Christopher Lewis, Author at Pay Per Touch

January 3, 2023

Metro Goes To Dulles, Amazon Fresh Expands: Top VA Business News 2022

VIRGINIA — Many of the biggest business news stories of 2022 in Northern Virginia were related to the potential of things to come, with the completion of phase two of Metro’s Silver Line, new small businesses openings, and major aerospace and defense companies announcing plans to move their corporate headquarters to Northern Virginia.

Political and business leaders called the Dulles Corridor the most important economic corridor in the D.C. area, and that the opening of phase two of the Silver Line in November would make it even greater. While many small businesses shut down operations due to the pandemic, several new businesses opened in 2022 as investing in the region was viewed as safe again.

When Amazon announced it would be bringing its second headquarters to Arlington, local officials saw it as a huge win for jobs and economic growth in the county and across the region. The decision by Boeing in May to move its headquarters from Chicago, on the other hand, was viewed more as a symbolic win for Arlington.

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Terry Clower, a public policy professor at George Mason University’s Schar School of Policy and Government and the director of its Center for Regional Analysis, said Boeing’s decision gives National Landing — the Pentagon City and Crystal City area of Arlington — a good set of “bragging rights.”

Boeing’s decision, following Amazon’s HQ2 announcement and the presence of other significant technology sector employers, sends the message that Arlington is great for the tech businesses, Clower told the Washington Post.

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A month after Boeing’s announcement, Raytheon Technologies Corp. said it planned to move its global headquarters from Massachusetts to Arlington. Raytheon’s intelligence and space business is already based in the Rosslyn area of Arlington, where the new corporate headquarters will be located.

2022 also saw major changes to retail centers across Northern Virginia, including the Landmark Mall, whose chapter came to a close in Alexandria to make way for a mixed-use development anchored by Inova Alexandria Hospital. Springfield Town Center saw new businesses commit to the retail center hoping for a revival, while developers and officials in Arlington keep trying to make Ballston Quarter more successful.

Patch has brought together the top business stories in Northern Virginia of 2022:

Bay Area business and home owners faced with insurance questions about flood damage

SAN FRANCISCO — Saturday’s epic rainstorm had citizens throughout the Bay Place who aren’t utilized to dealing with flooding asking critical concerns about irrespective of whether their coverage would address the damage.

Quite a few in San Francisco are struggling with a impolite awakening about who will pay for all of the repairs.

While a great deal of the Town is designed on hills, Saturday’s rainstorm wreaked havoc on the properties and firms at the base of all those hills. Videos posted on line display individuals paddling surfboards and makeshift rafts in the Mission District close to Folsom and 14th Streets.

“In 45 minutes, I would say, the water was up to 12 inches on 14th Street here,” reported Zeki Abed, co-operator of Mission District bike storage garage Motohaus. At the height of the storm, drinking water forced its way into the business.

On Monday, staff were fast paced setting up a moveable dam-like composition out entrance to keep it from taking place yet again.

Abed was fortunate. The outdated setting up from 1906 is produced of concrete and redwood, so there wasn’t a lot in the way of structural injury. But he does have a popular problem.

“I really don’t assume flood insurance policy is a little something we have,” he explained. “But it’s something that individuals need to have to get, naturally. There’s heading to be additional routinely happening incidents, so we just will need to be aware, I think.”

As people today dry out from the deluge, many are finding the really hard fact about their insurance policy protection: most standard homeowner’s guidelines do not include things like flood security.

“The homeowner’s policy, most probably, is not going to deal with it,” stated Edder Barcenas, an independent Farmers Insurance policies Agent in San Leandro. “Simply because that is because of to a organic catastrophe, all-natural causes. So that’s when the flood policy kicks in.”

Barcenas reported people today have to have a independent flood rider on their coverage to deal with drinking water problems from pure forces — a so-named, “act of God.” He reported in locations that ordinarily have reduced chance, the top quality can be pretty sensible, as low as $1,000 per calendar year.

But without it, most residence homeowners are on their have to go over repairs.

“I’d say about 80 p.c of individuals will not know specifically what they have in their plan,” mentioned Barcenas

Outdoors of Rintaro Restaurant on 14th Avenue, owner Sylvan Mishima Brackett was also making a barrier. Inside they ended up with several ft of drinking water in their courtyard and eating locations. But contrary to a whole lot of new flood victims, he also has a glimmer of hope.

“We do not have flood coverage, but we do have insurance plan for storm drains and sewage backup,” said Mishima Brackett. “So the query is irrespective of whether or not the insurance organization is going to say this is because the storm drains couldn’t manage it or if this is a flood. I am hoping they’re going to say it truly is mainly because the drains aren’t large ample.”

All people suggests the storm drains are the difficulty in the spot. Some feel they’re too tiny, many others say they clog far too easily. Brackett claimed they had an additional flooding event in 2014, but right after a nine-thirty day period struggle, the City of San Francisco inevitably despatched him a significant verify, which he reported was accepting obligation for the efficiency of the drains.

But on Monday, with another storm on the horizon, the piles of leaves and particles just ready to clog them again was not supplying anyone on 14th Road significantly optimism.

John Ramos

John Ramos unintentionally launched a lifelong vocation in journalism when he commenced drawing editorial cartoons and producing good-alecky satire parts for the Bakersfield Substantial University newspaper.

January 3, 2023

Why It Pays to Shop Right After the Holidays

Two women browsing through clothes in a local shop.

Picture source: Getty Photos

It really is a tactic that could actually pay back off.

Crucial factors

Many individuals do a lot of shopping in December and reduce back again in January.
Loading up on items this thirty day period could operate to your benefit, although.
Some suppliers run income in January to unload excessive inventory left from the holidays.

If you put in much of December working to retailers and seeking Amazon for hrs to test gift goods off your record, then the final point you could want to do in January is store on the internet or established foot in a mall. And also, if you racked up a big credit card tab very last month, then you may possibly want to go quick on the purchasing front this thirty day period.

But if you have some fiscal wiggle place and you’re not absolutely struggling from retail fatigue, then it could pay out to do some buying in January. This is why.

It really is all about snagging deals

You’ll typically hear that the finest promotions to be located have a tendency to fall throughout the holiday seasons — particularly in the course of significant purchasing events like Black Friday and Cyber Monday. But which is not normally the situation.

You will usually locate that vendors will provide the deepest savings on products appropriate just after the vacations. The motive? They have extra inventory they’re hunting to unload.

When you feel about it, snagging good deals on goods actually boils down to provide and desire. During the holiday period, need tends to be potent simply because customers have presents they need to have to obtain. And also, numerous persons conclusion up with 12 months-close bonuses they’re eager to devote rather than help save. That, too, can direct to potent desire.

In the meantime, arrive January, the desire for items tends to wane. The holidays are around and many people, unfortunately, stop up starting off off the year with leftover holiday break financial debt. And that tends to make it a wonderful time to hit the retailers and load up on things you want or even want (assuming funds is just not an situation).

What products need to you shop for in January?

Dollars may be tighter than you would like it to be these times because of to variables like inflation and latest holiday break expenditures. If which is the situation, any buying you do in January need to be constrained to requires only.

Did your toaster oven die on you just lately? Which is a very good merchandise to replace this thirty day period, specifically if you can find a person at a lower price. Has your go-to pair of sneakers started off to display significant indicators of have on? You require excellent shoes to stay clear of injuries if you do a large amount of strolling and exercising, so now could be a wonderful time to switch them. But if you’re limited on funds, stick to objects that tumble into the needs category, and help you save your needs for a different time — even if it means forgoing some bargains.

On the other hand, if income is not an situation, then now’s a excellent time to scoop up some wishlist things you may not have ordered earlier. It could be that you bought a giant elevate to kick off 2023, which presents you a lot more choices for paying income. Or maybe you got a 12 months-finish reward final thirty day period that you didn’t dip into yet. In that case, you can have a small additional entertaining with your January procuring. Just do your most effective to continue to be out of financial debt.

All instructed, January can be a good time to purchase points at a discount. And as extensive as you store judiciously, you could land in a terrific posture to take pleasure in some major bargains.

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January 3, 2023

Black America’s record employment gains at risk as Fed tightens rates

Black workers led the US return to do the job immediately after the Covid disaster, but economists warn that their gains will reverse as the Federal Reserve makes an attempt to awesome the economy down with intense interest amount raises.

Before this yr, soaring wages and a scarcity of staff pulled black workers into the labour marketplace at document levels. Black Us residents labored and appeared for positions at greater rates than white Us residents in May well for the first time because 1972, in accordance to labour department details. Companies reduced task requirements, expanded upskilling programmes and diversified their recruitment strategies to fill their ranks amid personnel shortages, providing new options to traditionally deprived employees in the course of action.

When the unemployment and labour pressure participation prices for employees of color have remained rather secure in new months, soaring fascination prices and a worsening jobs current market could reverse individuals gains. In current months, employment has presently dropped off in numerous industries that disproportionately hire staff of color, together with retail, transportation and warehousing.

Among September and November, typical merchandise merchants, like office retailers, misplaced 71,500 careers, and the warehousing and storage market missing 41,000 careers. Numerous of these industries depend on reduced-wage workers, with suggest once-a-year wages often ranging from $30,000-$50,000 in retail and warehousing.

William Spriggs, a professor of economics at Howard College and the chief economist of the union AFL-CIO, said the “moment firms cease hiring . . . the unemployment rate goes up because the men and women who were unemployed cannot escape unemployment. And that hurts black workers first.”

Spriggs extra that “the massive restoration in black labour power participation, which in the final six months has genuinely assisted black workers . . . that goes absent.”

Fears about the US economic system tipping into a economic downturn have percolated as the Fed has ploughed forward with the most intense collection of curiosity rate raises due to the fact the early 1980s. In a bid to deal with many years-large inflation, the central lender in much less than a 12 months has raised its benchmark coverage price from near zero as of March to practically 4.5 for each cent now. Further more fee rises subsequent year are predicted, with top rated officials forecasting the federal funds price to peak at 5.1 per cent.

Policymakers think there is a route for inflation to return to the Fed’s 2 for each cent concentrate on with out big career losses and a economic downturn — a assert lots of economists throughout Wall Avenue and academia dispute. A modern poll performed by the Monetary Periods in partnership with the College of Chicago’s Booth University of Business discovered that an overpowering the greater part of primary economists expects a recession upcoming calendar year, which they warn could thrust the unemployment charge beyond 5.5 per cent from its latest 3.7 for every cent.

Most Fed officers currently forecast the unemployment price will rise approximately 1 percentage point to 4.6 per cent following 12 months and keep at that stage by the end of 2024.

Economists and policymakers acknowledge that men and women of color are disproportionately harmed when the unemployment fee rises, specially when there is a economic downturn, even a gentle 1.

“Black Us residents by no means have reduced unemployment,” says Algernon Austin, director for race and economic justice at the Centre for Economic and Policy Investigate, a Washington-centered feel-tank. “The unemployment amount ranges from substantial to quite significant to really superior.”

“It’s vital to recognise that a moderate economic downturn usually means likely from substantial unemployment to pretty high unemployment for black folks.”

Prior to the pandemic — when the US labour market place was in great well being — the unemployment level for black Us citizens was around 2 times that of white and Asian adults. In 2019, it stood at 6.1 for each cent, as opposed to just 3.3 for each cent and 2.7 for every cent for white and Asian older people, respectively. For Hispanic adults, it was 4.3 for every cent.

At the worst of the Covid economic crisis, the black unemployment charge skyrocketed to virtually 17 for every cent. For white workers, it was a little bit reduced, at 14 per cent.

Fed officers have emphasised that inflation also hits people communities the toughest, and that in get to revert to a balanced economy, they must get selling prices again underneath command. Failing to do so in the close to-term will also suggest more discomfort afterwards on, they argue, as the central lender will be pressured to slam the brakes on the economic system even more challenging.

“Without price security, the economy does not function for anybody,” Jay Powell, Fed chair, explained in mid-December at his closing press meeting of the year. “We will not realize a sustained interval of potent labour current market ailments that advantage all.”

Austin expressed concerns about other things, these as the war in Ukraine and China’s Covid plan, that are outside the Fed’s control but are possessing an outsized influence on the trajectory for inflation. He warned that the central lender was not only “unnecessarily” imposing expenditures on the most economically vulnerable men and women, it was also undercutting their capability to handle the price pressures they ended up previously struggling to conquer.

“[Put] men and women into unemployment, then they won’t be capable to cope with the inflation,” he mentioned.

January 2, 2023

What’s your Columbus business news IQ? Take this test to find out

in January that it would invest $20 billion in Licking County, the biggest economic development project in state history?
What automaker said it would build a $3.5 billion plant in Fayette County to make batteries for electric vehicles?
What Grandview Heights school-supplies and craft store was closed last summer after 90 years in business?
What power company intentionally shut off electricity to many Columbus neighborhoods in June to keep power outages from spreading after a severe storm and then a heat wave?
What well-known Columbus family has received state approval to turn part of Darby Dan Farm into a solar farm?
Which local bagel shop is being sued by Block’s Bagels for allegedly violating several terms of a licensing and supply agreement?
What international e-commerce giant opened a clothing retail store in Easton Town Center, in a space once occupied by Forever 21?
How many Max & Erma’s locations are left in central Ohio?
Which luxury fashion house returned to Columbus for the first time in over 30 years?
Gasoline prices in central Ohio hit an all-time high in 2022. How high did they get?
What location is being studied for a possible Amtrak stop in Columbus?
What renewable fuel that is included in unleaded 88 is growing in popularity in central Ohio?
Which month hit the highest mark for 90-degree days in central Ohio in more than two decades?
Intel and Honda have both pledged to achieve carbon neutrality with their new factories in central Ohio. What is one method they will use to help them do that?
Developers of a 31-story building next to the North Market have picked a name for the site. What is it?
What developer built a 20-foot-long slingshot at the corner of Sullivant Avenue and Lucas Street in Franklinton, next to the River & Rich development?
Columbus developer Edward Cos. has received permission to build an elevated, plant-covered, three-block-long walkway Downtown. What is the walkway modeled after?
What Columbus hotel now has 1,000 rooms, the largest in the state, after an expansion that was completed during the fall?
What is the name of the coffee shop chain where workers in some stores, including Columbus, began to organize into a union?
What Prohibition-era concept continues to reverberate in Columbus?
What central Ohio company announced in July that it was laying off more than 600 workers?
California-based Hyperion Cos. plans to employ 700 workers in a Far West Side factory to build what?
What big-box retailer re-entered the central Ohio market in November after being gone for two decades?
Workers at what major Columbus retailer came to the brink of a strike in September?
Customers of Columbus-based Bread Financial faced what problem over the summer?

Answers

Intel is building two factories, called fabs, that will employ 3,000 workers when it begins producing semiconductors in 2025.
The Honda battery plant will help the automaker transition to electric vehicles.
Star Beacon Products, the go-to place for school supplies and arts-and-crafts materials, fell victim to the pandemic.
American Electric Power says it had only a few minutes to decide which Columbus neighborhoods would lose power after being ordered to reduce demand to keep outages from spreading.
The 2,400-acre Pleasant Prairie Solar Energy project planned for Pleasant and Prairie townships includes 900 acres from Darby Dan Farm belonging to the Galbreath family.
Block’s Bagels, founded in 1967, alleged that Fox’s owner Jeremy Fox violated a 10-year supply agreement originating in 2016.
Amazon opened its second Amazon Style location in Easton Town Center in October.
One, in Lancaster, after the Reynoldsburg location closed.
Italian luxury fashion house Gucci opened at Easton Town Center in July, its first location in Columbus after closing at Columbus City Center mall in the early 1990s.
$5.07 per gallon on June 8, according to AAA. Prices have fallen since, back to around $3 per gallon.
The Greater Columbus Convention Center. It is part of a plan that would connect Ohio’s four largest metropolitan areas: Dayton, Cincinnati, Columbus and Cleveland.
Unleaded 88 is 15{1b90e59fe8a6c14b55fbbae1d9373c165823754d058ebf80beecafc6dee5063a} ethanol. The surge in growth in central Ohio is due to the arrival of Sheetz more than a year ago.
Temperatures hit 90 degrees on 10 days in June, the most since 1999.
Through the use of carbon credits that fund renewable energy projects to offset the use of electricity by the companies.
The $300 million project is called the Merchant Building.
Casto. Franklinton artist Andrew Lundberg, who runs Lundberg Industrial Arts, designed the Franklinton Slingshot as “a visual reminder of our momentum as a community while maintaining the mischievous nature of the artists that make us who we are.”
The walkway, running from South Third Street over South Fourth Street and into the Young Street parking garage, is modeled after New York City’s High Line elevated path.
The Hilton Columbus Downtown’s new 28-story tower was finished in the fall.
Workers at the Starbucks on the corner of Broad and Third streets Downtown, in Westerville and on the Ohio State University campus are among workers nationwide who have voted to unionize.
Behind walk-in freezers or down secret stairwells, speakeasies have continued to grow in popularity locally.
OhioHealth announced that 637 workers, the most in its information technology workforce, was the company’s largest single layoff.
Hyperion plans to build hydrogen fuel cells in the factory, in the former Dispatch printing plant, at 5300 Crosswinds Drive.
BJ’s Wholesale Club opened a store at 5900 N. Hamilton Road near New Albany after closing two central Ohio locations in 2002, with another one planned in Orange Township in Delaware County.
Thousands of Kroger workers were on the edge of striking before agreeing to a new contract.
Bread customers could not access their credit card account information.

January 2, 2023

View from the top: Alex Sun, Enlyte

Alex Sun took the helm as CEO of San Diego-based Enlyte LLC in 2021, when it was shaped by way of the merger of three businesses in the employees compensation sector: Coventry Employees Comp Products and services, Genex Companies LLC and Mitchell International Inc. Mr. Sunshine was formerly CEO of Mitchell, which he joined in 2001. Prior to that, he put in a decade in the banking and financial products and services marketplace. He spoke with Assistant Editor Louise Esola about the advantages of combining the functions and worries in the personnel payment arena. Edited excerpts adhere to.

Q: Enlyte is a enterprise shaped from a few companies. What is the eyesight now?

A: Our principal mission is to support our clients and aid them restore the life of their shoppers right after a difficult event. We have described that as making an attempt to have the biggest influence on promises results. So, aspect of that was building positive that we experienced main capabilities throughout all remedies that assist address the health care claims charge side of the equation, as properly as solutions that concentration on the wounded worker and finding them back again to operate. We’re about owning greatest health care improvement. So definitely the vision for the father or mother enterprise of Mitchell, Genex, and Coventry was bringing the main vendors of technologies, clinical and community methods all with each other in a single business where if we do our employment we will leverage the intersections to generate far better results for our clients.

Q: How do mergers this sort of as this enable purchasers best?

A: As we glance out into the potential, it is important to be a qualified company. So, it’s creating positive that you have all the right infrastructure, the data safety investments, and product or service and services good quality. A deep aim on the consumer and a strong analytics system are element and parcel of remaining an outstanding provider. What we have been also making an attempt to do on prime of that is identify exactly where there’s connectivity in between application answers, medical methods and network solutions, and take gain of individuals connections to test to supply much better results to our prospects, be it better performance or statements dealing with. We want a superior capacity to provide the injured worker effectively with high amounts of communication quality, and to also improve the approach.

Q: What are some of the issues going through the market?

A: Probably a person that pretty much appears to be to be universally mentioned in the previous yr has been the complicated labor environment. P&C insurance policy has always experienced some troubles with regard to producing positive that we have a vivid workforce, but I believe that given the pandemic and the Terrific Resignation, that the troubles elevated, be it on scientific staff members, claims changing teams, or absolutely just about anything involving technological know-how. I imagine there are a large amount of techniques that we have all learned to deal with the troubles. Initial, we discovered through the 1st period of the COVID pandemic, when every person went into remote work environments, that a changeover to a distant workforce ultimately became a capacity that we all became very cozy with. And as we keep on to all try to be employers of decision, I assume we are now adjusting our place of work tactics to be extra accommodated to the requires of staff members so that we can stay that employer of option. So, many of us are trying to be extra versatile just to help you save on commutes, or to enhance do the job-everyday living balance, because this is an business that needs a good deal from folks.

Q: What are top tendencies to view?

A: A dynamic legislative and regulatory surroundings. Inflation is also anything that we have to contend with — medical inflation or the inflation affiliated with fixing a automobile. Lastly, there proceeds to be a demanding legal responsibility setting and nuclear verdicts.

Q: A trend we have been adhering to is the advocacy product for dealing with wounded staff. How has this evolved in latest several years?

A: We’re centered on attempting to enable an wounded social gathering navigate this program by means of a target on the full person. I think that’s what we’ve seen. Specifically in the last calendar year, there’s been a target on mental health and other factors that may well not be immediately associated to the physical expression of an injuries but a thing that could be in the background. It could be anything, such as food plan and clinical conditions related to in which you dwell, and regardless of whether you have all set access to standard professional medical expert services. All of that gets component of serving to an individual navigate their treatments and getting back to perform as promptly as probable.

Q: How does the corporation greatest balance its goals along with caring for hurt workers?

A: Caring for injured personnel is central to our mission. We focus both on the hurt worker by way of clinical solutions as perfectly as attempting to drive larger performance and accuracy in the promises-managing system, so that there is a concentration on overall cost of promises. Naturally, there’s a extremely deep aim on the wounded worker and building guaranteed that they get back again to operate for the reason that that’s an significant facet of controlling statements costs, which include the clinical promises value aspect of the equation.

Q: What do you like about what you do?

A: I’ve constantly desired to be component of one thing distinctive — a local community of men and women with a shared objective. And I wanted that function to be significant. And so we choose our mission incredibly critically, which is to supply assist to our clients as they test to restore the life of their clients soon after a demanding occasion. To me that is very, quite critical get the job done. Insurance policy is woven deep into the cloth of society, and so we in our compact way can aid provide on the guarantee of the insurance policy sector. It’s a very personalized detail for myself and the just about 6,000 associates that we have listed here at Enlyte. And I think it’s a pretty important portion of our culture.

Author: Christopher Lewis

Metro Goes To Dulles, Amazon Fresh Expands: Top VA Business News 2022

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Bay Area business and home owners faced with insurance questions about flood damage

Why It Pays to Shop Right After the Holidays

Crucial factors

It really is all about snagging deals

What products need to you shop for in January?

Warn: best income back again card we’ve seen now has {1b90e59fe8a6c14b55fbbae1d9373c165823754d058ebf80beecafc6dee5063a} intro APR right until 2024

Black America’s record employment gains at risk as Fed tightens rates

What’s your Columbus business news IQ? Take this test to find out

View from the top: Alex Sun, Enlyte