Tame inflation, low gas prices and rising wages are putting more dollars in the pockets of American workers, a positive sign for consumer spending headed into 2019. After adjusting for inflation, average hourly earnings rose a seasonally adjusted 1.1% in December from a year earlier, the strongest rate of growth since September 2016, the Labor […]
The number of unfilled jobs in the U.S. fell in November to the lowest level since June, though openings still exceeded unemployed Americans. There were a seasonally adjusted 6.89 million job openings on the last business day of November, the Labor Department said Tuesday. That was down from a revised 7.13 million at the end […]
The California Legislature gets its share of national attention for some of the wackadoodle bills that it routinely signs into law. It’s 2019, which means that it’s now illegal for full-service restaurants to provide straws with sodas unless a customer specifically asks for one. Furthermore, water and unflavored milk must now be the default option […]
Although state law specifically prohibits public officials from using taxpayers’ money for political campaigning, they have been doing exactly that throughout California. Local governments hire “consultants” to poll voters on what tax and bond measures they would find acceptable, to draft those proposals accordingly and, finally, to run so-called “information” campaigns to persuade voters to […]
Any day now, the California Supreme Court will rule on what may be one of the most significant cases affecting pension reform in California history. The case, CalFire Local 2881 vs. CalPERS, challenges one of the provisions of PEPRA(Public Employee Pension Reform Act) Governor Brown’s 2013 pension reform legislation. The plaintiffs argue that PEPRA’s abolition […]
A billion dollars of tax revenue, the taming of the black market, the convenience of retail cannabis stores throughout the state — these were some of the promises made by proponents of marijuana legalization in California. One year after the start of recreational sales, they are still just promises. California’s experiment in legalization is mired […]
Thousands of shale wells drilled in the last five years are pumping less oil and gas than their owners forecast to investors, raising questions about the strength and profitability of the fracking boom that turned the U.S. into an oil superpower. The Wall Street Journal compared the well-productivity estimates that top shale-oil companies gave investors […]
If you spent 2018 mainlining misery about global warming, inequality, toxic politics or other anxieties, I’m here to break your addiction with some good news: The world got better last year, and it is going to get even better this year. Poverty around the world is plummeting; half the world is now middle class; and […]
Tesla made about 9,300 more vehicles than it delivered last year, raising concerns among industry analysts that inventory is growing as demand for the company’s electric cars may be starting to wane. If demand falls, they say, the company will enter a new phase of its business. Like other automakers, Tesla will have to either […]
But not for much longer. Under federal rules, the full tax credit is available only on the first 200,000 cars that a manufacturer sells in the United States; two quarters later, the credit is reduced. Tesla reached that threshold in July. As a result, the credit available to Tesla buyers will fall to $3,750 for […]
The U.S. Census Bureau and the state Department of Finance issue annual population estimates each December and they don’t always agree on how many human beings occupy California. During the previous decade, following the 2000 census, their estimates were as much as one million persons apart – largely because of different calculations of state-to-state migration. […]
Mayors and governors of both parties tout German-style apprenticeships as an alternative pathway to employment, in the face of ballooning college tuition and the need for career options for noncollege graduates. Support for increasing hands-on training comes from all corners—Democrats and Republicans, business and labor, the Trump and the Obama administrations. German Chancellor Angela Merkel […]
The Trump administration is looking into ways to help workers, but experts say the retraining problem is hard to fix. The key program is Trade Adjustment Assistance, installed in the 1960s, which provides extended unemployment benefit payments and job training to workers who the government determines lost employment due to overseas competition. Multiple studies have […]
The fear of automation and artificial intelligence (AI) has spurred countless conversations about the future of work and how we humans will fare in an age of robots. Many fear technological unemployment as others preemptively denounce future income inequality. To confront the “dismal” future of work, many in the policy world, the tech world, and […]
Mr. Trump’s initial response to GM’s plant closure news was to threaten to punish the company by stripping its federal subsidies. White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow later acknowledged that Mr. Trump can’t legally single out GM for subsidy retribution. Instead the White House may take the better route of proposing to eliminate subsidies for […]