A stark spatial hierarchy is emerging in the United States. Big cities are ascendant, enjoying accelerated job growth in a knowledge-driven economy, while midsize cities, small metro areas and rural communities struggle to keep pace. These geographic fault lines have provoked a debate about how to revitalize rural America. What if the best way to […]
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After more than three months of negotiations and 11 days on strike, over 30,000 Stop & Shop workers have reached a tentative agreement with the supermarket chain that they said met their demands for better pay and health care coverage. The employees, members of the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union at more than […]
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President Trump’s decision to impose tariffs on imported washing machines has had an odd effect: It raised prices on washing machines, as expected, but also drove up the cost of clothes dryers, which rose by $92 last year. What appears to have happened, according to new research from economists at the University of Chicago and […]
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Despite the lowest unemployment rates since the late 1960s, the American economy is failing its citizens. Some 90 percent have seen their incomes stagnate or decline in the past 30 years. This is not surprising, given that the United States has the highest level of inequality among the advanced countries and one of the lowest […]
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LONDON — Of the current vacancies in the British government’s hundreds of job listings for policy and strategy advisers, one stands out. Wanted: two butlers. Duties include delivering “the highest quality V.I.P. hospitality for all government departments and ministers” and managing the government’s wine cellar. Maximum annual salary: 30,000 pounds (not quite $40,000). Only British […]
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Gov. Tony Evers of Wisconsin is dubious that Foxconn, the Taiwanese electronics giant known for making iPhones, will fulfill its promise of creating 13,000 jobs at a planned plant in the state. So he wants a redo of the contract. “I think at this point in time that would be an unreal expectation when they’re […]
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Last month’s proposal from Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos to cut millions of dollars in funding for Special Olympics caused a public uproar and a bipartisan backlash fierce enough to force President Trump to restore it days later. That reversal was welcome. But it was also incomplete. Most Americans do not know that the 2020 […]
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In small but politically significant ways, the economy under President Trump has favored regions and constituencies that supported him in 2016. These are the men and women whom Trump called forgotten Americans. The emerging pattern of economic growth reverses a trend that held from the 2008 recession to 2016, in which Democratic-leaning states and counties […]
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Plastic excavators, bulldozers and cranes fueled by imagination have long captivated toddlers. Now, the construction industry is trying to attract teenagers with realistic computer simulators of those same heavy machines, hoping to build a younger work force. With the retirement of baby boomers in full swing, the construction industry is grappling with its biggest challenge: […]
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I was up before sunrise on that Tuesday morning. The house was dark. A cup of instant coffee slowly turned inside the glowing microwave. I stared at my reflection in the window over the sink, when some nocturnal scavenger out in the backyard triggered a motion sensor. A security light snapped on, illuminating the ground. […]
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More than 30,000 Stop & Shop supermarket workers across three states remained on strike for a third day on Saturday, protesting what they said were unfair wages and high health insurance premiums. The strike, by United Food and Commercial Workers International Union members working at more than 240 Stop & Shops in Connecticut, Massachusetts and […]
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COTATI, Calif. — Uber’s public stock offering next month will make a bunch of people remarkably rich. Peter Ashlock is not one of them, although he has toiled for the ride-hailing company almost since the beginning. Mr. Ashlock, who will be 71 next week, has racked up more than 25,000 trips as an Uber driver […]
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[What you need to know to start the day: Get New York Today in your inbox.] Most employers in New York City would no longer be able to force job applicants to take drug tests for marijuana use, under a bill overwhelmingly approved this week by the City Council. If the drug-screening law is enacted, […]
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PALM BEACH, Fla. — Behind the clipped hedges of President Trump’s sumptuous private clubs in South Florida, including his Mar-a-Lago estate where he has spent many getaway weekends, there has long been a built-in contradiction to the policy the president has repeatedly described as “America First.” Many of his employees have foreign passports. Romanians serve […]
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The federal government wants to issue more visas for foreign workers to take temporary jobs in housekeeping, landscaping and other fields — even as President Trump seeks to seal off the border with Mexico, where most of those workers come from. The Departments of Homeland Security and Labor said they planned to issue up to […]
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DANAO, Philippines — In the remote, mist-covered slopes outside the city of Danao in the central Philippines sits the illegal, makeshift workshop of a master gun maker. Accessible only by foot on a steep, winding pathway camouflaged by thick vegetation, the ramshackle shop owned by I. Launa has a tattered tarpaulin roof, a work table […]
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Welcome to the Smarter Living newsletter! Every Monday, editor Tim Herrera emails readers with tips and advice for living a better, more fulfilling life. Sign up here to get it in your inbox. Do you like what you do? Now, I don’t mean that in the broad sense of wondering whether you’re on the right […]
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An attractive woman behind the wheel of a gray car says to the camera, “These days anyone can have a side hustle.” She then whisks off to the gym, for her other job as a personal trainer, beaming as she goes from one gig to another. This ad for the ride-share company Uber seeks to […]
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Kalli Ridley had just finished yoga class and was feeling calm when her favorite instructor approached her with a smile and told her she would make a great teacher. “It was like they saw something special in me,” Ms. Ridley said. But becoming a teacher at the CorePower Yoga studio in Minneapolis, where Ms. Ridley […]
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The package of eccentric ideas known as modern monetary theory — for example, that annual deficits are too small, and that the United States can essentially print money to pay off its debt — has been on the receiving end of a remarkable level of vitriol. In policy circles, heavyweight economists have churned out scathing […]
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