As President Donald Trump asks Congress for a record $1.5 trillion in defense spending next year, the Small Business Administration could take a major hit.

Trump is seeking just $329 million for the SBA, that’s more than two-thirds less than what it received for fiscal 2026. The proposed cuts would come from entrepreneurial development, which the Trump Administration claims “waste taxpayer dollars,” among other programs. He’s also proposing a new administrative fee for lenders.

In fiscal 2025, the agency backed $37.2 billion in 7(a) loans—the main way people finance small business acquisitions.

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March was the strongest month for job growth in over a year, according to the latest BLS jobs report. The U.S. economy added 178,000 nonfarm jobs, far above consensus analyst estimates of 60,000, and the unemployment rate ticked down slightly to 4.3%.

It’s been a rocky year for the labor market, which started out by gaining 160,000 jobs in January before shedding 133,000 positions in February.

But there are several caveats to March’s strong reading: Hiring is still concentrated in certain sectors, particularly healthcare. The unemployment rate improved at least partly from nearly 400,000 fewer people participating in the labor force. And then there’s the uncertainty of the Iran war.

“The latest data suggests that without the war, we might’ve been on a path that was clearer of stagflation risks, but we don’t live in that timeline anymore,” says Erika McEntarfer, policy fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research.

President Donald Trump’s firing of McEntarfer as Bureau of Labor Statistics Commissioner last July, which was notable after a disappointing jobs report, had caused some to question the integrity of the agency’s data. For now,........

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