Japan’s central bank raised interest rates for the first time since 2007 on Tuesday, pushing them above zero to close a chapter in its aggressive effort to stimulate an economy that has long struggled to grow. In 2016, the Bank of Japan took the unorthodox step of bringing borrowing costs below zero, a bid to […]
Read MoreTag: Labor and Jobs
VW Workers in Chattanooga Seek Vote to Join Union
Volkswagen employees in Tennessee who are hoping to join the United Automobile Workers asked a federal agency on Monday to hold an election, a key step toward the union’s longtime goal of organizing nonunion factories across the South. With the union’s backing, Volkswagen workers filed a petition with the National Labor Relations Board asking for […]
Read MoreMike Pence Rues the Day
Gail Collins: Bret, I feel obligated to start out by asking you — TikTok? Potential foreign agent? Bret Stephens: I think of TikTok in two ways. First, as a gigantic vacuum cleaner of personal data — possibly including your location — that goes directly from the unsuspecting eyes, thumbs and minds of its 170 million […]
Read MoreWe’re Not Burdens on Society. We’re Engines of Economic Progress.
History is being made on the Rio Grande. Hundreds of thousands of migrants braved the journey across it last year, setting records and contributing to an urgent border crisis. As spectacle, it has been transfixing. Yet misconceptions abound. It’s as if the sight of a migrant scaling a wall or wading ashore is now a […]
Read MoreHow Is a College Football Team Different From Its Marching Band?
Robert McRae III has seen a lot. His grandmother, a civil rights activist in Los Angeles, often brought him along to rallies she organized and picket lines she walked — even to a gay pride parade with giant anatomical balloons that, he recalls with a smile, might not have been age appropriate. As a Dartmouth […]
Read MoreChicago Begins Evicting Migrants From Shelters, Citing Strain on Resources
Chicago officials on Sunday began evicting some migrants from shelters, joining other cities that have made similar moves to ease pressure on overstretched resources. The process is starting gradually. Out of the nearly 11,000 migrants living in 23 homeless shelters in Chicago, according to the Office of Emergency Management and Communications, a fraction — 34 […]
Read MoreBernie Sanders Proposes Reducing Americans’ Workweek to 32 Hours
Senator Bernie Sanders this week unveiled legislation to reduce the standard workweek in the United States from 40 hours to 32, without a reduction in pay, saying Americans are working longer hours for less pay despite advances in technology and productivity. The law, if passed, would pare down the workweek over a four-year period, lowering […]
Read MoreStudy finds workers misjudge wage markets
Many employees believe their counterparts at other firms make less in salary than is actually the case — an assumption that costs them money, according to a study co-authored by MIT scholars. “Workers wrongly anchor their beliefs about outside options on their current wage,” says MIT economist Simon Jäger, co-author of a newly published paper […]
Read MoreHow Biden Can Out-Populist the Populist
As Democrats puzzle over how President Biden can be so unpopular, it’s worth looking at the global context — because he’s actually doing better than most Western leaders. In the Morning Consult approval ratings for global leaders, Biden polls better than leaders in Canada, Britain, Germany, Spain, Belgium, Ireland, Sweden, Austria, the Netherlands, Norway, France […]
Read MoreMalaysia Rises as Crucial Link in Chip Supply Chain
Construction cranes still surround the brand-spanking new plant in Kulim’s industrial park in Malaysia. But inside, legions of workers hired by the Austrian tech giant AT&S are already gearing up to produce at full capacity by year’s end. Outfitted in head-to-toe coveralls, with oversized safety glasses and hard hats, they’re reminiscent of the worker bees […]
Read MoreWalmart Wants to Teach Store Managers Compassion
On a stormy afternoon in Bentonville, Ark., a Walmart regional manager recounted a story about a moment when his humanity came up short. He was 24-year-old store manager anxiously trying to get his workers to set up Halloween merchandise displays. Instead, the workers were gathered around the televisions in the electronics department. It was the […]
Read MoreU.S. Employers Add 275,000 Jobs in Another Strong Month
If the economy is slowing down, nobody told the labor market. Employers added 275,000 jobs in February, the Labor Department reported Friday, in another month that exceeded expectations even as the unemployment rate rose. It was the third straight month of gains above 200,000, and the 38th consecutive month of growth — fresh evidence that […]
Read MoreDon’t Be Fooled by a Big Jobs Gain
March 5, 2024, 1:29 p.m. ET March 5, 2024, 1:29 p.m. ET “I was a little disappointed that Katie Porter chose to run,” Karl Rubin, an emeritus professor of math, told me on the patio of a community center on the campus of the University of California, Irvine, on Monday morning. He said that Porter, […]
Read MoreHome Care Aides Fight to End 24-Hour Shifts in NYC City Council
For eight years, Lai Yee Chen worked 24-hour shifts, up to five days a week, as a home care aide for bed-bound seniors in New York City. She cooked, cleaned, changed diapers and turned her patients at least every two hours to prevent bedsores. Ms. Chen, 69, has since retired, but she still jolts awake […]
Read MoreFed Chair Powell Still Expects to Cut Rates This Year, but Not Yet
Jerome H. Powell, the chair of the Federal Reserve, said on Wednesday that he thinks the central bank will begin to lower borrowing costs in 2024 but that policymakers still needed to gain “greater confidence” that inflation was conquered before making a move. “We believe that our policy rate is likely at its peak for […]
Read MoreHow Minimum Wage Changes Affect Tipped Workers and Diners
The last few years have fundamentally changed Americans’ relationship with restaurants. As the pandemic made diners more aware of the long hours and low pay built into the business, many began tipping more, donating to employee funds and lobbying elected officials for worker protections. Now that awareness has translated into legislation that could reshape restaurants […]
Read MoreAdelle Waldman’s Journey From Brooklyn Literati to a Big Box Store
A good friend of mine, when talking about the New York dating landscape that led her to choose single motherhood, often refers to Adelle Waldman’s 2013 novel, “The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P.” An unromantic comedy, the book is a note-perfect depiction of Obama-era literary Brooklyn and the Ivy-educated cads who think of themselves as […]
Read MoreTrump’s Tax Cut Fueled Investment but Did Not Pay for Itself, Study Finds
The corporate tax cuts that President Donald J. Trump signed into law in 2017 have boosted investment in the U.S. economy and delivered a modest pay bump for workers, according to the most rigorous and detailed study yet of the law’s effects. Those benefits are less than Republicans promised, though, and they have come at […]
Read MoreAmerican Office Workers Are Living Even Farther From Employers Now
In 2020, Virginia Martin lived two and a half miles from her office. Today, the distance between her work and home is 156. Ms. Martin, 37, used to live in Durham, N.C., and drove about 10 minutes to her job as a librarian at Duke. After the onset of remote work, Ms. Martin got her […]
Read MoreHow 33-Year-Olds, the Peak Millennials, Are Shaping the U.S. Economy
I have covered economics for 11 years now, and in that time, I have come to the realization that I am a statistic. Every time I make a major life choice, I promptly watch it become the thing that everyone is doing that year. I started college in 2009, in the era of all-time-high matriculation […]
Read MoreBig Labor Gamble: Push to Unionize Every U.S. Auto Plant
When Shawn Fain, the United Automobile Workers president, unveiled the deal that ended six weeks of strikes at Ford Motor in the fall, he framed it as part of a longer campaign. Next, he declared, would be the task of organizing nonunion plants across the country. “One of our biggest goals coming out of this […]
Read MoreReport Helps Answer the Question: Is a College Degree Worth the Cost?
Most people go to college to improve their financial prospects, though there are other benefits to attending a postsecondary institution. But as the average cost of a four-year degree has risen to six figures, even at public universities, it can be hard to know if the money is well spent. A new analysis by HEA […]
Read MoreThe U.S. Economy Is Surpassing Expectations. Immigration Is One Reason.
The U.S. economic recovery from the pandemic has been stronger and more durable than many experts had expected, and a rebound in immigration is a big reason. A resumption in visa processing in 2021 and 2022 jump-started employment, allowing foreign-born workers to fill some holes in the labor force that persisted across industries and locations […]
Read More3 Questions: Shaping the future of work in an age of AI
The MIT Shaping the Future of Work Initiative, co-directed by MIT professors Daron Acemoglu, David Autor, and Simon Johnson, celebrated its official launch on Jan. 22. The new initiative’s mission is to analyze the forces that are eroding job quality and labor market opportunities for non-college workers and identify innovative ways to move the economy […]
Read More“We offer another place for knowledge”
In the Dzaleka Refugee Camp in Malawi, Jospin Hassan didn’t have access to the education opportunities he sought. So, he decided to create his own. Hassan knew the booming fields of data science and artificial intelligence could bring job opportunities to his community and help solve local challenges. After earning a spot in the 2020-21 […]
Read MoreChild Care Is an Industry on the Brink
Running a child care business has long been a very challenging math problem: Many providers can barely afford to operate, yet many parents cannot afford to pay more. During the pandemic, there was temporary relief. The federal government spent $24 billion to keep the industry afloat. Many providers were given thousands of dollars a month, […]
Read MoreChild Care Is an Industry on the Brink
Running a child care business has long been a very challenging math problem: Many providers can barely afford to operate, yet many parents cannot afford to pay more. During the pandemic, there was temporary relief. The federal government spent $24 billion to keep the industry afloat. Many providers were given thousands of dollars a month, […]
Read MoreCan a Tech Giant Be Woke?
The December day in 2021 that set off a revolution across the videogame industry appeared to start innocuously enough. Managers at a Wisconsin studio called Raven began meeting one by one with quality assurance testers, who vet video games for bugs, to announce that the company was overhauling their department. Going forward, managers said, the […]
Read MoreStarbucks Baristas Fuel Workers in NYC, but Is Anyone Helping Them?
For more than a year, Felix Santiago has worked as a barista at a Starbucks near Times Square, and for about half that time he loved it. It was easy to swap shifts, easy to pick up new ones, easy to get along with supervisors who were largely accommodating. “The first six months were absolutely […]
Read MoreFor Michigan’s Economy, Electric Vehicles Are Promising and Scary
Last fall, Tiffanie Simmons, a second-generation autoworker, endured a six-week strike at the Ford Motor factory just west of Detroit where she builds Bronco S.U.V.s. That yielded a pay raise of 25 percent over the next four years, easing the pain of reductions that she and other union workers swallowed more than a decade ago. […]
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