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A coalition that includes some of the largest U.S. pension funds want federal regulators to force big banks and other public companies to disclose details on how they manage, compensate and incentivize their employees, Reuters reported yesterday. In a rulemaking petition seen by Reuters, a coalition of 25 institutional investors including the California Public Employees' Retirement System (CalPERS) and the California State Teachers' Retirement System (CalSTRS) has called on the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to craft regulations requiring public companies to provide details they see as material to investors. These would include details about worker demographics, skillsets, safety, productivity, human rights, compensation and incentives, the petition shows. Under current rules, companies are only required to provide investors with an employee headcount.

Illinois has a budget for the first time in more than two years, ending a standoff that threatened to downgrade the state’s debt to junk status and was wreaking havoc with cities, colleges and school districts across the state, the Wall Street Journal reported today. The state’s House of Representatives, led by Democratic Speaker Michael Madigan, voted yesterday to override Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner’s vetoes of revenue and spending measures the chamber passed on Sunday. The House’s repudiation of the governor marked the final hurdle in enacting a budget for Illinois — the first state in the union to have gone without a budget for more than a year since the Great Depression. Illinois entered its third fiscal year without a budget on July 1.

The number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits unexpectedly rose for a third straight week last week, likely as some automakers closed assembly plants for the annual summer retooling, Reuters reported today. Initial claims for state unemployment benefits increased 4,000 to a seasonally adjusted 248,000 for the week ended July 1, the Labor Department said today. Data for the prior week was unrevised. It was the 122nd straight week that claims remained below 300,000, a threshold associated with a healthy labor market. That is the longest such stretch since 1970, when the labor market was smaller. The labor market is near full employment, with the jobless rate at a 16-year low of 4.3 percent.

Illinois lawmakers are racing to push through legislation to end a record-long budget impasse and avoid becoming the only U.S. state with a junk credit rating, Bloomberg News reported on Monday. Lawmakers are in session after the Democrat-run House of Representatives approved an income-tax increase with 15 Republican votes on Sunday, signaling bipartisan will to end the stalemate even though Governor Bruce Rauner (R) vowed to veto it if the measure clears the Senate. The House also sent a $36 billion spending plan to the Senate amid concern that credit-rating companies will pull Illinois’s investment-grade rating if a budget isn’t enacted. S&P Global Ratings called the weekend developments a “crucial step” toward ending the stalemate. Illinois has entered its third year without a budget because of a clash between the Republican governor and lawmakers over how to close the government’s chronic deficits. Unpaid bills have soared to a record $15 billion, and by August the state is set to run out of money for key expenses for the first time since the stalemate began, according to Comptroller Susana Mendoza, a Democrat.

United Parcel Service, the nation's largest package delivery company, said that it will freeze its pension program for 70,000 nonunion employees in five years and replace it with 401k accounts, reacting to a rising pension deficit and joining other large corporations that have phased out traditional retirement plans, <em>USA Today</em> reported yesterday.  Rising pension costs, the volatility in future funding and changing demographics — mainly the fact that people are living longer — triggered the move, the company said.  As of the end of 2016, UPS' pension deficit in the U.S. totaled $9.9 billion. It owed $41.1 billion to retirees and current employees who are enrolled in the pension plans, but had enough to fund only 76 percent of what it owes.

The size of New York City’s pension shortfall is in dispute because of profound disagreements among actuaries over how to value pensions, the New York Times reported today. The city’s chief actuary, Sherry Chan, used the traditional actuarial approach to report a shortfall of $65 billion last year. The Manhattan Institute, a research center focusing on urban affairs and domestic policy, prefers market values, which put the shortfall at about $142 billion, more than twice the city’s shortfall estimate. The city’s contributions more than quintupled while Michael Bloomberg was mayor and have continued to rise under Mayor Bill de Blasio. As a share of the budget, they have long since passed fiscal-crisis levels. The city now says that it will take another 15 years to close the shortfall.