On Friday, President Barack Obama left Washington for Baltimore, the second stop on his “Middle Class Jobs & Opportunity Tour,” aimed at focusing attention to his efforts to improve the lives of middle class Americans. “I know it can seem frustrating sometimes when it seems like Washington’s priorities aren’t the same as your priorities,” Obama told an audience at a facility of the dredging manufacturer Ellicott Dredges. “Others may get distracted by chasing every fleeting issue that passes by. But the middle class will always be my number one focus, period. Your jobs, your families, your communities, that’s why I ran for president.”

Hard facts show a fairly grim picture of the employment situation in America.

“We find that nearly two million private sector employees working on behalf of America earn wages too low to support a family, making $12 or less per hour. This is more than the number of low-wage workers at Walmart and McDonalds combined,” noted a recent report from Demos, a research and policy center focused on economic stability. At the very least, argued the organization, the American government owes employees on its payroll a livable wage.

Demos defines low-wage work as “a job paying $12 an hour or less, equivalent to an annual income of about $24,000 for a full-time worker. Nationwide, a family of four trying to subsist on $24,000 a year hovers near the poverty level. Even a single worker with no dependents would find no room in a basic budget for health coverage, a retirement nest egg, or building emergency savings.”

But its not just the private sector employees working on behalf of America that are suffering from lowing paying jobs. While unemployment has been very slowly ticking downward — in the most-recent Employment Situation report, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said that the U.S. economy added enough jobs in April to pull the unemployment rate to 7.5 percent — the declining headline unemployment rate masks some concerning trends that betray overall weakness and inequality in the labor market.

The National Employment Law Project showed that while low-wage occupations accounted for 21 percent of recession-era job losses, they accounted for 58 percent of recovery job gains — and while mid-wage occupations accounted for 60 percent of recession losses, they accounted for just 22 percent of recovery growth. What this means is that post-recession job growth is characterized by Americans taking lower-paying jobs, moving out of the middle class and into the lower class.

This data highlights the growing economic divide between working families at the top and the bottom of the economic ladder.

Income inequality has increased steadily in the United States even as the stock market has recovered most of its losses and corporate profits have soared. Yet, for an increasing number of working families economic security is out reach. In the years between 2007 and 2011, the share of working families that are considered low income, meaning 200 percent of the official poverty threshold, increased from 28 percent to 32 percent nationally.

Demos focused on workers whose salaries are paid by federal tax dollars because this portion of the working population highlights the problems faced by low-wage earners particularly well and because it shows the extent government’s involvement in the shrinking of the middle class.

The federal minimum wage is currently $7.25 per hour. It is not surprising that employers in the retail and food services industries would take advantage of the low rate. What is dubious is that the federal government directly or indirectly employs 1.99 million people that fit under the same low-wage definition. “These are employees working on behalf of America, doing jobs that we have decided are worthy of public funding — yet they’re being treated in a very un-American way,” stated the report.

And this is not the only problem. Because tax dollars fund low-wage jobs, there is ripple effect as low-paid workers and their families have less money to spend, hindering further economic growth. Purchasing power of the current minimum wage is 30 percent lower today than it was in 1968, and by all accounts, the cost of American labor has failed to keep up with the cost of living in America.

In his 2013 State of the Union address, Obama proposed that the minimum be raised from $7.25 an hour to $9. Additionally, a minimum-wage bill is now in Congress that, if passed, would raise the floor to $10.10 an hour, a figure that more closely approximates minimum wage’s value in 1968 than the current wage. Once minimum wage reaches that level, it would automatically increase alongside the cost of living. Even the president’s proposed lower increase to $9 would effectively provide a raise for about 15 million people, of which the great majority are adults, not teenagers.

Detractors to this proposed increase argue that the higher labor costs will prompt employers of low-wage workers to layoff workers and thereby increase unemployment. But Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal is commonly credited with creating America’s modern middle class, and a major piece of legislation introduced during that period — the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 — set maximum hours and minimum wages for most categories of workers. While no economic situation is exactly the same, the answer to the minimum wage question is not as cut and dry as its detractors would claim.

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Today is the one-year anniversary of Facebook’s (NASDAQ:FB) stock market debut, which is now seen as one of the most disappointing initial public offerings in history.

For the social network, the past twelve months have been a fight to transform the social network into a mobile-centric platform that generates more revenue from advertising and acts as a conduit that delivers what consumers want most from their phones: ways to communicate, shop, be entertained, and find answers to simple queries.

After watching Facebook struggle toward that end goal for months, investors have been left with many questions. But one question stands out above all others: will the social network ever successfully monetize its mobile platform, or has the company already peaked? While Facebook’s debut was expected to be one of the hottest IPOs of this century, the company’s stock rapidly fell for its debut price of $38 per share to a low of less than $18 per share last September. Even though Facebook has show in recent quarterly reports that its business is strengthening, the stock has still not reached or surpassed its IPO level.

Still, the social network shares have rebounded more than 50 percent since bottoming out last fall. The stock’s movement has left Wall Street analysts divided over whether the company should be analyzed through a glass-half-full lens or a glass-half-empty lens. On one hand, Facebook has generated healthy revenue growth since creating a mobile advertising business out of nothing, and its stock is no longer in a trough. However, shares are trading more than $10 below their IPO price. Evidence of this divide can be seen in brokerage ratings — a little more than half the covering firms currently have Buy ratings on Facebook, while the current median price target on the shares stands at $34, according to data from Thomson Reuters.

The level at which the social network’s stock is trading has important significance in the debate. “Facebook’s share price is telling you that investors are more skeptical about the company’s prospects than a year ago,” Wedbush analyst Michael Pachter told MarketWatch. Jordan Rohan of Stifel Nicolaus has a different analysis. “Shouldn’t you be looking at why it is 40 percent higher than its lows?” he asked.

For both investors and analysts, an important measure of the company’s success, or lack thereof, is its mobile advertising revenue growth. Before Facebook became a public company, there was not on single advertisement on its social network. But just five months after the IPO, Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg and his team had boosted mobile advertising revenue to a 14 percent share of the company’s total advertising revenue from essentially a zero percent share. By the first quarter of this year, that number had ballooned to 30 percent. Excitement about Facebook’s potential mobile strength even pushed shares above $30 temporarily in January.

For a time, it even seemed that Facebook was about to hit its IPO price, but the stock dropped back below $30 per share in February and has stayed under that level ever since. Even though first quarter results showed a positive trend for mobile advertising growth, other financial measures prompted investors to wonder whether the growth was sustainable. As early as the fourth quarter of last year, the company said it expected expenses to increase as investment costs rise, and that forecast spooked investors.

Some industry experts have asserted that the problem is that Facebook began public life with an unrealistically high valuation.

However, other problems are creeping up on Facebook as well. In the past several months, critics have warned that Facebook has been growing its user base at a much slower pace than previously. Rohan does not agree. “Facebook continues to grow its audience,” he told MarketWatch. “It continues to grow its employee count as expected. It is helping big advertisers understand how impactful Facebook really is.”

Facebook may have transitioned from being cool to being a utility in the past year, as Rohan alleged, but Facebook management must “convey to the Street that they are not swinging at the fences with new ad units and acquisitions, and there is a very cohesive long-term strategy in place to grow and monetize the platform,” as Topeka Capital’s Victor Anthony told MarketWatch. And that is what is most important in his estimation; Facebook must clarify what is really important in its vision for the future. Furthermore, the company must convince investors that it is spending money to achieve that future intelligently.

To get an earnings power that supports a $38-per-share valuation, the company must grow revenue at a rate of 35 percent to 40 percent. “I think they can do it,” said Anthony, “but they don’t seem inclined to let people know that they believe so, too.”

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Every year between the end of World War II and 2004, Americans drove more miles than the year before. But new data indicates that the six decade-long driving boom — a phenomenon that saw steady increases in per-capita driving in the United States — has ended.

The unique combination of forces that fueled the driving boom, namely cheap gas prices and the rapid expansion of the workforce during the Baby Boom generation, are no longer the forces guiding America’s relationship with cars. Now, Americans not only drive fewer total miles than they did eight years ago, but they also drive fewer miles per person than they did at the end of Bill Clinton’s first term. The new generation, known as the millennials, is now “demanding a new American Dream less dependent on driving,” as the Frontier Group noted in a recent policy paper titled “A New Direction: Our Changing Relationship with Driving and the Implications for America’s Future.”

While millennials may be carving out lives that do not rely on driving as heavily as they did in previous generations, transportation policy in the United States has not caught up to the changing trends. That is a key point in the analysis. Even though recent data suggests that per-capita increases in driving have ended, official forecasts of future vehicle travel assume the opposite. These forecasts are used to justify spending vast sums of money on new and expanded highways, while existing roads and bridges are neglected.

As Frontier group’s Tony Dutzik wrote, “The time has come for America to hit the “reset” button on transportation policy — replacing the policy infrastructure of the Driving Boom years with a more efficient, flexible, and nimble system that is better able to meet the transportation needs of the 21st century.”

Although Americans drove no more miles in 2012 than they did in 2004, they did take nearly 10 percent more trips via public transportation in 2011 than they did in 2005. The United States also saw increase in commuting by bike and on foot.

It has been the millennial generation — those Americans born between 1983 and 2000 — who have ushered in the recent change in transportation trends. This group is already the largest generation in the United States, and therefore, their choices will guide the nation’s future transportation infrastructure needs. Millennials drive much less than previous generations of young Americans, and they will not reach peak driving age, the 35-to-54 year old demographic, until 2030. If the decline in per-capita driving continues for another dozen years, total vehicle travel in the United States could remain below its 2007 peak despite the fact that the population is expected to increase by 21 percent.

According to the Frontier Group, the driving reduction will have major implications for transportation policy, and it has influenced many other parts of American life already. Traffic congestion has fallen, America is less dependent on oil, and roads are being used less — although the gas tax is generating less income.

In order to adapt to these changes, the policy paper argued that the federal government should better evaluate the costs and benefits of all transportation projects based on several scenarios of future driving demand. In addition, the firm stated that the official policy should support millennials and other Americans in their desire to drive less, repair existing infrastructure, and use transportation revenue where it makes the most sense.

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For reasons no longer known, Robert’s endowment came with several strings attached. It also forbade the recipient from studying law, medicine, dentistry, veterinary surgery, or theology, and the student must move back to Iowa for a minimum of two years after graduation.

Because of its restrictive terms, the university has not awarded the fellowship since 1997, although the school said it does not know precisely when when Columbia stopped adhering to the race-related provision of the gift. “Columbia long ago ceased awarding the fellowships in question and does not follow gift conditions that violate anti-discrimination laws,” the university said in a statement Wednesday. “It should go without saying that a university rightly known for the great diversity of its student body is as offended as anyone by the requirements of these fellowships.”

Universities must generally adhere to the restrictions on endowments as long as they are legal, as University of Iowa Foundation’s chief operating officer Tiffani Shaw told USA Today. In this case, the terms of the Lydia C. Roberts Graduate Fellowship may violate United States anti-discrimination law.

The university’s associate provost, Lucy Drotning, filed an affidavit in a state Supreme Court in Manhattan last week in support of legal action taken by JPMorgan Chase (NYSE:JPM), the estate’s trustee, as part of its own efforts to change the terms of the trust. The court papers requested that the whites-only provision be thrown out and the Iowa-only rule be modified to allow students that are residents of the state or students who graduated from colleges there be eligible for the award.

Even though the intent behind Roberts’ donation is unknown, challengers to the fellowships racial stipulations argue that its terms violate federal anti-discrimination laws. “It could be the donor put ‘white’ in there because at the time most students at Columbia University were white,” Angela Onwuachi-Willig a law professor at the University of Iowa, told the publication. “But it also could mean that it was a direct intent to discriminate against students of color. I think that the university would have a right to contest the continued use of the fund under those restrictions.”

It is true that many schools offer scholarships targeted toward racial minorities, but, according to legal experts, the purpose of the award determines whether a scholarship discriminates. “There’s a difference between considering race as a factor in giving a scholarship where you’re trying to cultivate diversity, versus a scholarship where the intent is to exclude people based upon perceived inferiority of their race,” said Onwuachi-Willig.

According to court papers, the current value of the trust is $840,000, and it earned $26,000 in income in 2011.

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Ending a tough week, shares of Apple ended the week down 4.35 percent. The stock closed in the red on Friday as well, dropping down $1.32, or 0.30 percent, to $433.26. Here’s a cheat sheet to today’s top Apple stories:

Is Apple Losing This Huge Market to BlackBerry and Samsung?

Is the Indian market slipping through Apple’s fingers? According to analyst Trip Chowdhry of Global Equities Research, Apple is indeed losing the hearts and minds of India’s consumers due to a combination of several factors. One of the major reasons that Apple is failing in the Indian market is because of a lack of Apple stores. India has laws that prohibit the Cupertino-based company from opening a retail store without also establishing a manufacturing… (Read more.)

This Apple Supplier Is Still Messing Up Labor Practices

Longtime Apple supplier Foxconn is being squeezed between a rock and a hard place as the Taipei-based company tries to reduce workers’ hours while simultaneously keeping up with production orders. The maker of Apple’s iPad and iPhone products has been the target of scrutiny by the Washington-based Fair Labor Association ever since Apple became a member of the organization after a rash of Foxconn employee suicides in 2010.

Although the FLA says Foxconn has resolved almost all of its factory safety and worker condition problems, the Chinese manufacturer is still having difficulty meeting the July deadline for reducing workers’ hours. So far Foxconn has reduced the maximum amount of weekly hours to 60. However, the company originally promised to reduce the number of weekly work hours to 40 with nine hours of overtime by July of 2013…(Read more.)

Apple CEO Wants Drastic Changes in Tax Laws

With less than a week to prepare for his appearance at a Senate hearing that is looking into Apple’s offshore tax practices, CEO Tim Cook has announced that he plans to ask for a corporate tax law overhaul while he is in Washington. According to the Washington Post, Cook is seeking a “dramatic simplification” of the current corporate tax laws and will offer up several specific changes he believes will encourage more companies to repatriate overseas earnings. Apple currently keeps approximately $100 billion of its cash reserves overseas and out of the reach of America’s tax collectors. Apple could face a corporate tax rate of 35 percent under current U.S. tax laws if it tries to bring its cash into the U.S… (Read more.)

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The Republican-led House of Representatives launched its 37th attempt on Thursday, and the bill to repeal Obamacare passed by a margin of 229 to 195. The scandal involving the IRS has not only added fuel to the political fire over the controversial law, but gave the Republican lawmakers another platform from which to criticize the Affordable Healthcare Act. News that the tax agency singled out conservative groups for special examination when they applied for tax-exempt status during the 2012 election cycle has many Republican legislators asking how the agency can be trusted to administer Obamacare.

Aside from the Department of Health and Human Services, the IRS is the most important government agency responsible for the implementation of the Affordable Care Act; it is charged with checking whether millions of Americans are in compliance the law’s health coverage requirement. It will also track individuals’ private health information in order to distribute tax credits to eligible individuals who purchase coverage under a qualified plan through one of the exchanges. In total, there are 47 different Obamacare provisions that require involvement from the IRS.

A new revelation has only strengthened Republicans’ resolve to roll back Obamacare. Sarah Hall Ingram, who now heads the IRS office responsible for implementing the healthcare legislation, served as commissioner of the tax-exemption division between 2009 and 2012. Her successor, Joseph Grant, served as deputy commissioner during part of the time period when the improprieties occurred, and he took the fall for the misdeeds despite being appointed commissioner on May 8. He became the second IRS official this week to announce his resignation.

“I’m deeply concerned with the ability of the agency and the resolve of this agency to lawfully manage this significant undertaking with discretion and with accountability,” Republican Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania said on the House floor Thursday, according to CNN. However, Representative Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, head of the Democrats’ Steering and Policy Committee, said Wednesday that even though the agency’s actions were “outrageous,” it should not be a barrier to installing the central elements of Obamacare. “People agree on an investigation … but that shouldn’t get in the way [of implementation],” DeLauro said at a press briefing in the Capitol. “We can walk and chew gum at the same time.”

Still, Republicans are looking to pass additional legislation to prevent the implementation of Obamacare. Representative Randy Forbes (R-Va.) introduced a measure on Wednesday, officially known as the Prevent IRS Overreach Act, which if passed, would ban the tax collection agency from hiring anyone to implement Obamacare’s provisions.

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Ford’s (NYSE:F) Lincoln-branded vehicles have been rolling off assembly lines since 1922. Even though the luxury brand has lost some of its prestige in the past two decades, Ford has set the cars off on a revolutionary new course. The Lincoln has been redesigned, which helped U.S. sales soar 21 percent in April, and the Dearborn-Michigan based automaker is now using China as a laboratory to study the shopping habits of consumers in one of the world’s largest economies.

The company is examining the habits of luxury shoppers in Shanghai for new methods of customer service that could eventually be employed at Lincoln dealerships in the United States.

“In many ways, China will be a listening post for Lincoln in the United States,” Jim Farley, global head of Lincoln and the automaker’s top marketing executive, said in an interview with Automotive News at the Shanghai auto show. “Soon China will be the largest luxury market in the world.”

Since reaching a peak of popularity in 1990, the Lincoln has fallen through the ranks to be the eighth top-selling luxury brand in the United States. While the brand once outsold its rivals, during the past decade, as Ford spread its investments for premium vehicles over Volvo, Land Rover, and Jaguar — all brands it has since discarded — the Lincoln languished. But with the MKZ, a new midsize sedan, Ford is slowly becoming more competitive. Last month, Ford sold approximately 4,000 of the vehicles, more than in the last three months combined.

At a meeting with several Chinese Lincoln dealership operators before the auto show, Farley compared the Lincoln’s expansion into China with what he experienced assisting Toyota (NYSE:TM) build the Lexus and Scion brands from scratch. “It felt like 1988 to me with Lexus,” said Farley, who was a product planner for Toyota when the automaker launched its luxury brand.

Lincoln’s first dealerships in China will open their doors in 2014, and because the brand has never been sold there before, Ford will have a unique opportunity. “Because we’re building the Chinese Lincoln business from the ground up, we can take more chances here. The dealer network is brand new,” Farley said. “We can give them large trading areas. They will have large throughputs and they can make upfront investments and differentiate the service.”

Where the Lincoln has a storied history in the United States, one that covers both high points and low points, the brand has an empty slate in China onto which it can project its redesigned  image.

According to Brett Wheatley, Ford’s vice president of marketing for Asia-Pacific, the company’s Lincoln representatives have visited luxury auto dealerships of other brands and are even studying shopping patterns at retail outlets of non-automotive luxury brands like Salvatore Ferragamo, Prada, and Hermes. The representatives accompanied a pair of shoppers as they browsed Shanghai’s swanky IFC Mall, where they purchase a $1,900 handbag and several pieces of jewelry.

“It was fascinating to watch the luxury shopping experiences firsthand,” Wheatley said of the experience in an e-mail to Automotive News. “Some of the retailers did an excellent job with attention to detail on branding from the moment you approach the entrance to the store, to the attire of the staff, and the way the product is displayed.”

From this discovery, he found that shoppers preferred a different type of sales experience than is commonly executed in the United States; the pace was slower and many customers enjoyed the both the experience of shopping for luxury items and interaction with the sales professionals. Lincoln hopes to cultivate similar one-on-one relationships with customers in the United States, although Ford has not specified which strategies it learned in China will migrate to the united States.

China will be an opportunity for Ford’s Lincoln, but it will be difficult to establish the brand because many luxury brands compete for the attention of China’s shoppers. Still, “Ford has a great opportunity to grab and hold investors’ attention by bringing to the table global tools and experience that help Lincoln dealers find profit opportunities,” Hamilton Gayden of the automotive retailing consulting firm Urban Science Applications told the publication.

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That Dell’s situation grew worse during the first three months of the year will come as no surprise to the industry. Nevertheless, the results will give a new perspective for the company’s founder and Chief Executive Officer Michael Dell, and activist investor Carl Icahn in their separate attempts to buy out the company. Ever since rumors began circulating that Mr. Dell was preparing an offer to take the company private, the main question that has guided the analysis of shareholders, industry experts, and the company’s board is how much should the company be valued, given the condition of Dell’s key market. The first quarter’s disappointing results gave some additional perspective and weight to Mr. Dell’s effort.

“Hardware margins were pretty abysmal, which should generally support (Michael) Dell’s bid,” Morningstar analyst Carr Lanphier told Reuters. “But Michael Dell’s strategy is also to be aggressive in pricing, to win key contracts.” Still, “it doesn’t seal the case one way or the other.”

Mr. Dell, who began the company from his college dorm room, submitted a proposal with the private-equity company Silver Lake to take the PC maker private for $24.4 billion, or $13.65 per share. He argued that the process of transitioning the company into a provider of enterprise computing services would be best done away from public scrutiny. Dell’s board accepted the offer, but due to Mr. Dell’s insider status, a special committee of the company’s board implemented a 45-day go-shop period where other offers could be solicited, so as to avoid giving the appearance of a conflict of interest. Still, many shareholders, most notably Southeastern Asset management, argued that the offer significantly undervalued the company. Southeastern said earlier this year that Dell should be valued closer to $20 per share.

During the go-shop period, Dell received bids from both Blackstone Group and Carl Icahn, but Blackstone withdrew its bid after research firms IDC and Gartner reported that PC sales had contracted sharply in the first quarter. The firm cited an “unprecedented” decline in the company’s PC sales, along with its “rapidly eroding financial profile” as the cause of its departure. Carl Icahn, whose joint offer with Southeastern would give Dell shareholders the option to keep holding stock and take an additional $12 a share in cash or stock, still has his proposal on the table.

Both Icahn and Southeastern have said the Mr. Dell’s buyout bid is too cheap for a company attempting to become a major provider of enterprise computing. The company’s results did reflect that shift in focus. Dell reported that revenue from enterprise solutions, services, and software rose 12 percent to $5.5 billion, while overall revenue fell 2 percent and its “end-user computing division,” which includes PC sales, slid 9 percent. In order to grow its enterprise business so that it can compete with more established players like International Business Machines (NYSE:IBM) and Hewlett-Packard (NYSE:HPQ), Dell has invested heavily on research and sales.

The battle between Icahn and Mr. Dell regarding Dell’s future emphasizes the uncertainty in the PC industry, which was sent in a downward rival thanks to the growth of the smartphone and tablet markets.

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J.C. Penney (NYSE:JCP) surprised no one when the company reported another quarter of steep losses brought on by ongoing weak sales and heavy clearance sales. For the three month period ended May 4, the department store suffered a net loss of $348 million, or $1.58 per share — a figure twice the $163 million, or 75 cents per share, the company lost in the year-ago quarter. Sales slid 16.4 percent to $2.67 billion, in line with the warning executives gave last week.

Still, shares slipped just about 2 percent after earnings were reported Thursday because many analysts termed the loss as a remnant of former Chief Executive Officer Ron Johnson’s tenure. This stance indicates that Wall Street has faith that the new leadership can exact improvements in the retailer’s finances. Chief Executive Myron Ullman worked to reinforce that sentiment when he told investors that J.C. Penney was emerging from what he called an abyss. However, he cautioned that it would take time to fix the company’s numerous problems.

Johnson’s efforts to steer J.C. Penney away from its image as a discounter contributed to a 13 percent drop in customer traffic and a 25 percent fall in revenues in fiscal 2012. In his opinion, the department store chain needs offer consumers more upscale products rather than the company’s traditional private labels, even though those items create a much more profitable business with higher margins. But Johnson’s team “openly disparaged the house brands,” noted The Wall Street Journal, despite the fact that they accounted for approximately half of the retailer’s sales. St. John’s Bay, an in-house brand, once brought in $1 billion a year in sales before Johnson eliminated its women’s line.

With this vision guiding his turnaround efforts, Johnson envisioned a cluster of boutiques that showcased hip but affordable products that would take the place of these house brands. But his attempt to revitalize the chain and transform its business, from pricing to customer experience, did not happen. The change of the company’s pricing structure — which eliminated coupons and massive sales in favor of prices 40 percent lower  – drove customers away instead of drawing them in.

Since Ullman, who preceded Johnson as chief executive, returned to the company, shares have risen nearly 40 percent. He has taken steps to reassure vendors, strengthen its finances, and win back shoppers. As for a full recovery, Ullman noted in a conference call with analysts that it “won’t happen overnight,” but adde, “Rest assured, we recognize the magnitude of the challenges that we face.”

The new chief executive never once mentioned Johnson by name during the call, but he did indirectly praise one of his efforts; Ullman said that the brands brought in by his predecessor — like home goods designer Jonathan Adler and clothing designer Nanette Lepore — were attractions that bring in new customers. But, after burning through $948 million cash during the first quarter to set up the new boutiques, including a new home goods section that will be launched in June, the company has no plans to roll out additional shops just now, according to Ullman.

“There is a good deal of work ahead, but by listening to our customers and providing the shopping experience they want, we are confident we will deliver for them and improve performance for the benefit of our suppliers, associates, and shareholders,” he said in the earnings press release.

But beyond the company’s self-made problems, J.C. Penney must also contend with economic challenges. Earlier this week, rival retailers Kohl’s (NYSE:KSS) and Macy’s (NYSE:M) reported lower-than-expected same-store sales for the quarter, which were attributed to more cautious lower-to-middle class shoppers.

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Soaring production of natural gas from horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracking has pushed supplies to record highs in each of the past four years. This boom in natural gas and oil production provided the United States with 84 percent of its energy requirements last year, the highest annual level since 1991. Combined with unseasonable weather, March recorded the coldest temperatures in eleven years, the increased production levels sent futures up 21 percent this year, which, in turn, prompted investors to pour money into natural gas.

In fact, bullish bets on natural gas prices rose last month to the highest level since January 2010, when the statistic was first recorded, according to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s May 10 Commitments of Traders report.

But with weather warming and stockpiles increasing further, prices are dropping. On Thursday, ahead of the Energy Information Administration’s weekly gas storage report, futures fell for the first time in four days, declining as much as 0.7 percent on expectations that the government report would show an above-average stockpile increase.

Losses in natural gas futures worsened after the statistical arm of the U.S. Energy Department reported that inventories for the week ended May 10 rose by 99 billion cubic feet. Analysts had forecast an increase of between 93 and 95 billion cubic feet. In total, the natural gas supply stands at 1.964 trillion cubic feet, 694 billion cubic feet below year-ago levels and 83 billion cubic feet below the five-year average.

Before the data was released, natural gas futures for June delivery were trading at $4.01 per million British thermal units, but shortly after the report, they dropped to $3.94.

Natural gas prices fell from nearly $5 per million BTUs in June 2011 to a low of less than $2 per million BTUs in April 2012, before beginning a steady return to the current level of about $4 per million BTUs, a move supported by resilient demand for the fuel. Natural gas producers like Chesapeake Energy (NYSE:CHK) have especially been affected by these swings in gas prices. Between June 2011 and April 2012, the company’s stock price decreased 25 percent. As natural gas prices rallied over the past twelve months, Chesapeake rose 36 percent. Because the company is the second largest producer of natural gas in the United States, it is no surprise that its share price tracks the price changes of the commodity.

Exxon Mobil (NYSE:XOM), the country’s largest producer of natural gas, inched down as much as 0.4 percent to $90.84 Thursday morning, while Chesapeake dropped as much as 2.6 percent to $20.11. The Natural Gas Fund (NYSEARCA:UNG) declined 2.9 percent, to $21.36.

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