Three numbers to start your day:
10 American Billionaire Families Spent $165 Million Trying to Re-Elect President Donald Trump in 2020
That is according to a new study from Americans for Tax Fairness. The late Sheldon Adelson and his wife, who are by far the wealthiest of those billionaires, thanks to their large stake in the Las Vegas Sands Corp oration, spent $90 million, while the other nine spent a total of $75 million. Most campaign spending was done through affiliated super PACs, rather than via direct contributions to candidates or party organizations.
The biggest spenders after the Adelsons were the Perlmutters, who sold Marvel Enterprises to Walt Disney. They spent $21 million, followed by the McMahons of World Wrestling Entertainment, who spent $16 million.
Relative to their net worth, the biggest spenders were the McMahons. They spent almost 1% of their total wealth trying to re-elect Trump. Most of the billionaires spent between 0.1% and 0.3% of their net worth.
Last Week, 1.2 Million Americans Filed Initial Claims for Unemployment Benefits.
That is according to new data from the U.S. Employment & Training Administration. That is the most people filing for jobless benefits in a week since July. The four-week average is now running at 943,000.
While some of the increase is a result of normal seasonal factors, most of the rise can be attributed to the weakening economy in light of the third wave of the pandemic. The biggest contributors to the surge have been California, Colorado, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, New York, Ohio, Oregon, and Pennsylvania.
The good news is that the temporary loss of jobs doesn’t need to lead to broader economic damage if unemployment benefits are sufficiently generous. The latest proposals should be sufficient to keep the jobless in their homes and spending on goods and services even if they are currently out of work.
135,238 New Business Applications with Planned Wages Filed to the IRS in Fourth Quarter of 2020
That is according to new data released by the Census Bureau. Business applications peaked in the third quarter, although they remain elevated.
Entrepreneurs almost completely stopped filing applications for new businesses in the early months of the pandemic, but rapidly caught up over the summer. As a result, the total number of applications for businesses with planned wages filed in 2020 ended up exceeding the recent average by more than 7%.
The question going forward is whether the burst of entrepreneurship was a one-off reaction to the pandemic or the beginning of a more sustainable trend. The rate of business formation fell sharply after the financial crisis and never recovered. Even if the record pace achieved in the second half of 2020 were sustained, the number of new business applications with planned wages would still be about 40% lower than it was before 2008.
Numbers by Barron’s is our daily podcast. Find out more here.
Write to Matthew Klein at matthew.klein@barrons.com
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January 15, 2021 at 05:00PM
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1.2 Million Americans Filed for Jobless Benefits Last Week - Barron's
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