Safety agreement ends avocado spat with Mexico
The U.S. Embassy announced Friday that Washington is lifting a ban on inspections of Mexican avocados, freeing the way for exports to resume.
Ambassador Ken Salazar said in a statement the decision came after Mexico and the United States agreed “to enact the measures that ensure the safety” of agricultural inspectors who are in charge of making sure Mexican avocados don’t carry diseases or pests that would harm U.S. orchards.
“I am pleased to report that today the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal Plant Health Inspection Service has determined it will immediately resume its avocado inspection program in Michoacán,” Salazar wrote.
The service said Friday that “avocado exports to the United States have resumed.”
The week-old ban had already been taking a toll on avocado pickers in Michoacan, who stood on a roadside this week outside the city of Uruapan asking for donations after they lost their work.
Holding up signs saying “Voluntary donations” and “We make our living off avocado picking,” they waited for motorists to drop spare change into buckets they held.
The inspections were halted last week after one of the U.S. inspectors was threatened in the western state of Michoacan, where growers are routinely subject to extortion by drug cartels.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture said Thursday that the inspector had received a threat “against him and his family.”
It said the inspector had “questioned the integrity of a certain shipment, and refused to certify it based on concrete issues.”
Michoacan is the only Mexican state certified as pest-free and able to export avocados to the U.S. market. There have been frequent reports that some packers in Mexico are buying avocados from other, non-certified states, and trying to pass them off as being from Michoacan.
Some can expect a smaller tax refund this year
The average tax refund issued so far this year is $2,201, down about $600 from the typical refund issued last year, according to statistics from the Internal Revenue Service.
In the first week of the filing season, the IRS received about 16.7 million tax returns and processed about 13 million of those, according to data for the week ending Feb. 4, released Friday. That’s a slightly lower rate than in the first week of filing last year. The agency has warned of slow processing times and delayed refunds, particularly for forms filed on paper or that contain errors, both of which require more attention from the IRS.
The data published Friday represents just a small portion of the filing season, which runs through April 18. So far, only about a quarter of people who have filed their tax returns have received their refunds.
The agency issued about 4.3 million refunds in the first week of the tax season, according to the data. The relatively low figure is at least partially due to a law that requires the IRS to conduct additional fraud checks on refunds containing the earned-income tax credit and hold those payments until at least Feb. 15.
Millions of Americans received unemployment benefits in 2021, which are taxable. In addition, the IRS sent out half of the up to $3,600 child tax credit in advance, meaning that parents only get the remainder in their refunds.
Unemployment claims rise, concentrated in a few states
Applications for U.S. state unemployment insurance unexpectedly rose for the first time since mid-January, mainly concentrated in a few states in the South and Midwest, while most others declined.
Initial unemployment claims increased by 23,000 to 248,000 in the week ended Feb. 12, Labor Department data showed Thursday. That time period is particularly scrutinized because it reflects the reference week for the February jobs report that’s due early next month.
The median estimate called for 218,000 applications in a Bloomberg survey of economists.
The increase in claims largely reflects jumps in Missouri, Ohio and Kentucky. This may reflect choppiness in the data, which can be volatile week to week.