With 793,000 Americans applying for first-time unemployment benefits last week, the need for relief and a boost to the economy is apparent. Heather Boushey, a member of the Biden administration's Council of Economic Advisers, told Cheddar the number of new jobs added across the country has been on a steady decline.
"A couple weeks ago we got data for January's employment situation, and there we saw that the pace of job growth has slowed," she said.
The drastic sweep of job losses has been felt disproportionately by women, many of whom left the workforce to take on family care responsibilities full-time as schools and daycare centers closed in an effort to mitigate the spread of COVID-19.
According to Boushey, prioritizing economic stimulus initiatives and circulating critical supplies is a surefire way to rejuvenate the economy and will ultimately help schools and daycare centers reopen safely — effectively allowing many women to get back into the labor force.
"The most important thing that we need to get people back to work, to get back to business as usual, is to contain the pandemic, and that's why the American Rescue Plan starts by adding resources for communities and states all across the country to contain the virus, to get those vaccines out, to make sure people have protective gear, to make sure that there's testing widely available, and then the package provides resources to help families, especially those who are out of work, weather this crisis," Boushey noted.
The big question Americans pose now is: when will relief come? Components of the COVID relief bill are being hashed out, particularly whether or not to include a boost to the federal minimum wage of $15. The House of Representatives approved the bill that included the minimum wage hike but Senate Democrats do not appear to be on the same page and might not have the votes to achieve the goal.
"Right now, Congress is working on the legislation. They're doing hearing markups and the extent to which they can move quickly and get their work done and get it to the president's desk to sign," Boushey said. "That is when we'll know when folks can get checks, but it can't happen until Congress acts."
Joe Cecela, Dream Exchange CEO, explains how they are aiming to form the first minority-controlled company to operate an exchange in U.S. history. Watch!
A Michigan judge is putting sponges in the hands of shoplifters and ordering them to wash cars in a Walmart parking lot when spring weather arrives. Genesee County Judge Jeffrey Clothier hopes the unusual form of community service discourages people from stealing from Walmart. The judge also wants to reward shoppers with free car washes. Clothier says he began ordering “Walmart wash” sentences this week for shoplifting at the store in Grand Blanc Township. He believes 75 to 100 people eventually will be ordered to wash cars this spring. Clothier says he will be washing cars alongside them when the time comes.
The State Department had been in talks with Elon Musk’s Tesla company to buy armored electric vehicles, but the plans have been put on hold by the Trump administration after reports emerged about a potential $400 million purchase. A State Department spokesperson said the electric car company owned by Musk was the only one that expressed interest back in May 2024. The deal with Tesla was only in its planning phases but it was forecast to be the largest contract of the year. It shows how some of his wealth has come and was still expected to come from taxpayers.
At 100 years old, the Goodyear Blimp is an ageless star in the sky. The 246-foot-long airship will be in the background of the Daytona 500 — flying roughly 1,500 feet above Daytona International Speedway, actually — to celebrate its greatest anniversary tour. Even though remote camera technologies are improving regularly and changing the landscape of aerial footage, the blimp continues to carve out a niche. At Daytona, with the usual 40-car field racing around a 2½-mile superspeedway, views from the blimp aptly provide the scope of the event.
You'll just have to wait for interest rates (and prices) to go down. Plus, this deal's a steel, the big carmaker wedding is off, and bribery is back, baby!
It’s a chicken-and-egg problem: Restaurants are struggling with record-high U.S. egg prices, but their omelets, scrambles and huevos rancheros may be part of the problem. Breakfast is booming at U.S. eateries. First Watch, a restaurant chain that serves breakfast, brunch and lunch, nearly quadrupled its locations over the past decade to 570. Fast-food chains like Starbucks and Wendy's added more egg-filled breakfast items. In normal times, egg producers could meet the demand. But a bird flu outbreak that has forced them to slaughter their flocks is making supplies scarcer and pushing up prices. Some restaurants like Waffle House have added a surcharge to offset their costs.
