Axios

Workers in the U.S. could finally win a prized benefit enjoyed by citizens of every other wealthy country in the world: mandatory paid parental leave.

The Trump Administration has embraced the idea that federal government should mandate six weeks of paid leave — a move that contradicts decades of Republican orthodoxy. And workers interviewed Tuesday by the Wall Street Journal are welcoming the prospect with open arms.Tiffani Hyltonfell, who was forced to take unpaid leave from her job at Walmart last year after becoming a new mother said, "Six weeks fully paid, that would have saved me months of stress. It would have kept us from being stuck in extra debt for months on end, worrying about how we were going to pay for food and diapers."

Why it matters: It's inconceivable that such a measure, which the administration says will cost $19 billion over ten years, would have gotten any Republican support without the president's championing.

The number of job openings rose to another all-time high in April, according to data released Tuesday by the Labor Department. At the same time, the rate at which firms are hiring new workers fell to a one-year low.

Why it matters: Firms are demanding more labor, but not finding qualified workers, even as millions of Americans remain unemployed or outside the formal labor market. This is evidence of an expanding skills gap between what Americans can do and what Corporate America needs done. It may also convince some Federal Reserve members that wage inflation is on the horizon, and could motivate the central bank to raise rates again when it meets next week.

On Tuesday, Amazon announced discounted fees for its Prime membership for customers participating in certain government assistance programs. Customers who qualify can access Prime's unlimited free two-day shipping, video, music, reading, and photo storage services for $5.99 per month for a year. Amazon Prime's normal price is $10.99 per month or $99 per year (which works out to $8.25 per month).

Taking on Walmart: Amazon's Prime discount is a direct move to compete with Walmart, which brought in $13 billion in sales last year from shoppers using the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), or 18% of the money spent through the program, according to the Wall Street Journal. With that said, EBT cards, commonly used to collect funds from assistance programs, can't be used to pay for the membership.

Snap has acquired Placed, a Seattle-based company that provides tools to measure how online ads translate into offline purchases, the startup announced on Monday. Geekwire, which first reported the acquisition, pegs the deal at more than $200 million. Placed, which employs about 100 people, will continue to operate independently.

Online to offline: Measuring the effectiveness of digital ads at driving offline sales remains a high-stakes yet tricky area for advertising platforms, and Google unveiled its own tool last month at its annual developer conference. Snap, which lets brands sponsor custom photo filters available to Snapchat users in specified locations, debuted its "Snap to Store" feature earlier this year to let advertisers measure how much foot traffic these filters generate, and Placed's tools will now provide even more information, including across platforms.

The Bay Area gains more workers than it loses, but the net number of workers moving to the region decreased 17% since February, according to the latest LinkedIn Workforce Report.

Over the same period, people are flocking to cities like Seattle, Portland, Denver, Austin and Charlotte, the report found. These cities have a lot of high-paying jobs and a more reasonable cost of living.

What it means: The Bay Area continues to attract skilled workers thanks to the concentration of high-tech companies based there, and it still has the highest skills gap in the country — meaning demand for certain skills exceeds the supply of workers. But high housing prices and increasing traffic congestion have discouraged some workers from relocating there. Other emerging innovation hubs are gaining ground not only in the form of interest from investors, but also from workers interested in the affordable lifestyles they offer.