IRS clawing back ERC money from businesses The IRS says it’s making progress with initiatives to claw back money improperly distributed under the Employee Retention Credit. The ERC was designed to help businesses retain employees during pandemic-era shutdowns, but it quickly became a magnet for fraud. Its complex eligibility rules allowed scammers to target small businesses, offering help applying for the ERC for a fee – even if they didn’t qualify ..read more

Americans still agree on many traditional values Despite the country’s deep political polarization, most Americans share many core beliefs about what it means to be an American, according to a new poll. The results, which included perspectives on a number of different freedoms and rights, have only small variances between Republicans and Democrats except on the right to bear arms, which Republicans are more likely to see as core to the nation’s identity. The overall findings are striking because they ..read more

Freight trains must keep 2-man crews Major freight railroads will have to maintain two-man crews on most routes under a new federal rule that was finalized on April 2 in a milestone in organized labor’s long fight to preserve the practice. The Transportation Department’s Federal Railroad Administration released the details of the rule that was first proposed during former President Barack ..read more

A business barometer for Kansas, issued by Creighton University’s Economic Forecasting Group, fell by 10% in March, compared to February. The index ranges from 0 to 100, with 50 representing growth neutral. The March index for Kansas fell to 45.6 from 50.7 in February. Component readings for Kansas were: new orders at 48.0; production or sales at 50.7; delivery lead time at 52.3; employment at 31.9; and inventories ..read more

Home sellers cutting prices amid higher rates More homeowners eager to sell their home are lowering their initial asking price in a bid to entice prospective buyers as the spring homebuying season gets going. Some 14.6% of U.S. homes listed for sale last month had their price lowered, according to Realtor.com. That’s up from 13.2% a year earlier, the first annual increase since May. In January, the percentage of homes on the ..read more

Outage lesson: Small businesses need backup plans To businesses that rely on social media platforms for advertising, client communication or direct sales, the recent outage of Meta platforms was more than a communal inconvenience. Experts say that whenever there’s an outage – be it social media or other software we’ve come to rely on – it’s a reminder that small businesses need to make sure they aren’t reliant on one platform and have contingency plans in place – like an email database – when an outage does occur ..read more

The nation’s largest roofing and waterproofing manufacturer is planning to build a new plant in Newton, Kan. The company, GAF, says it will invest more than $300 million in a 275,000-square-foot facility that is expected to create more than 130 jobs in management, engineering and operations ..read more

Wholesale prices in the United States accelerated again in February, the latest sign that inflation pressures in the economy remain elevated and might not cool in the coming months as fast as the Federal Reserve or the Biden administration would like. The Labor Department said that its producer price index – which tracks inflation before it reaches consumers – rose 0.6% from January to February, up from a 0.3% rise the previous month. Measured year over year, producer prices rose by 1.6% in February, the most since last September ..read more

Price increases for cars and trucks in the United States, which helped fuel inflation for nearly three years, are slowing and in some cases falling, helping cool overall inflation and giving frustrated Americans more hope of finding an affordable vehicle. Behind the price slowdown is a vastly expanded number of vehicles on dealer lots after years of severe shortages. With more autos available, the pressures that had sent prices surging have eased. At the end of January ..read more

An inflation gauge favored by the Federal Reserve increased in January, the latest sign that the slowdown in U.S. consumer price increases is occurring unevenly from month to month. The government reported that prices rose 0.3 percent from December to January, up from 0.1 percent in the previous month. But in a more encouraging sign, prices were up just 2.4 percent from a year earlier, down from a 2.6 percent annual pace in December and the smallest such increase in nearly three years ..read more