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  • Ramen noodles and drained savings: FEC weighs allowing candidates to use political cash to pay themselves bigger salaries | CNN Politics

    Ramen noodles and drained savings: FEC weighs allowing candidates to use political cash to pay themselves bigger salaries | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    When Nabilah Islam began running for Congress in the 2020 cycle, she said she quickly discovered the high price of her decision.

    “It was impossible for me to have a full-time job and wage a competitive campaign,” the Georgia Democrat recalled. So, she gave up her work as a campaign consultant, paused paying her student loans and went without health insurance – in the middle of a pandemic – because she could no longer afford to pay the premiums. She drained her savings to pay living expenses.

    “I was eating ramen and turkey sandwiches every day,” said Islam, who lost her bid for a House seat and now serves in the Georgia state Senate. “It was one of the hardest things I had ever done in my life.”

    Now, the Federal Election Commission is taking up a request that Islam lodged in 2021 to change some of the federal rules governing the use of political cash. At a hearing Wednesday, the regulators weighed boosting the amount of campaign money candidates can use to pay themselves while running for office. They also are considering whether to allow federal candidates to use donors’ money to underwrite health insurance premiums and other benefits.

    Although the FEC now allows candidates to use campaign funds to pay themselves a salary, the agency set strict limits. That salary is capped at the annual salary for the office they are seeking or their earnings in the year before they became a candidate, whichever is the lower amount.

    The limits are aimed at preventing candidates from enriching themselves at donors’ expense, but they also bar candidates who were unemployed or at home caring for children in the prior year from using contributors’ money to draw a candidate salary.

    Supporters of the change say it would make it easier for a broader spectrum of Americans to run for federal office, including full-time caregivers, students and people from working-class backgrounds. But critics question whether it would encourage grift.

    “The reality is that giving up your salary for a year or two to run for Congress is unsustainable for most working people,” said Liuba Grechen Shirley, a former House candidate and founder and CEO of the Vote Mama Foundation, which aims to overcome the obstacles mothers face in running for office. She supports the rule change.

    “We have to make it the norm that candidates pay themselves a livable wage, so that they can run for office because that’s how we start to change the system,” she told CNN in an interview this week.

    Running for Congress is a time-consuming and expensive enterprise. The average successful House winner in the 2022 midterms spent nearly $2.8 million in campaign funds, according to OpenSecrets, a nonpartisan organization that tracks political money.

    And members of Congress, as a group, are far wealthier than the general US population. An OpenSecrets analysis of congressional financial disclosures reports in 2020 found that more than half the people in Congress that year were millionaires.

    Although a record number of women serve in Congress, they still make up just over a quarter of total representation, according to the Center for American Woman and Politics (CAWP) at Rutgers University.

    Only about 28% of all candidates for the House in 2022 were women, said Kelly Dittmar, CAWP’s director of research, underscoring that the gender disparities start long before Election Day.

    “If you could tell a potential candidate that they would have greater financial security if they decided to wage a campaign for office, then it might increase the pool of candidates, including women,” Dittmar said.

    The limits don’t just affect women.

    Maxwell Frost rides an elevator on his way to be interviewed on a podcast in Orlando, Florida, on August 30, 2022.

    Florida Rep. Maxwell Frost, who last year became the first Gen Z candidate to win a congressional seat, told the commissioners he “put himself in a bad financial place” by seeking a House seat.

    The 26-year-old Democrat said he left his job at a gun-violence prevention organization to run for office but quickly realized that he couldn’t sustain campaigning and driving part-time for Uber as he had planned.

    Frost drew headlines late last year after a landlord denied his application to rent an apartment in Washington, DC, because of his low credit score.

    “I did overcome the odds,” he testified Wednesday. “But there are often consequences when you participate in a system that’s not set up for you.”

    The FEC, which is not likely to make a decision in the coming weeks, is considering a range of options.

    Among them: Allowing candidates to earn, on a pro-rated basis, up to 50% – or as much as 100% – of the federal office they are seeking, regardless of what they earned in the year before they launched their campaigns. Rank-and-file members of Congress earn $174,000 a year, with those in top leadership positions collecting more.

    Other options include allowing candidates to receive a salary that’s tied to a $15-an-hour rate or to the minimum wage set by federal or state law.

    So far, a range of individuals and organizations – including the campaign arms for House Democrats and Republicans – have expressed general support for a change, although they diverge on the specific remedies.

    Some Republicans on the panel, including Commissioner James “Trey” Trainor, questioned whether the agency is overstepping its bounds by weighing a rule change and should instead ask Congress to change the federal law that bars candidates from converting campaign contributions to personal use.

    Bradley Smith, a former Republican FEC commissioner, testified that the agency should be wary of going too far with “feel-good rule-making.”

    “Why not allow candidates to pay for haircuts, better clothes, better food to keep a candidate’s energy up and fundraising or recharging time at the country club, all of which could be helpful to a campaign?” he asked.

    The commission also is considering whether to allow candidates to begin drawing a donor-funded salary as soon as they file a statement of candidacy rather than waiting, as is currently required, for primary ballot deadlines, which vary widely by state.

    Frost, the freshman congressman from Florida, also urged the commission to allow candidates to continue drawing a campaign salary after the election as they wait for their salaries as officeholders to kick in.

    Although the FEC often deadlocks along partisan lines, the commission has signaled an openness to easing some rules for candidates in the past.

    In 2018, the agency opened the door to candidates using campaign contributions to pay for child care benefits, following a request from Grechen Shirley. She said she did so after trying for months to juggle care for her small children while running for a House seat in Long Island. “I would literally be nursing my son, while my daughter put hairclips in my hair, and I’d have my headphones on and would be dialing for dollars,” she said.

    To date, 59 federal candidates have used campaign dollars for child care, according to Vote Mama. The group now is pressing states around the country to extend the policy to state and local candidates.

    This year, 19 bills to do so have been introduced in 13 states, Grechen Shirley said.

    Last year, Islam, 33, made history by becoming the youngest woman and the first Muslim woman elected to the Georgia state Senate. Although she is not currently planning another run for Congress, she said she is determined to see federal policy change.

    “I’m very persistent,” she said. “No one should have to go through all that in order to run for office.”

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  • Most Californians are under a severe weather alert as another atmospheric river dumps heavy rain | CNN

    Most Californians are under a severe weather alert as another atmospheric river dumps heavy rain | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    California state emergency officials have deployed crews across the state to respond to the potentially damaging impacts of yet another atmospheric river slamming the storm-fatigued state.

    More than 35 million Californians – most of the state’s population – were under some kind of weather alert Tuesday afternoon.

    Powerful winds, thunderstorms and showers were impacting most of central and Southern California Tuesday.

    Wind gusts reaching up to 70 mph coupled with the heavy rain could down trees and cut power, the National Weather Service’s Weather Prediction Center said. More than 170,000 customers across the state were without power Tuesday afternoon, according to PowerOutage.us.

    State transportation officials reported snow and windy conditions in the mountains of Southern California’s Riverside and San Bernardino counties. Officials recommended residents in the area maintain at least a two-week supply of food, water, medication and fuel ahead of the rapidly strengthening storm’s arrival.

    “Visibility is at a big ‘nope’ today,” the state transportation department for the region wrote on Twitter. “Please consider travel when conditions are more favorable. If you must travel, be prepared and stay safe.”

    The heavy rain and snow could worsen conditions for communities still flooded from the previous atmospheric river that pummeled the state – and ended just days ago.

    “Locally several inches of rainfall is expected by Wednesday morning across especially southern California and this will foster concerns for rapid runoff, flooding and mudslides given the already wet, saturated soil conditions that are in place,” the weather prediction center said.

    California has already seen at least 12 atmospheric rivers this winter season that ravaged communities, displaced residents and prompted emergency declarations as floodwater inundated neighborhoods, swelled rivers, damaged roads and sent mud and rocks sliding down hills.

    “Now’s the time to ensure you and your family are prepared,” officials from the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services urged residents Tuesday.

    Swift-water rescue teams, hand crews and bulldozers were also stationed in counties throughout the state.

    “This is going to be yet another challenging event – probably not an extreme storm individually by historical standards – but once again, another significant event that, on top of everything that has come before, it’s going to cause some major problems,” UCLA climate scientist Daniel Swain said in a video.

    It’s unclear how the climate crisis could be influencing the number of storms that hit the West Coast, but scientists have linked it to an increase in the amount of moisture the atmosphere holds. That means storms, like these atmospheric rivers, are able to bring more moisture inland, leading to an increase in rainfall rates and flash flooding.

    Since October 1, Los Angeles has received more than 24 inches of rain — roughly twice as much as it normally gets for this time period. That’s also about 10 inches above their annual average, as the vast majority of California’s rainfall occurs from late fall to early spring.

    And it’s not just Los Angeles: cities across the state are seeing very similar numbers.

    San Francisco, Oakland, Sacramento, Stockton and Fresno have all seen 150 to 200% of their normal rainfall since October 1.

    While the extreme rainfall has triggered flash flooding, mudslides and caused damage, it has also significantly increased critical state reservoirs including Lakes Shasta and Oroville, which have risen by more than 100 and 180 feet respectively since December.

    The widespread rain, mountain snow and strong winds across parts of central and Southern California will continue Wednesday and will gradually clear up Thursday, said National Weather Service Meteorologist Sarah Rogowski.

    The heaviest impact will likely be felt in southern California, which could see around 1 to 3 inches of rain across lower elevations and 2 to 4 inches across the foothills through Thursday.

    The Weather Prediction Center raised the flood threat to a moderate level Monday for areas of Southern California, covering more than 15 million people in coastal areas from Los Angeles to San Diego.

    Soils are still overly saturated with water from last week’s storms, setting the stage for more flooding and rapid runoffs.

    The powerful storm could also lash Southern California with maximum wind gusts near 75 mph, adding the dangers of fallen trees and powerlines to the mix of hazards Californians are facing this week. More than 30 million people are under alerts for strong winds from California into Nevada and Arizona.

    In the Sierra Nevada and Southern California mountains, as much as 3 to 4 feet of snow could be piled on top of already buried communities, likely straining infrastructure and making travel difficult, the weather service said.

    Thousands were evacuated from two small central California towns, Alpaugh and Allensworth, in Tulare County, where there have been multiple breaches in waterways and repair efforts were “unsuccessful with the amount of water,” Tulare County Sheriff Mike Boudreaux said.

    Officials worried roads could become impassable and isolate residents, and deputies went door-to-door before dawn Monday asking people to flee.

    So far, seven structures were destroyed and more than 680 were damaged by floods in Tulare County, according to Cal Fire.

    Amid fears over mud and debris flows from the El Dorado and Apple fire burn scars in San Bernardino County, an evacuation warning was issued for the communities of Oak Glen, Forest Falls, Mountain Home Village, Angelus Oaks and Northeast Yucaipa.

    With more rain on the way, protecting people near vulnerable wildfire burn scar areas is among the top concerns for crews.

    Scorched soil can’t absorb rain at a normal rate, making it unstable, explained Yucaipa Fire Chief Grant Malinowski, who is part of the operations group keeping watch over the El Dorado burn scar.

    The fear is that mud and debris could slide down, make roads impassable, damage homes and strand people, Malinowski told CNN.

    Firefighters across the state have been stationed around burn scars each time an atmospheric river menacingly takes aim at the state – and they’ve been doing it a lot this winter season.

    “It’s kind of like almost like fire season right now,” Malinowski said, describing thousands of firefighters and crew members from Cal Fire and the National Guard throughout the state responding to recent storms.

    But unlike with wildfires, residents could have less time to get away from mudslides.

    “It’s not like a fire where they can see the fire building and getting closer. This is instantaneous. It just happens and it’s too late for you to react to it,” Malinowski said.

    And performing rescues in mudslides is no easy task – so it’s important for residents to obey evacuation orders, which aren’t made lightly, Malinowski said.

    “We understand the gravity of asking people to voluntarily leave their homes, but it’s also weighed with the ability for us to rescue people, knowing that it’s going to be a very difficult – if not impossible – task to get through just tons of tons of dirt and debris where we just literally can’t make access,” Malinowski said.

    Up in the mountains, the concern is heavy snow stranding people.

    “The storm is expected to peak on Tuesday and Wednesday and dump as much as three feet of additional snow on mountain communities that were hit with as much of 10 feet of snow during storms in late February and early this month,” San Bernardino County officials said.

    The county said it is activating public works employees for 24-hour snow plowing and storm patrol, having County Flood Control District crews active on split shifts during the storm and adding additional sheriff deputies to routine patrols for the next two weeks.

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  • Amazon to lay off 9,000 more workers | CNN Business

    Amazon to lay off 9,000 more workers | CNN Business

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    New York
    CNN
     — 

    Amazon is cutting 9,000 more jobs, CEO Andy Jassy announced Monday in a memo to staff.

    The latest cuts come after the company announced earlier this year that it was eliminating some 18,000 positions as part of a major cost-cutting bid at the e-commerce giant.

    Jassy said the fresh round of job cuts will take place in the coming weeks, and will mostly impact people working in the following divisions: Amazon Web Services, People Experience and Technology (PXT), advertising and Twitch.

    “This was a difficult decision, but one that we think is best for the company long term,” Jassy wrote in the memo.

    “Some may ask why we didn’t announce these role reductions with the ones we announced a couple months ago,” Jassy added. “The short answer is that not all of the teams were done with their analyses in the late fall; and rather than rush through these assessments without the appropriate diligence, we chose to share these decisions as we’ve made them so people had the information as soon as possible.”

    The latest layoffs at Amazon come amid a spate of job cuts in the technology industry in recent months, as the sector confronts a whiplash in pandemic-induced demand for digital goods and services and broader macroeconomic uncertainty.

    Amazon, like a number of other Big Tech companies, also rapidly grew its headcount during the early days of the pandemic. Jassy wrote on Monday that the hiring “made sense given what was happening in our businesses and the economy as a whole.” “However, given the uncertain economy in which we reside, and the uncertainty that exists in the near future, we have chosen to be more streamlined in our costs and headcount,” he added.

    Just last week, Facebook-parent Meta said it was laying off an additional 10,000 workers, on top of the 11,000 job cuts announced late last year.

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  • New Mexico Game and Fish is now hiring ‘professional bear huggers’ | CNN

    New Mexico Game and Fish is now hiring ‘professional bear huggers’ | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Bear lovers rejoice: The New Mexico Department of Game and Fish is hiring for “professional bear huggers.”

    The department posted an adorable job listing on Facebook on Monday, featuring precious snaps of conservation officers cuddling baby bears.

    Unfortunately, a love of bears is not the only qualification you’ll need to become a conservation officer. The job listing with the formal title of the position specifies candidates should have a bachelor’s degree in “biological sciences, police science or law enforcement, natural resources conservation, ecology, or related fields.”

    Interested applicants “must have ability to hike in strenuous conditions, have the courage to crawl into a bear den, and have the trust in your coworkers to keep you safe during the process,” wrote the department.

    The photos are from a research project in Northern New Mexico, according to the Facebook post. They added they “do not recommend crawling into bear dens” and “all bears were handled safely under supervision.”

    “Not all law enforcement field work is this glamorous, but we would love for you to join the team where you can have the experience of a lifetime,” added the department.

    Applications for the next class of conservation officer trainees are open until March 30, according to the post.

    The job duties include a lot more than just bear-hugging, according to the job listing. Each conservation officer is responsible for “enforcing the game and fish laws” and also “educates the public about wildlife and wildlife management, conducts wildlife surveys, captures ‘problem animals,’ investigates wildlife damage to crops and property, assists in wildlife relocations and helps to develop new regulations.”

    Black bears are New Mexico’s state animal. Estimates place the population at around 6,000 bears, according to a publication from the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish.

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  • Trump and Le Pen backed these Dutch farmers — now they’ve sprung an election shock | CNN

    Trump and Le Pen backed these Dutch farmers — now they’ve sprung an election shock | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    A farmers’ protest party in the Netherlands has caused a shock after winning provincial elections this week just four years after their founding. Could their rise have wider implications?

    The Farmer-Citizen Movement or BoerburgerBeweging (BBB) grew out of mass demonstrations against the Dutch government’s environmental policies, protests that saw farmers using their tractors to block public roads. The BBB is now set to become the largest party in the Dutch senate.

    The developments have thrown the Dutch government’s ambitious environmental plans into doubt and are being watched closely by the rest of Europe.

    The movement was powered by ordinary farmers but has become an unlikely front in the culture wars. Donald Trump and Marine Le Pen have voiced support, while some in the far right see the movement as embodying their ideas of elites using green policies to trample on the rights of individuals.

    On Wednesday, the Farmer-Citizen Movement landed a large win in regional elections, winning more seats in the senate than Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s conservative VVD party.

    The first exit poll showed the party was due to win 15 of the Senate’s 75 seats with almost 20 per cent of the vote. Meanwhile Rutte’s ruling VVD party dropped from 12 to 10 seats – leaving it without a Senate majority. Results on Thursday showed the BBB party had won the most votes in eight of the country’s 12 provinces.

    Wednesday’s election win is significant as it means the party is now set to be the largest in the Upper House of Parliament, which has the power to block legislation agreed in the Lower House – throwing the Dutch government’s environmental policies into question.

    As the election results emerged overnight on Wednesday, BBB leader Caroline van der Plas told domestic broadcaster Radio 1: “Nobody can ignore us any longer.

    “Voters have spoken out very clearly against this government’s policies.”

    Newspapers described the election outcome this week as a “monster victory” for the Farmer-Citizen Movement, which has enjoyed support from sections of society who feel unsupported by Rutte’s VVD party.

    For Arjan Noorlander, a political reporter in the Netherlands, the provincial election results this week have made the country’s political future very hard to predict. “It’s a big black hole what will happen next,” he told CNN.

    “They don’t have a majority so they would have to negotiate to form a cabinet and we have to wait and see what the impact will be.”

    Tom-Jan Meeus, a journalist and political columnist in the Netherlands, believes Wednesday’s result is reflective of a “serious dissatisfaction” with traditional politics in the country.

    “This party is definitely part of that trend,” he told CNN.

    “However, it’s new in that it has a different agenda from previous anti-establishment parties but it fits in the bigger picture that has been around here for 25 years now.”

    Meeus believes that the shock rise in support for the BBB party largely comes from those living in small, rural villages who feel disillusioned by government policies.

    “Although it’s a small country, there’s this perception that people living in the western, urbanized part of the country are having all the goods from government policies, and people living in the countryside in small villages believe that the successful people in Amsterdam, in the Hague, in Utrecht are having the goods, and they suffer from it.

    “So the feeling is that the less successful, less smart people are trapped by a government who doesn’t understand what their problems are.”

    Noorlander agrees the main topic they’ve been talking about recently is the position of the farmers in the Netherlands, because of “the pollution and environmental rules mainly made in Brussels by the EU, they were pushing against that.”

    “They want farmers to have a place in the Netherlands. That’s their main topic but it became broader in these last few months. It’s become the vote of people living in these farming areas, outside the big cities, against the people in the big cities making the policies and being more international.”

    The Farmer-Citizen Movement was established four years ago in response to the government’s proposals for tackling nitrogen emissions.

    The Dutch government launched a drive to slash emissions in half by 2030, pointing the finger at industrial agriculture for rising levels of pollution that were threating the country’s biodiversity.

    The BBB party has fought back against the measures – which include buying farmers out and reducing livestock numbers – instead placing emphasis on the farmers’ livelihoods that are at risk of being destroyed.

    Farmers have protested against the government’s green policies by blocking government buildings with tractors and dumping manure on motorways.

    Meeus believes that this week’s election win for the BBB means the agenda to tackle the nitrogen crisis is now in “big trouble.”

    “This vote obviously is a statement from a big chunk of the voters to say no to that policy,” he said.

    According to Ciarán O’Connor, a Senior Analyst at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, says the BBB have built a platform off the back of the protest movement for their party being the representative of the ‘true people.’

    The BBB, he says, “have been one of the leading driving forces behind getting people out to protest but also shaping the ideologies and beliefs that power a lot of the movement; rejecting or disputing climate change or, at least, measures that would negatively impact farmers livelihoods and businesses; wider EU skepticism; burgeoning anti-immigration and anti-Islam views too.”

    Former US President Donald Trump has promoted the protest at various points during his speeches in the past year. At a rally in Florida last July, he told crowds: “Farmers in the Netherlands of all places are courageously opposing the climate tyranny of the Dutch government.”

    The Farmer-Citizen Movement has also won support from the far-right.

    A report from The International Centre for Counter-Terrorism describes how what began as local protests got the attention of extremists and conspiracists, in particular seeing it as proof of the so-called “Great Reset” theory of global elites using the masses for their own benefit.

    According to O’Connor, the movement aligns with a populist viewpoint of climate action as a new form of tyranny imposed by out-of-touch governments over ordinary citizens.

    “One of the tactics used by the Dutch farmers’ protest movement has been using tractors to create blockades. International interest in the farmers’ protest movement, and this method of protest, really grew in 2022 not long after the Canadian trucker convoy that was organized and promoted by a number of far-right figures in Canada, the US and internationally too,” he said.

    “For many far-right figures, this movement was viewed as the next iteration of that ‘convoy’ type of protest and they viewed it as a people’s protest mobilising against tyrannical or out-of-touch governments.”

    For some analysts, however, for the far right to claim the Dutch protests is premature.

    “I wasn’t incredibly impressed by that,” Meeus said. “Generally the perception of the problem that was in the heads of the far-right people from Canada and the United States was pretty far off, as far as I’ve seen.

    “It remains to be seen whether the Farmer-Citizen Movement will present itself as a far-right party.”

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  • French workers may have to retire at 64 and many are in uproar. Here’s why | CNN

    French workers may have to retire at 64 and many are in uproar. Here’s why | CNN

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    Paris
    CNN
     — 

    Impromptu protests broke out in Paris and across several French cities Thursday evening following a move by the government to force through reforms of the pension system that will push up the retirement age from 62 to 64.

    While the proposed reforms of France’s cherished pensions system were already controversial, it was the manner in which the bill was approved – sidestepping a vote in the country’s lower house, where President Emmanuel Macron’s party crucially lacks an outright majority – that arguably sparked the most anger.

    And that fury is widespread in France.

    Figures from pollster IFOP show that 83% of young adults (18-24) and 78% of those aged over 35 found the government’s manner of passing the bill “unjustified.” Even among pro-Macron voters – those who voted for him in the first round of last year’s presidential election, before a runoff with his far-right adversary – a majority of 58% disagreed with how the law was passed, regardless of their thoughts about the reforms.

    Macron made social reforms, especially of the pensions system, a flagship policy of his 2022 re-election and it’s a subject he has championed for much of his time in office. However, Thursday’s move has so inflamed opposition across the political spectrum, that some are questioning the wisdom of his hunger for reforms.

    Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne conceded in an interview Thursday night with TF1 that the government initially aimed to avoid using Article 49.3 of the constitution to crowbar the reforms past the National Assembly. The “collective decision” to do so was taken at a meeting with the president, ministers and allied lawmakers mid-Thursday, she said.

    For Macron’s cabinet, the simple answer to the government’s commitment to reforms is money. The current system – relying on the working population to pay for a growing age group of retirees – is no longer fit for purpose, the government says.

    Labor minister Olivier Dussopt said that without immediate action the pensions deficit will reach more than $13 billion annually by 2027. Referencing opponents of the reforms, Dussopt told CNN affiliate BFMTV: “Do they imagine that if we pause the reforms, we will pause the deficit?”

    When the proposal was unveiled in January, the government said the reforms would balance the deficit in 2030, with a multi-billion dollar surplus to pay for measures allowing those in physically demanding jobs to retire early.

    For Budget Minister Gabriel Attal, the calculus is clear. “If we don’t do [the reforms] today, we will have to do much more brutal measures in the future,” he said Friday in an interview with broadcaster France Inter.

    “No pensions reform has made the French happy,” Pascal Perrineau, political scientist at Sciences Po university, told CNN on Friday.

    “Each time there is opposition from public opinion, then little by little the project passes and basically, public opinion is resigned to it,” he said, adding that the government’s failure was in its inability to sell the project to French people.

    They’re not the first to fall at that hurdle. Pensions reform has long been a thorny issue in France. In 1995, weeks-long mass protests forced the government of the day to abandon plans to reform public sector pensions. In 2010, millions took to the streets to oppose raising the retirement age by two years to 62 and in 2014 further reforms were met with wide protests.

    An anti-pension reform demonstrator writes

    For many in France, the pensions system, as with social support more generally, is viewed as the bedrock of the state’s responsibilities and relationship with its citizens.

    The post-World War II social system enshrined rights to a state-funded pension and healthcare, which have been jealously guarded since, in a country where the state has long played a proactive role in ensuring a certain standard of living.

    France has one of the lowest retirement ages in the industrialized world, spending more than most other countries on pensions at nearly 14% of economic output, according to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.

    But as social discontent mounts over the surging cost of living, protesters at several strikes have repeated a common mantra to CNN: They are taxed heavily and want to preserve a right to a dignified old age.

    Macron is still early in his second term, having been re-elected in 2022, and still has four years to serve as the country’s leader. Despite any popular anger, his position is safe for now.

    However, Thursday’s use of Article 49.3 only reinforces past criticisms that he is out of touch with popular feeling and ambivalent to the will of the French public.

    Politicians to the far left and far right of Macron’s center-right party were quick to jump on his government’s move to skirt a parliamentary vote.

    “After the slap that the Prime Minister just gave the French people, by imposing a reform which they do not want, I think that Elisabeth Borne should go,” tweeted far-right politician Marine Le Pen on Thursday.

    Members of Parliament of left-wing coalition NUPES (New People's Ecologic and Social Union) hold placards as French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne addresses deputies to confirm the force through of the pension law without a parliament vote on Thursday.

    The leader of France’s far-left, Jean-Luc Melenchon was also quick to hammer the government, blasting the reforms as having “no parliamentary legitimacy” and calling for nationwide spontaneous strike action.

    For sure, popular anger over pension reforms will only complicate Macron’s intentions to introduce further reforms of the education and health sector – projects that were frozen by the Covid-19 pandemic – political scientist Perrineau told CNN.

    The current controversy could ultimately force Macron to negotiate more on future reforms, Perrineau warns – though he notes the French President is not known for compromise.

    His tendency to be “a little imperious, a little impatient” can make political negotiations harder, Perrineau said.

    That, he adds, is “perhaps the limit of Macronism.”

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  • US to pay $6.5 million in lost wages owed to Mexican migrant workers | CNN

    US to pay $6.5 million in lost wages owed to Mexican migrant workers | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Some 13,000 Mexican migrant workers are owed $6.5 million in unpaid wages, according to a tweet from the United States Department of Labor’s Bureau of International Labor Affairs, which announced a joint effort with Mexico to locate and compensate the workers.

    “This program will return millions of dollars in back wages to Mexican nationals who participated in US temporary foreign worker programs,” tweeted Ken Salazar, the United States Ambassador to Mexico, on Tuesday.

    The Mexican ministry and the United States Department of Labor’s Bureau of International Labor Affairs is launching the H-2A Workers’ Wages Recovery Program to ensure the workers can collect their compensation, Salazar added.

    Skilled foreign farm workers are the backbone of US agriculture and are often in the US on H-2A seasonal visas. It is unclear who these workers were employed by when they failed to receive their full wages, and what years they were employed.

    The money owed to these thousands of workers was recovered by the US Department of Labor after it failed to locate the individuals in order to deliver their checks, according to a press release from Mexico’s Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare.

    The partnership will attempt to locate the migrant workers who are believed to have “received less than the legally established salary from their employers in the United States,” according to a press release by Mexico’s Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare.

    The US is expected to send Mexico a list with names of workers who are “owed wages and overtime.” Mexico will then look up the workers in government databases and inform them of their checks.

    “Together, we watch over labor rights,” tweeted Luisa Alcalde, Mexico’s Minister of Labor and Social Welfare, on Tuesday.

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  • China’s economic recovery is on track. But youth unemployment is getting worse | CNN Business

    China’s economic recovery is on track. But youth unemployment is getting worse | CNN Business

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    Hong Kong
    CNN
     — 

    China’s economic recovery appears to be on track as it gradually emerges from three years of its strict zero-Covid policy. But rising youth unemployment underscores the tough challenges ahead for the new government to achieve its economic targets and maintain social stability.

    The National Bureau of Statistics on Wednesday released key economic indicators for January and February combined, a usual practice to avoid any distortion by the long Lunar New Year holiday, which usually falls on different dates every year.

    Industrial production rose by 2.4%, accelerating from December’s 1.3% growth. Retail sales increased 3.5%, reversing a 1.8% decline in the previous month. The growth figures are in line with market expectations.

    Investment in fixed assets, such as real estate and infrastructure, jumped 5.5%, beating estimates. In particular, capital spending on electricity and heating facilities and railways soared around 20%.

    “The economic data released today confirmed the recovery in China was well on track,” said Zhiwei Zhang, president and chief economist at Pinpoint Asset Management.

    Recent PMI figures had indicated a strong recovery in China’s economic activity, with February’s factory output from large, state-owned enterprises hitting the highest level in more than a decade.

    “The fading of virus disruptions led to a rapid improvement in economic conditions at the start of the year,” analysts from Capital Economics wrote.

    But there are some weak spots in Wednesday’s data.

    Youth unemployment surged. The jobless rate for 16- to 24-year-olds hit 18.1% in the January-to-February period, compared to 16.7% in December. The overall unemployment rate also increased to 5.6%.

    The real estate sector remains mired in a deep slump.

    Property investment fell 5.7% from a year ago in the first two months of this year, although it was an improvement from the 12.2% drop seen in December. Property sales by floor area contracted 3.6%.

    At the just-concluded session of the National People’s Congress, the country’s rubber-stamp parliament, the government set a cautious growth plan for this year, with a GDP target of around 5% and a job creation target of 12 million.

    But Li Qiang, the new premier who took office on Saturday, admitted it’s “not an easy task” to achieve the stated goals.

    At his first news conference on Monday, Li highlighted the challenge to create enough jobs.

    “This year’s college graduates are expected to reach 11.58 million people. From the perspective of employment, there will be certain pressure,” he said. “We will further expand employment channels and help young people.”

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  • Tyson is laying off nearly 1,700 poultry plant workers | CNN Business

    Tyson is laying off nearly 1,700 poultry plant workers | CNN Business

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    New York
    CNN
     — 

    Tyson is laying off nearly 1,700 workers as it closes two poultry plants in an effort to boost profits.

    The company will shutter a chicken processing plant in Glen Allen, Virginia that employs 692 people, as well as one in Van Buren, Arkansas, with 969 employees, on May 12.

    The closure decision “[reflects] our broader strategy to strengthen our poultry business by optimizing operations and utilizing the full available capacity at each plant,” a Tyson Foods

    (TSN)     spokesperson told CNN in an emailTuesday. The scale of the facilities as well as an “inability to economically improve operations has led to the difficult decision to close the facilities,” according to the spokesperson.

    Tyson had about 124,000 US employees as of October.

    Several companies have been laying off workers amid still-high inflation and fears of a recession, many of those workers in the tech sector. In this case, Tyson is pointing to weakness in its poultry operations.

    Tyson, a major meat and poultry processor, mentioned problems in its chicken business during a February analyst call discussing the company’s most recent quarterly results.

    In the three months ending on December 31, “demand didn’t appear in the parts of the market where we had expected,” Tyson CEO Donnie King said on the call. “As a result, we had to move things around.” That led to higher costs and lower prices, he added.

    “As we think about moving forward, efficiency in our operations in our company will be the focal point for us,” he said.

    The company has been shaking up that part of the business amid broader turnover.

    Tyson announced Wes Morris as the new head of its poultry business in January. Morris, a long-time employee of the company, left Tyson in 2017 and had since consulted for its poultry business. He replaced David Bray, the previous poultry president, who had just stepped into that role in 2021 -— the same year that Tyson reported its chicken volumes were low because of breeding issues.

    Also in 2021, King became CEO, replacing the previous chief executive Dean Banks, who had been at the helm for under a year. Tyson also tapped a new head of its fresh meats division in December.

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  • Facebook-parent Meta plans to lay off another 10,000 employees | CNN Business

    Facebook-parent Meta plans to lay off another 10,000 employees | CNN Business

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    CNN
     — 

    Facebook-parent Meta plans to lay off another 10,000 workers, marking the second round of significant job cuts announced by the tech giant in four months.

    The latest layoffs, announced on Tuesday, come after Meta said in November that it was eliminating approximately 13% of its workforce, or 11,000 jobs, in the single largest round of cuts in the company’s history.

    In a Facebook post Tuesday, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the job cuts will take place “over the next couple of months.”

    “We expect to announce restructurings and layoffs in our tech groups in late April, and then our business groups in late May,” he wrote. In a “small number of cases, it may take through the end of the year to complete these changes.”

    “Overall, we expect to reduce our team size by around 10,000 people and to close around 5,000 additional open roles that we haven’t yet hired,” Zuckerberg said.

    As of September 2022, Meta reported a headcount of 87,314, per a securities filings. With 11,000 job cuts announced in November and the 10,000 announced Tuesday, that would bring Meta’s headcount down to around 66,000.

    Meta is far from the only Big Tech company to undergo layoffs amid higher inflation, recession fears and a whiplash in pandemic-induced demand. In the first months of this year, Amazon, Google-parent Alphabet and Microsoft have all confirmed major job cuts impacting tens of thousands of tech workers.

    Shares of Meta rose more than 4% in early trading Tuesday following the announcement.

    When the first round of job cuts was announced in November, Zuckerberg blamed himself at the time for the company’s over-hiring earlier in the pandemic. Meta  nearly doubled its headcount between March 2020 and September of last year, as the Covid-19 crisis led to a surge in demand for digital services.

    But the situation changed radically for the social media giant and other tech companies last year as pandemic restrictions eased and people returned to their offline lives. Meta’s core business was also hit by privacy changes implemented by Apple and advertisers tightening budgets amid recession fears.

    In its most-recent quarterly earnings report, Meta posted a sharp drop in profits and reported its third straight quarterly decline in revenue. But during the earnings call, Zuckerberg promised investors that 2023 would be the “year of efficiency” for the company, following years of heavy investment in growth and a more immersive version of the internet called the metaverse.

    On that call, Zuckerberg also suggested that more job cuts could be coming.

    “We closed last year with some difficult layoffs and restructuring some teams. When we did this, I said clearly that this was the beginning of our focus on efficiency and not the end,” Zuckerberg said during the earnings call in early February. He added that the company would be focused on “flattening” its org structure and “removing some layers of middle management to make decisions faster.”

    “As part of this, we’re going to be more proactive about cutting projects that aren’t performing or may no longer be as crucial, but my main focus is on increasing the efficiency of how we execute our top priorities,” Zuckerberg said.

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  • From Wile E. Coyote to edibles: Recession forecasts are getting weird | CNN Business

    From Wile E. Coyote to edibles: Recession forecasts are getting weird | CNN Business

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    A version of this story first appeared in CNN Business’ Before the Bell newsletter. Not a subscriber? You can sign up right here. You can listen to an audio version of the newsletter by clicking the same link.


    New York
    CNN
     — 

    Understanding the economy is a complicated task, and even the experts are struggling to answer seemingly simple questions like “Are we on the brink of a recession?” or “Why isn’t inflation falling faster?”

    Many have resorted to the use of metaphor to convey the current complexity of the economy.

    It’s a communications tactic that some Federal Reserve officials have long favored. In the early 1980s, Nancy Teeters, the first woman appointed to the Federal Reserve Board, came up with an apt metaphor to explain why she disagreed with steep rate hikes implemented by then-Fed Chairman Paul Volcker.

    Her colleagues were “pulling the financial fabric of this country so tight that it’s going to rip,” she said. “Once you tear a piece of fabric, it’s very difficult, almost impossible, to put it back together again,” she added, before remarking that “none of these guys has ever sewn anything in his life.”

    These days, economists and analysts are turning to increasingly outlandish metaphors to help translate their thoughts.

    Here are some of the most interesting descriptors used recently and what they mean:

    Wile E. Coyote

    If you think back to Saturday morning cartoons, you may remember the never-ending, and mostly futile, chase between Wile E. Coyote and his nemesis, Road Runner. That pursuit often ended with Wile E. running off a cliff and into mid-air.

    The toons were fun sources of entertainment in our salad years, but former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers says they now double as a case study for the Fed and the economy.

    “The [Federal Reserve’s] process of bringing down inflation will bring on a recession at some stage, as it almost always has in the past,” Summers told CNN last week.

    And for the US economy, it could likely mean a “Wile E. Coyote moment,” Summers said — if we run off the cliff, gravity will eventually win out.

    “The economy could hit an air pocket in a few months,” he said.

    Antibiotics

    When describing the state of the economy, Summers doesn’t just rely on Looney Tunes. He also borrows from the medical community.

    While describing why the Fed can’t end its rate hike regimen when inflation shows signs of showing, Summers has compared higher interest rates to medicine for a country sick with high inflation. The entire dose must be taken for the treatment to fully work, he says.

    “We’ve all had the experience of taking a course of drugs and giving up, stopping the drugs, before the course was exhausted, simply because we felt better. And then, whatever infection we had came back and it was harder to fight the second time,” Summers told Boston’s NPR news station WBUR in February.

    For what it’s worth, Before the Bell is also guilty of using this one.

    Fog report

    We may be driving in the fog, landing a plane in the fog or even just walking in it.

    What’s important in this oft-used scenario is that it’s hard to see and we’re doing something that typically requires clear visibility.

    Clients “facing the fog of uncertainty in financial markets, economic growth and geopolitics,” should “avoid unnecessary lane changes,” and “allow extra time to reach your destination,” advised Goldman Sachs analysts earlier this year.

    It’s essentially a fancy way of saying that no one really knows what’s going on in this economy. Instead of attempting to find a way out of the chaos, investors should slow down, stay the course and wait for recovery.

    Edibles

    Late last year, investment analyst Peter Boockvar used a semi-illicit metaphor to explain why he thought the Fed might be over-tightening the economy into recession. He compared the Fed to an inexperienced consumer of weed gummies, which can take a long time to kick in.

    During that waiting period, an eager consumer may think the drugs aren’t working and eat more before the effects of the first dose even set in. They then inevitably find themselves way too stoned and feeling not-so-great.

    Boockvar was careful to note that he himself does not indulge in this practice, by the way.

    Storm chasing

    JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon should receive an honorary degree in meteorology for his recessionary weather predictions.

    The Big Bank exec has repeatedly referred to economic recession as a storm gathering on the horizon — occasionally he’ll update the public on how far away and how bad that storm is.

    Last summer Dimon spooked markets when he compared a possible upcoming recession to a “hurricane.” In November, he downgraded it to a “storm.”

    By January, his forecast was simply “storm clouds,” adding that he probably should never have used the term “hurricane.”

    Polyurethane

    Rick Rieder, BlackRock’s Chief Investment Officer of Global Fixed Income, has likened the economy to a bendable piece of plastic. Much like the economy, he wrote, polyurethane, “displays flexibility and adaptability, but also durability and strength.”

    He added that “the material’s ability to be stretched, bent, stressed and flexed without breaking, while in fact returning to its original condition, is what makes it so chemically unique. In recent years the US economy has displayed a remarkable resilience to stresses and an extraordinary ability to adapt to changing conditions.”

    Last week Senator Elizabeth Warren grilled Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell about American job losses being potential casualties of the central bank’s battle against high inflation.

    Warren, a frequent critic of the Fed’s leader, noted that an additional 2 million people would have to lose their jobs if the unemployment rate rises from its current 3.6% rate to reach the Fed’s projections of 4.6% by the end of the year.

    “If you could speak directly to the two million hardworking people who have decent jobs today, who you’re planning to get fired over the next year, what would you say to them?” Warren asked.

    Powell argued that all Americans, not just two million, are suffering under high inflation.

    “Will working people be better off if we just walk away from our jobs and inflation remains 5% or 6%?” Powell replied.

    Warren cautioned Powell that he was “gambling with people’s lives.”

    The discussion was part of a larger cost-benefit conversation that keeps popping up around the jobs market: Which is worse — widespread job loss or elevated inflation?

    CNN spoke with two top economic analysts with different perspectives to gain a deeper understanding of the debate.

    Below is our interview with Johns Hopkins economist Laurence Ball.

    Yesterday we published our interview with Roosevelt Institute director Michael Konczal, you can read that here.

    This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

    Before the Bell: Is it necessary to increase the unemployment rate to successfully fight inflation?

    Laurence Ball: There’s a trade off between inflation and unemployment. When the economy is very strong and unemployment is pushed down, inflation tends to be higher. Right now there are almost two job openings per unemployed worker, the supply of workers looking for jobs and the demand for firms to hire is out of whack. That’s leading to faster wage increases, which sounds good except that gets passed through to faster price increases and more inflation. So somehow the labor market has to be brought back towards a normal balance of workers and jobs and that means slowing down the economy, and that probably means raising unemployment.

    Can you explain the cost-benefit analysis of two million jobs lost to get down to 2% inflation?

    If we assume we have to get inflation down to 2%, then it’s just an unhappy fact of life that that’s going to require higher unemployment. But a lot of people, including me, think that if the Fed gets it down to 4% or 3%, that’s the time to declare victory or say, ‘close enough for government work.’

    It gets more and more expensive in terms of how much unemployment it costs to go from 3% to 2% inflation. Those last few points will have disproportionately large costs, and it’s very dubious if that’s really worth it.

    Now, the Fed has the political problem that they’ve been insisting on a 2% target rate for years. If they say right at this moment that 3% or 4% is okay that would be seen as surrendering or moving the goalposts. I think a likely outcome is that inflation gets down to 3% or 4% and the Fed continues to say their target is a 2% inflation rate but never does what has to be done to get it there.

    If you examine Fed history you see that 5% appears to be a magic number. When inflation is above 5% it becomes this big political issue. When it goes below 5% it disappears from the headlines.

    What do you think is important for our readers to know about this back-and-forth between Powell and Warren?

    Behind all of this, in a market economy there’s sort of a basic glitch. We have this thing called unemployment, we sort of chronically have not enough jobs for everybody and that’s a big problem. The problem can be reduced somewhat in the short run if you get the economy going very fast. But then that leads to inflation. Accepting that unemployment has to go back up is just recognizing that there’s this glitch in the market economy or capitalism. It’s not clear how we can get around that.

    CNN Business’ David Goldman reports: 

    In an extraordinary action to restore confidence in America’s banking system, the Biden administration on Sunday guaranteed that customers of the failed Silicon Valley Bank will have access to all their money starting Monday.

    In a related action, the government shut down Signature Bank, a regional bank that was teetering on the brink of collapse in recent days. Signature’s customers will receive a similar deal, ensuring that even uninsured deposits will be returned to them Monday.

    SVB collapse: live updates

    In a joint statement Sunday, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell and Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Chairman Martin J. Gruenberg said the FDIC will make SVB and Signature’s customers whole. By guaranteeing all deposits — even the uninsured money that customers kept with the failed banks — the government aimed to prevent more bank runs and to help companies that deposited large sums with the banks to continue to make payroll and fund their operations.

    The Fed will also make additional funding available for eligible financial institutions to prevent runs on similar banks in the future.

    Wall Street investors were relieved that the government intervened as stock futures rebounded on Sunday evening, although the rally is fading Monday morning. Markets had tumbled more than 3% Thursday and Friday as investors feared more bank failures and systemic risk for the tech sector.

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  • Parisian streets littered with trash after wave of strikes | CNN

    Parisian streets littered with trash after wave of strikes | CNN

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    Paris
    CNN
     — 

    The City of Lights has a garbage problem.

    Massive strikes in Paris against pension reform this week are affecting trash pickup services in the French capital, with piles of waste sitting on many of the city’s normally picturesque streets, including those just steps from monuments like the Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triomphe.

    As of Saturday, about 4,400 tonnes of trash were awaiting collection, a spokeswoman for the Paris mayor’s office said. The spokeswoman said that the problem is a blockage at trash incinerators caused by the strikes. Garbage trucks have thus been unable to pick up waste in much of the city because they have nowhere to put it.

    Not all neighborhoods have been equally affected. The municipal government is in charge of garbage collection in half of Paris’ 20 arrondissements. Private contractors are responsible for the other 10.

    Municipal services like trash collection in Paris have been affected since Tuesday, when strikes saw flights and trains canceled and delayed; oil refiners blockaded; schools shuttered; and left thousands without electricity. The French capital was the most affected, with nearly 60% of its primary school teachers walking out and the local metro forced to cut service to all but the busiest times.

    Massive protests have been staged regularly throughout France since January 19, with more than a million people coming out multiple to voice their opposition to the government’s plan to raise the official retirement age for most workers as part of reforms to the government’s pension system, one of Europe’s most generous.

    As of Saturday, about 4,400 metric tones of trash were awaiting collection on the streets of Paris, a spokeswoman for the mayor's office said.

    President Emmanuel Macron’s government says the changes are necessary to make the system financially stable.

    The trash buildup in Paris has been sparked health concerns among Parisians and local politicians. The mayor of the 17th arrondissement, Geoffroy Boulard, said in an interview with CNN affiliate BFMTV that he has asked Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo to hire a private service provider to intervene.

    “We can’t wait,” he said. “This is a matter of public health.”

    Boulard said he’s also worried about the proliferation of rats and rodents as well as Paris’ image.

    Another local mayor, Jean-Pierre Lecoq of the 6th arrondissement, asked Hidalgo to intervene in an open letter he published on Twitter.

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  • SVB employees to receive 45 days of employment at 1.5 times pay, reports say | CNN Business

    SVB employees to receive 45 days of employment at 1.5 times pay, reports say | CNN Business

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    New York
    CNN
     — 

    The US Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation offered Silicon Valley Bank employees 45 days of employment and 1.5 times their salary, reports say.

    An FDIC official did not comment on the details to CNN, but said it is standard practice and one of the first steps the independent government agency takes after being named receiver.

    US workers also received their annual bonuses on Friday, just hours before FDIC took over the collapsed lender, Axios reported.

    SVB collapsed Friday morning after a stunning 48 hours in which a bank run and a capital crisis led to the second-largest failure of a financial institution in US history.

    California regulators shuttered the tech lender and put it under the control of the FDIC.

    The FDIC is acting as a receiver, which typically means it will liquidate the bank’s assets to pay back its customers, including depositors and creditors.

    Employees, except essential and branch workers, were told to keep working remotely, Reuters reported. The bank had more than 8,500 employees at the end of 2022.

    The FDIC said the main office and all 17 branches of SVB, located in California and Massachusetts, will reopen Monday.

    The FDIC, an independent government agency that insures bank deposits and oversees financial institutions, said all insured depositors will have full access to their insured deposits by no later than Monday morning. It said it would pay uninsured depositors an “advance dividend within the next week.”

    The FDIC took over in the midmorning Friday; usually it waits until markets close.

    “SVB’s condition deteriorated so quickly that it couldn’t last just five more hours,” wrote Better Markets CEO Dennis M. Kelleher. “That’s because its depositors were withdrawing their money so fast that the bank was insolvent, and an intraday closure was unavoidable due to a classic bank run.”

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  • Takeaways from the February jobs report | CNN Business

    Takeaways from the February jobs report | CNN Business

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    Minneapolis
    CNN
     — 

    February’s jobs report had a little something for everyone.

    For workers, there were jobs; for employers, there were workers filling shortfalls caused by the pandemic; for the Federal Reserve, there were indications that the labor market was loosening and wage pressures were easing.

    Then again, the total of 311,000 net jobs added was significantly higher than expectations of 205,000, and the unemployment rate surprisingly grew to 3.6%.

    The report was a “mixed bag” at a time when the Fed — which this week signaled a more hawkish approach after a strong batch of recent economic data — is weighing to go lighter or heavier on rate hikes.

    Here are some takeaways from Friday’s report:

    Economists were anticipating that January’s blockbuster 504,000 net job gain was an anomaly due to a combination of factors such as annual data adjustments, warm weather and employers hoarding workers.

    But the US labor market in February showed that, overall, it remained fairly resistant to the Fed’s yearlong barrage of interest rate hikes. The latest employment snapshot from the Bureau of Labor Statistics also showed only a slight downward revision to the January jobs total.

    “This report, it’s not about the Federal Reserve, it’s not about inflation, it’s about you; it’s about how workers are doing,” said Claudia Sahm, founder of Sahm Consulting and a former Fed economist. “And once again, we had a month in which we were adding jobs on net, and this is really good for workers.”

    There are also encouraging signs for employers, she said, noting some of the biggest gains were in industries that have been suffering from the deepest shortages since the pandemic.

    The leisure and hospitality industry added 105,000 jobs in February, accounting for 34% of the entire month’s total gains and putting the sector that much closer to matching its pre-pandemic levels. As of February, the leisure and hospitality industry was 410,000 jobs, or 2.42%, shy of February 2020 employment levels, a CNN analysis of BLS data shows.

    “Right now, we’re still in a phase of getting back to normal in terms of not having labor shortages, not having the costs of serving customers rise and rise,” Sahm said. “I would much rather see us get back to normal by workers coming back as opposed to customers going away.”

    Despite the Fed hammering out a succession of rate hikes during the past year, construction employment hasn’t yet faltered. In February, the construction industry added 24,000 jobs, marking 12 consecutive months of employment growth.

    “Contractors are continuing to work through existing backlogs that have grown over the past two years as new opportunities arose and supply chain issues extended construction timelines,” wrote Nick Grandy, construction and real estate senior analyst at RSM US.

    Notable sectors that recorded job losses during the month were in information, which was down another 25,000 jobs (-0.8%); transportation and warehousing, which was down 21,500 jobs (0.3%); and manufacturing, which was down 4,000 positions.

    While the headline job figure and relatively minimal losses show overall strength, there is an indication of a pullback across industries. The BLS’ employment diffusion index, which shows the percentage of 250 industries that added jobs, fell to 56, which is the lowest reading since April 2020.

    “That indicates that the impact of high interest rates is spilling over to more industries,” said Julia Pollak, chief economist at ZipRecruiter.

    The labor market has remained extremely tight and fairly out of whack for the past three years. Friday’s report showed that “a modicum of slack crept back into the jobs market,” wrote Wells Fargo economists Sarah House and Michael Pugliese.

    The unemployment rate moved to 3.6% from its 53-year-low of 3.4%. That increase was in part due to more people reentering the workforce and joining the ranks of the unemployed, which the BLS classifies as people without jobs actively searching for work.

    February’s employment report showed a 0.1 percentage point increase in the labor force participation rate to 62.5% — the highest it’s been since April 2020.

    The average workweek ticked down to 34.5 hours from a revised 34.6 hours, signaling a “significant overall drop” in labor demand, said Brad McMillan, chief investment officer for Commonwealth Financial Network.

    Still, with the prime-age employment to population ratio increasing to 80.5% — on par with early 2020 levels — there may be little space left for sustained labor supply gains, according to Matt Colyar, a Moody’s Analytics economist.

    “February’s figure, apart from early 2020 readings, is higher than any rate during the previous decade-long expansion,” Colyar noted. “Even in corners of the economy where demand has slumped, businesses have shown little appetite to lay off workers en masse. As other sectors continue to hire rapidly, an acceleration in wage growth will remain a looming threat.”

    A softening in average hourly earnings is helping fuel hopes for a soft landing.

    At 0.2% on the month, wage growth was below expectations and measured 4.6% year over year.

    “There were signs in today’s report that progress on inflation can be made without torpedoing employment,” the Wells Fargo economists noted.

    As of February, the annualized rate of wage growth during the past three months is slightly under 3.6%, a pace seen when inflation was below the Fed’s target, said economist Dean Baker, co-founder of the Center for Economic and Policy Research.

    “Perhaps most important from the Fed’s perspective is the slowdown in wage growth,” Baker wrote in a statement. “The 3.6% annual rate over the last three months can hardly be seen as posing a serious threat of inflation. This slowing in the average hourly wage, coupled with the 4% rate reported in the fourth quarter Employment Cost Index, should provide solid evidence that wage growth has slowed sharply.”

    A hot batch of January economic data helped to send the Fed into a more hawkish turn. Fed Chair Jerome Powell told members of Congress this week that the Fed is prepared to increase the pace of its rate hikes if warranted.

    “The latest economic data have come in stronger than expected, which suggests that the ultimate level of interest rates is likely to be higher than previously anticipated,” Powell told lawmakers.

    There’s still more data to come before the Fed meets for its two-day policymaking meeting on March 21-22, notably the Consumer Price Index, Producer Price Index and the Commerce Department’s retail sales report. However, Friday’s jobs report likely won’t spur a more dovish turn from the Fed, said Sean Snaith, an economist and director of the University of Central Florida’s Institute for Economic Forecasting.

    “We didn’t go from a four-alarm fire to a five-alarm fire with this data report, but the inflation flames aren’t out either,” he wrote in a note Friday. “And nothing today indicates that the Fed needs to change its more aggressive approach to raising interest rates.”

    Still, economist Gregory Daco cautioned that the Fed shouldn’t fall into the trap of confirmation bias by letting the stronger-than-expected economic data influence the analysis of Friday’s jobs report and next week’s CPI report.

    The Fed may see the low unemployment rate and the robust job gains as fueling wage growth, said Daco, chief economist at EY Parthenon.

    “Our view, however, is slower job growth in the goods sector, easing hours worked and moderating sequential wage growth momentum and a rise in the labor force participation rate indicate a welcome easing of labor market tightness,” Daco noted. “While we acknowledge this report was by no means a weak one, we also observe that some of the job gains were in sectors where there has been a structural employment shortfall — health care and education in particular. Employment strength in those sectors may not be indicative of cyclical wage pressures, but rather easing structural constraints.”

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  • Biden and Trump agree on one big thing | CNN Politics

    Biden and Trump agree on one big thing | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Joe Biden and Donald Trump are bizarrely on the same page on the top issue so far in the 2024 White House race, as they aim huge, possibly campaign-defining swings at Republicans who they claim will shred retirement benefits.

    The current and former presidents – bitter rivals who agree on little else – are both forcing their foes into political retreats and attempts to whitewash past support for changes that could cut Medicare and Social Security payouts.

    Their strategy is reinforcing a truism of presidential election campaigns that candidates who even entertain the notion of “reforming” these cherished entitlement programs for seniors are playing with fire.

    With typical bluntness, Trump has blasted his potential top rival, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, as a “wheelchair over the cliff kind of guy” after he voted, as a member of the US House, for non-binding resolutions that would have raised the age at which most seniors can collect their benefits to 70. As a 2012 congressional candidate, he supported privatizing Social Security, CNN’s KFile has reported. But trying to ease his vulnerability on the issue, DeSantis insisted in a Fox News interview last week: “We’re not going to mess with Social Security.”

    Despite his own proposed cuts to these programs as president, Trump has kept up the attacks. “We’re not going back to people that want to destroy our great Social Security system – even some in our own party; I wonder who that might be – who want to raise the minimum age of Social Security to 70, 75 or even 80 in some cases, and who are out to cut Medicare to a level that will be unrecognizable,” he said at the Conservative Political Action Conference last Saturday.

    A few days later, another Republican hopeful gave both Biden and Trump a new opening to exploit.

    Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley was forced to make clear Thursday that her striking and unspecific call the day before for raising the retirement age was only supposed to refer to Americans currently in their 20s, who are in effect a half century away from drawing their pensions. But her clarification won’t protect the former ambassador to the United Nations from Trump, who is splitting his party down the middle, yet again, by pouncing on competitors who have voiced traditional conservative orthodoxy on cutting or changing the programs. Biden is sure to also highlight Haley’s remarks as he claims only he can thwart a secret GOP agenda to kill off the vital programs.

    “I guarantee you, I will protect Social Security and Medicare without any change. Guaranteed,” the president vowed in Philadelphia on Thursday. “I won’t allow it to be gutted or eliminated as MAGA Republicans have threatened to do.”

    Biden browbeat Republicans during his “State of the Union” address last month to confirm on camera that they support shoring up Social Security and Medicare. And he’s anchoring his likely reelection bid on the most forceful campaign by a Democratic candidate in years on the issue. Some of his attacks are fair; others take statements by GOP leaders out of context. But they’re still potent – since both he and Trump know that when conservatives are explaining that they don’t plan to cut Medicare or retirement benefits, they are usually trying to dig out of a losing position.

    And Biden has public opinion on his side. A Fox News poll last month, for instance, showed that Democrats are preferred over Republicans to better handle Medicare (by 23 points) and Social Security (by 16 points). No wonder Biden seems to relish this particular political battlefield.

    The odd confluence of approaches – from a former president who sought to overturn an election and a successor who sees his administration as vital to saving democracy – says so much about each man’s political instincts, backgrounds and campaign strategy. It is also reflects the shifting character of the Republican Party, which Trump has torn from its corporate, ideologically pure conservative roots to build a new coalition that includes working class voters, often in the Midwest, that Biden is battling hard to win back.

    In one sense, possibly the most thorny domestic issue of the years to come should, of course, have a place in a presidential campaign. But when candidates use it to inflame their political bases, it only makes it harder to address in government. This is especially the case with entitlements since they cut into the DNA of each party and have defined the dividing lines between them for decades – at least until Trump came along and took over the GOP.

    Ever since the New Deal reforms of Franklin Roosevelt, who was president from 1933 to 1945, Democrats – through presidents Lyndon Johnson, Barack Obama and Biden, especially – have sought to use government power to secure the living standards and health care of less well-off and elderly Americans. Republicans, from 1980s President Ronald Reagan onwards, have increasingly sought to find ways to shift the burden of some of this care to the private sector and to reduce or eliminate government’s role in an attempt to whittle away the New Deal reforms of FDR and the Great Society program of LBJ, who was president in the 1960s. They have often paid a heavy price. Republican President George W. Bush’s failed attempt to partially privatize Social Security contributed to a disastrous second term. And Trump still rails against former House Speaker Paul Ryan, who promoted a similar plan.

    While raising the alarm about threats to social programs for seniors might be a shrewd political tactic – especially in mobilizing older voters more likely to show up at the polls – it usually does nothing to address the program’s increasingly dire solvency challenges.

    The latest Congressional Budget Office projection found that Social Security’s retirement trust fund could be exhausted by 2032. At that point, with fewer workers paying into the program and with a rapidly aging population, benefits could be cut by at least 20%, CNN’s Tami Luhby reported. Medicare is even more precarious since its hospital insurance trust fund, known as Part A, will only be able to fully pay scheduled benefits until 2028, its trustees said in their most recent forecast.

    Biden, who released a new budget on Thursday that will help shape the message of his likely reelection bid, has proposed a plan to raise taxes on people earning more than $400,000 a year to shore up the program and would expand the range of drugs for which its managers can negotiate prices. He says the move would keep Medicare solvent until 2050 and would involve no cuts in benefits. The president also wants to target those who earn more than $400,000 with increasing payroll taxes to secure Social Security for the future. There is an infinitesimal chance, however, that the Republican-led House will agree to tax increases, so Biden’s plan represents more a device to deliver a political message than a viable plan.

    Despite warning his fellow Republicans to avoid cutting these programs, it’s unclear how Trump would save them if he wins back the White House – and doing nothing isn’t an option. And while other Republicans insist they don’t want to cut benefits or raise taxes, it’s unclear how they can square the circle.

    Florida Sen. Rick Scott has now excluded Social Security and Medicare from his proposal for all spending programs to be reviewed every five years. His original plan, released when he was leading the Senate GOP’s campaign arm, sparked the ire of his Republican Senate colleagues, including Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who quickly identified it as a political liability. That hasn’t stopped Biden from repeatedly claiming that it represents Republican policy.

    House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has, meanwhile, said that cuts to Social Security and Medicare are “completely off the table” in what he insists must be negotiations with Biden over raising the government’s borrowing limit later this year. But that position has put him in a bind because it means that in order for the GOP to honor their pledge to slash spending, they will probably have to take aim at other social programs that could also prove unpopular with voters.

    America is not the only country staring down a crisis.

    French President Emmanuel Macron sparked nationwide strikes and protests with his plan to raise the retirement age to 64 from 62. Even China’s Communist Party is struggling as a falling birthrate threatens to inflict severe costs on the world’s most dynamic emerging economy.

    Back in the US, whoever wins the 2024 elections for the White House and Congress, there seems no easily identifiable solution to safeguard these vital programs on which millions of Americans depend. And time is running out.

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  • The US economy added 311,000 jobs in February, outpacing expectations | CNN Business

    The US economy added 311,000 jobs in February, outpacing expectations | CNN Business

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    Minneapolis
    CNN
     — 

    The US economy added 311,000 jobs in February, according to the latest monthly employment snapshot from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, released Friday.

    That’s a pullback from the blockbuster January jobs report, when a revised 504,000 positions were added, but shows the labor market is still emitting plenty of heat.

    The unemployment rate ticked up to 3.6% from 3.4%.

    February’s net job gains surpassed economists’ estimates for a more modest month, with only 205,000 to be added. Separately, downward revisions to December’s and January’s totals weren’t that drastic.

    While Friday’s report is a strong one, that’s actually bad news in the broader context of the Federal Reserve’s campaign to curb high inflation, said PNC Financial Services chief economist Gus Faucher.

    “It’s much hotter than the economy can run, and so this means the Fed is going to have to continue to hike interest rates,” he told CNN. “And that makes a recession more likely.”

    Barring a surprisingly low Consumer Price Index inflation report next week, Faucher said he expects the Fed to go forward with a half-point rate hike at its March 21-22 meeting, which would be a higher pace than the recent, more moderate quarter-point increase.

    The Fed has been battling for almost a year to slow the economy and crush the highest inflation in 40 years, but the labor market continues to defy those efforts.

    “Coming up on the one-year anniversary of the Fed’s first rate hike, we never thought we would see the economy churning out 311,000 more jobs this month,” said Chris Rupkey, chief economist of FwdBonds, in a statement. “The party is on and the labor market is having a blast. The economy clearly is not landing, it is soaring.”

    The monthly job gains remain well above pre-pandemic norms, when roughly 180,000 jobs were added per month between 2010 and 2019, BLS data shows. However, the labor market remains tight and imbalances continue to persist in the ongoing recovery efforts from the devastating pandemic.

    Labor turnover data released earlier this week for January showed that there were 1.9 job openings for every person looking for one. Fed Chair Jerome Powell has frequently highlighted how the labor market remains short of pre-pandemic growth projections by more than 3 million people.

    The pandemic accelerated expected demographic trends (the aging out of the massive Baby Boom generation) with increased retirements; people also dropped out of the workforce for care-related needs and health concerns such as long Covid; and there were hundreds of thousands of workers who died from Covid.

    February’s employment report showed a 0.1 percentage point increase in the labor force participation rate to 62.5% — the highest its been since April 2020. However, it remains below pre-pandemic levels of 63.4%.

    Additionally, there was some upward movement in the jobless rate, which increased 0.2 percentage points to 3.6%.

    “Contributing to upward pressure here, there were more people looking for work,”said Mark Hamrick, senior economic analyst at Bankrate.

    Industries with notable job gains included leisure and hospitality, retail trade, government and health care. After being crushed during the pandemic, the leisure and hospitality has been steadily adding back employees and trying to meet increased demand from consumers shifting their spending from goods to services.

    Average hourly earnings — a closely watched metric as the Fed seeks to evaluate the impact of rising wages on inflation — grew 0.2% month-on-month and were up 4.6% over the year before.

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  • Rain rates in California during newest storm may reach 1 inch per hour | CNN

    Rain rates in California during newest storm may reach 1 inch per hour | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Millions of Californians already hammered by ferocious snowfall were hit Thursday by a new storm, with torrential rain threatening to cause dangerous flooding and the Weather Prediction Center increasing its excessive rainfall outlook for parts of the state to a level 4 of 4.

    “If you have feet of snow on your roof, all of a sudden that’s going to get very, very heavy. That snow is going to absorb the rainfall,” CNN Meteorologist Chad Myers warned Thursday.

    “And then in the higher elevations, it will wash away some of that snowfall. So, rain on snow will begin to fill up parts of the San Joaquin Valley.”

    About 16.7 million people are under flood watches in California and slices of Nevada. Hourly rainfall rates will steadily increase in intensity across California from Thursday overnight through Friday morning, potentially reaching 1 inch per hour.

    The level 4 excessive rainfall warning is targeted to two sections in central California – the coast from Salinas southward to San Luis Obispo and areas in the foothills of the Sierras near Fresno – Thursday overnight into Friday. The last time the Bay Area and Central Coast were in “high risk” was in 2010, the National Weather Service office in San Francisco said.

    Much of the state is under some risk of excessive rainfall Thursday and Friday.

    “An atmospheric river will bring anomalous moisture to California Thursday and Friday. The combination of heavy precipitation and rapid snow melt below 5,000 feet will result in flooding,” the prediction center said Wednesday, adding that “numerous” floods are likely for millions.

    The most vulnerable areas for flooding from rain and snowmelt are creeks and streams in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada, the prediction center said.

    Higher elevations will see heavy, wet snow. “This will lead to difficult travel, and combined with an already deep snowpack, may lead to increasing impacts from the depth and weight of the snow,” the prediction center said.

    The bleak forecast spurred officials across central and Northern California to urge residents to prepare, with residents in one area advised to stock up on essentials for two weeks. Others were asked to use sandbags to protect their properties and clear their waterways to lessen any flooding impacts.

    “We are asking people to watch their news, stay informed, have a full tank of gas in case they need to evacuate, get snow off of their roof if they can, if it’s safe,” Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis told CNN on Thursday. “And just be very vigilant and prepared, because we are in the era of extreme weather, and that’s what we are seeing this week.”

    Here’s what the storm could bring:

    • Heavy rainfall: The National Weather Service in San Francisco forecasts rainfall totals through Sunday morning will be from 1.5-3 inches for most urban areas with 3-6 inches in some hilly areas. As many as 8 inches could fall on the Santa Cruz Mountains and locally up to 12 inches over some peaks and higher terrain of the Santa Lucia Mountains. The National Weather Service in Los Angeles is forecasting 2-4 inches across Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties, with some areas in the latter receiving as many as 10 inches through late Friday night. The Weather Prediction Center said: “The abnormally warm and wet conditions moving in are expected to cause rapid snowmelt.”

    • Ferocious winds: More than 15 million people across central and Northern California, northern Nevada and southwestern Idaho are under high wind alerts. Wind gusts could reach up to 55 mph across lower elevations and up to 70 mph across peaks and mountains. Strong winds could knock down power lines and trees – exacerbating thousands of existing power outages from previous storms that dumped heavy snow, particularly in higher elevations.

    • More intense snow: Parts of the Sierra Nevada above 8,000 feet could get hit with 8 feet of snow. And some higher elevations across southern Oregon and the Rocky Mountains in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming could get pounded by 2 feet of snowfall between Thursday and Friday.

    Already, 34 of California’s 58 counties are under a state of emergency issued by the governor’s office due to previous storms and this week’s severe weather. The state activated its flood operations center Thursday morning.

    The forecast also led some ski resorts to announce closings. Kirkwood Mountain Resort said it would not open Friday, as did the Northstar California resort and the Heavenly resort in South Lake Tahoe, on Nevada’s border with California.

    Meanwhile, the Eastern Sierra Avalanche Center issued a backcountry avalanche warning for sections of Mono County, according to the National Weather Service in Reno, Nevada.

    Many of the areas preparing for Thursday’s storm have not had a chance to recover from the multiple rounds of fierce snow that buried some neighborhoods and made roads inaccessible as residents ran low on essential supplies.

    In hard-hit San Bernardino County, one of the recent storms claimed the life of a resident in a car crash, the sheriff’s department told CNN on Wednesday.

    video thumbnail california snowbank 81year-old

    Grandson reveals 81-year-old’s reaction after surviving in snowbank for a week

    As the storm hits central California, some urban flooding along with flooding from the smaller creeks and streams is likely. Eventually, more roads are expected to flood as the main rivers rise, said Katrina Hand, a meteorologist at the weather service’s Sacramento office.

    San Francisco officials urged small businesses to clear storm drains, stock up on inventory, use sandbags and ensure equipment is properly stored. They also suggested employers consider adjusting their work schedules for workers’ safety.

    In Merced, crews tried to clear storm drains and fortify creek banks ahead of the storm.

    City officials said flooding from previous, deadly rounds of atmospheric rivers that battered much of the state in January has made the city’s water ways unsafe.

    Atmospheric rivers are long, narrow bands of moisture in the atmosphere that carry warm air and water vapor from the tropics.

    “The city urges all residents to avoid these waterways and walking paths,” Merced officials said. “Because of ground saturation and erosion from prior storms, expect to see more debris in creek flows.”

    In San Luis Obispo, city officials on Wednesday said residents should be informed on flood insurance policies and be prepared to protect their homes. On Thursday, they issued an evacuation order for residents south of the Arroyo Grande Creek Levee.

    Evacuation warnings were also issued for residents in low-lying areas of Santa Cruz County and for people in Tulare County.

    In the Big Sur area, officials urged residents to have enough food and other essentials for at least two weeks. The Big Sur area, a roughly 90-mile stretch of California’s central coast, is one of the area’s renowned tourist attractions with rugged cliffs, mountains and hidden beaches along the Pacific Coast Highway.

    In Kern County, home to Bakersfield, fire officials urged residents to create emergency kits and to be aware of escape routes and safe areas to seek shelter if needed. Officials also encouraged the use of sandbags to protect properties.

    And in Sacramento, city officials said they intend to open overnight warming centers beginning Friday in preparation for the expected heavy rainfall and low temperatures.

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  • Oklahoma GOP senator tells union leader ‘shut your mouth’ in heated exchange over union intimidation | CNN Politics

    Oklahoma GOP senator tells union leader ‘shut your mouth’ in heated exchange over union intimidation | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Republican Sen. Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma told a witness to “shut your mouth” during a heated exchange at a Senate hearing on Wednesday.

    The witness, general president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters Sean O’Brien, went toe-to-toe with Mullin at the hearing before the Senate Health, Labor, Education and Pensions Committee. The panel’s chairman, Vermont independent Sen. Bernie Sanders, had to intervene multiple times to get the questioning back on track.

    “I want to make it very clear. I’m not against unions. I’m not at all. Some of my very good friends work for unions, they work hard, and they do a good job,” Mullin said. “Please don’t make an assumption that I’m anti-union, but I also want to set the record straight.”

    Mullin then criticized the panel for not discussing allegations of unions intimidating workers who do not want to join their organizations, and pointed to his own experience where he alleges unions tried to intimidate him and his employees.

    “I’m not afraid of physical confrontation, in fact sometimes I look forward to it. That’s not my problem,” he said. Mullin is a former mixed martial arts fighter.

    He asked O’Brien his salary. “Well, I’m glad you asked that question,” began O’Brien, before Mullin cut him off by reading off his 2019 annual income. O’Brien and Mullin went back and forth on what UPS drivers make, with O’Brien saying Mullin’s numbers were “inaccurate.”

    O’Brien told Mullin that his line of questioning was “out of line,” at which point Mullin replied, “Sir, you need to shut your mouth.”

    “You’re gonna tell me to shut my mouth?” O’Brien fired back. “Tough guy. ‘I’m not afraid of physical confrontation.’”

    Sanders banged his gavel and told Mullin to let O’Brien answer the questions.

    “It was rhetorical,” Mullin said.

    “You ask a question, he has a right to answer that,” Sanders told him.

    Sanders repeatedly had to stop the witness and senator from criticizing each other, as Mullin said this was showing how union leaders behave.

    “No, this shows your behavior,” Sanders ordered. “Stay on the issue, please.”

    Mullin’s time expired without O’Brien answering another question.

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  • Why lithium-ion batteries found in many products keep exploding | CNN Business

    Why lithium-ion batteries found in many products keep exploding | CNN Business

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    CNN
     — 

    Lithium-ion batteries, found in many popular consumer products, are under scrutiny again following a massive fire this week in New York City thought to be caused by the battery that powered an electric scooter.

    At least seven people have been injured in a five-alarm fire in the Bronx which required the attention of 200 firefighters. Officials believe the incident stemmed from a lithium-ion battery of a scooter found on the roof of an apartment building. In 2022, the the New York City Fire Department responded to more than 200 e-scooter and e-bike fires, which resulted in six fatalities.

    “In all of these fires, these lithium-ion fires, it is not a slow burn; there’s not a small amount of fire, it literally explodes,” FDNY Commissioner Laura Kavanagh told reporters. “It’s a tremendous volume of fire as soon as it happens, and it’s very difficult to extinguish and so it’s particularly dangerous.”

    A residential fire earlier this week in Carlsbad, California, was suspected to be caused by an e-scooter lithium battery. On Tuesday, an alarming video surfaced of a Canadian homeowner running downstairs to find his electric bike battery exploding into flames. A fire at a multi-family home in Massachusetts last month is also under investigation for similar issues.

    These incidents are becoming more common for a number of reasons. For starters, lithium-ion batteries are now in numerous consumer tech products, powering laptops, cameras, smartphones and more. They allow companies to squeeze hours of battery life into increasingly slim devices. But a combination of manufacturer issues, misuse and aging batteries can heighten the risk from the batteries, which use flammable materials.

    “Lithium batteries are generally safe and unlikely to fail, but only so long as there are no defects and the batteries are not damaged or mistreated,” said Steve Kerber, vice president and executive director of Underwriters Laboratory’s (UL) Fire Safety Research Institute (FSRI). “The more batteries that surround us the more incidents we will see.”

    In 2016, Samsung issued a global recall of the Galaxy Note 7 in 2016, citing “battery cell issues” that caused the device to catch fire and at times explode. HP and Sony later recalled lithium computer batteries for fire hazards, and about 500,000 hoverboards were recalled due to a risk of “catching fire and/or exploding,” according to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission.

    In 2020, the Federal Aviation Administration banned uninstalled lithium-ion metal batteries from being checked in luggage and said they must remain with a passenger in their carry-on baggage, if approved by the airline and between 101-160 watt hours. “Smoke and fire incidents involving lithium batteries can be mitigated by the cabin crew and passengers inside the aircraft cabin,” the FAA said.

    Despite the concerns, lithium-ion batteries continue to be prevalent in many of today’s most popular gadgets. Some tech companies point to their abilities to charge faster, last longer and pack more power into a lighter package.

    But not all lithium batteries are the same.

    Dylan Khoo, an analyst at tech intelligence firm ABI Research, said electric bikes and scooters use batteries which can be around 50 times larger than the one in a smartphone. “So when a fire does happen, it’s much more dangerous,” Khoo said.

    All lithium-ion batteries use flammable materials, and incidents such as the one in the Bronx are likely the result of “thermal runaway,” a chain reaction which can lead to a fire or catastrophic explosion, according to Khoo.

    “This process can be triggered by a battery overheating, being punctured, or an electrical fault like a short circuit,” Khoo said. “In cases where fires occur spontaneously while charging, it is likely due to manufacturing defects.”

    According to Kerber, the number of lithium-ion battery-based fires is growing with enormous frequency both in the United States and internationally, particularly when it comes to e-bikes and e-scooters, due to an uptick in purchases of these products during the pandemic.

    “After Covid started, scooter use went dramatically up, especially in places like New York City, for deliveries,” Kerber said. “People started to get overcharged for them and turned to manufacturers which happened to have lower quality control with the battery systems. The quality manufacturers are not having issues.”

    “It will continue to happen until there are regulations around the quality of these devices,” Kerber said.

    Kerber recommends people buy UL-certified electric bikes and scooters from reputable retailers; online marketplaces often make it hard for customers to tell where products are actually coming from. If a fire occurs, he advised people to evacuate and call 911 immediately rather than trying to put it out themselves.

    “The fire spreads incredibly fast and a fire extinguisher is not effective,” he said.

    Beyond scooters and e-bikes, experts warn anyone with a lithium-ion battery should follow proper charging and battery usage guidelines. According to researchers at the University of Michigan, any device with this kind of battery should be charged and stored in a cool, dry place, and not left charging for too long or while you’re asleep – a recommendation likely at odds with how many consumers handle their devices.

    “Elevated temperatures can accelerate degradation of almost every battery component and can lead to significant safety risks, including fire or explosion,” the researchers said. “If a laptop or cellphone is noticeably hot while it’s charging, unplug it. Minimize exposure to low temperatures, especially when charging.”

    Batteries should also be routinely inspected to make sure there is no cracking, bulging or leaking, and people should always use the charger that came with the device or use one from a reputable supplier. When charging an electric scooter or bike, Kerber said it should never block a fire escape or exit route.

    Although some battery chemistries are safer than others, we are still a few years away from adoption of a better, safer lithium-ion alternative, according to Sridhar Srinivasan, a senior director at market research firm Gartner.

    For example, LFP (lithium iron phosphate) batteries don’t overheat as much as other types of lithium-ion batteries. Future battery technologies in development, such as sodium-ion or solid state batteries, are also expected to address some of the safety issues of lithium ion.

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  • Not touching Social Security could lead to 20% benefit cut within a decade | CNN Politics

    Not touching Social Security could lead to 20% benefit cut within a decade | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    President Joe Biden and House Republicans have promised not to touch Social Security in their battle over cutting spending to address the nation’s debt ceiling crisis.

    While that vow is intended to indicate support of the popular entitlement program, it could actually lead to financial disaster.

    Tens of millions of senior citizens and other recipients could see their benefits slashed by at least 20% within a decade. The latest Congressional Budget Office projection found that Social Security’s retirement trust fund would be exhausted by 2032.

    “There’s a sense in which doing nothing does not preserve Social Security but affects the benefits that are not able to be paid out,” CBO Director Phillip Swagel said at a Bipartisan Policy Center event last month.

    Social Security has long been on shaky financial ground. As the US population ages, there are fewer workers paying into the program and supporting the ballooning number of beneficiaries, who are also living longer. In all, nearly 66 million retired workers, their dependents and survivors, disabled workers and their dependents receive monthly payments.

    Forecasts on when Social Security’s retirement and disability trust funds may be depleted differ by a few years. Social Security’s trustees last year pegged the date at 2035 if Congress doesn’t act.

    However, the entitlement program is also one of the third rails of American politics, so elected officials are hesitant to suggest any changes that could lead to benefit cuts.

    “Pretending this isn’t a problem, that this isn’t current law, is dishonest,” said Gordon Gray, the director of fiscal policy at the right-leaning American Action Forum. “And it is a choice – a number of policymakers are making this choice. And it is a major financial risk to the retirement benefits of tens of millions of Americans.”

    The last time Congress enacted a major overhaul, in 1983, Social Security was only months away from being able to pay full benefits. At that time, Democratic lawmakers who controlled the House agreed with Senate Republicans and GOP President Ronald Reagan to increase payroll taxes and gradually raise the normal retirement age from 65 to 67, among other reforms.

    While Biden has promised to strengthen Social Security and defend it from any cuts by Republicans, he has yet to lay out his vision for protecting the program. Ahead of his full budget release this week, the president on Tuesday unveiled a plan to bolster a key Medicare trust fund – which could be depleted as soon as 2028 – by raising taxes on higher-income earners and allowing Medicare to negotiate prices for even more drugs.

    There are several ways to put Social Security on more solid financial footing, though each has its opponents on Capitol Hill and in the White House. Lawmakers could raise the early retirement age, currently 62, or increase the normal retirement age again. They could hike the payroll tax rate, now 12.4% split between the employer and worker, or lift the cap on income subject to the levy, currently $160,200. Congress could also change the formula of the annual cost-of-living adjustment so it ramps up more slowly.

    However, it’s unlikely anything will be done in the near term, in part because of the current lack of bipartisanship in Washington, said Gary Engelhardt, economics professor at Syracuse University.

    “It’s only going to be more expensive, the longer you wait,” he said. “But Americans have a penchant for waiting to do things politically. So I just feel like nothing’s going to happen in the short run.”

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