News

U.S. factories notched their fifth straight month of expansion in October, bucking expectations that the federal government’s 16-day shutdown would chill activity.

That figure made headlines last month after researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, reported that front-line workers at fast-food restaurants, and their families, receive at least $7 billion a year in public benefits to supplement their wages—typically, under $9 an hour. The authors described the amount as “”the public cost of low-wage jobs in the fast-food industry.

Other researchers dispute that interpretation. They say the cost to the public would be higher without those jobs. And if fast-food restaurants raised their wages, that wouldn’t guarantee a corresponding decline in benefits: Some restaurants might automate functions and cut jobs, and some benefits remain available to workers making higher salaries.

Jobless claims decreased by 10,000 to 340,000 in the week ended Oct. 26 from 350,000 the prior period, the Labor Department reported today in Washington. The median forecast of 49 economists surveyed by Bloomberg called for a decrease to 338,000. California said no claims last week represented applications from prior weeks, a Labor Department spokesman said as the figures were released to the press.

A new report from the financial services firm anticipates the period between Thanksgiving and Christmas this year to be the slowest and most promotion-heavy since 2008, which was the first holiday season affected by the recession.

DC Comics will move its operations from New York City to the Warner Bros Studios lot in Burbank in 2015, according to media reports.

Amazon.com, Inc. today announced it is finalizing plans to open a new 1.2 million-square-foot fulfillment center in Moreno Valley, Calif. Amazon will create more than 1,000 full-time jobs at the fulfillment center when it opens. This will be Amazon’s fourth fulfillment center in the state. The company’s other sites are located in Patterson, San Bernardino and Tracy.

Nearly 1 in 5 young people between ages 16 and 24 in the Inland Empire are neither working nor in school, the nation’s worst rate, according to a report released Tuesday.

The great American jobs machine is faltering, and it is time for Washington to pay attention. Participation in the workforce is falling, the pace of job creation is anemic, and long-term unemployment remains stubbornly high. Many newly created jobs pay less than those that disappeared during the Great Recession, so real wages are stagnating, and median household income is no higher than it was a quarter of a century ago.

California’s Internet sales tax has brought in more than 260 million dollars since it was implemented about a year ago.

Nationwide, pension costs are eating up more of city general funds, leaving less money to spend on day-to-day needs, such as garbage pickup or parks maintenance. The median spending on pensions among the country’s 250 largest cities rose to 10% of general budgets in 2012, up from 7.75% in 2007, according to data provided to The Wall Street Journal by Merritt Research Services LLC.

But an expected softening in October—amid a collapse in consumer confidence due to the government shutdown and weaker labor market—suggests a long-awaited pickup in economic growth may have to wait until next year.

The Workers’ Compensation Insurance Rating Bureau California, an industry-supported advisory group, has officially recommended an 8.7 percent rate increase to the California Department of Insurance.

Industrial production increased 0.6 percent in September following a gain of 0.4 percent in August. For the third quarter as a whole, industrial production rose at an annual rate of 2.3 percent. Manufacturing output edged up 0.1 percent in September following a gain of 0.5 percent in August, and increased at an annual rate of 1.2 percent for the third quarter. Production at mines moved up 0.2 percent in September and advanced at an annual rate of 12.9 percent for the third quarter. The output of utilities rose 4.4 percent in September following declines in each of the previous five months. The level of the index for total industrial production in September was equal to its 2007 average and was 3.2 percent above its year-earlier level. Capacity utilization for total industry moved up 0.4 percentage point to 78.3 percent, a rate 1.9 percentage points below its long-run (1972-2012) average.

In October 2012, a city reeling from its recent bankruptcy filing saw a glimmer of hope in Amazon’s announcement that it had opened a distribution center and had hired 700 people.

Historically, progressives were seen as partisans for the people, eager to help the working and middle classes achieve upward mobility even at expense of the ultra rich. But in California, and much of the country, progressivism has morphed into a political movement that, more often than not, effectively squelches the aspirations of the majority, in large part to serve the interests of the wealthiest.