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Many of the areas with double-digit unemployment rates are in inland California, a working-class region hit hard by the foreclosure crisis.

The answer varies by company and industry. For example, Apple is the most profitable company on the Fortune 500. With $39.5 billion in annual profit and about 97,000 employees, Apple’s annual profit per employee is $407,000. . . Apple could absorb a minimum-wage increase easily. . . The situation is far different for America’s retail businesses, where a minimum-wage increase would be most deleterious. Combine every retailer, restaurant, supermarket and retail pharmacy company in the Fortune 500 as a proxy for the retail industry. . . and annual profit per employee of $6,300 (1.5% of Apple’s profit per employee). . . an increase to $9 an hour would result in an annual wage increase of $2,730. . . At $15 an hour, the employee would make $12,090 more a year, resulting in a loss per employee of $5,790.

Hiring has improved, stock markets have rallied and consumer confidence has rebounded. But U.S. corporations remain hesitant to deploy funds to new projects and equipment, or to upgrade facilities and technology. Instead, companies continue to shower shareholders with record levels of dividends and buybacks.

The U.S. economy posted another month of sturdy job growth in November, paving the way for the Federal Reserve to raise short-term interest rates for the first time in a decade.

CEOs’ outlook on the economy declined for the third straight quarter, according to a Business Roundtable survey released Tuesday. The same survey showed that 27% expect to decrease capital spending over the next six months—the largest share planning to scale back investment since the middle of 2009, when the economy was just emerging from recession.

The biggest banks in the U.S. are making far fewer loans to small businesses than they did a decade ago, ceding market share to alternative lenders that charge significantly higher rates. . . A prolonged decline in new business formation has reduced the borrowing pool. Plus, banks have been slower to ease lending standards for small firms than for big ones after the recession.

Just under 66% of recent high-school grads were enrolled in two- or four-year college programs in 2013, down from 68.6% in 2008, according to research by the American Council on Education, a higher-education industry group.

For instance, policy makers could have chipped away at emissions efficiently with modest taxes on carbon, or by switching electrical generation to natural gas. Instead many countries, including the U.S. and those in the EU, have poured money into phenomenally inefficient subsidies for solar and biofuels, which politicians go for like catnip. The EU’s 20/20 climate policy—the goal, embarked upon in 2010, to cut emissions 20% from 1990 levels by 2020—is the clearest example of such gross inefficiency.

For the first time in at least a decade, imports fell in both September and October at each of the three busiest U.S. seaports, according to data from trade researcher Zepol Corp. analyzed by The Wall Street Journal. Combined, imports at the container terminals at the ports of Los Angeles, Long Beach, Calif. and around New York harbor, which handle just over half of the goods entering the country by sea, fell by just over 10% between August and October.

A study from Bloomberg estimates that the loss of the tax credit will cause solar capacity to only quadruple, instead of quintuple, by 2022—still a substantial increase. Our own analysis reinforces this assessment: In 22 states, at least one gigawatt of solar (and often much more) could be installed at a comparable cost to retail electricity prices by 2017, tax credit not included.

U.S. employers hired at their strongest clip this year in October and wage growth picked up, signs of reassurance for Federal Reserve officials as they weigh an interest-rate raise before year’s end.

Weak productivity growth is one reason employers could be reluctant to raise wages. If workers don’t become more efficient, businesses may see little need to hand out raises. Productivity advanced at a 1.6% seasonally adjusted annual pace in the third quarter. But from a year earlier, business productivity improved just 0.4%.

Perhaps because of their economics background, Ms. Case and Mr. Deaton theorized that this overdose epidemic may be tied—at least in part—to “economic insecurity.” This claim is hard to establish but, seeing how Mr. Deaton won the Nobel Prize in economics less than a month ago, worth considering in detail.

The Institute for Supply Management’s gauge of manufacturing activity fell to 50.1 from 50.2 in September, the purchasing managers’ group said Monday. Readings above 50 indicate expansion. The reading was the weakest since May 2013 and indicates that the sector barely skirted a contraction in October.

U.S. employers, slow to reward workers with higher pay, have been quicker in recent years to offer signing bonuses, more paid time off and other perks.