Business

Senate Confirms Frank Bisignano as Social Security Commissioner

Published

1 week ago

May 6, 2025

Senate Confirms Frank Bisignano as Social Security Commissioner

The Senate voted on Tuesday to confirm Frank Bisignano as commissioner of the Social Security Administration, which has been thrown into turmoil after a three-month stretch steered largely by Elon Musk’s unofficial Department of Government Efficiency.

President Trump’s nominee was confirmed by a vote of 53 to 47, which had been expected and was split along party lines.

Mr. Bisignano, a former Wall Street executive, will take the helm at a critical juncture. A series of recent changes led by DOGE, including deep job cuts and a move to manipulate sensitive databases, have rattled current and former employees, former commissioners of both parties, beneficiaries and their advocates. They have been alarmed by the fast and seemingly haphazard shifts, as well as the departure from established protocols that protect beneficiaries’ privacy and ensure they continue to receive payments.

The question is whether Mr. Bisignano, 65, the former chief of the payments giant Fiserv, will steady the agency, which delivers retirement, disability and survivor payments to 73 million Americans every month.

Senator Mike Crapo, a Republican from Idaho who leads the Finance Committee, urged his colleagues last week to vote in favor of Mr. Bisignano, emphasizing his decades of experience leading large financial institutions and noting his commitment to improving customer service at the agency.

But Democratic lawmakers remained unconvinced, and they continued to raise many of the same concerns they grilled Mr. Bisignano about during his three-hour Senate confirmation hearing in late March: Would he give in to calls by DOGE that could further hobble the program, or will he act independently in the best interest of the agency and its beneficiaries?

Senator Elizabeth Warren, the Massachusetts Democrat, spoke against his confirmation on Monday, expressing concerns that Mr. Bisignano would simply “rubber-stamp” Mr. Trump’s and Mr. Musk’s agenda. “He’ll let them keep slashing services and threatening benefits,” she said from the Senate floor. “That will hurt people everywhere — from seniors who count on their monthly checks right now, to the parents of kids with a disability supported by Social Security, to every American paying into the program now for later down the line.”

Mr. Bisignano, who is viewed as a turnaround expert, has held positions at several of Wall Street’s marquee firms, including Morgan Stanley, Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase. He earned $100 million in 2017, more than 2,000 times the average employee’s salary at his firm at the time, First Data Corporation, which later merged with Fiserv.

Despite calling himself “fundamentally a DOGE person” in a February interview on CNBC, Mr. Bisignano appeared to distance himself from the recent changes at the Social Security Administration during his March nomination hearing.

That characterization was challenged at the hearing by Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon, who produced a statement that he said was from a whistle-blower. Mr. Wyden, citing the letter, said that Mr. Bisignano had personally intervened to get key DOGE officials involved at the agency, including one who was approved in the middle of the night. Senate Republicans quickly dismissed those concerns, stating he addressed the allegations during the hearing and in writing.

“He has stated that he does not currently have a role at the S.S.A. and was not part of the decision-making process led by the acting commissioner, Lee Dudek, about S.S.A. operations, personnel or management,” Senator Crapo said in a statement.

For Mr. Dudek, the appointment caps a chaotic run, which began when Mr. Musk’s DOGE team arrived at the agency.

A former fraud adviser in middle management for the Social Security Administration, Mr. Dudek had an unlikely rise to the role of acting commissioner, overseeing an agency of roughly 57,0000 thousand employees. Mr. Dudek was given the position when Michelle King, the previous acting commissioner, left abruptly after refusing to give DOGE representatives access to sensitive private data about millions of Americans.

During Mr. Dudek’s short tenure, the Social Security Administration announced plans to cut 12 percent, or 7,000 employees, from its staff and issued stark new policies that were quickly rolled back — all while field offices experienced more technology interruptions and a rise in phone wait times.

In April, the White House began to use some of the agency’s closely guarded data systems as a tool for immigration enforcement, a decision that is likely the Trump administration’s most controversial for the S.S.A., and steers it away from its mandate as a social insurance program.

Over the past two months, there were several other dizzying changes. At one point, in response to a judge’s order, Mr. Dudek threatened to shut down the system used for all of the Social Security Administration’s work — only to back down hours later. He also cut contracts to the state of Maine in retaliation for a spat its governor got into with Mr. Trump. That move was walked back as well.

Social Security employees have described the environment as chaotic, and morale, which was already strained because of heavy workloads spread among a thin staff, as low.

The American Federation of Government Employees General Committee, and its local unit representing Social Security workers, said in a statement that they “appreciate Mr. Bisignano’s vow to ‘run the agency in the right fashion,’ as long as that means a course correction from January.”

Alexandra Berzon contributed reporting.

Related Topics:Bisignano Donald J Elon Featured Frank J Government Efficiency Department (US)Musk Senate social security administration trump

Click to comment

Business

This Southland boat company wants to electrify the Port of Los Angeles

Published

24 seconds ago

May 14, 2025

Press Room

This Southland boat company wants to electrify the Port of Los Angeles

An electric boat company with roots in Torrance is taking steps to bring battery-powered workboats and charging infrastructure to the Port of Los Angeles, where diesel-burning vessels emit tons of carbon dioxide.

Arc Boat Co., a Southern California startup that sells electric boats for recreational use, said it will open a research and development facility at the port in June.

The facility signals a move toward electrification at the nation’s busiest port and marks Arc’s expansion into the commercial sector.

Arc’s promise to deliver an electrified fleet of workboats comes five years ahead of a 2030 deadline set by the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach to transition to zero-emission equipment.

The twin ports, situated on more than 10,000 acres on San Pedro Bay, rely on heavy-duty cranes, tugboats and trucks to move cargo. Replacing the roughly 2,000 tugboats in the U.S. with electric alternatives could prevent more than 1.6 million cars’ worth of greenhouse gas emissions annually, according to Arc.

“Across the entire marine industry, going electric makes an incredible amount of sense,” Arc co-founder and Chief Executive Mitch Lee said in an interview. “These boats don’t have fumes, and you can cut your operating costs substantially.”

Electric boats require minimal maintenance and zero fuel, an appealing combination for commercial operators who want to save money and consumers looking to enjoy the water, Lee said. Arc’s boats are also quieter and easier to maneuver than traditional boats, he said.

Co-founders Ryan Cook, left, and Mitch Lee sit on an electric boat at Arc Boat Co. on May 12, 2025, in Torrance.

(Carlin Stiehl/Los Angeles Times)

The electrification of vehicles on the water could soon gain momentum, said Petros Ioannou, an engineering professor at USC who researches transportation technology.

“The main reason for going electric is really the environment,” Ioannou said. “The question is whether they are able to solve the technological and logistical problems” presented by electric boats, including power, range and charging limitations.

Despite the challenges of building a battery capable of propelling a boat, several companies including Navier and X Shore are producing and selling electric vessels. Arc’s business currently revolves around recreational boats for water sports, starting at $268,000.

In a partnership with Portland, Ore.-based shipyard Diversified Marine Inc., Arc plans to retrofit a 26-foot-long truckable tugboat with lithium-ion battery packs and a 600-horsepower drivetrain. The vessel will be the first zero-emission tug to support operations at the Port of Los Angeles, Arc said.

Tugboats are an essential tool at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, where they guide larger vessels and move equipment such as barges and cranes.

“Tugs run short, repetitive missions requiring high torque, and start and end at the same home base,” Arc said in a statement announcing its retrofitting project. “Not only does that make them well-suited to going electric, but doing so drastically reduces operating expenses.”

Teaming up with Diversified Marine allows Arc to launch its new workboat in collaboration with several entities that do business at the port, Lee said.

“Diversified already knows how to tap into the port operations and get this vessel to work,” he said. “We’re modernizing their tugboat and deploying it into the Port of L.A., and we’re able to provide charging infrastructure as well.”

A tugboat next to tires and equipment on land.

Switching from diesel-powered to electric workboats can save commercial operators roughly 50% on maintenance and fuel costs, Lee said, adding that Arc’s new research and development facility will provide the groundwork to make the switch possible.

The company did not disclose how much money it was putting into the research facility and accompanying charging network, but said it probably will require an investment of less than $10 million.

The facility will sit within a 35-acre research campus operated by the nonprofit AltaSea. It will support prototype development of electric workboats, on-water testing and fleet deployment, Arc said. The company builds its battery packs out of a separate facility in Los Angeles.

“Decarbonization at our ports is a critical step to achieving real, substantive climate progress,” AltaSea said in a statement. “Arc Boat’s new R&D facility and charging infrastructure will help make the Port of L.A. a global model for sustainable maritime operations.”

Launched in 2021 by former Boeing and SpaceX engineers, Arc has a mission to electrify everything on the water, Lee said. Before co-founding Arc with fellow Northwestern alum Ryan Cook, Lee grew up in the Bay Area and frequently boated with his family.

Arc has received more than $100 million in investment funds from California-based venture capital firms including Andreessen Horowitz and Lower Carbon Capital, among others. The startup employs 170 people, including experts with backgrounds at electric vehicle companies Rivian and Tesla.

The company did not disclose its annual revenue, but said demand for its boats is high. Two models are available to be delivered nationwide, including the Arc Sport, designed for wake surfing and water skiing; and the Arc One, a luxury cruiser.

Arc is the only electric boat company to build its own battery packs in-house, Lee said.

Although assembly is done in Los Angeles, President Trump’s steep tariffs on U.S. trade partners — including a 145% tax on goods imported from China — have still presented a challenge. The tariff on China has since been reduced to 30%.

“We are definitely impacted by tariffs and the electric vehicle market has heavy ties to Chinese supply chains,” Lee said. “We’re also ahead of the curve and far more vertically integrated than most companies.”

With ambitions to build electric boats capable of hauling cargo and traveling long distances, Arc will need to stay at the forefront of battery development, Ioannou from USC said. Producing its batteries domestically may give Arc an advantage as tariffs disrupt global trade.

“Whether this space will progress in a rapid way will very much depend on the battery technology and availability,” Ioannou said.

“When you go from gasoline to electric, there are certain benefits that you get, but a lot of headaches too,” he said.

Business

The Stock Market’s Boomerang Month Has Put Investors in a Bind

Published

15 hours ago

May 13, 2025

Press Room

The Stock Market’s Boomerang Month Has Put Investors in a Bind

The stock market is now higher than before President Trump’s broad and steep tariffs sent share prices into a tailspin. The 10-year government bond yield is now largely in line with where it started the year. On Tuesday, a widely watched measure of inflation nudged lower.

Judging from a snapshot of today’s financial markets, it would be easy to conclude that very little had happened over the last four and a half months.

As the administration has dialed down its trade offensive, delaying the worst of the tariffs announced on April 2 and promoting a long list of trade deals in the works, stocks have risen and the unnerving volatility in the government bond market — which Mr. Trump noted when he first began pausing his tariffs — has subsided.

On Tuesday, the latest reading of the Consumer Price Index showed a slower pace of inflation in April than economists had predicted, despite widespread concerns that tariffs could have sped up price increases.

The S&P 500, which came close to hitting a bear market early last month, is now up slightly since the start of the year, after a 0.7 percent gain on Tuesday.

Still, investors remained cautious, and complain that the outlook remains uncertain, with little clarity on what the final level of tariffs will be.

That leaves them in a tricky position, with many saying they have little conviction as to where the economy is headed but they cannot afford to wait on the sidelines and miss out on the possibility that tariffs will be lowered further and stocks will rise.

In the meantime, investors are still trying to parse how the tariffs that remain in place — including 30 percent tariffs on many Chinese imports — are affecting consumer spending and corporate profits

John Kerschner, a portfolio manager at Janus Henderson, said signs of tariff-fueled inflation are not likely to show up in the economic data for months.

“The market will wait with bated breath for those readings to make a determination of where we actually stand on tariff induced rising prices. Thus, market uncertainty will likely remain elevated,” Mr. Kerschner said.

The Federal Reserve is also in a wait-and-see mode, unwilling to keep lowering interest rates before the inflationary effect of the new tariffs is known. That’s because lower interest rates stimulate the economy and could add a further tailwind to inflation.

Market bets on when the Fed will next lower interest rates have gradually been pushed further out. At the start of this year, investors were anticipating that the Fed would lower interest rates at its meeting last week. Now, investors expect the first rate cut of the year to arrive at the September meeting.

Ellen Zentner, chief economic strategist for Morgan Stanley Wealth Management said the lower than expected reading in the Consumer Price Index on Tuesday “doesn’t mean tariffs aren’t impacting the economy, it just means they aren’t showing up in the data yet.”

“Wait-and-see is still the name of the game, and until that changes, the Fed will remain on the sidelines,” she added.

The longer uncertainty prevails, the more it becomes its own economic force, separate from the tariffs. Uncertainty means businesses hold off on making investment decisions and consumers pull back from spending, slowing economic growth.

Beneath the surface, that concern is still evident in the markets.

The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies, which are more at risk from a downturn in the economy, has risen from its lows, but remains 14 percent lower than its peak in November. The S&P 500 is only 4 percent below its February high.

The lowest-rated corporate debt continues to show some signs of strain.

Then there is the dollar, which has sent the most pointed signal of concern about tariffs. The dollar index, which measures the currency against a basket of its peers, has fallen 6.9 percent so far this year.

That is the dollar’s biggest slide since the end of 2022, when the Fed pivoted from raising interest rates, which had strengthened the dollar, to holding them steady.

But even now, as tariffs have de-escalated, the dollar has regained ground.

“As far as markets are concerned, there’s now a belief that the worst of the trade war has passed, and that the trend is now towards de-escalation,” noted analysts at Deutsche Bank said in a recent research note. But they also warned, “The U.S. is not out of the woods yet.”

Business

Google settles lawsuit alleging bias against Black employees

Published

17 hours ago

May 13, 2025

Press Room

Google settles lawsuit alleging bias against Black employees

Google agreed to pay $50 million to settle a lawsuit alleging the search engine giant was racially biased against Black employees.

The settlement, which was reached after mediation and certified by a U.S. District Court judge in Oakland on Friday, covers some 4,000 Google employees in California and New York.

The original lawsuit came after a state agency, now known as the California Civil Rights Department, in 2021 began investigating Google’s treatment of Black female workers.

In 2022, former Google worker April Curley filed a lawsuit in federal court in San Jose alleging that she and other Black workers experienced systemic discrimination.

Curley, who worked at Google for six years, had been hired to conduct outreach and design recruiting programs with historically Black colleges.

However, her experience at the company quickly soured, she said, alleging that she was stereotyped as an “angry” Black woman, that she and other Black women had not been allowed to present during important meetings and that she was wrongfully terminated in 2020 after challenging internal practices.

Black workers were hired to lower-level jobs, paid lower wages, subjected to hostile comments and denied promotions, Curley and other Black workers who joined the proposed class-action alleged in their lawsuit.
The complaint said managers disparaged Black employees for not being “Googley” enough, comments the plaintiffs said served as racist dog whistles.

Throughout the litigation, the Mountain View-based company has maintained that it did not violate any laws.

“We’ve reached an agreement that involves no admission of wrongdoing. We strongly disagree with the allegations that we treated anyone improperly and we remain committed to paying, hiring, and leveling all employees consistently,” Google spokesperson Courtenay Mencini said in a statement Tuesday.

In addition to the monetary payout, Google has agreed in the settlement to analyze pay and correct differences based on race for the next three years. The company has also committed to maintaining transparent salary ranges and methods for employees to report concerns about pay or other practices.

And through August 2026, the company will not require employees to enter into mandatory arbitration for employment-related disputes, according to the settlement agreement filed last week in federal court.