Dollar Tree trades up, and flags cracks lower down

Transport Topics: Dollar Tree's comparable sales rose 3.5% last quarter on bigger baskets even as foot traffic fell, as its shift to $3–$5 items pulled in higher-income shoppers hunting value. The tell worth watching is the other half: executives are flagging strain among lower-income consumers as fuel costs bite — the same warning Walmart gave a week earlier.

Mexico's manufacturing gains may be unwinding

Bloomberg via Transport Topics: Bloomberg's Gonzalo Soto on May's Mexican trade data: April exports hit a record $72B, up nearly 33% YoY, but intermediate goods made up nearly 80% of imports through April — Mexican factories increasingly assembling Asian inputs rather than building integrated supply chains. Light-vehicle exports stagnated under US tariff pressure; computer equipment exports grew 144% on AI data center demand. Worth reading if you track cross-border freight composition or the USMCA review.

Ramos targets California's 90% undercount of Native American students

CalMatters: Carolyn Jones reports on Ramos — D-San Bernardino, Serrano/Cahuilla tribal member, and the first Native American elected to the California Legislature — and his bill to let students identify by tribal affiliation on school forms. California schools counted 24,822 Native American students last year; the actual number may be as high as 156,000.

Which Riverside County cities are losing sales tax ground

Inland Empire Economic Intelligence: MacDonald walks through taxable sales by Riverside County city, with a public Tableau dashboard readers can use to check their own. Menifee, Moreno Valley, and Perris all spiked in 2022-23 and have come down sharply since; Beaumont, Murrieta, Temecula, and Lake Elsinore are climbing.