The bipartisan group of lawmakers, including Reps. Maxine Waters (D., Calif.) and French Hill (R., Ark.), has sought for the U.S. to counter global competitors launching digital versions of their currencies. The House Financial Services Committee, which both serve on, might vote on related legislation as soon as next month.

Politics: Democrats' climate, healthcare and tax bill heads to the House in a vote scheduled for this week. 

Biden Administration: President Biden is scheduled to travel to Kentucky today to visit families affected by recent flooding and survey impacts and response efforts. 

Economy: Inflation and inventories data to be released this week will be closely watched. 

From Berlin to Tokyo to Wellington, economic growth is slowing or turning negative across advanced economies, yet labor markets remain historically tight. Talk of a “jobful recession” has centered on the U.S., where payrolls grew by more than half a million in July and the unemployment rate declined to its prepandemic low of 3.5% even as economic output contracted in the three months through June. The same conundrum crops up around the world. In Germany, growth stalled in the three months through June, and the country faces imminent recession as its energy supplies dry up. But the unemployment rate remains close to a 40-year low, and almost half of companies say worker shortages are hampering production. The jobless rate in the wider eurozone is at a record low. New Zealand’s economy shrank in the first three months of the year, but its jobless rate, at 3.3%, has stayed close to a multidecade low, Tom Fairless and Megumi Fujikawa report.

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The Federal Reserve is launching a review of its internal rules governing the financial activities of its officials in the wake of news last week that the leaders of the Dallas and Boston regional Fed banks actively traded in financial markets.

“Because the trust of the American people is essential for the Federal Reserve to effectively carry out our important mission, Chair [Jerome] Powell late last week directed Board staff to take a fresh and comprehensive look at the ethics rules around permissible financial holdings and activities by senior Fed officials,” a Fed spokesperson said Thursday.

The U.S. tax code is larded with provisions that the wealthy use to reduce their taxes. Some get a lot of attention, while some are inserted into tax bills very quietly—like Opportunity Zones, or OZs.

Six pages tucked into the sprawling 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act led to the creation of 8,764 of these tax havens across the U.S., ostensibly to lure private capital to poor neighborhoods. Anyone can invest capital gains from a previous investment in a building or business in a census tract designated as an OZ by a state’s governor, defer and reduce taxes on that initial gain, and then pay zero capital-gains tax on any profits from that OZ investment, provided that they stick with it for 10 years. Other than holding on to an appreciated asset until you bequeath it to your children, there aren’t many other ways to avoid capital-gains taxes altogether. This one has a huge advantage: “You don’t have to die,” says Brad Cohen, a Los Angeles tax lawyer.

WASHINGTON—Democrats are taking a fresh look at their proposals for reducing carbon emissions in their $3.5 trillion spending package, hoping to win over moderate party members who raised concerns about elements of the plan.

Democrats have laid out a variety of provisions aimed at combating climate change in the wide-ranging proposal, including tax credits for purchasing electric vehicles, a program to push utilities to produce more clean electricity and a fee on methane emissions. Now, in an effort to unite the party, lawmakers are considering changes and eyeing alternative options, including a carbon tax.

WASHINGTON—Democrats are taking a fresh look at their proposals for reducing carbon emissions in their $3.5 trillion spending package, hoping to win over moderate party members who raised concerns about elements of the plan.

Democrats have laid out a variety of provisions aimed at combating climate change in the wide-ranging proposal, including tax credits for purchasing electric vehicles, a program to push utilities to produce more clean electricity and a fee on methane emissions. Now, in an effort to unite the party, lawmakers are considering changes and eyeing alternative options, including a carbon tax.

PHOENIX—Unlike the other Democratic senator in Arizona, Sen. Mark Kelly isn’t causing trouble for party leaders, saying he is focused on state issues. Republicans argue his stance gives them an opening to unseat him when he seeks re-election next year.

Mr. Kelly last year narrowly defeated a Republican appointee to win the remainder of the late GOP Sen. John McCain’s Senate term in the swing state. His 2022 race is seen as one of the top pickup opportunities for Republicans and could decide which party controls the U.S. Senate, currently split 50-50 but controlled by Democrats.

When Republicans made sweeping changes to corporate taxes in their 2017 tax overhaul, executives and tax professionals worried that a Democratic Congress could roll back the legislation’s rate cuts without reinstating the many tax breaks the law tightened or eliminated.

Based on this week’s congressional tax proposal, it looks as if they were right.

A top Senate Democrat has been circulating a proposal that would hit the rapidly growing world of exchange-traded funds. Big money managers are bracing for a fight.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden’s proposal aims to tax ETFs’ use of “in-kind” transactions that currently avoids triggering capital-gains taxes. With such in-kind transactions, ETFs—bundles of securities that trade on exchanges—transfer appreciated stock, bonds or other assets to Wall Street intermediaries instead of cash.

U.S. retail sales rose 0.7% in August, a sign the economic recovery has resilience despite the Delta variant.

U.S. retail sales likely fell for the second straight month in August, according to economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal. The Commerce Department will release official figures at 8:30 a.m. ET Thursday.

Product shortages and the Delta variant are preventing many Americans from spending at retailers, restraining the economic recovery.

U.S. retail sales likely fell for the second straight month in August, according to economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal. The Commerce Department will release official figures at 8:30 a.m. ET Thursday.

Jobless claims likely held near a pandemic low last week, as layoffs ease despite a rise in coronavirus cases tied to the Delta variant.

Economists expect a Labor Department report on Thursday to show initial unemployment claims rose slightly to 320,000 last week from a pandemic low of 310,000 a week earlier. Delayed filings following Hurricane Ida, which hit Louisiana at the end of August, could have contributed to a small increase last week, some economists say.

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Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) is calling on regional Federal Reserve Banks to set rules that would prevent their leaders from trading individual stocks, following recent disclosures that the chiefs of the Boston and Dallas banks actively traded stocks and other investments last year.

“The controversy over asset trading by high-level Fed personnel highlights why it is necessary to ban ownership and trading of individual stocks by senior officials who are supposed to serve the public interest,” Ms. Warren wrote in letters addressed to the leaders of the 12 regional Fed banks.

This should be the best of times for low-wage workers, as pandemic-induced labor shortages force employers to sharply raise pay. Yet for many, it doesn’t feel that way, because those same disruptions have pushed inflation to near its highest rate in over a decade.

Troy Sutton, age 61, lost a job as a custodian at the start of the pandemic in 2020 that paid $12 an hour, and he spent more than a year unemployed. This past summer, he landed a job as a custodian at the University of Pennsylvania he said pays $18 or more an hour.