Madison Aument

For 91.9 KVCR News, I’m Madison Aument. This is Economics IE. Here’s a round up of the latest economics news in the region.

If you’ve been feeling the squeeze on your wallet, you’re not alone. A report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics published late last month found that inflation is up in the Inland Empire.

Five years after the insurrection at the US Capitol, Congresswoman Norma Torres has introduced a slate of bills to push back against President Trump’s narrative of what happened.

A former US Marine was arrested in Louisiana in connection with a New Year’s Eve plot to bomb areas around Southern California. The FBI arrested four other suspects last week in the Mojave Desert.

Federal authorities said they’ve thwarted a plot to bomb five locations around Southern California on New Year’s Eve. The FBI has arrested four people who they say belong to an extremist anti-government group.

Normally, I do a monthly segment after the federal jobs report drops, but the government shutdown meant we didn't get those numbers for the past few months. My guest, Daniel McDonald, is an economics professor at Cal State San Bernardino. In a recent post to his Substack, Inland Empire Economic Intelligence, he used a different data set to gauge how the IE’s job market is faring. McDonald joins me today to discuss his findings.

The Redlands school board voted 3–2 Tuesday night to remove Push by Sapphire from schools and voted unanimously to restrict access to The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison. The books were challenged by a member of the public through the board’s recent book challenge policy. The policy streamlines the process to complain about books if someone deems the content obscene or sexually explicit.

The Redlands school board will vote Tuesday whether to remove two books from school libraries. “The Bluest Eye” by Toni Morrison and “Push” by Sapphire were challenged by a member of the public for containing “sexually explicit or obscene topics.” Both books depict sexual abuse and have been challenged by school boards across the country.

Today on Economics IE, we are looking at the Inland Empire's job outlook for 2026 and why the region may be headed for a challenging year. I spoke with Kome Ajise, executive director of the Southern California Association of Governments, and Kevin Kane, who supervises demographics and growth forecasting there.

Tuesday marks the 10 year anniversary of the terrorist attack in San Bernardino that took the lives of fourteen people at the Inland Regional Center.