Four of Ohio’s 32 Appalachian counties are considered distressed in fiscal year 2025, the same as the previous year. However, the number of at-risk counties fell by one.
A distressed county is among the 10 percent most economically distressed in the nation, as determined by the Appalachian Regional Commission.
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South Carolina’s seasonally adjusted July unemployment rate increased to 3.9%, up from 3.6% in June and a revised rate of 2.8% in July 2023.
State officials say the state has “record-breaking numbers” for people in jobs. Additionally, they pointed out the rate remains lower than the national norm of 4.3%.
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In a recent interview, World Energy Council Secretary General Angela Wilkinson told me that one of the main impediments to the energy transition today is a lack of what she calls “systems thinking.”
“Energy transitions are a change in the organization of society,” she pointed out. “They’re not a simple case of swapping out one technology for another and everything else stays the same. Yet, we have this very simplistic narrative that we can take the oil system, we can put renewables in, it’s going to happen immediately, and nothing else will change. It’s like saying we’re going to take your thighbone out, but we’d like you to run a marathon.”
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Inflation continues to plague Georgia businesses, and the Atlanta area continues to grapple with inflation, though it may be faring better than other cities in the country, a new analysis revealed.
According to personal finance site WalletHub, the Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Roswell metropolitan statistical area ranks 11th out of 23 major MSAs for its change in inflation. An analyst with the site said the ranking highlights some positive and concerning aspects policymakers should consider.
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Even the Jeff Bezos-owned Washington Post could not stomach the new proposal from Kamala Harris to place price controls on food. The headline of the opinion piece from Catherine Rampell read:
“When your opponent calls you a ‘communist,’ maybe don’t try price controls?”
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Attorney General Jason Miyares determined in a Friday legal opinion the Virginia Retirement System (VRS) is prohibited by Virginia law from making investments based on controversial environment, social and governance (ESG) scores.
In a statement posted to the Virginia Attorney General website, Miyares said Virginians “spent decades working hard” for their retirement, and the commonwealth’s investments must be driven by financial data and not ESG scores as a result.
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The cost of food assistance in the U.S. has dropped from its peak during the pandemic, but is still 23% higher than it was during pre-pandemic times, according to the latest data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, what used to be called food stamps, peaked in costs December 2022 at $11.07 billion that month. That monthly cost dropped to $7.51 billion as of April 2024. There were about 41.6 million people collecting SNAP benefits as of April 2024.
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Beacon Center has filed a lawsuit, on behalf of the Association of Christian Schools International, to fight a new U.S. Department of Labor overtime rule that would require anyone making less than $58,000 per year as an hourly, non-exempt employee.
The previous rule had that threshold at $35,568. The new rule is scheduled to go into effect Jan. 1 and includes a stipulation to increase the salary threshold every three years.
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For nearly four decades, small business owners across the country in Ohio said the cost of health insurance is the top chronic issue they face.
It remains the No. 1 concern in 2024 after the National Federation of Small Business released the 11th edition of its Small Business Problems and Priorities report, a survey conducted every four years since 1982.
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With one month in the books, Georgia’s tax collections seemingly started the year on a positive note after ending last fiscal year with decreased collections.
Peach State officials said this week that total General Fund receipts for July, the first month of fiscal 2025, surpassed $2.5 billion. According to state numbers, that is an increase of 2.7%, or $66.3 million, over July 2023 in fiscal 2024, when net tax collections totaled nearly $2.5 billion.
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Presumptive Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz directed almost $100,000 in COVID-19 relief funds to an organization specializing in “abortion doula” services, state contracts show.
Walz, the governor of Minnesota, spent almost $2 billion in federal coronavirus relief funds without the approval of the state Legislature, using his emergency powers, according to the Minnesota-based outlet Alpha News.
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Republican lawmakers in Georgia are concerned about increases in inflation, as a recent report shows households have paid $27,427 more because of inflation since January 2021.
The average household in the state is spending $1,074 more per month to buy the same goods and services as in 2021, according to a July report from the U.S. Congress Joint Economic Committee.
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As President Joe Biden’s presidential term comes to a close, the administration is bearing down on its goal of 30 gigawatts of offshore wind energy and 15 gigawatts of floating offshore wind by 2035.
As of 2021, the administration had approved two commercial-scale offshore wind projects, and seven have been approved within the past year.
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Land continues to get more valuable in Wisconsin.
The state’s Department of Revenue released its latest Equalized Values Report, showing the total value of all the land in the state $907 billion, an increase of $75 billion from last year.
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The cost of housing surged in July, accounting for nearly 90 percent of total inflation, according to the latest Bureau of Labor Statistics Consumer Price Index (CPI) data released Wednesday.
Shelter costs rose 5.1 percent year-over-year and 0.4 percent month-over-month, after rising 0.2 percent in June, the BLS showed. The 0.4 percent monthly increase was greater than Bank of America economists’ expectations of 0.3 percent, according to investment research firm Morningstar.
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Vice President Kamala Harris is poised to roll out a proposal to impose a federal ban on supposed corporate “price-gouging” on food and groceries, according to The Hill.
Harris will announce the plan during a Friday speech detailing her economic agenda in North Carolina, where she will blame corporate consolidation and greed for the increased prices Americans are paying for their food and groceries, according to The Hill. The proposal to attribute inflation to corporate greed echoes a common refrain from the Biden administration, which has consistently tried to pin responsibility for inflation on price gouging instead of its massive spending agenda.
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Some small businesses in Arizona can now request small loans of $50,000 and under, the governor’s office announced last week.
Dubbed the “Arizona Microbusiness Loan Program,” it uses $5 million in funding allocated from the legislature last year to distribute loans using partners financial institutions at the local level. A microbusiness in Arizona is defined as those with five or fewer employees, according to a news release.
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Consumer prices rose again last month after dipping in June, according to newly released federal inflation data.
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics on Wednesday released its Consumer Price Index, a key marker of inflation, which showed that consumer prices rose 0.2% in July, part of a 2.9% increase over the past 12 months.
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Newly released federal inflation data shows that the Producer Price Index, a leading marker of inflation, rose last month.
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics released the data, which showed a 0.1 percent increase in July, part of a 2.2 percent increase in the previous 12 months.
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The Federal Aviation Administration has awarded South Carolina airports more than $5.7 million in Airport Improvement Program grants.
The money is part of $636 million for 320 grants in 46 states and American Samoa to improve airport infrastructure. The feds awarded the money as part of the 2024 Airport Improvement Program’s fourth round of grants.
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Ohio small business owners continue to struggle with inflation despite growing optimism around the country, according to a new survey from the National Federation of Independent Businesses.
NFIB-Ohio released results from its monthly survey Tuesday, showing its Small Business Optimism Index rose 2.2 points in July, the highest reading since February 2022.
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A former attorney for the Securities and Exchange Commission who conducts independent investigations on pension funds is blowing the whistle on behalf of a group of Minnesota teachers who have hired him to investigate claims that their retirement investment returns have been inflated.
Edward Siedle is well known across the nation in circles that closely scrutinize pension fund investments. He’s alleging that the state’s Teachers Retirement Association recently sent emails to its board and staff and to liaisons in the administration of Gov. Tim Walz warning them of Siedle’s investigation.
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The Federal Aviation Administration has awarded Georgia nearly $14.3 million to help rehabilitate nonprimary airports statewide, officials said.
The money, part of $636 million for 320 grants in 46 states and American Samoa, ostensibly aims to improve airport infrastructure. It was awarded as part of the 2024 Airport Improvement Program’s fourth round of grants, and the Georgia award includes more than $13.3 million in entitlement spending and $924,275 in discretionary spending.
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Tennessee received more than $5 million in taxes from sports wagering in July, an increase from less than $4 million each of the past two Julys.
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So far in the fiscal year 2024, the federal government has had to borrow about $5 billion every day.
The Congressional Budget Office said Thursday the federal budget deficit was $1.5 trillion for the first 10 months of fiscal year 2024, which covers October through July.
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If victorious in November, Arizona Democrats aim to institute laws they say would cut costs for Arizonans. Republicans say these measures would only hurt Arizona’s economy and lead to higher taxes.
Only two seats away from having a Democratic majority in Arizona’s legislative chambers for the first time in six decades, the Democratic Caucus has established a plan they say would allow them to hit the ground running in 2025 should they take control of the Legislature. This story is part of an ongoing series of what a Democratic trifecta would look like for Arizona taxpayers.
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With a looming deadline to fund benefits to about 7 million veterans in October, and Congress out until Sept. 9, Maine Sen. Susan Collins and six colleagues have filed legislation to get full funding.
A Republican and independent are among the six. Veterans Affairs is facing a deficit of about $15 billion the remainder of this year and next – a deficit larger than the annual budget of the Environmental Protection Agency, says one senator.
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Lawmakers say tens of millions of taxpayer dollars were wrongly set aside for union pension plans, and now lawmakers want those funds back.
Education and the Workforce Committee Chairwoman Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., and Health, Employment, Labor, and Pensions Subcommittee Chair Bob Good, R-Va., sent a letter to the Biden administration Wednesday following up to see what action the administration has taken to recover funds wrongly allotted to multiemployer pension plans.
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Piedmont Lithium announced Thursday that the company abandoned its plan to invest $582 million to establish a lithium hydroxide processing, refining, and manufacturing facility in Etowah and instead build the proposed plant in North Carolina.
The company currently operates a plant in Gaston County, North Carolina, called Carolina Lithium, which will be expanded with the addition of the facility originally expected to be built in Etowah.
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Brittney Pearson was a mother of four and 24 weeks pregnant when she was diagnosed with breast cancer—a tragic enough situation. To make a bad situation worse, though, the Sacramento native was pregnant as a surrogate mother for a gay couple.
Upon being informed of the cancer diagnosis, the two men demanded that Pearson abort the child.
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Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis says that he is against using state money to fund the construction of sports stadiums.
DeSantis, however, announced Thursday that he and the state will grant $8 million from the Governors’ Job Growth Grant Fund toward road infrastructure around the new construction of Miami Freedom Park by the Inter Miami soccer club’s ownership.
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Republican lawmakers on the study committee looking at the future of the University of Wisconsin want to know what Wisconsin families are getting for the $1.3 billion the state currently spends on the university, and what they should expect if the state spends more.
Lawmakers questioned UW President Jay Rothman at his appearance at Thursday’s hearing in front of the Legislative Council Study Committee on the Future of the University of Wisconsin System.
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Between safety and reliability issues, as well as a dearth of charging stations, electric vehicle owners have been having quite a bit of buyer’s remorse, and now they may have another reason to go back to gas cars — EVs are rapidly depreciating.
Rental company Hertz announced in 2021 it would buy 100,000 EVs from Tesla, only to find lackluster interest from renters. In January, the Hertz announced it was selling off 20,000 of the vehicles, with prices as low as $25,000. Vehicle depreciation cost the company $588 million in the first quarter of this year compared to the last quarter of 2023.
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U.S. stock markets dropped massively by the end of its business day on Monday, marking one of the worst days for the market since 2022.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 1,034 points from Monday’s opening, or 2.6 percent. The Nasdaq Composite lost 3.4 percent, and the S&P 500 dropped 3 percent, according to CNBC.
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Former President Donald Trump blamed the Monday stock market dive on Vice President Kamala Harris in a series of Truth Social posts.
The market experienced a worldwide sell-off on Monday that hit American stocks as concerns over a possible U.S. recession take hold, Fox Business reported. Trump took to Truth Social to attribute the downturn to Harris being “even worse” than President Joe Biden, predicting an economic depression in 2024.
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According to the Associated Press, the Nikkei closed down 4,451.28 points at 31,458.42 on Monday after it went down 5.8 percent on Friday, marking the worst two-day decline ever.
Japan’s benchmark stock index dropped 12.4 percent on Monday as investors’ concerns over a possible U.S. recession grow.
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The U.S. unemployment rate once again ticked up in the month of June to 4.3 percent as another 352,000 Americans said they were unemployed, according to the latest data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Markets are crashing in response.
Overall, 1.47 million more Americans say they’re unemployed since Dec. 2022, with the number of unemployed now up to 7.16 million, the highest since Oct. 2021 following the Covid recession.
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The executive director of a large LGBT nonprofit allegedly spent the organization’s money on a lavish personal lifestyle, The New York Times reported on Thursday.
Sarah Kate Ellis, chief executive of GLAAD, an LGBT advocacy group, spent large sums of donor’s money on expenses such as remodeling her home office with a chandelier, renting a Cape Cod property, first class flights and luxury hotels, according to the NYT’s review of expense reports from January 2022 to June 2023. The expenses may be in violation of both the organization’s guidelines and Internal Revenue Service (IRS) rules, legal experts told the NYT.
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Shoplifting has soared in the U.S. in 2024, forcing many stores to leave cities and continuing a trend in recent years.
Shoplifting has risen 24 percent in the first half of 2024 alone, according to newly released data from the Council on Criminal Justice.
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The House Judiciary Committee has sent letters to over 40 American and foreign companies asking for documents related to what it claims are “collusive” activities as part of the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM).
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Tennessee’s Department of Commerce and Insurance says it has recovered $9.5 million for Tennessee residents in 2024.
The group mediates complaints between consumers and insurance companies, resulting in previously denied claims being overturned and additional benefits identified and paid to consumers.
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The Atlanta Regional Commission’s board and Transportation & Air Quality Committee are expected to approve changes to an amended Transportation Improvement Program on Aug. 28.
The amendment includes roughly $265.3 million in federal money, including $38.2 million in earmarks and $221.6 million in “discretionary grant funding.”
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The national debt surpassed $35 trillion on Monday for the first time in U.S. history as exorbitant federal spending continues under President Joe Biden.
Since Biden was inaugurated, the national debt has increased by over $7 trillion, from $27.7 trillion on January 20, 2021 to now over $35 trillion as of July 29, 2024. If the debt were to be divided among the roughly 258.3 million adults in the U.S., each adult would have roughly $135,500.
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The American job market has significantly downshifted as consumers, who drive the economy, are tapped out from the ongoing cost-of-living crisis under the Biden-Harris administration.
According to Friday’s employment report, only 115,000 jobs were created in July (67,000 using the more accurate household survey).
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The U.S. added 114,000 nonfarm payroll jobs in July as the unemployment rate ticked up to 4.3%, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data released Friday.
Economists anticipated that the country would add 175,000 jobs in July compared to the 206,000 added in initial estimates for June, and that the unemployment rate would remain stable at 4.1%, according to U.S. News and World Report. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell noted in a press conference on Wednesday that a continued slowdown in the labor market could be a sign of further softening in the economy and contribute to a possible cut to the federal funds rate and an easing in harsh credit conditions that have weighed on Americans.
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Based on data from a U.S. Treasury report, the federal government has amassed $142 trillion in debts, liabilities, and unfunded obligations. This staggering figure equals 93% of all the wealth Americans have accumulated since the nation’s founding, estimated by the Federal Reserve to be $152 trillion.
Unlike other measures of federal red ink that cover an arbitrary period, extend into the infinite future, or ignore government resources, the figure of $142 trillion applies strictly to Americans who are alive right now and includes the government’s commercial assets. Thus, it quantifies the financial burden that today’s Americans are leaving to their children and future generations.
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The devastation Hurricane Beryl left in its wake is estimated to cost taxpayers nationwide between $28 billion and $32 billion, according to an AccuWeather analysis. The losses to Texas, which was hardest hit, are estimated to be several billion.
Hurricane Beryl made landfall near Matagorda, Texas, on July 8 as a Category 1 storm. It then made its way northeast, fueling tornadoes in eastern Texas and western Louisiana, up into Arkansas and Missouri. The storm turned into a tropical rainstorm moving into the Midwest and New England, causing flooding, localized tornadoes and strong winds.
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If past performance is the best predictor of future performance, President Trump has proved his bona fides when it comes to fortifying American energy dominance.
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The Federal Reserve announced on Wednesday that it will not yet cut its benchmark federal funds rate in what is predicted to be the last in a streak of pauses as inflation and debt continues to cripple Americans.
The Fed’s decision not to change interest rates keeps the target in a range of 5.25% to 5.50% and marks the eighth meeting in a row where the Fed chose not to adjust the rate, according to an announcement from the Fed following a meeting by the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC). The July decision marks the last pause before the Fed is widely expected to cut rates from their 23-year high at the FOMC’s September meeting as the economy eases and inflation is expected to trend slowly toward the Fed’s target.
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Ohio’s 10-day sales tax holiday is set to begin at midnight on Tuesday and run until 11:59 p.m. on Thursday, August 8.
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