The economy is more than markets and headlines. We examine jobs, wages, inflation, housing, business, and financial systems to understand who benefits, who is left behind, and what the numbers actually mean.
Private label now accounts for $330 billion in annual U.S. sales, with a 21% share of all grocery spending. Store brands are outpacing national CPG brands by 2 to 3 times in growth velocity. 62% of shoppers now choose price over brand when making purchase decisions, according to Ibotta’s 2026 State of Spend report, which…
A new global inequality report puts a number on the gap that conventional wage statistics have always hidden. The World Inequality Report 2026, published by the World Inequality Lab and edited by economists Lucas Chancel, Ricardo Gómez-Carrera, Rowaida Moshrif, and Thomas Piketty, found that women globally earn 61% of what men earn per working hour…
As major events become luxury products, the city is using screens, tickets, and transit to keep the World Cup within reach. Reuters sports reporter Amy Tennery reported that New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani plans to show selected World Cup matches on hundreds of LinkNYC kiosks across the five boroughs, using public-facing digital screens that…
Real wages fell for the second straight month, and the gap between paychecks and prices just hit its widest point since the inflation shock of 2022. Average hourly earnings rose 3.4% over the year ending in May, while the Consumer Price Index rose 4.2% over the same period, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported. That…
Companies are increasingly reducing labor through attrition, allowing workforce cuts to happen quietly and with fewer political costs. Reuters reported on June 19 that BMW is preparing discussions with employee representatives as the automaker pursues additional efficiency measures after issuing another profit warning. Analysts expect headcount to decline by as much as 5%, or roughly 7,700 jobs,…
Governments, central banks, and businesses are making trillion-dollar decisions before the data can settle one of the decade’s biggest economic questions. In 2020, two economists made a bet. Stanford’s Erik Brynjolfsson wagered that artificial intelligence would push U.S. labor productivity growth above 1.8% annually through 2030. Northwestern’s Robert Gordon took the other side. Six years…
The BBC will cut 550 jobs across its news and content divisions, Reuters reported, as part of new director-general Matt Brittin’s plan to save £500 million over the next three years — the first phase of a downsizing that’s expected to eliminate 1,800 to 2,000 positions total. The cuts will close several long-running programs, including some…
As companies pour billions into AI infrastructure, workforce reductions are increasingly becoming part of the financing equation. Tech-sector employers announced 123,653 job cuts through the first five months of 2026, a 66% increase over the same period last year, according to Challenger, Gray & Christmas data reported by Yahoo Finance, with artificial intelligence cited as the…
Consumers are not buying less. They are buying differently. Kroger CEO Greg Foran told Bloomberg News in an interview published May 21 that the company is preparing to cut prices “across thousands of products” to close the gap with Walmart, Costco, Trader Joe’s, Aldi, and Amazon. “I think about our business a bit like a…
Executives talk about scarcity. Employees see replacement. Speaking at the VivaTech conference in Paris on June 17, Jeff Bezos said artificial intelligence will create a labor shortage rather than mass unemployment, directly disputing what he called a fear “that many people have, including many smart people.” Reuters reported that Bezos, appearing alongside Blue Origin CEO…