Two pieces of model legislation to protect state pension funds. Resistance to environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) investing is taking center stage in a number of Republican-leaning state legislative sessions this year. The question is how red states can prevent asset managers from investing their states' funds – or ...

The asset manager’s policies are making it a target for attorneys general and state treasurers around the country. Was the virtue-signaling worth it? The world's largest asset manager, BlackRock Inc., has lodged itself securely between a blue-state rock and a red-state hard place because of its environmental, social, and governance ( ESG ...

Our elected leaders must accept that inflation is a monster of their own making, and stop fanning the flames with ever-higher levels of government spending. ‘Inflation is as violent as a mugger, as frightening as an armed robber, and as deadly as a hit man,” said Ronald Reagan, in 1978. Those words were right then, just as they are now. ...

He cries ‘gouging’ as they face higher costs for labor, fuel and feed. President Biden has found a scapegoat for rising inflation: the meat industry. Mr. Biden claimed last week that meatpackers—who handle the processing, packaging and distribution of meat raised by farmers and ranchers—are price-gouging, driving a surge in consumer prices ...

President Biden's approval rating has plummeted, and Democrats wonder why. The United States is facing hardships, but hardships alone don't make a president unpopular. Leaders who are honest about the problems we face and forthright about the solutions they offer tend to do well (think, say, of Franklin Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan). ...

Public officials have told the climate envoy to stop trying to raise energy costs for U.S. consumers.‘The reality is the Biden administration is not standing in the way of increasing domestic oil production to meet today’s energy needs,” Deputy Energy Secretary David Turk asserted at the World Petroleum Congress in Houston last week. Really? ...

Joe Manchin said it best: "We have 11 million jobs that we haven't filled, 8 million people still unemployed. Something's not matching up here." The West Virginia senator's instincts are right. Something in the labor market fundamentally changed during the pandemic. Fewer people seem willing to work. The National Federation of Independent ...

The Business Roundtable shows that maximizing shareholder value is good for shareholders and stakeholders alike. August 19 marked the second anniversary of the Business Roundtable's Statement on the Purpose of a Corporation, which stated that corporate management's primary responsibility was no longer to their shareholders but rather to a group ...

What is all this "Biden inflation tax" talk really about? What is the actual effect of inflation on the lives of real people? Well, below is a chart that compares yearly wage and inflation rates for each month from 2017 through July of this year using Bureau of Labor Statistics data. Wage rates are in blue and inflation (as measured by ...

Job openings in the United States hit a record high of 9.3 million in April, the Labor Department announced Tuesday. That's up from 8.3 million in March. The evidence is clear: Despite a staggering federal stimulus of $5.3 trillion since March 2020, in what now should be a natural upswing in the business cycle, the Biden economy is ...

In a speech last week introducing his proposed $6 trillion 2022 budget, President Biden claimed that the benefits of the Republican Party's Tax Cuts and Jobs Act "went to the wealthiest 1% of America." It's not the first time he's made this claim. In his first speech to a joint session of Congress, Biden described the TCJA as a "huge windfall" ...

BlackRock and others bill the cost to middle-income investors, in the form of lower returns. Workers with pensions or 401(k)s trust financial institutions to make the best investments for their retirement incomes. An increasing number of portfolio managers say they maximize returns with their Environmental, Social and Corporate Governance, or ...

Big labor suffered a significant loss in its attempt to unionize employees at Amazon's warehouse facility in Bessemer, Alabama. Of the workers eligible to vote, an embarrassingly small 16% voted to join the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union. It was the most recent in a series of high-profile losses for labor including failed attempts ...

While there are certainly inflationary risks on the horizon, it would be a mistake for the Fed to act prematurely. Considered an indicator of investor confidence, the ten-year Treasury bond yield has risen rapidly by about 0.7 percent since the beginning of the year. Many experts credit the rise to expectations for substantially higher ...

Though the Senate parliamentarian rejected their efforts to include a $15-an-hour minimum wage in President Biden's so-called COVID-19 relief bill, Senate Democrats are scrambling for a way to include it. Their efforts demonstrate the importance of this issue for the progressive left. But should they succeed, would such a measure truly ...

Companies won’t make permanent investments in new employees based on temporary revenue. The Biden administration says if Congress passes the proposed $1.9 trillion Covid relief bill, we won’t have to “wait for years for the economy to return to full employment,” as two members of the Council of Economic Advisers put it in a recent White House ...

A new CBO report highlights the fiscal impact of Biden's proposed minimum-wage hike. The Biden administration’s $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief proposal included a handful of partisan measures completely unrelated to pandemic relief, including increasing the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour from the current level of $7.25 an hour. ...

The end of COVID-19 was ushered in by capitalism, not charity. I received my first COVID-19 vaccination just over a week ago. The nice young woman who gave me the shot went through a litany of potential side effects — a sore arm, an allergic reaction, possible flu symptoms. I politely told her I wanted the shot. I may have said "the damn ...

Any minimum wage increase should be at the state or local level — and the more local the better. President-elect Joe Biden proposed increasing the federal minimum wage from the current $7.25 to $15 an hour as part of his coronavirus relief package announced Thursday night. Such a dramatic increase would exacerbate the devastating impact ...

Paying customers are the best stimulus for any small business. The latest lockdowns across the country will be deadly for the small businesses that have endured the pandemic this far. While there are no official numbers yet, business data show significant losses. Yelp ’s Local Economic Impact Report found that, from March 1 through Aug. 31, ...

If anyone is wondering whether the end of the pandemic will slow the Democrats' efforts to "fundamentally transform" America, wonder no more. According to President-elect Joe Biden's recent statement on the November jobs report, "we remain in the midst of one of the worst economic and jobs crises in modern history" requiring "urgent" ...

As the coronavirus virus spreads, the economic damage from state lockdowns intensifies. Yet the good – if not incredible – news is that we are on the cusp of approval for one or more highly effective vaccines. Once that vaccine is effectively distributed, job one for the next presidential administration will be getting America back to work. ...

Try as they might, Democrats, the media and the blue-check Twitterati can’t wish away President Trump’s enormously successful stewardship of the US economy. “You talk about the economy booming,” moderator Chris Wallace told Trump at this week’s presidential debate. But “in Obama’s final three years as president, more jobs were created, a ...

Once again, Democrats are trying to attribute President Trump’s economic success to President Obama—and their claims are no truer than they’ve ever been. Joe Biden's running mate, Kamala Harris, claimed last month that Trump “inherited the longest economic expansion in history from Barack Obama and Joe Biden” and “ran it straight into ...

It would come at the expense of retirees and would hurt ‘stakeholders’ too. Is Joe Biden a moderate or a radical? He says businesses “have a responsibility to their workers, their community, to their country”—a truism. But he has also called for “an end to the era of shareholder capitalism.” He says it’s “untrue and a farce” that a ...

The U.S. employment numbers released Thursday prompted headlines about a record-breaking 4.8 million jobs added in June. Yet even more jobs could have been added, if only employers could find people to hire. The National Federation of Independent Business’ June Jobs Report says that “32 percent of all owners reported job openings they could ...

Media coverage of the federal government’s efforts to help small businesses has focused lately on big companies’ grabbing loans that were meant to help smaller ones weather the novel coronavirus economic shutdown. But the numbers from the Cares Act’s Paycheck Protection Program are coming in, and they’re impressive. On April 3, the Small ...

The federal government is doing what it can to stabilize the economy during the coronavirus shutdown, including passing a $2.2 trillion relief package. These extraordinary bipartisan interventions will help get people through the next month or two. But when the crisis abates, how will we restart the economy? The truth is, no one really knows ...

Trump’s tariffs were an effective weapon, and Beijing had to bend as its economic growth slowed. The U.S. and China signed a “phase one” trade deal Wednesday—a meaningful victory in an economic conflict that’s been building for decades. The agreement is a credit to President Trump’s China strategy and a mark against his detractors. When Mr. ...

The firms she vilifies are vital for improving lagging businesses, and their returns are widely shared. In her continuing effort to punish success, Sen. Elizabeth Warren is going after an important piece of America’s thriving economy: the private-equity industry. Her subtly titled Stop Wall Street Looting Act would put private-equity investors ...

Her levy on wealth would sink stocks, raise interest rates, and confiscate far more than she admits. Sen. Elizabeth Warren is campaigning for a 2% surtax on anyone’s net worth over $50 million and 6% on more than $1 billion. Most discussion of the wealth tax has focused on whether it could generate sufficient revenue to fund Ms. Warren’s ...

FreedomWorks's John Tamny recently took serious issue with us for an opinion piece we had in the Wall Street Journal titled The Trade War Hits China Where It Hurts. The piece explained our support of President Trump's trade strategy, through which the United States is, finally, imposing costs on China for its systematic evasion of its ...

A lack of qualified workers boosts wages but makes it hard for businesses to expand. Good help is hard to find—and increasingly so in today’s economy. According to a monthly survey by the National Federation of Independent Businesses, “a record percentage of small business owners reported having difficulties finding qualified workers in ...

The yield curve is no longer a reliable predictor, and other economic indicators are strong. The yield curve is upside down, leading to worry about recession. Stocks declined last week after the 10-year Treasury yield fell below the two-year Treasury yield. Yet while an inversion of the yield curve has preceded all postwar recessions, not ...

In a recent online essay for Medium titled “The Coming Economic Crash — And How to Stop It,” Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Elizabeth Warren (Mass.) warns of an imminent “economic downturn.” As one warning sign, Warren says Americans are saddled with excessive household debt due to a “generation of stagnant wages and rising costs.” ...

Beijing’s doctored data shows growth has slowed to 6.2%. The actual rate is almost certainly worse. President Trump’s tariffs and other sanctions are hitting China at a vulnerable moment. The Chinese National Bureau of Statistics reported July 15 that gross domestic product grew by 6.2% in the second quarter, China’s slowest growth since 1992. ...

By his actions, he shows he disagrees with the socialist policies he advocates. ‘How do I get on the anti-endorsement list?!?” a friend emailed. It turns out Bernie Sanderscounts me as No. 3 of his top 13 “enemies.” It felt more like an honor than a criticism, so I tweeted that I was “proud to say” I made the cut. Mr. Sanders introduces his ...

With the U.S. economy producing another strong jobs report for June, Democratic presidential hopefuls face a difficult task: how to avoid crediting President Trump. For months, when faced with positive economic news, Democrats have tended to say either that Trump was lucky to inherit a recovering economy from the Obama administration or that ...

Wage gains are rising the most in lower-paying industries, and without a $15 minimum mandate. With the Democratic presidential campaign under way, get ready to hear a lot about economic inequality. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who’s surging in the polls, has complained about “a rigged system that props up the rich and the powerful and kicks dirt ...

The Fed strengthened the dollar when U.S. growth and global stagnation were already boosting its value. There’s an increasingly strong case that the Federal Reserve should cut interest rates to weaken the U.S. dollar and encourage greater exports—and that it should do it soon. A strong dollar makes it cheaper for Americans to purchase ...

House Democrats are pushing the Raise the Wage Act, which would increase the federal minimum wage from $7.25 to $15 an hour by 2024. The bill promises to reignite the debate over whether government mandates or economic growth are the most effective means to raise workers’ wages. But the discussion may be superfluous, because so many ...

He has been critical of the Fed, but he has also been highly accurate. The liberal outrage triggered by Stephen Moore can only mean one thing: He is exactly the type of “growth hawk” we need at the Federal Reserve. Moore — whom President Donald Trump intends to nominate to the Federal Reserve Board — is an ideal choice to help secure our ...

The latest numbers confirm what Americans can see all around them: The Trump economic surge is still in full swing and beating expectations. Following a delay in reporting caused by the longest government shutdown in the country’s history, we finally have the initial Commerce Department data for economic growth in the fourth quarter of 2018. ...

A $150,000 salary goes a lot further in Virginia or Tennessee than it would in high-tax New York City. Progressives are touting Amazon’s decision to cancel its plan to build a headquarters in New York as a great victory over “corporate greed,” “worker exploitation” and “the richest man in the world.” This may well turn out to be a victory ...

Trump’s policies have America surging, while Chinese growth could slow further still. President Xi Jinping observed the 40th anniversary of China’s shift from doctrinaire communism to quasi-capitalist totalitarianism by delivering a televised speech last month in unyielding authoritarian language. Yet his forceful posturing couldn’t hide ...

Forget about robot waiters, but technology helps cut government-imposed costs. And consumers like it. Consumer preferences, reduced technology costs and government policies that increase labor costs are driving a trend toward automation in the restaurant business. If you make something more convenient and less expensive, it tends to ...

When a store closes, the minimum wage for your lost job is zero. Activists should have seen it coming. The evidence continues to roll in: Broad increases in the minimum wage destroy jobs and hurt the working-class Americans that they are supposed to help. The latest evidence is an announcement that Wal-Mart, America’s largest employer, will ...

The per-employee profit at Apple is $407,000. For big retailers, it’s $6,300. No wonder Wal-Mart feels the pinch of its pay increase. Long the target of progressives looking to increase the minimum wage, Wal-Mart announced earlier this year that the company would increase its base wage to $9 an hour in April and $10 an hour by February 2016. ...

Keeping millions of illegal immigrants in the U.S. and virtually ensuring that they will cost American jobs. The Justice Department last month asked the Supreme Court to review a preliminary injunction blocking the Obama administration from implementing the president’s immigration executive order, which would defer deportations for up to ...

I see firsthand in my company why not enough people are signing up and premiums are rising. Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell announced recently that she expects 10 million people to be enrolled in health-care coverage through ObamaCare’s exchanges by the end of next year. What she didn’t mention was that in March of last year ...

President Obama thinks more union membership will help the middle class. No, jobs are what’s needed. In his remarks at a White House event last week called the Summit on Worker Voice, President Obama said that people who work hard “should be able to get ahead” but went on to acknowledge that workers are “seeing their wages and their ...

The evidence is already coming in: Mandatory increases in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Seattle have cost thousands of jobs. For years there has been a sense among many Americans that the working class is getting left behind as the rich grow richer. As the presidential contest warms up, candidates are talking about how they’d address the ...

Beating each other up only helps Democrats. Better to settle on basic principles. Here are a few. Republican presidential hopefuls always clobber one another over immigration policy. This cycle has been no exception, with Scott Walker, Jeb Bush and others carving out their own territory. The winner is the Democratic nominee, who can ...

Unemployment is well below the national average, and labor-force participation is rising. Wisconsin ranks 40th in the nation for job growth, or so says a recent Bureau of Labor Statistics report. Many in the media and political circles pounced on the release as evidence that the policies of Republican Gov. Scott Walker, a potential ...

Of my company’s 5,453 eligible employees, only 420 actually enrolled. The other 5,033 opted to pay a penalty. Among the Affordable Care Act’s many economic and political disruptions, the law has unintentionally encouraged employers to convert full-time jobs into part-time jobs. ObamaCare mandates that employers offer health insurance to ...

A mandated 40% increase in labor costs will put people out of work. But, hey, anything to help get out the vote. As the midterm elections approach, President Obama is calling on Congress to increase the federal minimum wage to $10.10 an hour from $7.25. “Let’s give America a raise, and make our economy stronger,” he said on Thursday ...

Given the massive effort behind convincing us that Obamacare is a resounding success, it's almost surprising that a recent NBC News/Wall Street Journal Poll found support languishing at 34%. Part of the problem is the credibility Obamacare supporters lose by attempting to prove two questionable propositions. First, that Obamacare is having ...

The National Labor Relations Board begins an attack on the franchising business model. In a decision with potentially devastating economic effects, the National Labor Relations Board's general counsel this week ruled that McDonald's Corp. could be treated, in labor complaints, as a joint employer of its franchisees' workers. This ...

The main culprits are policies that make new jobs more expensive. In President Obama's speeches this year, a steady theme has been creating jobs and economic opportunity for Americans. In his State of the Union address in January he said that "what I believe unites the people of this nation . . . is the simple, profound belief in opportunity ...

The new rule hurts the very managers climbing the ranks whom it claims to help. President Obama on March 13 signed an order directing the Labor Department to expand the class of employees entitled to overtime pay. Currently, if a salaried employee makes more than $24,000 a year and is part of management—if he manages the business, directs the ...

The White House insists that the health-care law has not affected hiring. That's not what the numbers show. There are times when the Obama administration makes statements so disconnected from economic reality that you wonder if any White House official has talked with anyone in business. A case in point: the administration's mantra ...