Outside the Beltway

The unemployment rate hit a point unseen since Bill Clinton was President in April, but jobs and wage growth remain tepid at best.

It takes a whole lot of work to net small gains for underrepresented groups.

The first estimate of economic growth in the first three months of 2018 beat expectations slightly, but it doesn’t bode well for the immediate future.

Ford, GM, and Chrysler are all moving almost exclusively to trucks, SUVs, and crossovers.

Ring Lardner said he would “rather write for the New Yorker at five cents a word than for Cosmopolitan at one dollar a word.” A century later, he’d be lucky to get those rates.

The Supreme Court heard argument yesterday on the issue of whether online sellers can be required to collect sales taxes, and the status of the issue remains as confused as ever.

The next time you sign a credit card receipt could be the last.

Republicans have been hoping that the tax bill passed in December would help them in the midterms. That’s appearing to be less and less likely by the day.

Mark Zuckerberg’s second day before Congress was somewhat more contentious than the first, but at the end of the day it’s still unclear that more regulation is the answer to the issues raised by recent Facebook “scandals.”

Dueling data on civil service compensation belie the adage that you can’t choose your own facts.

Not surprisingly, a joint Senate Committee failed to really lay a glove on Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg at yesterday’s hearing.

We’re set to return to the era of trillion dollar budget deficits, and Republicans won’t do a thing about it.

Trump’s tariff plan isn’t going over well in farm country, and that could cause problems for the GOP in November.

Speaking of trade war talk…

The DJIA (and other markets) are not too happy about all of this trade war talk.

President Trump is continuing his dangerous and misguided trade war rhetoric,

March’s Jobs Report fell far short of expectations.

Begun the trade wars have.

News anchors at dozens of local stations owned by conservative-leaning Sinclair Broadcast Group were recently required to read a script mandated by corporate headquarters, and it’s leading to some bad media coverage for Sinclair.

After initially praising the completion of a trade deal with South Korea, President Trump is now suggesting he may withhold final approval contingent on progress on talks with North Korea. This makes no sense whatsoever.

A top basketball prospect is skipping the farcical year in college before turning pro.

Breitbart News appears to be fading in terms of readership, but the alt-right politics it represents is not going away.

It may be time for transparency on pay structures so employees know what others in comparable positions are making.

The family real estate business made tens of millions through shady dealings.

Best known as a television host, he served in the Reagan administration and chief economist of Bear Stearns.

While examples of Hollywood sexism are seemingly endless, this is not one of them.

The industry is using speaker fees to reward physicians who prescribe the most.

A better than expected jobs report for February, but wage growth slowed for the month.

In 2017, there were ten Saudis on Forbes’ billionaires list. This year, there are none.

The chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisors is out after failing to convince the boss not to impose tariffs.

We may about to see a wave of teacher strikes.

How ‘tainted’ must a funder be before a charity is obliged to reject the donation?

Shots fired: European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker threatens to fight back if President Trump imposes tariffs on steel and aluminum.

Is it legal for retail businesses to restrict gun sales based on age? The short answer appears to be yes.

President Trump has announced that he’ll be imposing significant tariffs on steel and aluminum imports. This is an unwise decision.

Following yesterday’s move by Dick’s Sporting Goods, Walmart has raised the age for all gun sales to 21.

Dick’s Sporting Goods will no longer sell “assault weapons” at any of its stores, and will limit the sale of any gun to people aged 21 and above.

The Second Circuit Court of Appeals rules that existing civil rights laws bar discrimination based on sexual orientation.

Salary-based definitions distort the conversation. And lifestyle-based definitions are a moving target.

Dave Schuler argues the US would have a much better healthcare system if we had modeled it on VA clinics rather than private insurance.

A series of scandals at Oxfam and other charitable organizations raise troubling questions.

Republicans spent the eight years of Obama Administration railing against fiscal irresponsibility. Now that they have power, they’re the ones being fiscally irresponsible.

Yesterday’s Falcon Heavy Launch was a near-complete success and another amazing advance in the race to the stars.

Donald Trump spent much of the past year touting the rising stock market, now he’s getting a lesson in reality.

Have we reached the point where the processing speed, connectivity, and cameras on our smart phones are simply good enough?

The first jobs report for 2018 beat expectation slightly, but the most positive signs came in the underlying data on wages.

In addition to deadlines on the Federal Budget and DACA, Congress also has to deal with the debt ceiling at some point in the next month.

A longstanding claim—that I myself believed to be true—is that spending money on preventative care like regular checkups would save money in the long run by catching health issues before they become acute. The evidence does not support this.

International travel to the United States has declined since Donald Trump took office, and it’s having a measurable impact on the economy.

President Trump and his supporters like to claim that the economy has been booming since he became President. A look at the numbers reveals that this is not the case.