 |
|
|
|||||
Midsize cities are where the growth is. Thats according to new report from BILL, the payments management company used by nearly half a million small and medium-size businesses and that processes around 1% of U.S. GDP. The report analyzed business-to-business accounts payable spending of companies with between 2 and 200 employees from the largest 342 U.S. cities with a population of 100,000 or more. Heres what to know: While payments per company from large cities grew 11% year-over-year during the 12-month period ending May 2025, midsize cities have grown 32% over the same period. Since the beginning of the pandemic in March 2020, the growth in payments per company from midsize cities is two times that of large cities. While growth in midsize cities has increased by 200%, large cities growth escalated by just 113%. Since January 2025, one month before the introduction of new tariffs, midsize cities have outpaced payments growth from large cities by nearly three times, with payments in large cities growing by 1.9% and midsize cities growing 5.5% in payment volume per business. Below are the five U.S. cities with the fastest growing payments this year. All five are midsize cites. 1. Mesquite, Texas 2. El Monte, California 3. South Fulton, Georgia 4. Quincy, Massachusetts 5. Broken Arrow, Oklahoma BILL Chief Economist Fergus McCormick says hes never seen this trend before. Through the data from May, were seeing really strong growth and resilience among SMBs in midsize cities, he says. Thats the key message. The South and West regions of the U.S. have seen the fastest payments growth by city. This trend in data follows the exodus of people from larger cities during Covid-19, when an estimated 2 million migrated to the South and 957,000 to the West. According to the report, midsize cities in California and Texas saw the highest payments growth since May 2024. Those two states are also home to nine of the 25 fastest-growing cities this year, all midsize. Other factors drawing people to midsize cities include a lower cost of living, stronger schools, safer neighborhoods and the increased regularity of working remotely. McCormick says we are truly in the era of the midsize city. This payments data is a leading indicator of economic activity across the United States, he says. To the extent that we can help people understand the trends in economic activity, that is absolute gold. By Ava Levinson This article originally appeared on Fast Company’s sister publication, Inc. Inc. is the voice of the American entrepreneur. We inspire, inform, and document the most fascinating people in business: the risk-takers, the innovators, and the ultra-driven go-getters that represent the most dynamic force in the American economy.
Category:
E-Commerce
Figmas initial public offering this week was a boon for investors. Well, some investors. When shares of the design software startup started trading on Thursday, they immediately went to the moon. After being priced at $33, the stock closed at $115.50 a share, an increase of around 250%. That meant some serious returns for investors, at least the ones who were able to get in on the action. But complaints and reports surfaced yesterday among some Robinhood users who say missed out, as they were not able to purchase as much Figma stock as they wouldve liked. Several users took to social media to air their grievances, claiming that they had tried to buy many Figma shares when they hit the market via Robinhood, but were only granted a single share. For instance, one user, posting on X, claimed to receive only one share after requesting 3,000. The issue sparked a number of memes throughout the day on Thursday as Figma’s blockbuster IPO dominated financial headlines. mom, how are we so rich?your dad sold his 1 figma share robinhood allocated him in the $fig ipo pic.twitter.com/FR96C4IxeT— Alex Kehr (@alexkehr) July 31, 2025 It may have happened because Robinhood, like other trading platforms, only receives a certain number of shares when a company goes public. We receive a limited number of shares for each IPO, reads an article from Robinhoods support team. We use the number of shares, customer demand, and other factors to determine how many shares you’ll get. You may get the full number of shares you requested, a partial amount, or none at all. So Robinhood does make it fairly clear that just because a user is requesting shares, it doesnt mean that theyll necessarily get them. In this case, as demand outstripped supplylikely exceedingly sothe company may have had to divvy the stock out accordingly, regardless of how many users actually requested. Fast Company has reached out to Robinhood for comment and clarification. A few days before Figmas listing on Thursday, Bloomberg reported that its IPO was approaching 40 times oversubscribed, reflecting what was largely expected to be enormous demand for the stock. Robinhood has drawn the ire of users in the past due to concerns around the limited trading of certain stocks. Notably, it happened in 2021, when the platform restricted purchases of GameStop and AMC shares (among others) during the so-called meme stock rally. But the Figma IPO is perhaps another example of how retail investors, relative to institutional investors, can end up getting the short end of the stick. There may not be much that investors can do about that, but for those who missed out on Figma’s IPO price, its a reminder that access to the marketsas a retail investor using a trading app or platformmay not be as unfettered or democratic as wed like to think. Figma shares opened even higher on Friday, at one point hitting close to $143.
Category:
E-Commerce
U.S. hiring is slowing sharply as President Donald Trump’s erratic and radical trade policies paralyze businesses and raise doubts about the outlook for the world’s largest economy.The Labor Department reported Friday that U.S. employers added just 73,000 jobs last month, well short of the 115,000 forecasters had expected.Worse, revisions shaved a stunning 258,000 jobs off May and June payrolls. And the unemployment rate ticked up to 4.2% as Americans dropped out of the labor force and the ranks of the unemployed rose by 221,000.“A notable deterioration in U.S. labor market conditions appears to be underway,” said Scott Anderson, chief U.S. economist at BMO Capital Markets. “We have been forecasting this since the tariff and trade war erupted this spring and more restrictive immigration restrictions were put in place. Overall, this report highlights the risk of a harder landing for the labor market.”Economists have been warning that the rift with every U.S. trading partner will begin to appear this summer and the Friday jobs report appeared to sound the bell.“We’re finally in the eye of the hurricane,” said Daniel Zhao, chief economist at Glassdoor. “After months of warning signs, the July jobs report confirms that the slowdown isn’t just approachingit’s here.”U.S. markets recoiled and the jobs report and the Dow tumbled more than 600 points at the opening bell Friday.The revelations in the new data raise questions about the health of the job market and the economy as President Donald Trump pushes forward with an unorthodox overhaul of American trade policy.Trump has discarded decades of U.S. policy that had favored fewer barriers and ever-freer trade. Instead, Trump is imposing hefty import taxestariffson products from almost every country on earth. Trump believes the levies will bring manufacturing back to America and raise money to pay for the massive tax cuts he signed into law July 4.Mainstream economists say the cost of the tariffs will be passed along to Americans, both businesses and households. That has already begun to happen, with major U.S. companies from Walmart to toothpaste, detergent and toilet paper maker Procter & Gamble announcing price hikes.Trump has also sowed uncertainty in the erratic way he’s rolled the tariffs outannouncing, then suspending them, then coming up with new ones. Overnight, Trump signed an executive order that set new tariffs on a wide swath of U.S. trading partners to that go into effect on Aug. 7., and that arrived after a flurry of unexpected tariff-related actions this week.“There was a clear, significant, immediate, tariff effect on the labor market and employment growth essentially stalled, as we were dealing with so much uncertainty about the outlook for the economy and for tariffs,” said Blerina Uruci, chief U.S. economist for the brokerage T. Rowe Price.Still, Uruci said the data suggests we could be past the worst, as hiring actually did pick up a bit in July from May and June’s revised and depressed levels.“I’m not overly pessimistic on the U.S. economy based on this morning’s data,” she said, though she does think that hiring will remain muted in the coming months as the number of available workers remains limited due to reduced immigration and an aging population.Trump has sold the tariffs hikes as a way to boost American manufacturing, but manufacturers cut 11,000 jobs last month after shedding 15,000 in June and 11,000 in May. The federal government, where employment has been targeted by the Trump administration, lost 12,000 jobs. Jobs in administration and support fell by nearly 20,000.Healthcare companies added 55,400 jobs last monthaccounting for 76% of the jobs added in July and offering another sign that recent job gains have been narrowly concentrated.The department originally reported that state and local governments had added 64,000 jobs in education in June. After the revisions released Friday, that number fell to below 10,000.After the big revisions for May and June, Labor Department data show that the U.S. economy has generated an average of just 85,000 jobs a month this year., barely half the 2024 average of 168,000 and well below an average 400,000 from 2021-2023 as the economy rebounded from COVID-19 lockups.The weak jobs data makes it more likely that Trump will get one thing that he most fervently desires: A cut in short-term interest rates by the Federal Reserve, which oftenthough not alwayscan lead to lower rates for mortgages, car loans, and credit cards.Fed Chair Jerome Powell and other Fed officials have repeatedly pointed to a healthy job market as a reason that they could take time to evaluate how Trump’s tariffs were affecting inflation and the broader economy. Now that assessment has been undercut and will put more pressure on the Fed to reduce borrowing costs.Wall Street investors sharply raised their expectations for a rate cut at the Fed’s next meeting in September after the report was released.On Wednesday, the Fed left its key rate unchanged for the fifth straight meeting and Powell signaled little urgency to reduce rates anytime soon. He said the “labor market is solid” with “historically low unemployment.” But he also acknowledged there is a “downside risk” to employment stemming from the slow pace of hiring that was evident even before Friday’s weaker numbers.The current situation is a sharp reversal from the hiring boom of just three years ago when desperate employers were handing out signing bonuses and introducing perks such as Fridays off, fertility benefits and even pet insurance to recruit and keep workers.Weighing on the job market are the lingering effects of higher interest rates that were used by the Federal Reserve to fight inflation; Trump’s massive import taxes and the costs and uncertainty they are imposing on businesses; and an anticipated drop in foreign workers as the president’s massive deportation plans move forward.The rate of people quitting their jobsa sign they’re confident they can land something betterhas fallen from the record heights of 2021 and 2022 and is now below where it stood before the pandemic. Paul Wiseman and Christopher Rugaber, AP Economics Writers
Category:
E-Commerce
All news |
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||