Industrial production—a broad gauge of output across U.S. factories, mines and power plants—decreased a seasonally adjusted 0.6% in March from the prior month, the Federal Reserve said Friday. Output has fallen for six of the past seven months. From a year earlier, industrial production decreased 2% in March. Manufacturing output, the largest component of the index, fell 0.3% in March.
U.S. consumer prices rose in March for the first time in four months, but the mild gain underscores that only modest inflation pressures exist in the economy.
El Niño has doused northern California, but farmers in the state’s Central Valley won’t see much benefit. The Obama Administration is again indulging its progressive friends at the expense of low-income communities.
The story of SunEdison’s swift rise and calamitous fall, pieced together from internal documents, regulatory and court filings and interviews with more than a dozen current and former employees and advisers, shows what can happen when executive overreach meets fizzy markets. Mesmerized by the promise of high yields and fast growth, investors turned a blind eye to operational warning signs that ultimately left the company vulnerable to a rise in interest rates.
Many states have enjoyed an oversized boost in recent years from so-called sin taxes on cigarettes and gambling—among other vices—but the benefit to state coffers has increasingly been fading. Tobacco tax revenue across the 50 states has declined, while growing gambling competition has eaten into states’ take.
A new report by the McKinsey Global Institute finds that the U.S. could add $2.1 trillion to the nation’s gross domestic product in less than two decades if states made varying strides to raise women’s rate of labor force participation, increase the number of hours they work and spread them into more-productive job sectors.
Ridership of all modes of public transportation declined 1.3% last year from 2014, when transit use reached the highest level since 1958, according to new data from the American Public Transportation Association. The average price of a gallon of gasoline fell 27% in 2015 from a year earlier.
The U.S. economy needs to add 145,000 jobs per month just to hold the unemployment rate steady and absorb the flow of new workers into the labor force, according to estimates in the latest Wall Street Journal survey of economists.
Compensation for the chief executives of the biggest U.S. companies fell more sharply last year than any year since the financial crisis, as weaker corporate performance slowed cash bonuses and accounting rules pared back pension growth.
Planned moves—across labor, health, finance and the environment—range from overtime pay for white-collar workers to more obscure matters such as requiring food makers to disclose added sugar on cartons of flavored milk.
More Americans were hired to start a new job in February than in any month since before the recession that began in 2007—about 5.4 million people.
The U.S. trade deficit in February increased 2.6% from January to a seasonally adjusted $47.06 billion, its highest level since August, the Commerce Department said Tuesday. Exports of goods and services rose 1%, the largest gain since September, but were down 4.2% from a year earlier. Imports climbed 1.3% in February from the prior month, their largest jump in 11 months, and edged up 0.3% from a year earlier.
The fourth quarter’s slowdown was less severe than previously estimated but corporate profits fell, showing the economy entered 2016 on uneven footing.
A key measure of U.S. manufacturing health tipped back into decline last month, evidence that headwinds from weak global growth, low oil prices and financial volatility are weighing on company spending.
Personal-income growth across the U.S. last year reflected broader economic trends, with construction and the service-sector propelling earnings, especially in the Southeast and along the West Coast. Crashing commodity prices, meanwhile, were a drag in states with big farming or energy sectors.