The conclusion of the latest report by the United Nations advisory body on climate—that temperatures are rising, and some effects are irreversible—wasn’t surprising. Those views are largely in line with its latest report, in 2013.

More interesting and potentially more significant is that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has become more confident in those views.

Because climate change is so complex, uncertainty is intrinsic to its study: uncertainty over its underlying drivers, their magnitudes and how they interact; over its consequences, such as on weather patterns; and over the costs and benefits of mitigation. It is why the IPCC, which helps shape its 195 member governments’ mitigation plans, assigns varying levels of confidence to its findings, which are based on reviews of thousands of studies and modeling by numerous independent scientists.

The increased confidence the IPCC shows in its findings in its latest report has both...

Zhang Jianli used to hire only male workers on his construction sites throughout Chifeng, Inner Mongolia, specifying in online job ads, “Women workers please don’t contact us.” Now with abundant work but not enough hands, Mr. Zhang says he has relented.

He now offers daily wages of about 160 yuan, roughly $25, for women workers to move wood and bricks, about one-fifth less than their male peers, and up to 200 yuan a day for urgent jobs. His ads say that both men and women can apply.

“They work hard and have few complaints,” Mr. Zhang said of the women he hires, most in their 40s and 50s.

Chinese women are increasingly taking on heavy-labor jobs long dominated by men in construction, transportation and other sectors, bucking traditional gender roles in China’s vast workforce.

A labor shortage caused by low birthrates and an aging population is pushing employers to recruit more women to build high-rises, maintain rail tracks and drive trucks, among...

Inflation remained elevated in July as the economic recovery continued, but prices showed evidence of cooling amid pandemic-related supply problems and signs that the recent rise in coronavirus infections is starting to crimp some business activity.

Consumer prices rose 5.4% in July from a year earlier, the same pace as in June, the highest 12-month rate since 2008, the Labor Department reported Wednesday.

On a monthly basis, however, price pressures weakened. The department’s consumer-price index climbed a seasonally adjusted 0.5% in July from June, a significantly slower pace than its 0.9% increase in June from May, though well above the average 0.2% rate from 2000 to 2019.

The CPI measures what consumers pay for goods and services, including groceries, clothes, restaurant meals, recreation and vehicles.

The so-called core price index, which excludes the often volatile categories of food and energy, increased 4.3% from a year before, down from...

Even more encouraging than the better-than-expected growth in jobs and fall in unemployment in July were signs of the improving underlying health of the labor market. First, the broadest measure of unemployment, which includes people who want to work but aren’t looking, or working part time because they can’t find full time work, is falling much more quickly than the official unemployment rate. It dropped to 9.2% in July from 9.8%, just 2.2 points higher than before the pandemic began. Second, the number of people unemployed 27 weeks or longer fell 560,000 to 3.4 million, down 793,000 from its March peak. Among the unemployed, just 2.9 million had lost their jobs permanently, down 600,000 since its April peak. These trends all militate against “scarring” of the labor force, that is people left unemployed or underemployed for years because of the recession. —Greg Ip

Available jobs in the U.S. rose to another record high at the end of June, pushing openings above the number of unemployed Americans seeking work, a sign of an unusually tight labor market.

Unfilled job openings rose by 590,000 to a seasonally adjusted 10.1 million in June, the highest level since record-keeping began in 2000, the Labor Department said Monday. The increase was driven by industries such as professional and business services, retail and the accommodation and food services, as pandemic restrictions continued to ease that month and consumers were more willing to dine out and travel.

The June increase in job openings came ahead of an uptick in cases tied to Covid-19’s Delta variant. Private measures of job postings through July showed openings remained elevated, though they began to plateau as hiring improved. The continued high number of openings indicates that the variant, so far, isn’t affecting hiring plans.

The number of job openings in...

Mortgage finance giant Fannie Mae is making it easier to include rent-payment history as part of the mortgage approval process, a move intended to help borrowers with limited credit histories get better access to home loans.

Fannie Mae said that starting next month it will help lenders factor in borrowers’ history of rent payments when weighing those applicants’ qualifications.

Fannie Mae doesn’t require lenders to consider rent history, if a borrower has a credit report and score that meet the company’s criteria. But credit reports often don’t include residential-rent payments because most landlords don’t report the data to credit-reporting firms. Renters’ credit scores, which are based on information in their credit reports, as a result also don’t reflect that data.

The issue has been problematic for consumers with limited borrowing histories, who have difficulty getting approved for affordable credit.

“In some markets, it’s just as expensive...

The Biden administration is extending the pause on federal student loan payments and interest through early 2022.

The Education Department said that it would uphold the moratorium, which the administration first extended earlier this year and suspends loan payments, interest accrual, and collections on defaulted loans. The pause was set to expire at the end of September 2021.

Here are the details on the extension, who will benefit and what lies ahead when it comes to student-debt legislation.

WASHINGTON—The Senate passed a $3.5 trillion budget blueprint early Wednesday, the first step in an arduous process designed to allow Democrats to push through a sweeping package of education, healthcare, climate and other provisions without GOP support.

The party line vote, 50-49, came just before 4 a.m., one day after the Senate passed a roughly $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure package. It is an initial victory for President Biden and congressional Democrats who are seeking to pass as much of their legislative agenda as possible this year, before next year’s midterm elections overtake Capitol Hill.

Senate Democrats “just took a massive step towards restoring the middle class of the 21st century,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) said after the vote. “What we’re doing here is not easy. Democrats have labored for months to reach this point. And there are many labors to come. But I can say with absolute certainty that it will be worth...

American gas-station owners are facing a tough decision over whether to invest in electric-vehicle charging stations, a costly bet that currently makes little financial sense but might help future-proof their businesses.

Some gas stations, convenience stores and truck stops are adding chargers to test the technology and protect their market share for the long run. Others say they crunched the numbers and decided they can’t justify the cost, given the small share of electric-vehicle drivers. Charging units and installation typically cost upward of $100,000 each, and might entail the expense of tearing up pavement to lay conduit.

Auto makers including General Motors Co. and Ford Motor Co. are aggressively expanding their lineups of electric vehicles, and President Biden last week set a target to increase U.S. sales of electric, plug-in hybrid and hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles to 50% by 2030. However, electric vehicles made up only about 2% of new U.S. sales last...

The conclusion of the latest report by the United Nations advisory body on climate—that temperatures are rising, and some effects are irreversible—wasn’t surprising. Those views are largely in line with its latest report, in 2013.

More interesting and potentially more significant is that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has become more confident in those views.

Because climate change is so complex, uncertainty is intrinsic to its study: uncertainty over its underlying drivers, their magnitudes and how they interact; over its consequences, such as on weather patterns; and over the costs and benefits of mitigation. It is why the IPCC, which helps shape its 195 member governments’ mitigation plans, assigns varying levels of confidence to its findings, which are based on reviews of thousands of studies and modeling by numerous independent scientists.

The increased confidence the IPCC shows in its findings in its latest report has both...

More than seven months after it was launched, the biggest rental assistance program in U.S. history has delivered just a fraction of the promised aid to tenants and landlords struggling with the impact of the Covid-19 crisis.

Since last December, Congress has appropriated a total of $46.6 billion to help tenants who were behind on their rent. As of June 30, just $3 billion had been distributed, though a senior official said the Biden administration hoped at least another $2 billion had been distributed in July.

While the program is overseen by the Treasury, it relies on a patchwork of more than 450 state, county and municipal governments and charitable organizations to distribute aid. The result: months of delays as local governments built new programs from scratch, hired staff and crafted rules for how the money should be distributed, then struggled to process a deluge of applications.

Often, tenants and landlords didn’t know money was available, and...

What's News brings you the headlines and business news that move markets and the world—twice every weekday. In 10-12 minutes, get caught up on the best Wall Street Journal scoops and exclusives, with insight and analysis from the award-winning reporters that broke the stories. Hosted by Annmarie Fertoli and Marc Stewart.

More than seven months after it was launched, the biggest rental assistance program in U.S. history has delivered just a fraction of the promised aid to tenants and landlords struggling with the impact of the Covid-19 crisis.

Since last December, Congress has appropriated a total of $46.6 billion to help tenants who were behind on their rent. As of June 30, just $3 billion had been distributed, though a senior official said the Biden administration hoped at least another $2 billion had been distributed in July.

While the program is overseen by the Treasury, it relies on a patchwork of more than 450 state, county and municipal governments and charitable organizations to distribute aid. The result: months of delays as local governments built new programs from scratch, hired staff and crafted rules for how the money should be distributed, then struggled to process a deluge of applications.

Often, tenants and landlords didn’t know money was available, and...

New applications for jobless benefits declined for the third straight week, showing the labor market continues to heal despite worries about the Delta variant.

First-time applications for benefits, a proxy for layoffs, fell to a seasonally adjusted 375,000 in the week ended Aug. 7, from a revised 387,000 in the prior week, the Labor Department said Thursday. In recent weeks, jobless claims have been hovering just above the lowest level touched since the pandemic took hold in the U.S. in March 2020.

The four-week moving average, which smooths often volatile data, edged up to 396,250 last week. That is well below the roughly 6 million new claims filed in late March and early April 2020, but above the about 220,000 applications filed weekly in the months before the pandemic.

The recent claims data matches with other indicators showing momentum in the labor market and broader economy is continuing despite signs that the recent rise in coronavirus infections...

The first detailed results of the 2020 census show that the total white population shrank for the first time in the nation’s history as the U.S. diversified and continued to grow more rapidly in the South and Southwest.

The non-Hispanic white population dropped 2.6% between 2010 and 2020, a decline that puts that group’s share of the total U.S. population below 60%. The number of people who identify as more than one race or ethnicity grew at the fastest rate of any group, partly due to changes that captured more detailed responses.

The nation’s population grew just 7.4% during the decade, the second slowest on record for a decennial census. Only the 1930s—the era of the Great Depression—recorded slower growth. Slightly more than half—51.1%—of the total U.S. population growth in the latest period came from increases among Hispanic or Latino residents, the Census Bureau said.

As many cities and suburbs continued to grow, the bureau said that the trend...

Two Federal Reserve officials said Wednesday it is time for the central bank to start reversing the easy money policies put in place to support the economy after the coronavirus pandemic hit the U.S. in March 2020.

Kansas City Fed President Esther George said the central bank has made enough progress toward its objectives of boosting growth and employment to end its $120 billion in monthly purchases of Treasury and mortgage securities. The Fed has been purchasing large quantities of assets to provide extra stimulus after cutting its short-term interest rate to near zero, and officials in December pledged to continue those purchases until making “substantial” progress toward economic and labor-market health.

“With the recovery under way, a transition from extraordinary monetary policy accommodation to more neutral settings must follow,” Ms. George said in a speech to the National Association for Business Economics on Wednesday. “Today’s tight economy…certainly...

The Bank of Mexico raised interest rates for a second consecutive meeting Thursday, citing persistent price pressures and supply shocks that it expects will keep inflation above its 3% target into early 2023.

The board of governors voted 3-2 to increase the overnight interest-rate target by a quarter of a percentage point to 4.5%, in line with market expectations. Deputy governors Galia Borja and Gerardo Esquivel voted to leave the rate at 4.25%.

The...

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Home prices surged in almost every corner of the U.S. in the second quarter as robust demand continued to overwhelm the supply of homes for sale.

The median sales price for single-family existing homes was higher in the quarter compared with a year ago for 182 of the 183 metro areas tracked by the National Association of Realtors, the association said Thursday. In 94% of those metro areas, median prices rose by more than 10% from a year earlier.

Nationwide, the median single-family existing-home sales price rose 22.9% in the second quarter to $357,900 from a year ago, a record in data going back to 1968, NAR said.

Home prices have climbed in the past year as low interest rates and increased remote work spurred new homebuying demand. At the same time, the inventory of homes on the market has dropped as potential sellers canceled or delayed their plans to move. The homes that do hit the market sell quickly, often after a bidding war.

Still, the...

We are delighted that you'd like to resume your subscription.

You will be charged $ + tax (if applicable) for The Wall Street Journal. You may change your billing preferences at any time in the Customer Center or call Customer Service. You will be notified in advance of any changes in rate or terms. You may cancel your subscription at anytime by calling Customer Service.

Please click confirm to resume now.

Many coffee drinkers can expect to pay more for their cup of joe at supermarkets and cafe registers, as producers grapple with higher coffee bean prices, constrained supplies and other costs.

Retail brands like Folgers, as well as independent coffee chains, are raising prices or plan to soon, executives said. Starbucks Corp. and Nestlé SA have said they could increase prices, while other coffee sellers try to hold prices steady, aiming to capture more business.

Coffee roasters and cafe operators are responding to poor harvests in major coffee-growing regions and logistics snarls that executives said have constrained bean supplies, delayed shipments and boosted costs. Companies are also raising wages to recruit and retain workers.

The supply chain issues are likely to worsen as a cold snap in Brazil, the world’s biggest coffee producer, is expected to reduce next year’s crop. The price of coffee futures traded on Intercontinental Exchange Inc. markets...

Many coffee drinkers can expect to pay more for their cup of joe at supermarkets and cafe registers, as producers grapple with higher coffee bean prices, constrained supplies and other costs.

Retail brands like Folgers, as well as independent coffee chains, are raising prices or plan to soon, executives said. Starbucks Corp. and Nestlé SA have said they could increase prices, while other coffee sellers try to hold prices steady, aiming to capture more business.

Coffee roasters and cafe operators are responding to poor harvests in major coffee-growing regions and logistics snarls that executives said have constrained bean supplies, delayed shipments and boosted costs. Companies are also raising wages to recruit and retain workers.

The supply chain issues are likely to worsen as a cold snap in Brazil, the world’s biggest coffee producer, is expected to reduce next year’s crop. The price of coffee futures traded on Intercontinental Exchange Inc. markets...

Home prices surged in almost every corner of the U.S. in the second quarter as robust demand continued to overwhelm the supply of homes for sale.

The median sales price for single-family existing homes was higher in the quarter compared with a year ago for 182 of the 183 metro areas tracked by the National Association of Realtors, the association said Thursday. In 94% of those metro areas, median prices rose by more than 10% from a year earlier.

Nationwide, the median single-family existing-home sales price rose 22.9% in the second quarter to $357,900 from a year ago, a record in data going back to 1968, NAR said.

Home prices have climbed in the past year as low interest rates and increased remote work spurred new homebuying demand. At the same time, the inventory of homes on the market has dropped as potential sellers canceled or delayed their plans to move. The homes that do hit the market sell quickly, often after a bidding war.

Still, the...

New applications for jobless benefits declined for the third straight week, showing the labor market continues to heal despite worries about the Delta variant.

First-time applications for benefits, a proxy for layoffs, fell to a seasonally adjusted 375,000 in the week ended Aug. 7, from a revised 387,000 in the prior week, the Labor Department said Thursday. In recent weeks, jobless claims have been hovering just above the lowest level touched since the pandemic took hold in the U.S. in March 2020.

The four-week moving average, which smooths often volatile data, edged up to 396,250 last week. That is well below the roughly 6 million new claims filed in late March and early April 2020, but above the about 220,000 applications filed weekly in the months before the pandemic.

The recent claims data matches with other indicators showing momentum in the labor market and broader economy is continuing despite signs that the recent rise in coronavirus infections...

WASHINGTON—Hours after the Senate passed a $3.5 trillion budget framework, Democratic leaders quickly confronted looming challenges in keeping the party united, as centrist and progressive lawmakers aired rival concerns over the package set to be finalized this fall.

Sen. Joe Manchin (D., W.Va.), an influential centrist who has raised objections to previous Democratic bills, expressed alarm over the budget resolution’s price tag Wednesday, shortly after the Senate officially kicked off the process of crafting a package of antipoverty, education, healthcare and climate provisions with a predawn 50-49 party-line vote.

“I have serious concerns about the grave consequences facing West Virginians and every American family if Congress decides to spend another $3.5 trillion,” Mr. Manchin said Wednesday. “Given the current state of the economic recovery, it is simply irresponsible to continue spending at levels more suited to respond to a Great Depression or Great...