West Virginia Is the Only U.s. State to Have Lost Jobs
West Virginia is the only U.S. state to have lost jobs over the past year. The state has shed 19,100 jobs since last July, as falling energy prices have battered the coal-mining industry. West Virginia’s unemployment rate is 7.5 percent, compared with 5.3 percent nationally.
The average U.S. credit score is 695, the highest it has been in at least a decade, according to FICO score creator Fair Isaac Corp. Nearly 20 percent of consumers now have credit scores above 800.
Hunger Games star Jennifer Lawrence is currently the world’s highestpaid actress, earning $52 million over the past 12 months. Only four women on the highestpaid actors list earned more than $20 million, compared with 21 male actors. The highest-paid actor, Robert Downey Jr., earned an estimated $80 million during the past year.
Streaming entertainment may be costing states as much $1 billion in lost salestax revenues. Annual spending on sales and rentals of DVD and Blu-ray discs has fallen to around $10 billion, from a peak of $20.2 billion less than a decade ago.
Women owned 9.9 million U.S. businesses in 2012, up from 7.8 million in 2007, according to the National Women’s Business Council. That accounts for 36 percent of all non-farm U.S. businesses. Most women-owned businesses are sole proprietorships, with no employees but the owner.
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