As Americans drive to barbecues and the beach in coming days, they will be paying more for gas than on any Independence Day weekend since the record highs of 2008.
A gallon of unleaded gasoline cost an average of $3.67 Wednesday, almost 20 cents above last year’s price, according to automobile club AAA. In California, drivers have been paying well over $4 a gallon for weeks.
Why has the labor market contracted so much and why does it remain depressed? Major subsidies and regulations intended to help the poor and unemployed were changed in more than a dozen ways—and although these policies were advertised as employment-expanding, the fact is that they reduced incentives for people to work and for businesses to hire.
The coast’s share of containerized cargo fell from just over half of all tonnage arriving from Asia in 2004 to about 40% in 2013, much of that erosion coming from increased competition from Canada and Mexico. That has contributed to the air of harmony between port operators and dockworkers.
College-educated Americans tend to know mostly other college-educated Americans and to think that is the norm, if not universal. In fact, just three in 10 Americans age 25 or older have bachelor’s degrees. Another 8% are high-school dropouts, leaving the overwhelming majority—more than 60%—in circumstances something like Mr. Blazier’s.
Employers hired steadily in May, placing the U.S. on the one of the best four-month stretches of job creation since late 1990s and renewing optimism about the five-year-long recovery.
Nonfarm employment advanced a seasonally adjusted 217,000 last month, the Labor Department said Friday. April’s gain was revised down slightly, but the increase of 282,000 was the best in more than two years.
A contraction in the nation’s economic output in the first quarter again deferred hopes for a sustained pickup in growth, another stumble for a lackluster recovery approaching the end of its fifth year.
In all, some 66 industrial projects—worth some $90 billion—will be breaking ground over the next five years in Louisiana, according to the Greater Baton Rouge Industry Alliance. Tens of billions of other new investments could be coming, says Louisiana’s economic development secretary, Stephen Moret. How many projects will actually get built remains to be seen.
Economists, real-estate agents and many home builders expected first-time and entry-level buyers to begin returning to the market this year, jump-starting the sputtering housing recovery. So far, that hasn’t happened.
Thomas Piketty has recently attracted widespread attention for his claim that capitalism will now lead inexorably to an increasing inequality of income and wealth unless there are radical changes in taxation. Although his book, “Capital in the Twenty-First Century,” has been praised by those who advocate income redistribution, his thesis rests on a false theory of how wealth evolves in a market economy, a flawed interpretation of U.S. income-tax data, and a misunderstanding of the current nature of household wealth.
Governor Jerry Brown’s California comeback tour was rudely interrupted this week by news that Torrance-based Toyota is moving to Plano, Texas. The runaway car maker shines a headlight on how the South is overtaking California as a commercial and industrial power.
The U.S. economy slowed in the first quarter to one of the weakest paces of the five-year recovery as the frigid winter appeared to curtailed business investment and weakness overseas hurt exports.
One of California’s few emollients for employers is its limit on “pain and suffering” medical liability judgments, which has improved access to medical care and held down health costs. But look out: Plaintiffs lawyers abetted by Attorney General Kamala Harris are now trying to gut the cap with a ballot initiative dressed in patient-protection garb.
As lawmakers in the nation’s capital are mired in debate over likely outcomes from raising the federal minimum wage, businesses hit with local wage increases across the U.S. already are grappling with the reality.
The 23% gap implies that women work an extra 68 days to earn the same pay as a man. Mr. Obama advocates allowing women to sue for wage discrimination, with employers bearing the burden of proving they did not discriminate. But the numbers bandied about to make the claim of widespread discrimination are fundamentally misleading and economically illogical
President Barack Obama on Tuesday said the salary gap between men and women is unfair and needs to be remedied, outlining an election-year effort by Democrats to highlight gender pay disparities and shore up support for the party’s candidates among women voters.