Category: Economy

Market Share for Green Bonds Slumped for Another Year Following Backlash

Virginia Star Staff
New York Stock Exchange

Bonds that consider environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors for their investors made up just 2% of all bond issuance in the U.S., the lowest point in terms of market share since 2020 after also declining in 2022, according to Bloomberg.

ESG bond issuance as a percentage of the market reached an all-time high in 2021 and is not expected by analysts to reach that same high in 2024 as interest rates make the bond market pricier and backlash to the ESG label inhibits sales, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. ESG has come under fire by conservatives who see it as a left-wing initiative infecting the financial world, most recently leading Ohio Republican Rep. Jim Jordan, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, to send subpoenas to financial firms Vanguard, Arjuna Capital, BlackRock and State Street Global Advisors over alleged ESG collusion, arguing it violates antitrust law.

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Bidenomics: Unemployment Insurance Claims Leap as over 1.8 Million Americans Receive Benefits

Just the News

State unemployment insurance claims rose last week by 12,000 while the number of people who are receiving benefits reached 1.875 million for the week ending Dec. 16, according to seasonally adjusted data released Thursday by the Labor Department. 

Seasonally adjusted initial claims hit 218,000 for the week ending Dec. 23 after rising by 12,000, according to the latest data. 

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Commentary: The Anti-Capitalist Attack on Therapy

Virginia Star Staff
Therapy session

There is a common criticism that therapy has become too mainstream and commercialized, feeding into snowflake culture. From influencers receiving sponsorships to promote mental health apps to the prominence of online therapy advertisements on social media, it seems like there’s a movement to push therapy on young people who arguably might not need it.

As the substack writer Freya India writes on the matter: “Maybe you’re struggling because [therapy] companies are taking your human need for connection, your normal feelings of stress and sadness, and using all this to sell solutions that leave you more anxious and alone. Because again: what could be more profitable?”

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U.S. Consumers Face Higher Prices for Goods as Houthis Continue Attacks Against Commercial Vessels

Virginia Star Staff
Couple Shopping

The Houthi attacks against commercial vessels in the Red Sea are threatening to disrupt U.S. and global markets with delayed shipping times and increased good prices, The Washington Post reported.

The Yemen-based Houthis have launched several attacks since Oct. 7 against vessels in the Red Sea as part of retaliation efforts against Israel and its allies. In an effort to avoid the Houthis, commercial vessels are now taking longer routes to reach their destinations, resulting in delays and higher shipping costs, and ultimately increased prices for consumer goods in the U.S. and across the world, according to the Post.

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Virginia U.S. Senators Kaine and Warner Request $30 Million to Ease Looming Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority Shortfall

The Center Square

The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) is facing a looming budget shortfall, and Virginia Sens. Tim Kaine and Mark Warner and Maryland Sens. Ben Cardin and Chris Van Hollen are hoping to ease operational costs related to national security and counterterrorism efforts.

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China’s Funding of U.S. Climate Initiatives Mirrors the Russian Funding of Anti-Fracking Groups

Just the News
Windmills

A nonprofit with operations in Beijing reportedly funded a number of nonprofits in the United States fighting climate change and pushing for sustainable or “green” energy.

Tax filings obtained by Fox News showed funding from the Energy Foundation China, which is headquartered in San Francisco and has a majority of its operations in China. The group, which refers to itself in tax filings as “Energy Foundation China” contributed $3.8 million to initiatives to phase out coal use and expand the use of electric vehicles, according to Fox News.

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Americans Are Turning to Even More Financing Options as Savings Run Dry

Virginia Star Staff
Couple Credit Card

An increasing number of Americans are turning to buy now and pay later (BNPL) services like layaway as they continue to drain their savings and interest rates on credit cards grow, according to Reuters.

Credit card debt, with its high interest rates, in aggregate exceeded $1 trillion for Americans in 2023 for the first time ever, leading many Americans to use BNPL services that charge a far lower 2% to 8% fee instead, masking a considerable source of debt, according to Reuters. The search for cheaper financing follows declining savings for Americans as they spend through their reserves, holding only $768.6 billion in October, down from over $1 trillion held in May and even further from the all-time high of almost $6 trillion held in April 2020.

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Home Prices Hit New High In Nine Month Climb as Affordability Tumbles

Virginia Star Staff

U.S. home prices climbed to their highest point ever in October alongside nearly 8 percent mortgage rates, fueling home unaffordability for average Americans, according to data released Tuesday by S&P Global.

The Case-Shiller home price index, which measures home prices in 20 major metro markets, rose by 0.6 percent for the month of October when seasonally adjusted, or 4.8 percent year-over-year, higher than the 4 percent seen in the previous month, according to a release from S&P Global. The month-to-month growth resulted in the highest level of home prices in U.S. history, following nine months of consecutive increases.

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Biden Looks to Tariffs to Bolster Struggling Electric Vehicle Market

Virginia Star Staff
Tesla Charging

The Biden administration is considering increasing tariffs on some Chinese products related to his green agenda, like electric vehicles (EV), in an effort to boost poor market demand and protect domestic industries, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Officials are considering setting higher rates on the already existing tariffs originally placed under the Trump administration, covering around $300 billion in Chinese goods, with Chinese EVs already having a 25% import tax, according to the WSJ. New tariffs could help domestic EV manufacturing, which has struggled with stagnant market demand, only rising from 3% in January to 4% in September of total vehicles sold in the U.S., while the share of EVs produced out of all vehicles has risen from 3% to 6% in that same time frame.

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YoungkinWatch: Governor’s Virginia Budget Proposes Income Tax Cut, Sales Tax Hike

Tom Pappert
Youngkin Virginia

Governor Glenn Youngkin (R) on Wednesday proposed a two-year budget that will see Virginia’s income tax rate decrease, but paired the cut with a sales tax increase that will see some parts of the commonwealth pay nearly 8 percent sales tax.

Youngkin presented his “Unleashing Opportunity Budget” before the Virginia House of Delegates by noting migration trends within the United States that show Americans moving to states with lower taxes and more jobs.

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Planned Parenthood’s Trans Hormone Business Is Booming, Creating Thousands of New Patients ‘For Life’

Virginia Star Staff

The number of transgender services performed at Planned Parenthood clinics exploded over the past few years as the transgender medical industry became increasingly lucrative, according to data published by the organization’s regional branches.

Planned Parenthood first began providing hormone treatments for transgender patients in 2005, and since then 41 out of 49 regional branches have provided transgender services as of 2022. However, in just the last three years, Planned Parenthood has become dramatically more involved in the gender hormone industry.

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Electric Vehicle Start-Ups Are Running Out Funds

Virginia Star Staff
Rivian Truck

The trendy electric vehicle (EV) market could be in trouble as at least 18 EV and battery start-ups that went public in the last few years are running out of funds to operate, according to an analysis by The Wall Street Journal.

The trouble in the industry follows rising costs and manufacturing issues as the companies fail to compete with top EV maker Tesla and traditional automakers, with the median stock of the 43 companies reviewed dropping 80% from its peak, losing tens of billions in collective value since the companies relatively recent inception, according to the WSJ. Of those 43 EV start-ups reviewed, five have already gone bankrupt or been acquired, including Lordstown Motors, Proterra and Electric Last Mile Solutions.

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Small Business Owners Pessimistic About the Economy, Poll Shows

The Center Square

Small business owners are pessimistic about the future of the economy, according to a new poll.

The National Federation of Independent Businesses released the polling data Tuesday, which shows that the group’s “Small Businesses Optimism Index” decreased slightly in November to 90.1, its 23rd straight month below the historical average of small business optimism.

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Small Business Owners Pessimistic About the Economy, Poll Shows

The Center Square

Small business owners are pessimistic about the future of the economy, according to a new poll.

The National Federation of Independent Businesses released the polling data Tuesday, which shows that the group’s “Small Businesses Optimism Index” decreased slightly in November to 90.1, its 23rd straight month below the historical average of small business optimism.

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Majority of Small Businesses Not Seeing Holiday Bump as Consumers Run Out of Cash: POLL

Venkat Erpina

In a poll of small business owners, 76 percent said that they had not seen an increase in sales during the holiday season as inflation and other economic conditions constrict consumers’ cash, according to Goldman Sachs.

Of small business owners surveyed, 55 percent said that their profit margins decreased this year, and a further 70 percent said that their own personal spending plans for their families were negatively impacted following their own assessment of the state of the economy, according to a poll by Goldman Sachs conducted from Dec. 1 to Dec. 8 of 337 small retail business owners. Consumer spending previously slowed in October as the Americans’ savings declined to $768.6 billion in the month, down from the over $1 trillion held in May and even further from the all-time high of almost $6 trillion held in April 2020.

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Research Finds COVID mRNA Vaccine Makes ‘Pfrankenstein’ Proteins, but Feds Seem Unfazed

Just the News

Three years after federal regulators granted emergency use authorization to COVID-19 mRNA vaccines for older teens and adults, mainstream scientific research is confirming suppressed warnings from two years ago that the novel technology has a problem with “translation fidelity.”

Translation: it tends to make a bunch of wacky “off-target” proteins whose effects and severity are unknown.

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Study: More Americans over the Age of 65 are Heading Back to Work

Virginia Star Staff
Old People Working

A new study released on Thursday by the Pew Research Center reveals that a rising number of Americans over the age of 65, the normal age for retirement, are heading back to work to earn higher wages.

According to Axios, the number of older Americans returning to the workforce has been consistently rising since the late 1980s, with one major decline during the Chinese Coronavirus pandemic. Some of the reasons for this increasing return to work include changes in Social Security law forcing older Americans to keep working even past 65 in order to receive their full benefits; additionally, there has been a shift away from pension plans that normally would force most Americans to retire by a certain age, in favor of 401(k) plans that allow for ongoing workforce participation.

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Commentary: New IRS Change Will Push Some Entrepreneurs into Corporate Desk Jobs

Virginia Star Staff

As the end of the year approaches, the IRS has announced its new late repayment penalty rate. The rate has climbed from around 3% two years ago to 8% today.

Most workers in the US are W-2 employees and have taxes deducted from their paychecks each pay period. However, if those employees claim more exemptions, the taxes deducted from each check decrease.

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Existing Home Sales on Track for Worst Year Since at Least 2008

The Center Square

Existing home sales are on track for a dismal year, likely dropping 18% and on course for the worst year since at least 2008’s Great Recession and possibly the worst since 1995. 

And while prices may soften in 2024, single-family homes will remain out of reach for many Americans, National Association of Realtors Chief Economist Lawrence Yun said Tuesday in the real estate organization’s annual summit. 

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Commentary: Americans Turn on Globalists Saying Government Spending, Greed, and Global Issues Drive Inflation

Virginia Star Staff

A new survey reveals inflation is still the primary concern for Americans by a wide margin, and the public is beginning to turn on big government and recognize government spending and globalism as the culprits behind a dwindling standard of living.

This comes at a time when the country is poised to choose between another four years of excessive spending and an evaporating middle-class or return to an America First philosophy that strengthens the middle-class and structures international policy in our favor.

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U.S. Retail Sales Rose in November Despite Expected Decline

Just the News

U.S. retail sales rose 0.3% in November compared to the previous month, the Commerce Department said Thursday, despite the Dow Jones estimate that sales would decline by 0.1%. 

The 0.3% estimated increase in U.S. retail and food service sales outpaced inflation from October to November, which was 0.1%. The retail sales are also up 4.1% when compared to the same time last year, the department said, which is still above the inflation rate of 3.1% from November 2022 to November 2023.

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China’s Latest Economic Data Spells Even More Trouble for the Struggling Economy

Virginia Star Staff
Chinese Stock Market

New data from China shows the country’s economy is still failing to recover from the loss of growth it has seen since the COVID-19 pandemic, according to The Wall Street Journal.

While China’s economy did grow in November in a number of key areas, it was lower than economists’ expectations and was bolstered by a comparison from last year, when the country still maintained strict COVID-19 restrictions, according to the WSJ. Retail sales, which supports the key growth factor of domestic consumption, only rose by 10.1% year-over-year compared to the 12.9% growth that was expected, and fixed-asset investment rose 2.9% from January to November, as opposed to expectations of 3%.

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Commentary: As Inflation Cools, Fed Keeps Rates Steady, Slowdown Expected in 2024

Virginia Star Staff

The Federal Reserve on Dec. 13 held the Federal Funds Rate—the rate at which banks lend to each other—steady at 5.25 percent to 5.5 percent, as the consumer inflation once again cooled to 12-month average level of 3.1 percent, according to the latest data compiled by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Leading the cooldown were drops in energy prices as gasoline dropped 6 percent in November, following a 5 percent drop in October.

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Tesla Issues Recall for Almost All U.S. Vehicles After Government Probe

Virginia Star Staff

Electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla filed a safety recall for over 2 million vehicles with federal regulators following a two-year investigation into the company’s autopilot feature, according to an announcement from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) on Wednesday.

The Tesla recall covers 2.03 million vehicles, including the Model 3, Model Y, Model X and Model S, made between Oct. 5, 2012 and Dec. 7, 2023, over concerns with their autopilot feature enabling driver misuse through a lack of engagement while operating the vehicle, according to a document from the NHTSA. The recall covers nearly all Tesla vehicles in the U.S. and is one of many actions taken by the NHTSA around Tesla’s autopilot feature, with the agency contending that the feature’s name is misleading as drivers still have to be engaged during its use, according to The Associated Press.

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House CCP Committee Proposes Dramatic Shift in U.S. Trade Relationship with China

Virginia Star Staff

The House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party released a report Tuesday proposing the U.S. revoke China’s permanent normal trade status.

The new report supports three overarching policy objectives: resetting the terms of U.S.-China economic engagement, stemming the flow of U.S. capital and technology to China’s military and building U.S. economic might with allies. Toward that end, the report outlines approximately 150 policy recommendations including new tariffs, disclosure requirements for American companies with ties to China, and strengthening U.S. research security.

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Inflation Refuses to Go Away as Prices Stay Elevated

Virginia Star Staff

Inflation ticked slightly down year-over-year in November but continued to remain well above the Federal Reserve’s target, according to the latest Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) release on Tuesday.

The consumer price index (CPI), a broad measure of the prices of everyday goods, increased 3.1% on an annual basis in November, compared to 3.2% in October, according to the BLS. Core CPI, which excludes the volatile categories of energy and food, remained high, rising 4.0% year-over-year in October, compared to 4.0% in October.

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Meet the Leaders in Congress Who Helped Amass a Staggering $34 Trillion in National Debt

Just the News

The national debt continues to rise sharply to record levels during the ongoing debate in Congress over the next federal spending bill.

The federal government has already piled another $383 billion onto the debt so far into the 2024 fiscal year, which began on October 1.

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Proposed Banking Regulations Won’t Save Sector But Will Hurt Your Wallet, Experts Warn

Virginia Star Staff

The Senate Banking Oversight Committee met with top U.S. bank CEOs on Wednesday about the possible effects of new regulations, proposed in July, that would raise capital requirements, titled Basel III endgame, according to CNBC. The new restrictions would not tackle problems that caused the most recent banking crisis earlier this year and would disproportionately affect smaller borrowers, like average Americans, by tightening credit conditions and restricting access to affordable debt in the form of mortgages, credit cards and more, experts told the DCNF.

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YoungkinWatch: Governor Urges Biden Admin to End Remote Work for Federal Workers to Save Metro Transit

Tom Pappert

Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin sent a letter to two federal agencies within the Biden administration, urging them to require federal employees to return to the office in order to save the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) from a budget deficit he claims threatens the future of public transportation in Virginia and Washington, D.C.

Youngkin urged the federal Office of Personnel Management (OPM)and Office of Management and Budget to order its employees back to their offices “to infuse needed energy into the Greater DC regional economy and provide WMATA with a sustaining ridership level.”

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Biden Is Close to Setting a New Record — More Government Jobs than Ever Before

Virginia Star Staff

The total number of government employees in the U.S. is edging close to a new record, only being outdone by one other month in the country’s history, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).

The U.S. added 49,000 government jobs in November, with 32,000 of those being local and 17,000 of those being federal, bringing the total number of government employees to 22,967,000, according to the BLS. The number of total government employees in November is only outdone by one other month, with 22,996,000 people being employed by the government in May 2010 as a result of temporary hiring used to perform the census that year, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis (FRED).

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Gavin Newsom’s California Has a $68 Billion Budget Deficit

Virginia Star Staff

California’s budget deficit has nearly tripled since last year, culminating in the largest revenue discrepancy the state has ever seen, according to a report from the state’s Legislative Analyst’s Office (LAO).

The state’s budget deficit ballooned to $68 billion this year after recording a deficit of $24 billion last year, owing to an unprecedented tax-revenue shortfall, according to the LAO report. The deficit is the highest in dollar terms that the state has ever seen, but not as a percentage of overall spending, according to Politico.

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Biden-Favored EV Bus Maker Proterra Goes Bust and Leaves a Trail of Broken and Irreparable Buses

Just the News

Across the country, towns and cities of various sizes envisioned an electrified public transit system that could shuttle residents with vehicles that produced no carbon-filled exhaust.

Many of those communities purchased buses from Silicon Valley-based Proterra, which was able to produce 550 buses over its 19-year existence before it went bankrupt in August.

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Job Growth Remains Cool Despite Boost from Returning Strikers

Virginia Star Staff

The U.S. added 199,000 nonfarm payroll jobs in November as the unemployment rate ticked down to 3.7%, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data released Friday.

Economists had anticipated that the country would add 180,000 jobs in November compared to the 150,000 jobs that were added in October and that the unemployment rate would remain at 3.9%, according to Reuters. The number of jobs added in the month was boosted due to the resumption of work by autoworkers and actors who participated in the recent strikes.

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Commentary: Bidenomics Is The Grinch Who Stole Christmas

Virginia Star Staff

The labor market continues to soften, with 199,000 jobs created last month, well below the recent average. Real job creation is far lower than this topline number suggests. Nearly 50,000 jobs were unproductive government jobs, continuing the trend of disproportionately high government job growth. The return of striking auto workers accounted for about 30,000 jobs. And 77,000 jobs were created in healthcare, which is a quasi-government industry. That leaves only about 40,000 jobs created in the real economy.

Real wages continue to stagnate, growing at the same rate as core inflation following significant declines in the first two years of Biden’s presidency. As usual, job creation in previous months was revised down in today’s report. Nearly one million more Americans are unemployed since April.

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Commentary: Reforming Private Sector Unions

Virginia Star Staff

Unlike public sector unions, which are inherently corrupt and need to be outlawed, private sector unions have a vital role to play in American society. But these unions have become coopted by the same special interests they were originally formed to oppose. The political agenda of America’s unions is almost exclusively leftist, and being part of America’s institutional “Left” is not what it used to be.

The biggest misconception in American politics today is that the political Left is fighting corporate power. Leftists may still attack corporate profits and demand corporations pay their “fair share,” but on every major issue affecting the economic freedom and prosperity of working families in America, these presumed antagonists are actually in perfect alignment.

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Biden Is Increasingly Using ‘Wartime’ Powers to Interfere in the Economy

Virginia Star Staff

The Biden administration has increasingly relied on a law intended to shore up national defense in order to enact its economic agenda, boosting green energy initiatives and increasing production of certain goods to address economic issues.

President Joe Biden once again used the Defense Production Act (DPA), a law established in 1950 to give the president authority over domestic industries necessary for the national defense thanks to demands caused by the Korean War, in late November, this time to invest $35 million in domestic manufacturing on medicine components to address shortages, according to a statement from the White House. The use of the DPA is one of many following President Donald Trump’s expansion of the act during the COVID-19 pandemic in order to increase the production of equipment related to national health.

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YoungkinWatch: Governor Joins 16 States Urging Biden to Stop China-Linked Purchases of U.S. Land

Tom Pappert

Governor Glenn Youngkin joined a coalition of governors from 17 states who on Monday sent a letter to President Joe Biden that urged the administration to prevent “dangerous and adversarial governments to infiltrate our country” by purchasing “swaths of real property throughout the United States.”

Citing multiple reports that companies linked to China are purchasing large amounts of farmland, including near U.S. military installations, the governors wrote to demand the Biden administration “reckon with the fact that such entities are plain threats to our national security, our farmers, and our citizenry.”

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4,000 Auto Dealers Say Electric Vehicles Are ‘Stacking Up’ on Lots

The Center Square

About 4,000 auto dealers from all 50 states have signed a letter to President Joe Biden saying electric vehicles are “stacking up on our lots” as the demand for electric cars has “stalled.”

“BEVs [battery electric vehicles] are stacking up on our lots,” the auto dealers stated in the letter. “Last year, there was a lot of hope and hype about EVs. Early adopters formed an initial line and were ready to buy these vehicles as soon as we had them to sell. But that enthusiasm has stalled. Today, the supply of unsold BEVs is surging, as they are not selling nearly as fast as they are arriving at our dealerships – even with deep price cuts, manufacturer incentives, and generous government incentives.”

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Nearly 200,000 Foreign Workers Classified as ‘Students,’ State Department Reports

Virginia Star Staff

American universities hosted more than 1 million international students in the 2022-23 academic year – but that figure includes students who had already graduated and are essentially foreign workers, according to a State Department report.

In reality, nearly 200,000 foreigners classified as students are actually working, without paying Social Security and Medicare taxes, making them cheaper to hire than Americans.

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U.S. Beef Producers Say UN’s Proposal for Eating Less Meat Demonizes Industry, Ineffective

Just the News

The United Nations is expected to ramp up its calls for the world to greatly reduce meat consumption in order to combat climate change.

During the COP28 climate summit, which starts Thursday in Dubai, the UN’s Food & Agriculture Organization (FAO) will publish a global plan calling on nations with high rates of meat consumption to change their diets in order to lower greenhouse gas emissions, according to Bloomberg News.

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Major Automaker Says Union Deal Will Add Nearly a Thousand Dollars to Car Costs

Virginia Star Staff

Ford Motor Co. announced on Thursday that labor costs following a recent major union deal will cost the company around $900 per vehicle by 2028.

Ford, along with other major U.S. automakers General Motors and Stellantis, faced a six-week-long strike by the United Auto Workers (UAW) starting in September, with all three companies recently voting to approve new contracts through 2028. The company expects the new labor agreement to cost an extra $8.8 billion over the course of the contract due to wage increases of around 25%, accelerated wage progression and cost-of-living adjustments as stipulated in the contract, according to a press release from the company.

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Investors Pull Out Record Funds from China as Economy Falters

Virginia Star Staff
China Money

International investors have pulled billions out of China as the country’s economy continues to stumble and relations with the U.S. fail to ease, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Since August, international investors trading in China’s top exchanges in Shanghai and Shenzhen have pulled out more than $24 billion through a trading link in Hong Kong, according to the WSJ, the largest net outflow of foreign funds since the link was created in 2014. The MSCI China Index, which serves as a tool for investors to gauge expected returns in the country, has fallen 10% this year as China’s economy reports lackluster growth amid a real estate crisis and relations with the U.S. fail to significantly improve.

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Consumer Spending Slows Down as Americans’ Savings Dry Up

Virginia Star Staff
Person Shopping

Growth in consumer spending fell to the lowest point since March as Americans’ savings fall from the all-time highs seen during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA).

Consumer spending, measured by the personal consumption expenditure (PCE), increased by $41.2 billion in the month of October, an increase of 0.2%, less than the 0.7% increase that was seen in September as Americans cut back, accordingto the BEA. The cooling in spending follows a huge decline in the amount of savings Americans collectively hold, falling from over $1 trillion in May to $768.6 billion in October, far from the all-time high of almost $6 trillion in April 2020, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.

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Inflation Has Cost Average Americans over $11,000 per Year Under Biden

Virginia Star Staff

Just to maintain the same standard of living that Americans had at the beginning of President Joe Biden’s term, households have to spend an additional $11,434 per year, according to CBS News.

Since January 2021, when Biden first took office, inflation has risen 17%, far outpacing the 2% per year that the Federal Reserve aims for, while average hourly wages have only increased 13.6%, according to the Congressional Joint Economic Committee’s (JEC) state inflation tracker. As a result, more Americans reported that they are struggling financially than they did before the COVID-19 pandemic as persistent inflation continues to take its toll, according to CBS News.

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Businesses Begin Abandoning ‘Diversity’ Initiatives

Virginia Star Staff

Despite a concerted effort by many institutions, government entities, and other left-wing forces to push “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI) initiatives on private businesses, 2023 saw a greater decrease in such measures than previous years.

As reported by the Daily Caller, the total number of businesses with a designated DEI budget dropped to 54% in 2023, down four points from 58% in 2022. In the same period of time, the number of organizations with a DEI strategy declined by 9%. Both of these statistics were compiled by the consulting firm Paradigm.

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