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The 195 commercial chapter 11 filings in November 2021 represented a 70 percent decrease from the 654 in November 2020, according to data provided by Epiq. Commercial bankruptcy filings totaled 1,565 in November 2021, a 33 percent decrease from the 2,345 commercial filings in November 2020. The 29,325 total bankruptcies in November 2021 were down 15 percent from the 34,486 filings in November 2020. Consumer bankruptcies decreased 14 percent in November 2021, as the 27,760 filings dropped from the 32,141 consumer filings registered in November 2020.

Infusions of government cash that warded off an economic calamity have left millions of households with bigger bank balances than before the pandemic — savings that have driven a torrent of consumer spending, helped pay off debts and, at times, reduced the urgency of job hunts. But many low-income Americans find their savings dwindling or even depleted, the New York Times reported. Over the past 18 months or so, experts have been closely tracking the multitrillion-dollar increase in what economists call “excess savings,” generally defined as the amount by which people’s cash reserves during the COVID-19 crisis exceeded what they would have normally saved. The poorest households saw the greatest impact from stimulus, but spikes in savings faded quickly. According to Moody’s Analytics, an economic research firm, these excess savings among many working- and middle-class households could be exhausted as soon as early next year — not only reducing their financial cushions but also potentially affecting the economy, since consumer spending is such a large share of activity. In April 2020, after the pandemic’s outset, the nation’s personal saving rate — the percentage of overall disposable income that goes into savings each month — jumped fourfold from its February 2020 level to 34 percent. Some of that spike in savings resulted from government checks of up to $1,200 sent to most Americans; some simply stemmed from reduced spending by firmly middle-class or affluent households during lockdowns. The rate peaked again at 26 percent this past spring after another round of direct federal payments. But the personal saving rate doesn’t account for how those savings are distributed. Wealthy households, for instance, have saved the most. New research by the JPMorgan Chase Institute, which assesses the bank accounts of 1.6 million families, found that low-income families experienced the “greatest percent gains” during each round of stimulus, yet also exhausted their balances faster. That’s in part because those households went into the crisis with the thinnest financial buffers.

The main trucking lobbies in Canada and the United States are warning that vaccine and testing requirements for workers will further disrupt supply chains because there is already a dire shortage of drivers, Reuters reported. Canada will require vaccines for truck drivers starting in January, while the Biden administration has issued rules requiring truck drivers at companies with 100 or more employees to be vaccinated or submit to weekly testing. More than two-thirds of goods traded between Canada and the United States travels on roads and highways. For most of the pandemic, truckers crossed the border regularly as they were considered essential workers to keep supply chains flowing. "We know that there already is disruption in the supply chain; this is going to intensify it," said Stephen Laskowski, president and chief executive of the Canadian Trucking Alliance (CTA), which represents some 4,500 carriers. It estimates that 10-20%, or between 12,000-22,000 of Canadian truck drivers, and 40%, or some 16,000 of U.S. truck drivers traveling into Canada would be sidelined if the requirement begins. "This is not a trucking issue. This is a Canada-U.S. economic issue," Laskowski told Reuters, adding about 70% of that C$650 billion ($507 billion) U.S.-Canada trade moves by truck. The American Trucking Associations (ATA), together with others, is seeking to block U.S. President Joe Biden's vaccine mandate in court. A U.S. appeals court issued a temporary stay last month blocking the requirements. The court found "all else equal, a 28 year-old trucker spending the bulk of his workday in the solitude of his cab is simply less vulnerable to COVID-19 than a 62-year-old prison janitor." The Justice Department has asked another court to throw out the temporary stay, and a decision could come as soon as mid-December.

America’s unemployment rate tumbled last month to its lowest point since the pandemic struck, even as employers appeared to slow their hiring — a mixed picture that pointed to a resilient economy that’s putting more people to work, the Associated Press reported. The government reported on Friday that businesses and other employers added just 210,000 jobs in November, the weakest monthly gain in nearly a year and less than half of October’s increase of 546,000. But other data from the Labor Department’s report painted a brighter picture. The unemployment rate plummeted from 4.6% to 4.2% as a substantial 1.1 million Americans said they found jobs last month. The U.S. economy still remains under threat from a spike in inflation, shortages of labor and supplies and the potential impact of the omicron variant of the coronavirus. But for now, Americans are spending freely, and the economy is forecast to expand at a 7% annual rate in the final three months of the year, a sharp rebound from the 2.1% pace in the previous quarter, when the delta variant hobbled growth.