Big Tech helps small businesses during pandemic
Johnny Kampis - Contributing columnist
Like many, Cindy Bielik had to make adjustments to her small family business quickly when the COVID-19 pandemic hit. Facebook gave them the tools to adjust to the new COVID world.
Bielik co-owns The Dinner Club, a meal preparation service in La Grange Park, Illinois, with her sister Joyce Clarkson. Even though the two started the business 15 years ago, they had perhaps never faced quite a challenge (and perhaps, opportunity) when the stay-at-home orders began to be handed down by governments in March.
The sisters grew up together in a home with regular home-cooked meals, but realized that in today’s society it’s becoming harder and harder for families to take the time to plan, shop and prepare daily meals. The two started The Dinner Club to help eliminate the frustration of planning and preparing meals. They hoped this new service would allow more time for families to spend quality time tog
Dear Member of Congress,
On behalf of millions of taxpayers across the country, we urge you to reject proposals to increase the federal minimum wage at a time of unprecedented economic calamity, including President Joe Biden’s push to raise the minimum wage to $15/hour, more than doubling the current minimum wage of $7.25/hour.
President Biden’s recent $1.9 trillion “American Rescue Plan” calls on Congress to more than double the federal minimum wage to $15/hour and eliminate the “tipped” minimum wage for servers. The Biden proposal likely mirrors legislation passed by the House in 2019 and reintroduced in 2021, the Raise the Wage Act, which increases the minimum wage to $15 by 2025, indexes it to inflation, and repeals the tipped minimum wage for servers.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, we have learned that state governors are vested by law with expansive executive powers during declared disaster emergencies. As a result, many governors have become household
2020 is worst year for jobs in Illinois’ history Illinois lost 423,300 jobs from December 2019 through December 2020.
Illinois lost 423,300 jobs during 2020 – a history-making drop with nearly half of the losses in the leisure and hospitality sector thanks to repeated COVID-19 restrictions.
The state saw 6.9% of its jobs evaporate – the worst year on record. Jobs losses were felt in every sector of the state economy, except for construction employment which saw a December surge that recouped the year’s losses.
Leisure and hospitality jobs were hurt the most, losing 198,100 (-31.7%) jobs during the year, nearly half of all job losses, the Illinois Department of Employment Security reported. Suffering the next largest job losses was the mining sector, which lost 1,000 (-12.3%) jobs; the information sector shed 9,100 (-9.5%) jobs; educational and health services payrolls declined by 58,300 (-6.1%); other services payrolls dropped by 17,200 (-6.7%); government lost 48,700
CEI Joins Coalition Letter Opposed to Most Favored Nation Drug Pricing Final Rule
Introduction
On behalf of the undersigned federal and state-based organizations, we write to express our opposition to the interim final rule to implement the Most Favored Nation (MFN) Model under section 1115A of the Social Security Act. We request you withdraw the rule.
The rule forces physicians, patients, and providers into a mandatory demonstration under the Obamacare Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI) and ties the prices paid for medicines in Medicare Part B to the prices in foreign countries with socialized health care systems.
The proposal imports foreign price controls into America’s healthcare system. This will harm medical innovation and the development of new medicines. It will threaten high-paying American manufacturing jobs and do nothing to stop foreign freeloading. Instead, it will move the United States closer to a system of government-controlled healthcare.