07/28/2026

News

Five Cities That Are Leading the Way in Urban Innovation

Not Houston. From 2010 to 2014, the Texas city added more than 140,000 people, a 6.7% increase and second only to New York in the U.S. But the difference between Houston and other high-growth cities is that it has expanded its housing stock to accommodate its new residents. In roughly the same period, the Houston metro area issued construction permits for 189,634 new units, the most in the nation. It is not surprising, then, that more than 60% of homes in the larger Houston metro area are considered affordable for median-income families, according to the National Home Builders Association, compared with about 15% in the Los Angeles area.

Read More

Cities Look for New Ways to Meet Demand for Water Supplies

San Diego has gone from being one of the most vulnerable areas of California during drought to one of the best prepared—and in so doing has become a model for the future of water use in cities. Even as water supplies have dwindled in many other parts of California during the current drought, San Diego has stockpiled enough to help replenish a local reservoir.

Read More

The U.S. Occupations at Greatest Risk of a Labor Shortage

“In the next 10 to 15 years, we expect U.S. employers to demand more labor than will be available, which will, in turn, constrain overall economic growth,” the Conference Board said in a report to be released Tuesday.

Read More

Why the Great Divide Is Growing Between Affordable and Expensive U.S. Cities

As a whole, U.S. cities are expanding as rapidly as they have throughout the last half-century. . . On the one side are cities such as San Francisco, Boston, New York and Miami that have slowed their pace of expansion dramatically since the 1970s, in part as they have added layer upon layer of building regulations. On the other side are cities concentrated in the southeast and Texas, which have grown outward and seen much slower price growth.

Read More

How to Boost Economic Growth Through Competition

Most prescriptions for boosting growth involve macroeconomic policy: increased government spending, for instance, or lower interest rates. But competition policy has the potential to do the same, by tearing down the barriers that keep companies from entering new markets. That would stimulate business investment in the short run, and productivity in the long run.

Read More

Demand for H1-B Skilled-Worker Visas Forces Agency Into Lottery

U.S. demand for foreign skilled-worker visas often used by technology companies surpassed the entire year’s mandated supply within five days, prompting the government to announce it will award them through a lottery.

Read More

CEOs Plan Less Hiring and See Growth Slowing in 2016

More top corporate leaders said they expect to cut employment at their firms in the next six months than add jobs, according to the Business Roundtable’s first-quarter CEO Economic Outlook Survey, released Tuesday. The group’s members are chief executives at the country’s largest firms.

Read More

Wages Grew 4% or Faster in One in Eight Large U.S. Counties

But in places from Music City to the Chicago suburbs to the California coast, wages are growing much faster. Weekly wages grew 4% or better in 44 of the 342 U.S. counties with at least 75,000 jobs, according to Labor Department data released Wednesday. Meanwhile, wages fell from a year earlier in 21 counties, including Midland, Texas, and Union, N.J.

Read More

Gig Economy Attracts Many Workers, Few Full-Time Jobs

The share of Americans earning income from digital platforms such as Uber and Airbnb is growing rapidly, but those gigs typically supplement incomes rather than replace full-time work.

Read More

Why Job Growth Could Get Even Worse for Men Without College Degrees

The Labor Department’s recent release of biennial job market forecasts shows that the fastest-growing jobs tend to favor workers with more education, workers in jobs dominated by women and workers in urban areas, according to analyses by Jed Kolko, an economist based in San Francisco.

Read More

U.S. Economy Grew Anemic 0.7% in Fourth Quarter

Gross domestic product, a broad measure of economic output, expanded at a 0.7% seasonally adjusted annualized rate in the fourth quarter, the Commerce Department said Friday. The economy had advanced 2% in the third quarter and 3.9% in the second quarter.

Read More

Fed Signals Concern About Economic Outlook

The statement amounted to an acknowledgment the Fed could alter its plans for more rate increases this year if market turbulence and slowing global growth continue or worsen. But officials aren’t ready to commit to holding off on rate rises.

Read More

Hiring Ends Year on Strong Note, but Wage Growth Remains Sluggish

Nonfarm payrolls increased a seasonally adjusted 292,000 in December, the Labor Department said Friday. The unemployment rate, obtained through a separate survey, held steady at 5% last month. The unemployment rate hasn’t been below that mark since 2007.

Read More

Factory Weakness Seen Weighing on 4th-Quarter GDP

U.S. factories ended last year mired in their worst slump since 2009, highlighting the global forces set to weigh further on the manufacturing sector in the new year.

Read More

Dow Plunges 276 Points in First Trading Day of 2016

U.S. stocked tumbled at the open and remained lower throughout the session on the heels of a rout in European and Asian markets. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell as much as 467 points in morning trading before recovering slightly.

Read More