Mayors and governors of both parties tout German-style apprenticeships as an alternative pathway to employment, in the face of ballooning college tuition and the need for career options for noncollege graduates. Support for increasing hands-on training comes from all corners—Democrats and Republicans, business and labor, the Trump and the Obama administrations. German Chancellor Angela Merkel […]
The Trump administration is looking into ways to help workers, but experts say the retraining problem is hard to fix. The key program is Trade Adjustment Assistance, installed in the 1960s, which provides extended unemployment benefit payments and job training to workers who the government determines lost employment due to overseas competition. Multiple studies have […]
Mr. Trump’s initial response to GM’s plant closure news was to threaten to punish the company by stripping its federal subsidies. White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow later acknowledged that Mr. Trump can’t legally single out GM for subsidy retribution. Instead the White House may take the better route of proposing to eliminate subsidies for […]
American manufacturing growth slowed sharply in December, adding to concerns about cooling economic expansions in the U.S. and abroad. The Institute for Supply Management said Thursday that its manufacturing index fell to 54.1 in December, the largest one-month drop since the end of 2008, during the financial crisis. Still, a reading above 50 indicates factory […]
U.S. employers added jobs at a robust pace in December and wages posted their biggest full-year gain of the expansion, providing a strong new counterpoint to recent worries in financial markets that the economy is sputtering because of trade frictions and rising interest rates. Stock prices rose on the economic news, then jumped even higher […]
A measure of confidence among American households fell for a second consecutive month, weighed down by weaker expectations for economic growth and heightened market volatility. The Conference Board said Thursday that its index of U.S. consumer confidence dropped to 128.1 in December, down from 136.4 in November. The October index reading of 137.9 was the […]
For older Americans, the last few years of work can be a vital chance to patch up thin savings or pay down debt to ease their way into retirement. Many aren’t getting that opportunity. . . . Even though the official unemployment rate is just 3% for older workers, the actual jobs environment is surprisingly […]
Jerry Brown steps down next month as California’s governor, and to much of the country, he is West Coast liberalism personified, having battled the Trump administration on climate change, immigration and other hot-button issues. But in the state capital of Sacramento, the liberal lion has made his mark in a different and perhaps surprising way: […]
If the court overturns Auer, a logical next step would be to reconsider deference for agency interpretations of the statutes that authorize their actions. In Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council (1984), the justices directed lower courts to defer to any agency interpretations of laws enacted by Congress, so long as the interpretation is deemed […]
States’ revenue collections are off to a strong start in the current fiscal year, building on gains pegged to the expanding economy and help from the federal tax overhaul. With most states nearing the midpoint of their fiscal years, which end June 30, at least 19 of them are seeing higher-than-expected general-fund revenue, according to […]
The pace of U.S. economic output growth was revised down slightly to a still-solid rate in the third quarter, but the momentum could be difficult to maintain in the year’s final three months. Gross domestic product, a broad measure of the goods and services produced across the U.S., rose at a 3.4% seasonally and inflation-adjusted […]
Investors haven’t had to worry too much about inflation lately. In the coming year, that might no longer be the case. The Labor Department on Wednesday reported that consumer prices were unchanged in November from October, putting them 2.2% above their year-earlier level. Core prices, which exclude food and energy prices to better capture inflation’s […]
Almost half of U.S. chief financial officers believe a recession will strike the U.S. economy by the end of 2019, with the tight labor market and growing trade tensions driving economic jitters among corporate America. Additionally, more than 80% of U.S. CFOs think a recession will strike by the end of 2020, according to the […]
The plug-in electric vehicle won praise from auto critics who heralded the car as an engineering marvel when it was introduced in 2010. The acclaim eased some of the pain from GM’s bankruptcy at the time and showed that Detroit could still develop an enviable vehicle. The Volt, though, was also a big money loser […]
Apple Inc. said it plans to invest $1 billion building a new corporate campus in Austin, Texas, promising to create as many as 15,000 jobs, as it and a handful of other tech giants expand their footprint well beyond the West Coast. The Cupertino, Calif.-based iPhone maker said it would also establish new offices in […]