But there’s one titan of industry bucking that trend: JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon. In his letter to shareholders, published Monday, the investment bank’s longtime chief executive praised the agility and ownership of small teams in military terms. “The teams needed to tackle [specific problems] should be small and authorized with the decision-making ability to move and act like Navy SEALs or the Army’s Delta Force,” he wrote. “This is trench warfare; it’s about fighting for every inch, moving quickly and getting things done.”

There’s some basis for the comparison with special forces operations: The SEALs are known to work in squads of eight or fewer, for example. And in the business world, organizing workers into smaller teams can ensure that everyone has a stake in the outcome, Dimon argued. 

In a team with too many members, accountability is spread too thin, he wrote: “Very often when a management team wants to accomplish something new… everyone on the team says, ‘We’ll get it done,’ meaning they will add it to the long list of tasks already on their plate. But when efforts are 1% of a lot of people’s jobs, it will never get done.” 

Smaller teams, with shorter “to do” lists, are incentivized to give their full focus to any given task, he explained: “You need a team 100% dedicated to the mission—and everyone else supports them.”

In championing smaller teams, Dimon is at odds with the ultra-flat management model being adopted by firms like Meta, where CEO Mark Zuckerberg is expecting workers to do more with less in the AI era. The tech giant has laid off hundreds of workers this year and implemented worker-to-manager ratios of 50-to-1 in at least one department—a lopsided organizational structure that’s far beyond even the outer limit of the so-called span‑of‑control scale (which measures how flat or hierarchical a structure is by how many direct reports each manager has).

Eliminating layers of management is intended to speed up decisions and innovation by cutting hierarchy and bringing leaders closer to front-line employees and customers, thereby boosting engagement and ownership. But in such arrangements, junior staff can get overlooked, employees can feel directionless, and managers can burn out—or, as Dimon points out, accountability for getting things done can be diluted.

Despite those risks, U.S. companies are continuing to “flatten,” according to Gallup. The average manager’s span of control grew from 10.9 direct reports in 2024 to 12.1 in 2025, meaning average team sizes are now nearly 50% larger than when Gallup first began tracking them in 2013.

Flat structures often don’t last long, as employees gravitate toward more managerial interaction. “What happens in most organizations is eventually either a formal or an informal structure appears sort of underneath direct reports,” André Spicer, executive dean of Bayes Business School in London and a professor of organizational behavior, previously told Fortune. 

The general consensus among management experts is that the ideal team size is seven, give or take a few. Former Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos famously captured this idea by introducing the two-pizza rule in the company’s early days; if two pizzas can’t feed a team, the team is too big. 

That illustration seems almost quaint now, but the central concept still holds. Dimon has landed on roughly the same team size, only he made his point—perhaps fittingly in a time of war—with a military metaphor. 

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

Amid global turbulence and the rise of AI, this creates a palpable tension. The instinct is often to build walls. But this fortress mentality is a strategic misstep. Walls can protect, but they also isolate nations and businesses from the global innovation required to remain resilient and competitive.

Global technology, local control

Today, “digital sovereignty” is not about isolation. It is not an “either-or” decision between local and global technology. Nor is it a binary choice between having complete control or accessing the best capabilities. Having true sovereignty means nobody can turn off your critical systems. 

Sovereignty is an “and.” Organizations can use many services from other countries while ensuring critical capabilities are controlled locally. Rather than abandoning global technologies, governments and businesses must make choices that preserve autonomy where it matters most: in public services, regulated industries and strategic sectors. 

Sovereign by design

This is already playing out in practice. In regions affected by conflict, companies are increasingly relocating data, rerouting networks and operating across more distributed environments. In these conditions, the biggest risk is not system downtime, but disconnection. Systems may remain operational, but nothing can reach them, meaning critical flows and business processes will break down.

Despite severe challenges, resilience, sovereignty and competitiveness are still achievable when organizations meet four critical conditions. The first is using open, hybrid technologies. Lock yourself into one cloud platform and you have a dependency; operate across multiple providers and you have options. Hybrid cloud platforms built on open standards mean companies can switch providers without starting from scratch. This strategy also allows enterprises to benefit from the scale of global platforms while hosting sensitive data in-country to comply with local laws. Hybrid holds data securely and resiliently across environments, from private to public and across borders when needed – helping organizations to maintain continuity during disruption.

The second is software that is sovereign by design. Organizations can now run AI under their own authority, within a defined jurisdiction, with auditable controls – regardless of geopolitical events. This is not a layer that can be taken away; it is a fully air-gapped environment that can operate independently of any global cloud platform when needed. 

A third, crucial component of sovereignty is data access that is controlled by the customer, not the cloud provider. “Keep-your-own-key” encryption means providers physically cannot decrypt data without customer permission, under any circumstances. 

The fourth pillar is capability investment versus technology consumption. Sovereignty is not about who builds the data centres. It’s about who has the engineers and researchers who can actually deploy the systems, adapt them, and make them work for local needs. Buy the hardware without the capability and you’ve simply imported an expensive black box.

This is not theoretical, our clients are already putting it into practice. In banking, BNP Paribas has built a flexible hybrid architecture that can move workloads between their own data centres and the cloud on demand, to comply with local regulations. Riyadh Air is developing an AI-ready structure that allows them to scale or switch systems without stalling innovation. In Asia-Pacific, companies such as Telkom Indonesia have built an open, interoperable sovereign platform on hybrid architecture to support local businesses. AI needs aligned to local data residency requirements.

Looking ahead

Sovereignty is not exclusive to AI and cloud. The need for resilience extends across every area of technology, from quantum computing and chips to satellites. As enterprises focus on deploying proven tools like AI and automation today, they must also build the research, security posture, and future‑ready infrastructure needed for what comes next, from quantum-safe networks to next-generation compute.

The importance of sovereignty has risen alongside technology’s growing role in national resilience. Governments and businesses face the opportunity of AI productivity gains worth trillions on one hand, and the challenge of maintaining control where it matters on the other. The false perception of sovereignty as a binary choice between progress and independence threatens both pursuits. Enterprises want the upside of global scale alongside the assurances of sovereignty and control. The reality is that with the right design choices, they can have both, ultimately building systems that are sovereign and resilient by design.

The opinions expressed in Fortune.com commentary pieces are solely the views of their authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of Fortune.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

By market close on April 6, Sunway only managed to secure commitments for a third of IJM’s shares. This marked the end of Sunway’s bid, which it launched on January 12. Sunway and IJM are both listed on Fortune’s Southeast Asia 500 list, which ranks the region’s companies by revenue. (The former, at No. 190, reported $1.7 billion in revenue in 2024, while the latter, at No. 228, generated $1.3 billion.) 

Had it gone through, the merger would have created a new powerhouse in Malaysia’s construction and infrastructure sector, overtaking current leader Gamuda. Yet valuation concerns, as well as Malaysia’s longstanding rules on equity for its rural Malays, complicated the deal.

“With the offer now concluded, IJM moves forward with resolve,” Dato’ Lee Chun Fai, IJM’s group CEO and managing director, said in a press statement released Monday. “Our shareholders have decided, and we respect the conviction they have placed in IJM’s long-term intrinsic value.” Lee continued that the company will focus on unlocking the value of its portfolio through strategic investments and overseas expansion.

Sunway, too, released a statement on Monday, saying that it respected the outcome of the process and that “in any transaction of this scale, differing perspectives are natural.” 

Why the Sunway-IJM merger fell through

From the get-go, Sunway’s takeover bid was met with opposition by various analysts, politicians and institutional stakeholders. 

Market watchers questioned the fairness of Sunway’s offer. Malaysia’s Kenanga Investment Bank issued a “reject” recommendation, stating that Sunway’s offer price of 3.15 Malaysian ringgit per share did not reflect IJM’s true value. According to a report by M&A Securities, an independent advisor to IJM, Sunway’s offer price reflected a discount of between 46.1% and 51.4% to the estimated value of IJM shares.

The merger also drew political scrutiny over concerns that it could dilute the rights of Bumiputeras, or indigenous Malaysians of ethnic Malay origin.

Following deadly race riots in 1969, Malaysia started a policy of affirmative action for ethnic Malays, hoping to tamp down tensions between the country’s ethnic groups and foster a more equal distribution of wealth. These policies include preferential treatment for the Bumiputera, including priority consideration for public university spaces and government jobs, and discounts for business licenses.

On Jan. 18, soon after Sunway launched its takeover bid, Akmal Saleh, the youth leader of UMNO, Malaysia’s conservative political party, argued that the deal “could undermine national and Bumiputera interests.” Akmal pointed out that Malaysian state funds like the Permodalan Nasional and the Employees Provident Fund owned around 47% of IJM shares. The construction company is also responsible for national infrastructure projects like the New Pantai Expressway, Sungai Besi Expressway, and the West Coast Expressway.

Corruption allegations also dogged the takeover bid.

In late January, the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) launched a probe into IJM over accusations of lapses in corporate governance and procurement processes. The company had its offices raided and several bank accounts frozen, according to Malaysian business publication The Edge. Two months later, MACC chief commissioner Tan Sri Azam Baki said the commission would study Sunway’s takeover bid to see if there had been “corruption, abuse of power or violations of governance” in the process. (Both firms were later cleared of the accusations on March 27.)

IJM’s shares initially surged by over 2% on Monday, after the merger fell apart, before paring those gains by Thursday. Sunway’s shares are up by about 2% since Monday.

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A Meta employee independently created a leaderboard that tracked how many tokens—the basic units of data or words that AI models process—the company’s more than 85,000 employees used, The Information reported on Monday. Called “Claudeonomics,” after Anthropic’s AI model, the leaderboard showed the top 250 token users and awarded employees with titles, such as “Token Legend” and “Cache Wizard.”

The leaderboard encouraged “tokenmaxxing,” a growing phenomenon in Silicon Valley which emphasizes token usage as a measure of productivity. While every AI model measures tokens differently, OpenAI estimates that one token is equal to about four characters and a single one-to-two sentence prompt requires about 30 tokens. Token usage can imply if workers are optimizing their prompts, or the number of AI agents they are using. 

But now, the fun is over:, Meta took down the internal AI-use leaderboard just two days after the news broke. 

The dashboard now reads: “We’ve really enjoyed building this app on Nest for everyone. It was meant to be a fun way for people to look at tokens, but due to data from this dashboard being shared externally, we’ve made the decision to shutter Claudeonomics for now,” reported The Information. 

Meta declined to answer Fortune’s questions regarding the dashboard or the move to shut it down, but that doesn’t mean the company is necessarily done tracking tokens. The Information also reported the company has a separate official dashboard for token usage geared toward software engineers, who generally use the most tokens. 

Last year, Meta’s Chief People Officer Janelle Gale told employees that “AI-driven impact” would be a “core expectation” in 2026, according to Business Insider. In January, the company overhauled its performance review system to incentivize the highest performers with upwards of a 200% bonus. 

Some employees have put AI agents to work for hours to maximize their token usage. Neither Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg nor Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth are in the top 250 token users.

In a 30-day period, total employee usage on the dashboard exceeded 60 trillion tokens, and the highest-ranked individual user averaged 281 billion tokens. Using the least expensive version of Claude Opus 4.6, which costs $5 for every million tokens, that one user alone could have cost Meta more than $1.4 million. 

Incentivizing high token use is becoming the norm in Silicon Valley. OpenAI has an employee leaderboard, and the company’s top power user used 210 billion tokens over one week in March.

Last month, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, who has been a leading voice on token budgets, shared his vision for token use at Nvidia’s GTC conference in San Jose in March. 

“I could totally imagine in the future every single engineer in our company will need an annual token budget,” he said. “They’re going to make a few 100,000 a year as their base pay. I’m going to give them probably half of that on top of it as tokens so that they could be amplified 10 times.”

Just days later, Huang said he would be “deeply alarmed” if an engineer he paid $500,000 a year didn’t use at least $250,000 worth of tokens. He did not specify the importance of the 50% measure. 

Meta CTO Bosworth said his best engineer is spending the equivalent of his salary in tokens, but he’s “5x to 10x more productive.”

“It’s like, this is easy money,” Bosworth said. “Keep doing it. No limit.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

But Gen Z is ditching that workplace ideal. A new study from workforce management firm Deputy entitled “The Big Shift 2026” found that poly-employment, or what the firm calls as working multiple jobs simultaneously, has hit its highest point in over a decade. The study—drawing from more than 41 million shifts and 268 million hours worked—finds Gen Z is leading the way in poly-employment, composing more than half (55%) of those engaged in the practice.

While many workers are turning to poly-employment to supplement their income among economic uncertainty and rising cost-of-living pressures, the data reveals a growing divide between those forced into it and those choosing independence, as more workers are intentionally seeking multiple roles to gain the flexible and self-directed work they increasingly prioritize. It’s also a deliberate switch from an ongoing trend of overemployment, or holding multiple full-time jobs, that still keeps a person tied to their desk. While that practice does come with a higher take-home pay, it doesn’t offer the flexibility Gen Z is looking for. According to Deputy CEO Silvija Martincevic, for Gen Z, the shift is as much cultural as it is economic, a deliberate break from the traditional workforce they watched chain their parents to the golden handcuffs of a 9-to-5 job.

“Gen Z’s approach to work is also a reaction to what they saw growing up—long hours, loyalty to a single employer, and then the shock of the 2008 financial crisis,” Martincevic told Fortune in a written statement. “That’s shaped a mindset focused on hedging risk rather than relying on one job for stability.”

For many Gen Zers, it feels as though the walls of the labor market are closing in. The unemployment rate of recent college graduates has surpassed that of all workers, according to New York Federal Reserve Bank data. Squeezed out of traditional roles, many in the generation have leaned into unconventional work habits as a workaround. Some are considering forgoing their college degree to embrace the trades. Job-hopping, or cycling through roles after short stints, has become one coping mechanism. Poly-employment seems to have become another.

And yet, even when Gen Z does land a role, keeping it has proven difficult. A recent study from Intelligent.com found that six in 10 bosses have fired Gen Z employees just months after hiring them, citing a lack of initiative, unprofessional behavior, poor organization, and weak communication skills. That pattern is feeding a cycle that pushes more young workers away from traditional employment and toward the patchwork arrangements of poly-employment.

How Gen Z poly-workers are using AI and why others are fighting it

As more Gen Zers take on poly-employment, AI is playing a role for those bullish on the technology. The study noted a significant difference among Gen Z poly-employed workers. The research finds that those who hold a full-time role while also juggling other roles are more likely to be “poly-advantaged,” or what the workforce management firm describes as “AI-advantaged” individuals who lean on AI to work efficiently to manage the multiple hats they wear.

“AI unlocks predictable schedules, which in turn support more flexible work arrangements,” Martincevic said. “Nearly 75% of shift workers say AI helps them leave on time, underscoring its role in improving efficiency and scheduling.” 

But the technology cuts both ways. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei warned that AI could soon wipe out half of all entry-level white-collar roles, further narrowing the already thin slice of the job market available to new graduates.

The research also found those who intentionally work multiple part-time gigs without holding a full-time position also tend to be more AI-resistant. For these workers opting for poly-employment, AI appears as a threat which can automate the precarious positions they juggle. Gen Z workers are particularly resistant to using AI in the workplace, as a recent study from AI enterprise platform Writer found 44% of Gen Z workers are intentionally sabotaging their company’s AI rollout.

Whether Gen Z embraces or resists AI, poly-employment is offering young workers a sense of control where a sense of control is increasingly in short supply.

“The rise in poly-employment doesn’t signal a weakening job market—it reflects a workforce being reshaped by both economic and generational pressure,” Martincevic said.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

Fifteen years in, the strategy is paying off. The airline now commands roughly 20% more revenue per seat than its competitors, and premium cabin revenue is on the verge of overtaking main cabin for the first time in the company’s 100-year history.

“Delta is not a low-cost airline,” Bastian told Fortune‘s Editor-in-Chief Alyson Shontell in a recent episode of the Titans and Disruptors of Industry podcast. “We can’t win by trying to provide the cheapest. We have to be able to win by providing the best.”

Delta’s first-quarter earnings, released Wednesday, show that Bastian’s efforts are paying off. Premium ticket revenue hit $5.4 billion, which was just $41 million shy of the main cabin’s revenue. Premium grew 14% year-over-year, while main cabin grew only 1%, bringing the airline to the cusp of a milestone a year ahead of original projections.

Premium revenue includes First Class, Delta One, Premium Select, and Comfort Plus seating, while main cabin revenue is made up of standard and basic economy fares.

The playbook: Reliability first, then premium

Bastian described the transformation to Fortune‘s Shontell as a 15-year effort he originally called “de-commoditization.” When he first started pushing the idea, 80% of travelers chose airlines based on which one had the lowest fare. Today, Delta estimates that 80% of its customers choose the airline because of the brand.

But the premium strategy couldn’t come first, he said. Delta had to earn it.

“How could you be a premium experience if your reliability isn’t the very best in class?” Bastian said. Delta spent years driving down cancellation rates, improving on-time performance, and reducing mishandled baggage. This year, the airline was named North America’s most on-time carrier by Cirium—for a fifth consecutive year.

“After about five years of this, customers would come to me and say, ‘I’m noticing something different,'” Bastian told Fortune. “‘Your people seem to be happier. The service levels seem to be better. People are actually enjoying the experience, rather than enduring the experience.'”

That’s when Delta started layering on more premium products: Delta One suites on international flights, upgraded domestic first class, and a fleet overhaul that is reshaping the physical aircraft.

New planes entering Delta’s international fleet have cabins that are close to 50% premium seating, Chief Commercial Officer Joe Esposito said during the company’s earnings call on Wednesday, replacing aircraft with just 30% premium layouts.

Customers are no longer just “looking at what’s going to get me the lowest price,” Bastian told Fortune. “And we have strategies for people that want the lowest price. It’s called Basic Economy.”

“But people want to get the best experience and want to get the best value for money,” he continued. “And that’s where we went, value for money.”

The Amex engine

Delta’s longstanding co-branded partnership with American Express also plays a large role in the company’s focus on premium offerings. The partnership grew from $500 million in 1996 to more than $8 billion in annual revenue in 2025. It accounted for $8 billion, or about 10%, of Delta’s revenue in 2025.

The credit card portfolio now spans four tiers. The entry-level Delta SkyMiles Gold card carries a $150 annual fee and offers a free first checked bag, priority boarding, and a 15% discount on award flights. The mid-tier Platinum card costs $350 a year and adds an annual companion certificate for a round-trip domestic flight. At the top sits the Reserve card, at $650 a year, which unlocks access to Delta Sky Clubs and Centurion Lounges, an annual companion certificate that includes first class and international routes, and a boost toward Medallion elite status.

Each tier is designed to deepen the relationship between the traveler and the airline, giving cardholders reasons to consolidate their spending and flying with Delta—and making it harder to leave. The cards also serve as a gateway to premium cabins: Cardholders get priority on upgrade lists and perks that make the overall experience feel more premium, even in economy.

“As Delta’s brand started to move and people started to see it as a premium brand, as a differentiated experience, Amex was critical to that, because we see Amex as the premium credit card in the business,” Bastian said. “It has a higher value proposition. Customer loyalty is greater.”

Delta is winning, despite headwinds

The premium-first strategy paid off in the first quarter. Earnings were more than 40% higher than last year, Bastian said in the earnings statement, despite “significant increase in fuel costs and operational disruptions across the industry.” Delta executives noted severe weather, the conflict in the Middle East, and pilot contract complications as headwinds this quarter. Still, adjusted revenue hit a March quarter record of $14.2 billion, up 9.4%, and earnings per share came in at $0.64, a 44% jump.

Even with those headwinds, Bastian isn’t worried about a customer pullback. “The higher-end consumer, the premium consumer, is candidly immune, or becoming more immune, to the headlines and not delaying their investment in the experience economy,” Bastian said during the earnings call.

Premium and corporate demand are doing a lot of the heavy lifting. Corporate sales hit a quarterly record, with double-digit growth across banking, aerospace, defense, and tech, according to the earnings release. A corporate survey found 85% of respondents expect their travel spend to increase or stay the same in the June quarter.

For Bastian, the company’s recent results validate a thesis he’s been pushing since long before the rest of the industry caught on. While competitors are now scrambling to add premium seats and unbundle their cabins, Delta spent 15 years building the operational foundation and brand equity to charge more—and get it.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

Now, three-quarters of Gen Zers actually associate desk jobs with burnout and instability—and new research from SupplyHouse, shared exclusively with Fortune, shows they’re done pretending otherwise. 

Nearly 1 in 4 have already seriously considered, or are actively pursuing, a career in the trades instead. 

In what may be the biggest generational career pivot in decades, powered by economic anxiety, student debt, and TikTok, Gen Z are trading laptops for toolbelts—and they’re not looking back.

TikTok is the new career counselor—and it’s sending Gen Z down the trades

Half of Gen Z say their interest in becoming welders, electricians, plumbers, and so on, started on social media. TikTok is the number one platform where Gen Z are discovering trade careers, with 1 in 3 watching trade content there—and getting allured. It’s not hard to see why. 

Trade influencers are racking up millions of views, showing how skilled labor offers autonomy, financial security, and work-life balance that many entry-level office roles can’t match. 

Take Chase Gallagher, for example. At 12 years old, he started mowing his neighbors’ lawns for $35 a pop in the summer of 2013. By 16, Gallagher had already turned over $50,000. Now, his landscaping business is generating millions in revenue—and he’s posting all about his success online. 

At the same time, they’re also watching college-educated millennials on TikTok complain that their desk job salary doesn’t stretch enough to move out of their childhood bedroom. Meanwhile, Gen Z graduates keep posting about firing off thousands of job applications into a void as AI wipes out entry-level jobs. 

“It just feels like you’re just banging your head against the wall,” a struggling Gen Zer with a maths degree lamented. 

So it’s perhaps unsurprising that 78% of Gen Z have concluded that skilled trades are less vulnerable to AI disruption than white-collar careers.

The grass isn’t always greener on the construction site

Despite the buzz, the reality of trade work doesn’t always live up to the TikTok hype. Nearly 1 in 3 Gen Z (30%) say a parent, teacher, or counselor discouraged them from pursuing a trade career. And they may have a point.

Yijin Hardware analyzed jobs based on fatal injury rates, projected openings (2023 to 2033), median wages, and education requirements—and coming in at No. 1 is office admin and support roles. The researchers also found trade jobs are among the most “dangerous” out there for non-grads—logging, hunting, fishing, and refuse have the highest on-the-job fatality rates, paired with unpredictable working conditions, and limited opportunities. Not a single entry-level office job made the bottom rankings of their list.

It’s not the first study to suggest Gen Z may be looking at manual work through rose-tinted glasses.

According to another new WalletHub study ranking the best and worst entry-level U.S. jobs in 2025, trade roles dominate the bottom of the list. Welders, automotive mechanics, boilermakers, and drafters all rank among the least promising career starters due to limited job availability, weak growth potential, and potentially hazardous work. 

“While trade work isn’t as easy to automate as some office jobs, new technologies like prefabrication and robotics are starting to take over parts of the workload, which can reduce demand,” WalletHub’s analyst Chip Lupo told Fortune. They’re also not immune to mass layoffs and are at the mercy of interest rates and demand.

And worse still, more often than not, many trade jobs might not actually make Gen Z happier than a desk job. 

Another study ranked electricians as the least happy workers of all. According to the research, the physically demanding nature of the job and 40-plus-hour workweeks weren’t made up for by the just “decent” salary. Starkingly, not a single trade job made the list of happiest jobs.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

Almost all of these yearly reports take a comprehensive view of the important budget categories. Every administration appeals for new funding and proposes savings in different categories, and makes economic projections. But the OMB also offers forecasts and perspective on the trends in mandatory as well as discretionary spending, interest costs, debt, and deficits, and warns of perils ahead if the U.S. is veering into the fiscal danger zone. This edition, however, has nothing to say about Medicare and Medicaid, and in its 92 pages, never refers to federal debt or deficits. Instead, it’s highly unusual, adopting an extremely narrow focus. The report takes aim at only two major areas. The first is discretionary spending, where Trump requests big increases for the Department of War while advocating reductions in nondefense discretionary (NDD) categories. The second: projections for key metrics such as GDP and interest rates that are crucial drivers on the revenue and expense sides.

Its failure to assess the troubling big picture drew a poor review from the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB). Its president, Maya MacGuineas, wrote that the president’s budget fails at its duty to “include an actionable plan for getting our nation’s finances on a sustainable footing,” adding that the plan is “heavy on spending, light on details, and relies on an entire decade of rosy financial projections.”

The new spending would be big and baked in; the extra revenue and cuts to pay for it are imaginary

The math sounds simple, and even appears at first glance to make sense. The Trump proposal asks for a 42% jump in the defense budget for fiscal year 2027, from the current line item of $950 billion to $1.5 trillion, plus an extra $251 billion added to the annual base. All told, the line item would rise by $3.5 trillion above the current Congressional Budget Office (CBO) baseline from FY 2026 to 2036. Add another $900 billion the president wants to spend on a list of smaller, nondefense initiatives, and the total proposed increase in expenditures exceeds what is budgeted over the next decade by $4.5 trillion. The blueprint also sounds a responsible note in championing reductions in other NDD areas of $805 billion, setting the net increase in outlays at $3.62 trillion (the $4.5 trillion total spending rise minus the $805 billion in savings).

That’s an easy nut to handle, the report suggests. It projects that total revenues will reach an astounding $7.8 trillion more over the decade-long span than the CBO predicts. Since that surge would tighten yearly deficits, we’d also save $2.54 trillion in interest expenses, growing the plus column to $10.3 trillion. As a result, even though the U.S. would expand outlays by $3.62 trillion, our total deficits from here to 2036 would decline by $6.7 trillion (the $10.3 trillion in extra collections and lower interest minus the $3.62 trillion in new outlays). Although the OMB doesn’t give debt numbers, the CRFB was able to glean from other numbers in an annex to the document that in the White House view, U.S. debt would fall to 94% of GDP by 2036, far better than the CBO’s forecast of 120%.

Sounds great until you examine the assumptions. How does the OMB get that nearly $8 trillion revenue windfall? Here’s how: It foresees GDP advancing at a 3.0% annual pace. That’s hugely above the CBO and the Fed’s long-run forecasts respectively at 1.8% and 2.0%. The CRFB dismisses the OMB’s figure as “fantastical.” How about the $805 billion reduction in NDD? The CBO already has that piece rising a minuscule 10% in total over the next decade. But the Trump budget expects a never-before-seen triumph in austerity. It calls for 2% annual reductions that would bring all-in NDD down 20% by 2036. How plausible is that plan? Not very. The category waxed around 40% in the previous decade, about following inflation. Is it really possible that NASA, veterans’ health care, the Department of Homeland Security, the EPA, and sundry other agencies are spending far fewer dollars 10 years hence than today? The sober outlook says that what happened in the past decade—in other words, a substantial increase—is likely to repeat.

The second hypothetical fount, interest savings, arises from two sources: Far lower deficits hinging on those dubious GDP figures, and much more favorable than expected interest rates on the Treasuries financing our debt. The FY 2027 document sees the 10-year yield falling from today’s 4.4% to 3.4% by 2029, then stabilizing a bit below that level. By contrast, the CBO’s forecast is 100 basis points higher at 4.3% to 4.4% over the entire decade. The OMB also assumes that tariff revenues keep flowing at the same pace as before the Supreme Court ruled most of the duties unlawful.

To be fair, no one really believes the bluebird future portrayed in FY 2027. “The realistic way to read it is as an historic defense spending increase coupled with fake offsets on spending and revenues,” says Jessica Riedl, a budget and tax fellow at the Brookings Institution. Riedl says that if the War Department hike gets enacted by Congress and defense spending garners the permanent jump requested, and NDD outlays rise as in the past, the current high-wire outlook gets considerably worse. “It means that annual deficits would exceed $4 trillion by 2036,” says Riedl, citing a number that’s almost 30% higher than the $3.1 trillion the CBO sees looming today. Riedl contends that debt would reach 137% of national income, 17 points higher than the 2036 figure in the agency’s tables.

“That number is totally unsustainable,” she says, adding a warning for the congressional Republicans in support of shifting defense outlays into high gear. “They can’t be the party of endless tax cuts, historic defense spending hikes, and still not touching Social Security and Medicare. Something’s got to give,” says Riedl. It’s looking less and less likely that the “something”’ will happen via making the essential, tough choices. Instead, the failure to act will bring on the bond raiders—and unleash a crisis where no one can predict the ending, only that it will be a bad one.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

The oldest bank in the U.S., $87 billion financial services firm Bank of New York (BNY), has just launched a new homeowner program for its U.S. employees earning under six figures. Now, staffers who earn $100,000 or less each year may qualify for $6,500 to be used towards a down payment when buying their first home.

The Wall Street bank said in a press release that the $6,500 benefit works to “address affordability pressures” and assist its American staffers in navigating the daunting journey of homeownership. By giving its staffers in the lowest tax brackets a boost in the homebuying process, BNY is targeting one of the biggest affordability crises straining its workforce. 

“Homeownership is a pathway to financial security and economic prosperity, and we’re committed to helping our people reach it,” Robin Vince, CEO of BNY, said in the program’s press release, adding that these benefits help “build a more resilient economy.”

All U.S. employees will also have access to homeowner education, including digital modules and live seminars that teach budgeting, credit readiness, mortgage options, closing costs, and long-term planning. Plus, all of its American workers will receive special mortgage perks.

America’s housing affordability crisis is creating a new status quo 

Americans are up against an affordability crisis, from soaring gas prices to untenable childcare costs—and housing is gobbling up huge chunks of their paychecks. Buying a home has become so untenable that it’s changing the status quo of homeownership. 

In 2025, the U.S. housing market witnessed two worrying trends; the proportion of first-time buyers plummeted to a record low of 21%, and the average age of these new homeowners soared to an all-time high of 40, according to a National Association of Realtors report released last year. In 1991, the median age of a first-time home buyer was 28 years old; last year, Gen Zers, who represent the lowest earners of any generation in the job market, only made up 3% of homebuyers. 

“The historically low share of first-time buyers underscores the real-world consequences of a housing market starved for affordable inventory,” Jessica Lautz, NAR deputy chief economist and vice president of research, said in a statement last year. “The share of first-time buyers in the market has contracted by 50% since 2007—right before the Great Recession.”

And wages aren’t increasing fast enough to keep pace with inflated housing costs. The median house price was 5.81 times as high as the average household income in 2022—up from a ratio of 4.52 in 2010, and 3.57 in 1984, according to a 2025 paper by Northwestern University’s Seung Hyeong Lee and the University of Chicago’s Younggeun Yoo. As homeownership continues to shift further out of reach, people are discouraged from saving enough for a down payment, the authors warned. 

Nearly 70% of workers would quit their job for another with housing benefits 

CEOs may believe that quirky office perks like beer on tap or Ping-Pong tables will lure in talent—but many workers are eyeing bigger benefits that improve their quality of life.

Nearly half of remote workers said they’d return to their offices if their company offered them housing benefits, according to a 2024 study from insurance firm JW Surety Bonds. And it’s not only enough to drag them off their couches and back to their desks—staffers would potentially jump ship for an employer offering the benefit. 

Around 69% were so desperate for employer-led housing perks that they would change jobs, or their careers, in order to work at a company that offers them. Professionals will even bargain off their precious PTO for housing assistance. More than two in five respondents said they’d sacrifice up to 15 days of vacation time—amounting to three full weeks, including the weekends—to get help with homebuying costs. 

Like BNY, other companies have caught on to the trend. For instance, employer-sponsored housing has grown popular in Japan, as the country’s cost-of-living crisis has plunged many workers into hard times. In 2023, Nippon Life, one of Japan’s largest insurers, constructed a 200-room residential building for males in a sought-after area near Tokyo Disneyland. It’s estimated that workers living there pay under a third of what rent would be for a comparable living option in the area; the company also provides subsidized housing for its female employees. 

Trading house Itochu has also invested in a new housing facility for its male staffers, just a half-hour train ride from the company’s Tokyo office. The living accommodations include breakfast and weekday dinners for employees, alongside other perks such a bar, café, and sauna. Itochu opened a facility for its female workers as well in 2025.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

In a report issued on Wednesday, Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) said support for the “extraordinary golden parachute” proposal, which it valued at $886.8 million in payments for Warner Bros. CEO David Zaslav and $466.2 million for the other executives, wasn’t warranted. ISS took issue with an “excise tax grossup” estimate of $335 million for Zaslav and hundreds of millions he stands to collect just because the deal between the two companies is happening.

It’s unclear if Zaslav will have a future role at the combined entity or with one of its affiliates or if he will continue on in a senior role. When Warner Bros. was weighing rival offers from David Ellison’s Paramount Skydance and Netflix last year, Ellison and his father, Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, dangled a compensation package worth “several hundred million dollars” to Zaslav, according to the deal disclosures. David Ellison also floated Zaslav becoming chairman of the combined company’s board, and then upped it to a co-CEO and co-chairman title. 

As of Warner Bros. proxy report filed last month, none of the executive officers have made an employment deal with Paramount, the combined company, or any of its affiliates. If Zaslav stepped into a chairman or CEO role, his golden parachute pay wouldn’t be consolation for losing a job, as is common, since he would be moving into another role at the combined company.  

“The value disclosed in the golden parachute table for CEO Zaslav at over $886 million represents one of the highest golden parachute estimates ever observed, though the proxy notes that this value may decline depending on merger timing,” ISS wrote in its report to investors. 

The proxy advisory firm said it had “significant concerns” about the $335 million agreement to cover an excise tax Zaslav will incur as a result of the acquisition, describing the so-called grossup agreement as “an extraordinary cost” inconsistent with common market practice. An excise tax gross-up payment from a company to an executive is rare. The payments cover a 20% additional tax burden triggered by the IRS when an executive collects more than three times their average total compensation. The excise gross-up payment gives the executive enough additional cash so that they’re left as if the excise tax never hit them. The other Warner Bros. executives are not getting an excise tax, ISS noted.

In addition to the special tax treatment for Zaslav, ISS found that the overall parachute payment for him is mostly the result of what are called single-trigger benefits. A single-trigger on an executive’s stock-based equity compensation means that the equity qualifies for accelerated vesting based on one event, which is usually when a company’s ownership changes. Most large-cap companies have double-trigger vesting, meaning there needs to be both a change-in-control of the company and that the executive loses their job. The awards for executives other than Zaslav are subject to double-trigger vesting, but most of Zaslav’s outstanding equity will just automatically accelerate based on the acquisition, ISS wrote.

That includes awards the Warner Bros. board gave Zaslav in January, including more than 3 million stock options and 2 million restricted stock units that ISS valued at a total of $107 million, although the options could potentially be worth less. ISS’s report states that more than 94% of the value of Zaslav’s $887 million in payments was because of the tax gross-up payment and equity that will automatically accelerate just because of the deal. 

Warner Bros. disclosed that if the deal were to take place in 2027, no excise tax payment would happen for Zaslav. However, Paramount Skydance and Warner Bros. are working to complete the merger as soon as possible and expect it to close by the end of the third quarter of 2026 in September.

Warner Bros shareholders will vote on the Paramount acquisition and on executives’ golden parachute payouts on April 23, though votes on the payouts are purely advisory and non-binding.

Warner Bros. did not respond to a request for comment on ISS’s recommendation.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com