Business group warns of mass layoffs and 'catastrophic' supply chain disruptions from Biden's vaccine mandate
CNN
President Joe Biden's vaccine order will force employers to lay off thousands of workers, making the supply-chain crisis much worse, a major business group warned the White House this week.
The National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors, an influential trade group that represents an industry with nearly 6 million workers, is pleading with the administration to delay a December 8 deadline for employees of federal contractors to get vaccinated.
"If tens or hundreds of thousands of employees are terminated just two weeks before Christmas...the result could be nothing short of catastrophic for the newly unemployed and their families and for the US economy," Eric Hoplin, the NAW's president and CEO, wrote in a Wednesday letter to Biden.
Last month, Washington Post reporter Hannah Natanson penned a first-person piece about her long year as “the federal government whisperer,” receiving tips from hundreds of federal workers. On Wednesday, the FBI searched her home, a source familiar with the situation told CNN.
Price hikes picked up speed for US-based businesses toward the end of last year, a potential signal that inflation has yet to peak and prices could soon rise faster for consumers.
Trump is threatening to take “strong action” against Iran just after capturing the leader of Venezuela. His administration is criminally investigating the chair of the Federal Reserve and is taking a scorched-earth approach on affordability by threatening key profit drivers for banks and institutional investors.
Perhaps no data point better encapsulates the American economy right now than this nugget from Delta’s quarterly earnings:
China recorded the world’s biggest ever trade surplus in 2025, as well as a 20% jump from 2024, capping off a year in which the world’s largest manufacturer defied US trade pressure by ramping up exports to other global markets.
Saks Global, the parent company of luxury retailer Saks Fifth Avenue, filed for bankruptcy protection late Tuesday, according to court documents filed in US Bankruptcy Court in Houston, Texas.
China on Wednesday reported a strong export run in 2025 with a record surplus of nearly $1.2 trillion, as producers braced for three more years of a Trump administration set on slowing the production powerhouse by shifting US orders to other markets.
Microsoft says it will ask to pay higher electricity bills in areas where it’s building data centers, in an effort to prevent electricity prices for local residents from rising in those areas. The move is part of a broader plan to address rising prices and other concerns sparked by the tech industry’s massive buildout of artificial intelligence infrastructure across the United States.
US consumer prices rose 2.7% annually in December, closing out a year that saw slight progress on inflation but continued affordability concerns for many Americans.
The BBC is taking steps to have Donald Trump’s defamation lawsuit against it dismissed, a court document showed.
Amazon executives laid out their vision for Alexa’s future in an interview with CNN at the CES tech convention, where the company launched a new Alexa website and updates to other Amazon products.
After cutting interest rates three times in a row last year, the Federal Reserve indicated last month it probably won’t lower interest rates again for a while. A months-long pause, cemented by key economic data released Friday, may indeed be the best-case scenario for the world’s largest economy.
What is Corporate America so afraid of?