(NEW YORK) — For anyone who marks their calendars timed to food celebrations, Taco Bell has a new date for you to highlight in October that aligns perfectly with a delicious day of the week — Taco Tuesday.
The California-based fast food chain announced Tuesday that this year, National Taco Day will fall on Oct. 1, three days earlier than in previous years, to ensure the food festivity aligns with the beloved weekly tradition of Taco Tuesday.
The permanent date change to the first Tuesday of October was set in motion by the fast food chain with the help of the National Day Calendar, the authoritative entity that curates national days, weeks, months and other tentpole events.
“For years, we’ve celebrated National Taco Day on October 4th, but it’s always felt like there was a bigger opportunity to align it with something even more special — Taco Tuesday,” Marlo Anderson, founder of National Day Calendar, said in a press release. “Thanks to Taco Bell’s efforts, we’re excited to officially move National Taco Day to the first Tuesday in October, creating the Taco Tuesday of all Taco Tuesdays.”
This marks the latest milestone in Taco Bell’s ongoing Taco Tuesday journey, which included a petition that relinquished the trademark title in all 50 states last year.
Taco Bell’s Chief Marketing Officer Taylor Montgomery said in a statement that after the brand “liberated Taco Tuesday last year … we couldn’t just stop there.”
“With National Taco Day coming up, it felt unnatural for it to not fall on a Tuesday, and as some of the biggest advocates of Taco Tuesday out there, we knew we had to help shift the holiday permanently to give taco makers and lovers the opportunity to celebrate bigger and better every year,” Montgomery said.
To celebrate the new date for National Taco Day, Taco Bell plans to host a “frenzy of Tuesday Drop celebrations” kicking off Oct. 1 that will roll out all month long.
(NEW YORK) — In the final weeks of the campaign, former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris have sought to best each other on the all-important issue of the economy, which many voters rank as their top concern.
Both candidates have made manufacturing a centerpiece of their plans, but their respective approaches feature stark differences.
Harris aims to close corporate tax loopholes and throw government support behind the production of critical goods. By contrast, Trump wants to protect domestic manufacturers with tariffs on foreign products while cutting corporate taxes and easing regulations.
Manufacturing accounts for about 10% of U.S. gross domestic product and an even smaller share of the nation’s jobs. But the sector bears outsized importance since the production of essential goods holds national security implications and many manufacturing workers live in key swing states, experts said.
“There’s a belief that manufacturing is special,” Mary Lovely, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics who studies trade policy, told ABC News.
Here’s what to know about where Harris and Trump stand on manufacturing, and what experts think of their respective plans:
Trump: Tariffs and corporate tax cuts
On the campaign trail, Trump talks about tariffs more than just about any other policy proposal. The tax on imports makes up a key part of his plan for revitalizing manufacturing, alongside a lower tax burden for companies that he says would boost production and hiring.
Trump has promised a sharp escalation of tariffs enacted during his first term. Trump has proposed tariffs of between 60% and 100% on Chinese goods. A set of far-reaching tariffs would also include a tax as high as 20% on all imported products.
In theory, a tax on imports would give domestic producers a leg up in competition with foreign manufacturers, Christopher Conlon, a professor of economics at New York University who studies trade, told ABC News.
“His plan is based on the idea that foreign competitors are pricing their products too low and what we need to do is erect a wall of tariff barriers around the U.S.,” Conlon told ABC News.
An escalation of tariffs could expand certain areas of U.S. manufacturing vulnerable to foreign competition, which could result in added jobs at companies protected by the policy, experts said.
The economy added manufacturing over the first few years of his presidency, though the pandemic wiped out much of those gains.
Experts cautioned about a spike in input costs and consumer prices that could end up hindering many manufacturers and hammering household budgets. Evidence indicates that the Trump tax cut did not provide a significant boost for the economy, they added.
U.S. manufacturers of sophisticated products like automobiles and advanced medical equipment often import raw materials. A tariff would likely raise costs for those companies and risk making them less competitive on the global market, Conlon said. While adding jobs at some manufacturers, the policy could cause layoffs at others.
“Nobody seems to have shared that wisdom with the Trump campaign,” Conlon said.
A similar cause and effect applies to prices paid by everyday people for imported goods at the grocery or department store. Broad tariffs on foreign goods would likely force importing companies to raise prices and reignite inflation, experts said.
In a statement to ABC News, the Trump campaign said its manufacturing plan would create jobs and cut taxes.
“President Trump is a businessman who built the greatest economy in American history, and certainly doesn’t need economics lessons from a professor who has never created jobs or built anything in his life,” Trump campaign spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said.
“President Trump successfully imposed tariffs on China in his first term AND cut taxes for hardworking Americans here at home — and he will do it again in his second term. President Trump’s plan will result in millions of jobs and hundreds of billions of dollars returning home from China to America,” the statement added in part.
Harris: Close tax loopholes and provide government support
Harris has proposed a different approach to manufacturing that emphasizes closing tax loopholes for some large corporations and providing government support for high-priority areas within the sector.
The agenda carries over a key part of the strategy undertaken by the Biden administration, which invested billions into manufacturing through a series of measures focused on bolstering key industries.
The Inflation Reduction Act spent hundreds of millions of dollars to boost U.S. production of renewables as the nation pursues ambitious carbon emissions goals and a supply chain less dependent on China. While the CHIPS and Sciences Act infused tens of billions into the production of semiconductors.
“The Biden administration has picked sectors, and in those sectors companies are eligible for assistance,” said Lovely.
Last week, Harris put forward a plan calling for $100 billion investment in manufacturing to further bolster the sector. The policy would prioritize “industries of the future,” such as carbon-efficient steel production and data centers for artificial intelligence, the campaign said in a statement last week.
The Harris campaign said it aims to pay for the investment with a reform of the international tax code that prevents producers from skirting U.S. taxes in a “race to the bottom.”
“The facts are clear: When he was president, Trump lost nearly 200,000 manufacturing jobs and created new incentives for companies to ship American jobs to China. Economists warn if Trump takes power again, his policies will crush American manufacturing jobs, send even more jobs to China, and cost middle class families $4,000 a year. This is a fundamental contrast with Vice President Harris, who is leading an American manufacturing boom – creating jobs right here at home and outcompeting China,” Harris campaign spokesperson Joseph Costello said in a statement to ABC News.
It remains unclear whether the support for manufacturing provided by the Biden administration has yielded significant gains in output or jobs, experts said.
The measures, however, have elicited a burst of factory construction. Spending on manufacturing-related construction surged from $76.4 billion in January 2021 to $238.2 billion in August 2024, U.S. Census Bureau data showed.
The surge in construction marks a positive signal but the critical test will be whether the plants deliver strong output and well-paying, long-term jobs, said Conlon.
“We haven’t had enough time to see if there’s a real effect or not,” he added. “How many chips are getting built by these plants? We don’t know that yet.”
Arian Simone (L) presents the Fearless Strivers New Orleans Grant onstage during the 2022 Essence Festival of Culture at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center on July 1, 2022 in New Orleans. (Paras Griffin/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — Fearless Fund, a venture capitalist firm that invests in female entrepreneurs of color, has settled a discrimination lawsuit over a grant program specifically for Black women.
The lawsuit from the American Alliance for Equal Rights (AAER) claimed that the fund’s Fearless Strivers Grant Contest, which was open “only to Black females,” was discriminatory.
The grant program was at its end when the court case began in 2023, according to an online post by Fearless Fund founder Arian Simone, and the fund said it was motivated to avoid a court ruling so as not to lead to a Supreme Court decision that could end minority-based funding nationwide.
The Fearless Fund said it will continue to focus on “helping under-resourced entrepreneurs who have been ill served by traditional capital markets for far too long.” In a statement on the settlement, it announced a new $200 million debt fund with the goal of lending to more than 3,000 under-resourced founders.
Representatives of Fearless Fund partners Simone and Ayana Parson told reporters in August 2023 that the fund was established to address the wide gap in venture capital funding for businesses led by women of color “who confront barrier after barrier to obtain support and investments for their businesses.”
The Fearless Strivers Grant Contest was created specifically for Black women because Black women-owned businesses receive less than 1% of venture capital funding, according to the organization.
AAER called the grant program “divisive and illegal” and claimed that it “encouraged the Fearless Fund to open its grant contest to Hispanic, Asian, Native American and white women but Fearless has decided instead to end it entirely.”
White women-founded companies take home 64% of “Diversity Investments” by deal count, meanwhile women of color-owned businesses only take home 10%, according to an analysis of Crunchbase data by venture capital firm BBG Ventures.
Fearless Fund partners have long defended their work, citing the poor representation of women of color among venture capital recipients and evidence of racial bias in the investment decisions of asset allocators.
“From the moment the lawsuit was filed, I pledged to stand firm in helping and empowering women of color entrepreneurs in need. I stand by that pledge today and in fact my commitment remains stronger than ever,” read a statement from the organization’s co-founder Arian Simone. “Our overarching mission remains focused on helping and empowering entrepreneurs who have been historically overlooked in the venture capital marketplace.”
AAER’s founder Edward Blum also leads the Students for Fair Admissions, the group that initiated the anti-affirmative action case that reached the Supreme Court and won the case, setting new limits on the use of race-based policies in college admissions.
The conservative group claimed that affirmative action, which was implemented to address racial inequities in access to higher education, violated the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.
(NEW YORK) — Concerns about inflation have increasingly turned to concerns about the job market. Last month’s weaker than expected jobs report led to turmoil in stocks.
The U.S. added 142,000 jobs in August, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics report on Friday. The figure was lower than expectations.
The reports showed a slowing but steady job market. The unemployment rate fell to 4.2%.
Jobs were added in construction and health care, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. July and June numbers were revised to show 86,000 fewer jobs than previously reported.
While these numbers are lower than expected, and do show a weakening job market, for now, this is still an economy that is adding a decent number of jobs. Given this latest data, the Fed is still on track to cut interest rates at its next meeting on Sept. 18.
Fed Chair Jerome Powell last month said “the time has come” to lower interest rates.
Powell indicated the Fed would soon bring interest rates down from a 23-year high. The shift could lower borrowing costs for everything from credit cards to auto loans to mortgages.
While the unemployment rate remains historically low, it ticked up to 3.8% last month. A sharp downward revision of job growth estimates in June and July lowered those totals by a combined 110,000 jobs.
