Business News at a Glance

Employers’ Hiring Push Brings Workers Off the Bench

Despite sharpening trade tensions, a hefty rise in payrolls has provided the latest evidence that the U.S. economy is strong enough to keep pulling benched workers back into action. Six hundred thousand people joined the workforce in June and started actively hunting for a job, the Labor Department said Friday. Of those who found one, three-quarters had been outside the pool of those officially ranked as unemployed. The number of Americans working part time because of their inability to find a full-time position fell — as did the number of those too discouraged to bother searching. Overall, the economy added 213,000 jobs.

As Inflation Rises, It’s Even Harder to Get a Raise

The jobs report Friday pointed to a crucial way in which the economy is still not firing on all cylinders: The strong demand for labor has not prompted employers to substantially increase how much they pay their employees. Hourly earnings in June grew 2.7 percent from a year earlier. That is more or less in line with the pace of the past two years. But now those modest wage gains are worth less in the real world. The reason: The prices of goods and services are picking up. In May, inflation hit 2.8 percent and grew faster than wages.

China Strikes Back at Trump’s Tariffs, but Its Consumers Worry

A trade war between the world’s two largest economies officially began Friday as the Trump administration imposed tariffs on $34 billion worth of Chinese products, and China countered with retaliatory tariffs on U.S. soybeans, cars and other products. It was a significant escalation of a fight that could hurt companies and consumers in both the United States and China. Some Chinese consumers said they could make do without iPhones or U.S. cars if they had to. “We are defending our rights as a nation” said Cathy Yuan, 32, who was shopping at an upscale Shanghai supermarket.

Consumer Bureau Official Who Sued Trump to Step Down and Drop Her Suit

An Obama-era official at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau who argued that she — and not President Donald Trump’s budget director — should have been handed temporary control of the agency announced Friday that she was stepping down. Last year, Leandra English sued Trump and Mick Mulvaney, the bureau’s interim director, over what she said amounted to a coup. On Friday she said she would drop her lawsuit and leave the bureau early next week now that Trump has formally nominated Kathy Kraninger to be the agency’s permanent director. Congress created the agency in 2010 to shield consumers from predatory lending and other abusive banking practices.

When She Earns More: Old Ideas About Gender Roles Still Cause Stress

Nearly a third of women who are married to or living with a man contribute at least half the couple’s total earnings, according to a Pew Research Center survey last year. By comparison, in 1980, just 13 percent of married women earned more than, or roughly the same as, their husbands. But while gender roles have become much more egalitarian, expectations persist that men be the primary breadwinner. Seven in 10 adults also told Pew that for a man to be a good husband or partner, it was “very important” that he be able to support his family. Only about 3 in 10 said the same about women.

FAA Declines to Regulate Airplane Seat Size

This week, in response to a federal appeals court case, the Federal Aviation Administration announced it will not regulate the size of seats on airplanes, despite consumer complaints about comfort and questions about safety. The nonprofit advocacy group FlyersRights.org had filed a petition with the U.S. Court of Appeals in the District of Columbia requesting the FAA establish guidelines for seat dimensions, noting the potential danger for plane evacuations caused by narrow rows. But, in announcing its decision, the FAA claimed "that seat width and pitch, even in combination with increasing passenger size, do not hamper the speed of an evacuation.”