Black labor-force participation—meaning the number of people working or looking for work—is trending up, while broader participation in the U.S., particularly among whites, has flattened after falling. Participation by race is now near a crossroad. The share of black Americans actively working or looking for work was 62.9% in February, while the corresponding white rate […]
The U.S. job market is booming and workers’ paychecks are growing thanks to a tax cut and raises. But Americans hunkered down on spending last month, a puzzle for an economy that leans heavily on their willingness to consume. Sales at U.S. retailers fell 0.1% in February, marking a three-month slide. Much of the decline […]
China’s exports surged unexpectedly in February, further widening its global trade surplus at a time when the Trump administration has put a special focus on the U.S. trade deficit with Beijing. Chinese exports jumped 44.5% in February from a year earlier, the General Administration of Customs said Thursday. Economists polled by The Wall Street Journal […]
The friction around the best path forward after high school is popping up around the country as anxious students and families try to figure out how to pay for four years of college. At the same time, business groups and state governments make the case for a free or much cheaper vocational education. The conversation […]
The amount of income subject to corporate taxes on the state level will increase by 12% because of the federal-tax overhaul, which removed or limited tax breaks, according to a business-backed study. When the top federal corporate-tax rate was 35%, state corporate-tax rates ranging from 3% to 12% were relatively insignificant for many big companies. […]
The trade deficit widened further in early 2018, a deteriorating backdrop to President Donald Trump’s ramped-up efforts to close the gap with the help of tariffs. The U.S. trade gap in goods and services expanded 5.0% from the prior month to a seasonally adjusted $56.60 billion in January, the Commerce Department said Wednesday. It was […]
Robust hiring is drawing people into the U.S. labor market, a healthy mix that suggests the economy can run strong without overheating and forcing the Federal Reserve to curb growth with aggressive interest-rate increases.
The French report describes a new study by climate physicists Peter Cox and Mark Williamson of the University of Exeter and Chris Huntingford of the U.K.’s Center for Ecology and Hydrology. Not only does it narrow the range of expected warming to between 2.2 and 3.4 degrees Celsius, but it rules out the possibility of […]
The incomes of U.S. households jumped in January, reflecting tax law changes that are reducing tax withholding and led to one-time bonuses for some households. After-tax income, including earnings from salaries, investments and other sources, rose 0.9% in January from December, the Commerce Department said Thursday. That matched the largest monthly gain since December 2012, […]
The number of Americans filing new applications for unemployment benefits fell last week to the lowest level since December 1969, offering fresh evidence of health in the labor market. Initial jobless claims, a proxy for layoffs across the U.S., declined by 10,000 to a seasonally adjusted 210,000 in the week ended Feb. 24, the Labor […]
As business owners pore through the new tax law, many are asking themselves a fundamental question: Will changing how their company is structured cut their tax bills? “This is one of the most pressing issues for taxpayers and business owners,” said Mark Everson, vice chairman of tax-consulting firm Alliantgroup LP. “They are looking carefully now […]
The Supreme Court on Monday will hear the landmark First Amendment case Janus v. Afscme that challenges whether public employees can be compelled to subsidize union advocacy. As Thomas Jefferson once wrote, requiring “a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves, is sinful and tyrannical”—and unconstitutional. Janus gives […]
Weak productivity growth has been a head-scratcher for economists in recent years, but a new study argues the tide is poised to turn, and the next wave will be driven by digitization. The diffusion of new technologies into everyday use holds promise for bringing back the kinds of annual 2% productivity growth seen in the […]
America’s biggest companies are about to tell the world for the first time how compensation for their chief executives compares with what they pay their rank-and-file workers. The disclosure, a requirement of the postcrisis Dodd-Frank law, is causing trepidation among top executives and corporate boards, and for good reason: The pay ratio, which is calculated […]
Homeowners soon will be able to count income they earn from Airbnb Inc. rentals on applications for refinance loans. A new program—expected to be announced on Thursday by Airbnb, mortgage giant Fannie Mae and three big lenders—will allow anyone who has rented out property on Airbnb for a year or longer to count some or […]