The New York Stock Exchange in Lower Manhattan. (Barbara Leonard photo/Courthouse News)
MANHATTAN (CN) Markets have spent the last three days on the rocks, as inflationary concerns peaked on Wednesday following striking consumer price information.
By the closing bell on Wednesday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average clocked in at a 682-point loss for the day, about a 2% decrease. Since Monday, the index has dropped more than 1,190 points. The S&P 500 lost 89 points on Wednesday and 170 points for the week, while the Nasdaq fell 2.6%, a 357-point decline, on Wednesday and shed 721 points this week.
The primary driver for the losses seems to be the mounting concern of inflation, which is no longer an ethereal worry. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, core inflation rose 3% from the same period last year and 0.9% in the last month alone. Headline inflation, which includes volatile food and energy prices, gained 0.8% last month compared with the 0.2% many analysts had predic
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Experts gave varying explanations after the Department of Labor reported a meager April jobs report that fell far short of predictions.
“The disappointing jobs report makes it clear that paying people not to work is dampening what should be a stronger jobs market,” U.S. Chamber of Commerce chief policy officer Neil Bradley said in a statement Friday morning.
The Biden administration said the virus may still scare unemployed workers out of looking for work and continued school closures may explain why the female unemployment rate has stayed high.
Experts gave varying explanations after the Department of Labor reported a meager April jobs report that fell far short of predictions.
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BATON ROUGE – Business groups have urged a state task force studying the problem of employee misclassifications not to saddle businesses with onerous new regulations.
Dawn Starns McVea, a member of the Misclassification of Employees Task Force and the National Federation of Independent Business’ state director, criticized the notion that some small businesses are intentionally failing to classify workers as employees in order to avoid payroll taxes.
“NFIB has been opposed to proposed new and onerous regulations and hefty fines on unsuspecting small business owners,” McVea said in a prepared statement.
The task force has its roots in a special session of the legislature last year when lawmakers passed a resolution requiring the state Department of Revenue to create a panel that would recommend changes to state laws to eliminate employee misclassification.