Free Republic

Since the first fears of the pandemic emerged in the U.S. in early March, businesses across the nation have endured six months of uncertainty. Yet, businesses are adapting and proving their resilience through lockdowns, reopenings, a summer surge in virus cases, new ways of doing business such as outdoor dining, new mask wearing rules and backlash from anti-mask patrons, as well as milestones such as the return to school. Even in the wake of increased closures we’re seeing businesses effectively transition to new operating models while keeping their employees and consumers safe. Yelp closure data shows that businesses providing home,...

President Trump has a ways to go if he’s going to win Michigan again this presidential cycle. A new Rasmussen Reports telephone and online survey of Likely Voters in Michigan finds Democratic nominee Joe Biden with an eight-point lead – 51% to 43% - over Trump. Three percent (3%) prefer some other candidate, and another three percent (3%) are undecided. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

CNBC editor Rick Santelli on Friday touted the latest jobs report, which showed that the U.S. economy added over 1.3 million jobs in August, and the unemployment rate fell to 8.4 percent. Santelli on “Squawk Box” called the improving economy following the devastating effects made by the coronavirus pandemic and ensuing lockdowns “wonderful news.” He added that the August report “will lead to even more strength” in the future. “I think that this is wonderful news, and I think that we have to keep a perspective that there’s many people that really, really want to come back to work but...

Billionaire philanthropist Laurene Powell Jobs, the majority owner of The Atlantic, has donated over $1.2 million to former Vice President Joe Biden and other Democratic candidates and groups since 2019, Federal Election Commission records show. Powell Jobs owns a 70% stake in The Atlantic, and she reportedly communicates often with its editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg. Goldberg published an anonymously-sourced story Thursday alleging that President Donald Trump had denigrated fallen American soldiers.

The US manufacturing industry accelerated its growth through August as factories reopened and supply chains recovered. The Institute for Supply Management's purchasing managers' index gained to 56 last month from 54.2, according to a Tuesday report. The expansion is the PMI's fastest in nearly two years. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg expected a reading of 54.8. The firm's New Orders Index climbed to 67.6 from 61.5, its highest point in more than 16 years.

“One of the great mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than by their results,” said Milton Friedman. The fact that someone claims noble, idealistic motives is often reason enough for them to receive recognition for what they do. Even critics of Greta Thunberg, for example, are quick to praise her “idealism.” Regardless of what her actions actually achieve, people tend to admire her idealism. In contrast, people with a “materialistic” attitude are branded as superficial and anyone who strives for fame is swiftly labeled a pathological narcissist. The German literary critic Marcel Reich-Ranicki takes a...

The way President Donald Trump and Democratic challenger Joe Biden talk about H-1B work visas is strikingly different -- and so are the Silicon Valley donors supporting their candidacies.

My favorite nickname for America is “Land of Opportunity.” A place where everyone: man or woman, black, brown, or white has a real chance to succeed. After the financial crisis in 2008, it seemed that opportunity for many had slipped away. Obama/Biden “progressive” policies of higher taxes, more regulation and massive government programs smothered what should have been a dramatic recovery. In fact, the recovery under Obama/Biden was the weakest in modern history, taking over six years to recover market losses and lost employment. Six years of lost jobs, lost opportunity and suffering for millions of Americans. In the last...

Joe Biden has a message for the fossil-fuel workers he admits he’ll be putting out of work: I have an even better job for you. So why is the nation’s premier building-trade federation warning its members not to believe it? In July Mr. Biden released a climate agenda that vows a “100% clean energy economy” by 2050. That means largely eliminating coal, oil or natural gas by that date, and Mr. Biden would start by banning all drilling and hydraulic fracturing on federal land. He’d also create a carbon “enforcement mechanism”—a carbon tax of some kind—to raise the cost of...

California has claimed victory over the horrible abuse and exploitation of workers at the hands of evil employers with a new bill, AB666, which will make it a crime to work for a living. The new bill, signed into law by Governor Newsom Thursday, will stop the mistreatment of workers forever by making it illegal to work. "Employers used to do bad things -- well, not anymore," said Newsom at the bill signing. "Not on my watch. This solution is guided by SCIENCE. Leading SCIENTISTS say that when you can't work, you can't be exploited by evil corporations and wicked...

Weeks after Amazon reported blowout second-quarter results, including massive beats on the top line, and double-digit revenue growth YoY - supported by an explosion of online shopping amid the virus pandemic - the e-commerce giant is set to expand physical offices and add thousands of "white collar" jobs across the US according to a new report in The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday. The news of the hiring spree comes less than a week after the company announced plans to cut ties with small contract delivery firms across the country, costing 1,200 delivery drivers their jobs. And as all...

Unemployment claims fell to less than 1 million last week for the first time since the coronavirus pandemic hit the U.S. in March, the Labor Department reported Thursday. New applications for unemployment benefits are down significantly from a peak of near 7 million in March. The number of people collecting unemployment benefits through regular state programs, which cover the majority of workers, decreased at the end of July. That figure, at about 16.1 million, was still well above the pre-pandemic peak of 6.6 million in 2009. “We’re just running a lot of layoffs week after week even as a lot...

Precision Castparts, one of Oregon’s largest companies, eliminated 10,000 jobs worldwide in the first half of the year as orders for its aerospace components evaporated. This year’s job cuts represent about a third of Precision Castparts’ global workforce, according to Berkshire Hathaway, Precision Castparts’ parent company. In June, Precision Castparts said it had laid off 717 workers in Portland and Clackamas County due to the coronavirus outbreak. It’s not clear how many employees remain in Oregon. Portland-based Precision Castparts makes heavy metal components for airplane manufacturers, energy producers and other industrial companies. Berkshire Hathaway, Warren Buffett’s investment firm, paid $37...

The U.S. economy added 1.76 million jobs in July, down from 4.8 million jobs added in June, according to the monthly employment report released Friday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The unemployment rate fell from 11.1 percent to 10.2 percent. While the numbers were better than expected, the bleak data adds to economists’ fears that the labor market recovery is flagging, as the coronavirus pandemic continues to sweep through large swaths of the country. “We are seeing evidence that the economic recovery is losing steam. It's not reversing, but it looks like growth is flattening out,” said Daniel Zhao,...

<p>This news release presents statistics from two monthly surveys. The household survey measures labor force status, including unemployment, by demographic characteristics. The establishment survey measures nonfarm employment, hours, and earnings by industry. For more information about the concepts and statistical methodology used in these two surveys, see the Technical Note.</p>

Credential inflation refers to an increase in the education credentials required for a job—for example, a job that used to be done by high school graduates but now requires new hires to have a college degree. Credential inflation has been going on for decades. One of the earliest mentions of it is in professor Randall Collins’ book The Credential Society, published in 1979 and republished last year; two recent studies give a sense of how widespread it has become. The first, a study by Burning Glass, looked at the education level of current workers compared to the education level listed...

Whirlpool Corporation Manufacturing Plant Clyde, Ohio 3:31 P.M. EDT  THE PRESIDENT:  Thank you, everybody.  Please.  Thank you very much.  It’s a great honor to be here.  And thank you, Dan.  I’m thrilled to be in the great state of Ohio.  You were very good to me, but I’ve been very good to you.  (Applause.)  I’ve been very good to you.  We’ve been good to each other.  With the incredible men and women of Whirlpool, the largest washing machine factory anywhere in the world.Every day, 20,000 gleaming new machines coming rolling off that beautiful assembly line — I just got to...

New jobless claims have risen for the second week in a row, after dropping for 15 straight weeks, as spiking coronavirus cases delay plans to reopen or cause some states to backpedal. The Department of Labor said on Thursday that 1.416 million Americans filed for unemployment in the week ended on July 25, an increase of 12,000 from the prior week. It marked the 19th straight week that more than 1 million people have applied for unemployment benefits.

Short-form video sharing app TikTok is planning to add about 10,000 jobs in the United States over the next three years, the company said on Tuesday. The company, owned by China's ByteDance, is also considering London among other locations for setting up its headquarters. TikTok now has about 1,400 employees in the United States, up from less than 500 in January this year, it said. News website Axios reported the news first. TikTok has been seen to distance itself from Beijing after a U.S. national security panel's inquiry into the safety of the personal data it handles, Reuters reported last...

NEW YORK — Hundreds of workers rallied Monday outside the Trump International Hotel in Manhattan and the Massachusetts Statehouse to protest systemic racism and economic inequality — an effort that organizers hoped would grow into a nationwide strike in which tens of thousands of people walked off the job.... About 1,500 janitors in San Francisco walked off their jobs and planned to lead a march to City Hall later in the day, according to Fight for $15, a labor group that supports raising the U.S. minimum wage to $15 an hour. McDonald’s cooks and cashiers in Los Angeles and nursing...