican satisfaction with the state of the nation jumped 58 points, from 10% in January to 68% in February—the largest recorded increase since Gallup started tracking party shifts in sentiment.

On the flip side, Democrats are absolutely devastated, with just 5% feeling good with the way things are going in the country. Independents’ positive vibes about the U.S. have ticked up modestly since Trump took office, with 30% saying they like what they’re seeing.

I think this tracks pretty nicely with President Trump coming out like Rambo to open up his second term. If you’re on the team, you love it. If you’re a critic, you hate it. And if you’re indifferent, you’re feeling cautiously optimistic.

President Trump has yet to deliver on his campaign vow to conduct the “largest deportation program in American history,” but it’s probably not for lack of trying.

The numbers: In the past month, ICE made nearly 23,000 arrests and carried out 18,000 deportations.

• Arrests are up significantly, with ICE detentions peaking at 872 per day in late January before falling to under 600 per day in mid-February (This is a sharp increase from 255 daily arrests under Biden).

• But deportations aren’t keeping up with arrests: ICE deported an average of 600 people per day in mid-February, down from 750 daily deportations in the previous year.

Why? Trump is at least partially a victim of his own success—having managed to lockdown the border means fewer migrants are being arrested and transferred to ICE.

The vibes: An Axios-Ipsos poll from January found 66% of Americans support deporting immigrants who are in the country illegally.