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FTC Chair Lina Khan wants to keep fighting non-competes | 60 Minutes
Although a federal district judge has blocked a Federal Trade Commission ban on non-compete agreements, FTC Chair Lina Khan said the fight to bar the contractual clauses is not over.
“We firmly believe that we have the legal authority to do this, and we’re willing to keep making that clear to the courts,” she told correspondent Lesley Stahl in an interview for 60 Minutes.
Non-compete agreements can prevent an employee who is leaving a job from starting — or even working for — a company in the same industry, and the agreements are often bound by time and geography. For example, a doctor may be prohibited from working for another hospital within 50 miles of their current job for a year after leaving.
The FTC estimates that non-competes restrict 30 million people, or roughly one in five American workers.
The agency in April had narrowly voted to ban nearly all of the contractual clauses. When the rule had been proposed in January 2023, the FTC said it had received more than 26,000 comments during the public comment period, with more than 25,000 comments in support of the ban on non-competes.
But shortly after the FTC announced the ban, Dallas tax services firm Ryan LLC sued to block the rule, and another lawsuit was filed by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Business Roundtable.
A federal court in Texas threw out the ban in an August ruling, with Judge Ada Brown of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas writing that the FTC had overstepped its authority.
One issue critics of the ban raise is that getting rid of non-compete agreements would put companies’ confidential information at risk and enable competitors to poach valuable employees.
In her conversation with Stahl, Khan said the FTC has accounted for the issue of sharing company secrets.
“One of the questions we posed when we first proposed this was, ‘What are the risks, and are there alternative ways to address those risks?'” Khan said. “We have in this country trade secrets law. And so, if you have an employer that is illegally taking a company’s trade secrets elsewhere, that’s something that can already be reached under the law.”
Another major issue critics question is whether the FTC has the legal power to draw up such a wide-ranging ban, arguing the agency far overstepped its authority in this case.
When Stahl asked why the FTC did not narrow the rule it announced in April, either by certain kinds of workers or in specific geographical areas, Khan said the agency purposely kept it broad.
“Once you start cutting some people out and keeping some people in there are actually additional legal risks that you take on because companies or people can say, ‘Well, that’s an arbitrary, that’s a capricious law.”
If the FTC appeals the Texas court decision, the agency may face an uphill fight in higher courts. A recent Supreme Court decision has narrowed interpretation of regulatory power by executive branch agencies compared to what had been established for the last four decades.
In June, the Supreme Court overturned the Chevron doctrine in a 6-3 decision, ending nearly 40 years of judicial deference to federal agency interpretations of ambiguous statutes. The ruling significantly shifts power from executive agencies to the judiciary. As a result, courts will no longer automatically defer to an agency’s interpretation when setting rules and will instead require a more rigorous review of the agency’s rationale.
For the FTC, this means that, if the ban on non-competes reaches the Supreme Court, the justices may end up undermining the FTC’s authority in areas beyond simply the ability to ban non-compete agreements.
When asked if she was risking the power of the FTC, Khan told Stahl she believes it is important for the agency to be “faithful to the law.”
“And what it means to be faithful to the law is to look at the words that Congress wrote in our statute and understand what are the authorities that those words are giving us,” she said. “And that’s exactly the approach we followed here.”
She told Stahl she brings cases to court when she feels the law is being violated, and in her view, non-compete agreements are being used illegally to trap American workers.
“We’ve moved forward with the non-compete rule. We have a whole set of other rules that we’re moving forward with,” Khan said. “And we firmly believe that we have the authority to do this, and we’ll keep defending them.”
The video above was produced by Brit McCandless Farmer and edited by Scott Rosann.
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Savers concerned about dwindling interest rates on their money woke up to some welcome news on Wednesday with the latest inflation reading showing an uptick in October. While not a positive development for the wider economy, a rise in inflation could slow interest rate cuts, two of which have been issued in the last three months. Now at 2.6%, inflation jumped from September’s 2.4%, coming in higher after September’s Fed rate cut and ahead of the November cut issued last week. That’s still higher than the Federal Reserve’s target 2% goal.
Against this volatile backdrop, savers may want to take a final chance at exploiting this inflation cycle by opening a high-yield savings or certificate of deposit (CD) account. CDs, in particular, can still be advantageous now, despite the wider rate climate cooling this fall. Below, we’ll detail three reasons why it may be worth opening a CD now that inflation is rising again.
See how much more you could be earning on your money with a top CD here now.
Why you should open a CD now that inflation is rising again
Here are three reasons why you should consider opening a CD now that inflation just rose again:
Rates are still relatively high
Sure, CD interest rates have declined this year, with 1-year CD terms feeling the greatest effect. But that doesn’t mean that rates are at the 1% mark (or less) from 2020, either. Right now, you could still secure a 4.50% rate on a 1-year CD or 4.85% on a 6-month CD. Even 3-year CDs have rates over 4% currently. But, as has been shown for most of 2024, these rates are unlikely to remain this high for much longer. So you should consider acting now in case the next inflation reading shows a move back toward that 2% goal.
Get started with a top CD account online today.
Rates could fall if inflation drops again
If inflation falls again in November or December, interest rates on CDs could fall again – even without a formal Fed rate cut being issued. If inflation and other economic indicators lead lenders to expect more rate cuts, they may start reducing their CD offers in advance, as is the norm. And Wednesday’s inflation report didn’t come in so hot that it’s unrealistic to expect additional rate reductions ahead, even if they may not be issued exactly when previously expected. Understanding this, then, it makes sense to lock in a high CD rate while you still can.
You’ll protect your money until this inflation cycle ends
CD interest rates are high – and fixed. Unlike those on regular savings accounts and even high-yield savings accounts, this fixed-rate nature ensures accurate calculations so you’ll know exactly how much you stand to earn upon account maturity. And that locked rate will remain the same even if additional rate reductions are issued during the CD’s full term. So not only will you earn a high rate, but you’ll continue to earn that high rate and thus protect your money until this inflation cycle ends.
The bottom line
The window of opportunity to open a high-rate CD account is closing, but as this week’s inflation reading underlines, it hasn’t closed completely just yet. Rates on these accounts are still relatively high but they could fall again due to any number of economic indicators. But by opening a CD now, you’ll lock in an elevated rate and add a layer of protection against additional rate volatility to come. Just be sure to only deposit an amount of money that you can easily afford to part with for the full CD term or you’ll risk having to pay an early withdrawal penalty to regain access to your funds.
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The Guardian will no longer post its content under its official account on X, the British newspaper announced on Wednesday.
The Guardian stated the move had been under consideration for a while, “given the often disturbing content promoted or found on the platform, including far-right conspiracy theories and racism.” The media outlet added that the U.S. presidential election campaign underscored its view that the social media platform is “toxic” and that its owner, Elon Musk, used it to shape political discourse.
The London-based paper’s announcement comes as President-elect Donald Trump named Musk as co-head of what he called his “Department of Government Efficiency.” Musk, the billionaire owner of Tesla and SpaceX, was heavily involved in Trump’s campaign.
X had been Twitter before its board agreed to be acquired by Musk in 2022 in a deal that valued the platform at $44 billion.
X users will still be able to share Guardian articles on the platform, and the newspaper’s journalists will at times use it for news-gathering purposes, just as they use other social networks.
“We can do this because our business model does not rely on viral content tailored to the whims of the social media giants’ algorithms — instead we’re funded directly by our readers.”
The Guardian’s X account bio now describes itself as an archived page and points readers to its website and app.
X did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The move by the Guardian comes in the wake of an exodus by advertisers on X, with companies including Apple, Coca-Cola and Disney removing paid ads from X last year. The company’s difficulties persisted into 2024, with the World Bank halting all paid ads on the platform in early September after a CBS News investigation found its advertisements showing up under a racist post from an account that prolifically posts pro-Nazi and white nationalist content.
More recently, a survey of marketers by Kantar found a quarter of advertisers plan to reduce spending on X in 2025.
