U.S. companies are putting savings from the corporate tax cut to use, but only a fraction of it is flowing to employees’ wallets, new data show. In the months after the December tax-code overhaul that lowered the corporate rate to 21% from 35%, dozens of companies such as Walmart Inc.and FedEx Corp. announced one-time bonuses […]
In the Bay Area, the poor are moving out, the wealthy are moving in and gentrification is picking up steam. The region had the highest income disparity between newcomers and out-going families of any major metro area in the country between 2010 and 2016, according to a new study by BuildZoom and UC Berkeley. The […]
The average cost of employer health coverage offered to workers rose to nearly $20,000 for a family plan this year, according to a new survey, capping years of increases that experts said are chiefly tied to rising prices paid for health services. Annual premiums rose 5% to $19,616 for an employer-provided family plan in 2018, […]
U.S. industries tied to national defense face an “unprecedented set of challenges” that have weakened their ability to quickly make the aircraft, parts and other materiel the military would need to fight rivals such as China or Russia, according to a new White House report. The vulnerabilities stem from factors including receding industrial capacity across […]
The national seasonally-adjusted unemployment rate for Hispanics and Latinos in the U.S. labor force fell to the lowest level on record in September of 2018, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data released Friday show. In September, the unemployment rate for Hispanics and Latinos, aged 16 and up, was 4.5%, tying July 2018 for the […]
Optimism among U.S. manufacturers is soaring as the Republican-led tax cuts help fuel a white-hot economy with the lowest unemployment numbers in over a decade, but a significant labor shortage is undermining the gains, a new report shows. Nearly 93 percent of manufacturers are projecting further expansion for their businesses, and positive sentiment among smaller […]
The unemployment rate fell in September to the lowest level since the Vietnam War while hiring cooled slightly, the latest signs of an extremely tight labor market. The unemployment rate fell to 3.7% from 3.9% in August, the lowest rate since December 1969, the Labor Department said Friday. U.S. nonfarm payrolls rose a seasonally adjusted […]
“If you want to understand San Francisco’s self-inflicted housing crisis, look no further than the city’s very first zoning law, commonly known as the Cubic Air Ordinance, which set a disturbing standard for the city’s eventual missteps. Proposed in 1870, during a time of rampant real-estate speculation in a boomtown renowned for its lawlessness, the […]
We may be celebrating — if that’s the right word — the tenth year since the onset of the financial crisis and collapse of the real estate market. Yet before breaking out the Champagne, we should recognize that the hangover is not yet over, and that a new housing crisis could be right around the […]
Labor force composition and the allocation of talent remain of vital import to modern economies. For their part, governments and companies around the globe have implemented equal employment opportunity (EEO) regulations to influence labor market flows. Even though such regulations are pervasive, surprisingly little is known about their impacts. We use a natural field experiment […]
The gap between the price of a new and used vehicle is as wide as it has been in years, pushing an increasing number of consumers to the used-car lot and putting pressure on auto makers to deepen discounts on new cars to keep them competitive. Demand for used cars was unusually strong this summer […]
A significant sub-theme of Gov. Jerry Brown’s climate change conference in San Francisco this month was that California is a living model of how a nation-state can go green while experiencing economic prosperity. Some Californians take it a step further, contending that going green is itself an economic spur. Certainly California’s current economy is, at […]
Driving 100 miles in a ZEV consumes 30 kilowatt-hours of electric power, according to the federal government. Therefore, assuming they were still traveling 330 billion miles each year, recharging 30 million ZEVs would expand annual electric power consumption from 300 terawatt-hours to at least 400, and that extra juice also would have to come from […]
Even on a good day, Simmons’ commute and the commutes of several hundred more residents of this city are among the worst in the United States. Roughly 21 percent of Los Banos workers have at a least a 90-minute ride to and from work, the highest percentage in the nation, according to a McClatchy analysis […]
A year after Mayor Sam Liccardo outlined a new housing plan, San Jose has made slow progress in reaching its ambitious goal of adding 10,000 affordable homes by 2022. How slow? Just 64 units had been completed by the end of the 2017-18 fiscal year this June, according to a new report from the city’s […]