Last month the U.S. added 379,000 jobs, a sign that the economy is trending toward recovery. Of the jobs added last month, 355,000 positions were added in the hospitality and leisure sector, an industry that was one of the hardest hit during the pandemic.
While February was the second straight month of beating job growth expectations, the White House says the country is "far from out of the woods," in terms of job recovery.
"The job market is still 9.5 million jobs down from where it was a year ago. By the way, that's 800,000 jobs worse than the depth of the Great Recession, so we are just awfully far from out of the woods," Jared Berstein, a member of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, told Cheddar.
Furthermore, Black and Latino Americans are facing stagnation or even a rise in joblessness. The new report shows the rate of unemployment for Black Americans actually went up 0.7 percent last month while the jobless rate for Latinos fell only 0.1 percent to 8.5 percent.
"We have four million people stuck in long-term unemployment," Bernstein added.
While job growth for the country as a whole is improving, Bernstein said dissecting the job reports is key to understanding the entire story. As Americans wait on the Senate to debate over the most recent version of the American Rescue Plan, the White House has said parts of the plan directly address communities of color where joblessness has been rampant and others have had to work riskier, essential jobs through the pandemic.
"Now for those on the bottom leg of the K of this disparate K-shape recovery, unemployment insurance has been important," said Bernstein noting enhanced unemployment benefits are about to expire disproportionately affecting communities of color. "The American Rescue plan keeps them going."
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.
William Falcon, CEO and Founder of Lightning AI, discusses the ongoing feud between Elon Musk and Sam Altman, and how everyday people can use AI in their lives.
