Investments and Business

A federal government shutdown would cut off access to key data on unemployment, inflation and spending just as policymakers are trying to guide the economy to a “soft landing” and avoid a recession.Federal statistical agencies, including the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Census Bureau and the Bureau of Economic Analysis, will suspend operations unless Congress reaches a deal before Sunday to fund the government. Even a short shutdown would probably delay high-profile data releases — including the monthly jobs report, scheduled for Oct. 6, and the Consumer Price Index, scheduled for Oct. 12.This isn’t the first time government shutdowns have…

The agency’s proposed changes come as it faces a legal challenge to its authority before the U.S. Supreme Court. Arguments in the case are expected to be heard this coming week, with a decision sometime next year.Here are some questions and answers about medical debt:What should I do if I can’t afford to pay a medical bill?If you lack health insurance, check to see if you qualify for coverage under Medicaid, the federal-state health program for low-income people, or ask if you qualify for patient assistance programs that can reduce the amount you owe, said Chi Chi Wu, a senior…

More than a week into its targeted strike at the three established U.S. car companies, the United Automobile Workers union has poked holes in a supply chain that has still not fully recovered from the pandemic.The companies and the union remain far apart in negotiations, and the U.A.W. could expand its strikes to more locations as soon as Friday. Depending on how long the strikes last, it could exact a heavy toll on autoworkers and the three companies — General Motors, Ford Motor and Stellantis, the parent of Chrysler and Jeep. But the work stoppages could also be painful to…

As the U.S. government narrowly avoided a shutdown this weekend, a different kind of high-stakes shutdown occurred on Saturday.In 2021, as part of a rescue package to combat the pandemic, the U.S. government made its single largest investment in child care, committing $24 billion to fund the sector that Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has called a textbook example of a broken market. That funding expired on Saturday, pulling a lifeline from more than 220,000 providers — about 80 percent of all child care centers across the country. In crisis-prone Washington, this one has been called the “child care cliff.”The child…

The first leg of the 35-mile journey from Ghana’s capital city, Accra, to the Fairafric chocolate factory in Amanase on the N6 highway is a quick ride. But after about 30 minutes, the smoothly paved road devolves into a dirt expanse without lanes. Lumbering trucks, packed commuter minivans, cars and motorcycles crawl along craggy, rutted stretches bordered by concrete dividers, muddy patches and heaps of rock.The stopgap roadway infrastructure is one of the challenges Fairafric has had to navigate to build a factory in this West African country. The area had no fiber-optic connection to Ghana’s telecommunications network. No local…

The day almost two years ago when Harvard Business School informed Francesca Gino, a prominent professor, that she was being investigated for data fraud also happened to be her husband’s 50th birthday. An administrator instructed her to turn in any Harvard-issued computer equipment that she had by 5 p.m. She canceled the birthday celebration she had planned and walked the machines to campus, where a University Police officer oversaw the transfer.“We ended up both going,” Dr. Gino recalled. “I couldn’t go on my own because I felt like, I don’t know, the earth was opening up under my feet for…

Federal Reserve officials received more good news in their battle against rapid inflation on Friday, when a key inflation measure continued to slow, the latest evidence that a return to normal after the pandemic and higher interest rates are combining to wrestle rapid price increases back to a more normal pace.The Personal Consumption Expenditures Index, which the central bank uses to define its 2 percent inflation goal, rose slightly more quickly last month as higher gas prices gave it a boost. It rose 3.5 percent in August from a year earlier, up from 3.4 percent in July.But after stripping out…

For months, the unwinding of China Evergrande, the world's most indebted property developer, played out like a slow-moving train crash.After filing for bankruptcy protection last month — nearly two years after the company defaulted on payments to some creditors — Evergrande appeared on the path toward a more typical debt restructuring for creditors.But it now has more than $300 billion in debt, and any semblance of normalcy is gone. In a filing with the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, Evergrande announced on Thursday that Hui Ka Yan, the company’s chairman and billionaire founder, was suspected by the authorities of criminal wrongdoing.…

The Covid-19 pandemic hurt the U.S. economy in a lot of ways. It choked global supply chains, sent consumer prices soaring and briefly knocked millions of people out of work. But it might have also broken America out of a decades-long entrepreneurial slump.New research from economists at the University of Maryland and the Federal Reserve that was presented on Friday at the Brookings Institution, a think tank in Washington, documents a potentially durable surge in Americans starting businesses during and after the pandemic. The new companies range from restaurants and dry cleaners to high-tech start-ups.That surge appears to be a…