Vermont Governor Phil Scott is asking legislators in his state to speed up equal pay legislation. The governor citing closing the wage gap would reduce Vermont's poverty rate by 57 percent, and add $1 billion to its economy. Joan Goldstein, Commissioner of the Vermont Department of Economic Development, and Lisa Groeneveld, Co-Owner of Logic Supply, explain how the state is recruiting more tech hubs to Vermont and working to close the gender pay gap.
"Our gap isn't as wide as some other states," explains Goldstsein. "Part of that is because of the transparency in many of the industries."
PC manufacturing company Logic Supply, which is based in Vermont, has a workforce made up of 30 percent women. "At Logic Supply we are working really aggressively to increase the female population of our workforce," says Groeneveld. "I'm really encouraged with the way Vermont thinks about helping businesses recruit and bring talented people into the state."
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Swedish buy now, pay later company Klarna is making its highly anticipated public debut on the New York Stock Exchange Wednesday, the latest in a run of high-profile initial public offerings this year. The offering priced at $40 Tuesday, above the forecasted range of $35 to $37 a share, valuing the company at more than $15 billion. The valuation easily makes Klarna one of the biggest IPOs so far in 2025, which has been one of the busier years for companies going public. Other popular IPOs so far this year include the design software company Figma and Circle Internet Group, which issues the USDC stablecoin..
Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison wrested the title of the world’s richest man from longtime holder Elon Musk early Wednesday as stock in his software giant rocketed more than a third in a stunning few minutes of trading. That is according to wealth tracker Bloomberg. A college dropout, the 81-year-old Ellison is now worth $393 billion, Bloomberg says, several billion more than Musk, who had been the world’s richest for four years. The switch in the ranking came after a blockbuster earnings report from Oracle. Forbes still has Musk as the richest, however, valuing his private businesses much higher.