Face-palm… Palm oil, which is in half of your groceries, is about to get pricier. Indonesia, the world’s largest palm-oil producer, banned exports to keep prices in check for local consumers. That’s bad news for Hormel, Colgate-Palmolive, and Yum! Brands, who use palm oil in Skippy peanut butter, toothpaste, and even KFC chicken. Global food supplies were already strained by Russia’s war on Ukraine and historic droughts. Now Indonesia’s ban could send record food prices higher — especially in poorer countries that depend on palm oil for cooking.
Don’t forget to call Mom… Sunday’s Mother’s Day. For America’s 30M+ working moms, the past two years have been disproportionately hard. Mothers have been more likely to work in service jobs heavily affected by pandemic closures, and they’ve been 3X as likely as fathers to lose their jobs early on during lockdowns. Nearly 2M women still haven’t returned to the labor force, and economists aren’t sure how many of them ever will. Those who do face a “motherhood penalty” — a pay gap between moms and non-moms that can be wider than the pay gap between men and women.