You can add location information to your Tweets, such as your city or precise location, from the web and via third-party applications. You always have the option to delete your Tweet location history. Learn more

You can add location information to your Tweets, such as your city or precise location, from the web and via third-party applications. You always have the option to delete your Tweet location history. Learn more

You can add location information to your Tweets, such as your city or precise location, from the web and via third-party applications. You always have the option to delete your Tweet location history. Learn more

You can add location information to your Tweets, such as your city or precise location, from the web and via third-party applications. You always have the option to delete your Tweet location history. Learn more

Democrats struck a chord with voters in the 2020 elections by campaigning on the need for the wealthiest Americans to pay higher taxes. Now the party is flirting with a major change in tax policy that would allow the wealthiest Americans to pay lower taxes.

A bloc of House Democrats, mostly from the New York area, are loudly withholding support for a broad package of tax increases to fund President Biden’s infrastructure plan unless it also includes a tax cut: an unlimited deduction for state and local tax payments, or SALT.

In the narrowly divided House, it takes only a handful of Democrats to derail the president’s agenda by making common cause with do-nothing Republicans. In an open letter last week addressed to the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, 17 of the 19 Democrats who represent New York threatened to do exactly that, writing that they “reserve the right” to vote against any tax increase that does not include a “full repeal” of the $10,000 limit on the SALT...

Companies producing everything from steel to electric cars are planning and building new plants in Southwest states, far from historical hubs of American industry in the Midwest and Southeast. The lure is open land, local tax breaks and a growing supply of tech-savvy workers.

The Southwest, comprising Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and Oklahoma, increased its manufacturing output more than any other region in the U.S. in the four years through 2020, according to an analysis by The Wall Street Journal of data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis.

Those states plus Nevada added more than 100,000 manufacturing jobs from January 2017 to January 2020, representing 30% of U.S. job growth in that sector and at roughly triple the national growth rate, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Executives say the region’s growing population makes for plenty of available labor, and its lower cost of living is a draw for new talent.

“I was...

Companies have spent more than a decade forcing employees and customers to resolve disputes outside the traditional court system, using secretive arbitration proceedings that typically don’t allow plaintiffs to team up and extract big-money payments akin to a class action.

Now, Amazon . com Inc. is bucking that trend. With no announcement, the company recently changed its terms of service to allow customers to file lawsuits. Already, it faces at least three proposed class actions, including one brought May 18 alleging the company’s Alexa-powered Echo devices recorded people without permission.

The retail giant made the change after plaintiffs’ lawyers flooded Amazon with more than 75,000 individual arbitration demands on behalf of Echo users. That move triggered a bill for tens of millions of dollars in filing fees, according to lawyers involved, payable by Amazon under its own policies.

Amazon’s decision to drop its arbitration requirement is the...

You can add location information to your Tweets, such as your city or precise location, from the web and via third-party applications. You always have the option to delete your Tweet location history. Learn more

Only about 61 percent of the adults in Montana are employed at the moment. That leaves more than 300,000 who aren’t working. So I was surprised when the state’s Republican governor, Greg Gianforte, declared in May that Montana is experiencing a “labor shortage.”

In capitalist countries, the standard remedy for labor shortages is to recruit workers by offering higher wages or other inducements. Mr. Gianforte has a different plan in mind. Beginning June 27, the state will reduce weekly payments to unemployed workers by $300, cutting off a federal subsidy that was scheduled to run through early September.

This struck other Republican governors as such a good idea that 23 other states have since announced plans to follow Montana’s example. Together they intend to reject more than $26 billion in federal aid payments to 4.5 million unemployed workers — money that would have helped those workers and surely would have been spent mostly in those states.

A lot of people...

Only about 61 percent of the adults in Montana are employed at the moment. That leaves more than 300,000 who aren’t working. So I was surprised when the state’s Republican governor, Greg Gianforte, declared in May that Montana is experiencing a “labor shortage.”

In capitalist countries, the standard remedy for labor shortages is to recruit workers by offering higher wages or other inducements. Mr. Gianforte has a different plan in mind. Beginning June 27, the state will reduce weekly payments to unemployed workers by $300, cutting off a federal subsidy that was scheduled to run through early September.

This struck other Republican governors as such a good idea that 23 other states have since announced plans to follow Montana’s example. Together they intend to reject more than $26 billion in federal aid payments to 4.5 million unemployed workers — money that would have helped those workers and surely would have been spent mostly in those states.

A lot of people...

Only about 61 percent of the adults in Montana are employed at the moment. That leaves more than 300,000 who aren’t working. So I was surprised when the state’s Republican governor, Greg Gianforte, declared in May that Montana is experiencing a “labor shortage.”

In capitalist countries, the standard remedy for labor shortages is to recruit workers by offering higher wages or other inducements. Mr. Gianforte has a different plan in mind. Beginning June 27, the state will reduce weekly payments to unemployed workers by $300, cutting off a federal subsidy that was scheduled to run through early September.

This struck other Republican governors as such a good idea that 23 other states have since announced plans to follow Montana’s example. Together they intend to reject more than $26 billion in federal aid payments to 4.5 million unemployed workers — money that would have helped those workers and surely would have been spent mostly in those states.

A lot of people...

You can add location information to your Tweets, such as your city or precise location, from the web and via third-party applications. You always have the option to delete your Tweet location history. Learn more

You can add location information to your Tweets, such as your city or precise location, from the web and via third-party applications. You always have the option to delete your Tweet location history. Learn more