We’re used to seeing this kind of thing out of the payroll reports, but I don’t think anyone really expected this. Red flags are up all over the May data, coming from all sides. Not the least of which is the context behind all the big problems in the numbers. When dollar stores complain that consumers are no longer able to buy food from dollar stores, you know everything is really out of whack. Eurodollar University&#x27;s conversation w/Steve Van Metre ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- What if your gold could actually pay you every month… in MORE gold? That’s exactly what Monetary Metals does. You still own your gold, fully insured in your name, but instead of sitting idle, it earns real yield paid in physical gold. No selling. No trading. Just more gold every month. Check it out here: https://monetary-metals.com/snider ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- US Small Business Hiring Plans Drop to Lowest Since May 2020 https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-06-04/us-small-business-hiring-plans-drop-to-lowest-since-may-2020 Five Below Slides After Profit Beat as Retailer Flags Consumer Hit Over Oil High Prices https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-06-03/five-below-slides-after-profit-beat-as-retailer-flags-caution-over-consumer https://www.eurodollar.university Twitter: https://twitter.com/JeffSnider_EDU I’ll also be active on Bravais Social - a new AI-centered social network designed for professionals and knowledge workers. The platform aims to bring together a wider range of tools and functionalities tailored specifically for professional interaction, research, and knowledge exchange in one place. You can find me here: https://bravais.social/profile/edu

Dollar Tree Reveals Americans Have Hit Their Breaking Point

Eurodollar University

# Full Transcript

**Podcast:** Eurodollar University

## Participants

- **Jeff Snider** (Eurodollar University)
- **Steve Van Metre** (Eurodollar University)

## Transcript

Now we're used to seeing this kind of thing out of the payroll reports, but I don't think anyone was expecting this. There were red flags all over the May data coming from all sides, not the least of which is the context behind all of these big problems in the numbers. Dollar Tree, for example. When Dollar Tree says that its consumers, its customers, could no longer afford to buy food from dollar stores, you know you've got big problems.

Gas prices are up, everyone knows that, because consumers are paying more at the pump, they've been outspoken in how much this has forced them to cut back, and that's what Dollar Tree is really saying. The sacrifice is real. Now, thankfully, for most Americans, they only have to trade down a vacation, cancel a trip, maybe give up some nights out. So the last thing you would ever expect to see is a sudden burst of hiring in exactly that part of the economy, which is most vulnerable to the pullback and discretionary spending.

And again, Dollar Tree is saying the pullback is very real. But that's just what the BLS did in the payroll report, where, get this, leisure and hospitality jobs just soared by the most in over three years. Even worse, this accounted for way more than half of the private sector job gains during the energy shock.

And that's only just the beginning, from the dollar stores to the BLS doing the same thing it always does. Yes, we've seen this before, but this really does take the cake, especially right now. So Steve, we get this all the time. We're used to the establishment survey, the payroll number coming in way above expectations, and then it gets revised down later on. But this one, this one really takes the cake. This one is kind of out there as an exceptional extreme outlier.

Yeah, Jeff, this morning when I pulled it up, I was like, what is this? This is ridiculous. I mean, where did they get this number from? And then, of course, you see a ton of leisure and hospitality, you see government jobs, you see a lot of part time. Everything felt part time to me, and it just didn't make any sense because you talk about the income data showing a recession in October. We can look at real personal disposal income went negative back in January.

So it's like all of a sudden we know people just don't have that much money to spend, and yet all of a sudden the government's like, look at all these jobs created, which would tell you that people must be outspending or that businesses had the perception that people were going to go out and spend. And yet none of the underlying data confirms that. You know, I love to look at weekly hours because one of my base cases is that if indeed as a business owner things were booming, the first thing I'm not going to do is go out and hire someone.

I'm going to go to one of my employees who clea...

Dollar Tree Reveals Americans Have Hit Their Breaking Point

Transcript

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Dollar Tree Reveals Americans Have Hit Their Breaking Point

Transcript

Built for investment professionals

Every day you wait, your competitors are findingedge in conversations you're not hearing.

Every day you wait, your competitors are finding
edge in conversations you're not hearing.