business

The unemployment rate dropped over the past month as the economy added 2.5 million jobs, defying predictions of additional layoffs in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. Unemployment now sits at 13.3 percent, falling from 14.7 percent in April. Many economists had expected the unemployment rate to reach 20 percent or higher. The Bureau of …

China hawk Josh Hawley (R., Mo.) wrote an “open letter” to American companies with business ties to China on Thursday, calling on them to publicly denounce the Chinese Communist Party’s recent national security law that overrides Hong Kong’s independence. As Hong Kongers protested on the 31st anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre, Hawley warned that …

Another 1.9 million Americans filed for unemployment benefits last week, bringing the total of jobless claims since the coronavirus pandemic began up to 42 million. The level of new claims outpaced the Dow Jones estimate of 1.775 million. However, last week’s new claims were still lower than the previous week’s total, which were revised upwards …

Los Angeles officials announced plans to slash the city’s police budget by up to $150 million in order to reinvest the funding in communities of color, as protests against police brutality and the death of George Floyd continue to rock the city. The city will “identify $250 million in cuts so we can invest in …

Sweden’s response to the coronavirus resulted in too many deaths and could have been improved, the country’s chief epidemiologist Anders Tegnell told Swedish radio on Wednesday. Tegnell designed a unique strategy by which the country allowed non-essential businesses to remain open, urging citizens to comply with social distancing regulations and to avoid unnecessary travel. Sweden’s …

A technical snafu in a US government system caused many small businesses to receive loans twice or more under a federal aid program to help businesses hurt by the COVID-19 pandemic, nearly a dozen people with knowledge of the matter said. The money mistakenly handed out could amount to hundreds of millions of dollars that …

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell acknowledged Friday that the Fed faces a major challenge with the launch in the coming days of a program that will lend to companies other than banks for the first time since the Great Depression. The Fed’s Main Street Lending is geared toward medium-sized companies that are too large for …

An additional 2.1 million Americans filed unemployment claims last week, the Department of Labor announced Thursday, bringing the total number of unemployed Americans to over 40 million. Continuing unemployment claims dropped last week for the first time since the coronavirus pandemic began, a sign that the economic destruction from the coronavirus is beginning to slow …

The majority of small businesses in the U.S. are optimistic about reopening amid the coronavirus pandemic, a new study says. Nearly three-quarters of businesses (74 percent) expect to return to business as usual within six months of coronavirus restrictions being lifted, the Connected Commerce Council (3C) said Wednesday. “This report shows that in the face …

China raised the specter of escalated tensions with the U.S. over the weekend amid friction over the coronavirus pandemic, warning that the U.S. is pushing the relationship between the world’s two largest economies “to the brink of a new Cold War.” “It has come to our attention that some political forces in the U.S. are …