Denis McDonough, former chief of staff to President Obama, has a new task: Getting more Americans a job in the modern workforce. McDonough has been tapped to chair Rework America, a Markle Foundation initiative. Why it matters: Half of adults living in distressed zip codes are trying to find gainful employment in the modern economy armed with only a high school education at best."Many workers have the skills employers are looking for to fill open positions, but don't know it because too many job listings are written in a way that excludes qualified job seekers rather than attracting them. They use credentials like a four-year degree as a proxy instead of listing the actual skills needed to work a job – which is a problem, since nearly seven in 10 Americans don't have a four-year degree but many have the relevant skills." — Denis McDonoughBig tech on board: Companies involved in the effort include Siemens USA, Microsoft, IBM, Princeton University, Hearsay Systems and Coursera.
A spate of recent reports is challenging an article of faith — that the modern economy is sticking it to the little guy, offering up no wage increases for years. The research documents back-to-back income increases in 2015 and 2016, and suggests that the main problem now is not stagnant wages, but a shortage of labor.
But don't get too excited: Economic data actually conflict. And there is a major fact many are leaving out: even though earnings have turned upward since 2015, they are still barely higher, adjusted for inflation, than two decades ago.
"Mark Felt: The Man Who Brought Down the White House," about the late FBI second-in-command who turned out to be Woodward and Bernstein's "Deep Throat," opens Friday in New York and L.A.
The most famous phrase associated with Deep Throat (spoken to Bob Woodward in "All the President's Men," the movie, but doesn't appear in the book): "Follow the money."
For decades, because North Korea has defied the international community's demand that it give up its nuclear ambitions, it has become the target of escalating sanctions — the latest of which, says Stephan Haggard of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, are "perhaps the most significant ... with respect to any country ever."
Google is creating a separate unit for buying ads within its shopping service, Bloomberg reports. Google Shopping will remain a part of Google, but it will operate independently and sell ads based off of its own revenues. It will be treated in Europe the same way Google treats its "Other Bets" businesses all housed under Alphabet Inc., like Verily, Nest and Waymo.
Why it matters The move comes months after European antitrust officials slapped Google with a massive $2.7 billion fine for abusing its market dominance as a search engine to steer customers to its own Google Shopping platform. By separating the shopping unit, Google can avoid paying a penalty of up to 5% of its daily revenue while it appeals the decision.
New research from Morning Consult finds that pop-up ads and pre-roll ads are the least favored by consumers. Per the study, younger viewers are willing to pay more on average to avoid invasive ads. Adults aged 34 and younger would pay about $35 to eliminate ads on social media.
Streaming now represents the majority of music revenue in the U.S., and of that revenue, the majority comes from paid subscription services, like Spotify and Apple Music, according to a new Recording Industry Association of America report.
Facebook, Twitter and other tech platforms offer marketers the ability to reach niche audiences with scale and at an efficient cost. But as Facebook's ad load continues to slow, its ad auction has become increasingly competitive, causing the average cost for every 1,000 impressions (CPM) and the average cost per click (CPC) on Facebook to skyrocket, according to data from AdStage.
