Author: Brian Lund
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A South Carolina restaurant chain paid $618,666 to 779 workers over a tip pool that included managers
Investigators went looking for unpaid overtime at a South Carolina restaurant company and found something else stacked on top: managers with their hands in the same tip pool that servers, bartenders and bussers were splitting after their shifts. When the U.S. Department of Labor finished counting, the bill came to $618,666 in back wages for…
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Borrowers have until September 30 to turn on auto-pay and cut a federal student loan rate a full point
Federal student loan borrowers who still write a check or log in every month to pay their bill are missing out on a discount that their auto-pay peers are already banking. The U.S. Department of Education says that gap closes for good on September 30, when the deadline passes for new enrollees to lock in…
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Seven agencies scrapped a 2022 statement that let lenders run credit programs aimed at underserved borrowers
Effective immediately, seven federal agencies have rescinded a four-year-old piece of federal guidance that gave banks and lenders legal comfort to run credit programs targeted at specific underserved groups. Seven federal agencies pulled their support for the 2022 statement in late August, arguing that parts of it no longer match the law it was interpreting.…
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Conair recalled 3.6 million Cuisinart grill brushes sold at Walmart, with a full refund for owners
A recall that started with roughly 1.7 million grill brushes in early July has more than doubled in size. Conair has now pulled over 3.6 million Cuisinart-brand wire bristle grill brushes from the market after dozens of reports of the brushes shedding metal bristles into food, including three people who swallowed bristles and needed medical…
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A Houston man got 95 months for laundering $3.1 million of scam money into cars shipped overseas
A Houston man’s sentencing this week closes out a case that shows exactly how far scam proceeds can travel before anyone gets them back. A federal judge ordered Oluwasegun Baiyewu to serve 95 months in prison for laundering more than $3.1 million taken from victims of business email compromise, romance, and unemployment insurance fraud schemes,…
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Apple will pay $150,000 to a worker fired after asking for the Sabbath off
A federal lawsuit over a Virginia Apple Store employee’s request for two days off a week to observe his faith has ended in a $150,000 settlement. The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission announced that Apple Inc. agreed to pay the money and update its religious-accommodation policies after the agency accused the company of denying a…
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Federal projections show office and clerical work losing 752,100 jobs by 2035, with AI named as a driver
A new 10-year forecast from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics puts a specific number on a trend office workers have been hearing about for years: artificial intelligence and automation are projected to shrink demand for administrative jobs more than any other line of work in the economy. The projection, covering 2025 through 2035, forecasts…
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Layoffs and closings displaced 7.4 million workers over three years, up 1.2 million from the prior survey
New federal data released this week puts a hard number on something many households have felt directly: losing a job is no longer a rare event. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that 7.4 million American workers lost jobs to layoffs, plant closings, or abolished positions over the three years from January 2023 through…
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USDA cut its grocery-price forecast for this year to 2.5 percent
Every month, USDA’s Economic Research Service updates its outlook for how much grocery prices will rise over the full year, based on the newest inflation data available. The August update, posted August 25, lowered that outlook: food-at-home prices, the government’s term for what people spend at grocery stores and supermarkets, are now forecast to rise…
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Stores that miss new stocking rules by November 4 lose the right to take SNAP, and wait six months to reapply
For a small grocery or convenience store that accepts SNAP, missing a paperwork deadline is rarely fatal. A new federal stocking rule set to take full effect this fall changes that calculus for one specific requirement: what a store actually has on its shelves. Retailers that cannot show enough variety in a handful of food…
