Raphael Stevens

Warner Bros.’ “The Batman” has secured $21.6 million in Thursday previews and is on pace for domestic debut north of $100 million.
Blockbuster comic book films often see higher Thursday night ticket sales, as fans seek to see the film early on its opening weekend to avoid spoilers.
“The Batman” is expected to fare well over the weekend as it is a film that appeals to the 18-to-35 demographic that has been frequenting theaters more often during the pandemic era.

Robert Pattinson stars in “The Batman.”
Warner Bros.

Warner Bros.’ “The Batman” has secured $21.6 million in Thursday previews and is on pace for domestic debut north of $100 million.
Matt Reeves’ take on the Dark Knight has earned overwhelmingly positive reviews from critics and is one of the most anticipated releases of 2022.

“Thursday previews are often an indicator of what’s to come for a movie’s weekend performance,” said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst at Comscore. “‘The Batman’ is off to a solid start … as die-hard fans rushed out on Thursday to be the first to see the film on the big screen.”
Blockbuster comic book films often see significantly higher Thursday night ticket sales, as fans seek to see the film early on its opening weekend to avoid spoilers. “Spider-Man: No Way Home,” a co-production between Disney and Sony, saw similar fervor in December, generating $50 million from Thursday ticket sales.
The $30 million difference between the two films is likely due to ratings. Marvel’s cinematic universe is known to be a bit more kid-friendly, even as it explores mature themes. The DC adaptation of Batman is much darker and not as suitable for families with younger children.
Still, “The Batman” is expected to fare well over the weekend as it is a film that appeals to the 18-to-35 demographic that has been frequenting theaters more often during the pandemic era.
Franchise-based films, particularly those about comic book characters, have been some of the few to break through and generate significant gains at the box office. The film will also likely benefit from repeat viewings.

Batman has been a staple at the box office since 1989, when director Tim Burton brought the Caped Crusader to the big screen. Over the last three decades, six actors have taken on the dual role of Bruce Wayne and the masked vigilante. These films have collectively generated more than $4.5 billion globally in the last 33 years.
Dergarabedian said the opening results for “The Batman” “should be impressive.”

WATCH LIVEWATCH IN THE APP More

Nonfarm payrolls rose by 678,000 in February and the unemployment rate fell to 3.8%, with the job gains much stronger than expected.
However, the job recovery has not been the same for small businesses, with companies with fewer than 50 employees still challenged by labor shortages.
52% of all small business owners said that it has gotten harder to find qualified people to hire compared to a year ago, according to a recent CNBC/SurveyMonkey Small Business Survey.

A “now hiring” sign is posted in the window of a restaurant in Los Angeles, California on January 28, 2022.
Frederic J. Brown | AFP | Getty Images

The latest nonfarm payrolls report shows a labor market nearing a recovery to pre-pandemic levels, but small business owners across the U.S. say that finding and keeping qualified employees remains one of their biggest challenges.
February job growth posting its biggest monthly gain since July, with nonfarm payrolls for the month rising by 678,000 and the unemployment rate at 3.8%, its lowest level since before the pandemic, the Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday.

Across 2021, 6.665 million jobs were added in the U.S., a figure noted by President Joe Biden in this week’s State of the Union address as the largest single-year gain in American history. With the bounce back, the job market is about one million (1.14 million) employed workers short of where it was pre-pandemic, but there is still a large gap in filling open positions, which stood at over 10 million at the end of last year.
Main Street is one area where this labor struggle remains. In February, companies with 500 or more workers added 552,000 positions, according to ADP’s private payrolls report from earlier this week. That was responsible for almost all of the job gains tracked by ADP, while companies with fewer than 50 employees recorded a loss of 96,000 employees during the month.
Fifty-two percent of all small business owners said that it has gotten harder to find qualified people to hire compared to a year ago, according to a recent CNBC/SurveyMonkey Small Business Survey covering the first quarter of 2022. That is up from 50% in Q4 2021.
Twenty-nine percent of small business owners also said that they have positions that have been open for at least three months that they’ve been unable to fill, and 77% of the small businesses with more than 50 employees saying that they expect turnover to likely be a problem for their business six months from now.

Struggles to find workers

“Every data point from every possible source that we have on the economy right now is indicating that we’re in an incredibly challenging hiring market,” said Laura Wronski, senior manager of research science at SurveyMonkey, which conducts the survey for CNBC. “The unemployment rate is low but inflation is high, so wages have to be high to attract workers.”

The latest nonfarm payroll report shows a softening in the sharp wage inflation, as wages were up just 1 cent an hour, or 0.03%, compared to estimates for a 0.5% gain. The year-over-year increase was 5.1%, well below the expectation of 5.8%.

Wronski said that while there has been an influx of newly eligible workers looking for new jobs amid the ‘Great Resignation,’ “it hasn’t gotten easier for small businesses to hire.”
The latest data from NFIB’s monthly jobs report in February showed 22% of small business owners reporting that labor quality was their top business problem, and the percentage who cited labor costs as the top business problem remained near a recent 48-year record high.
Jennifer Park, the owner of WearEver Jewelry in Alexandria, Virginia, said that she has not only been challenged to find qualified employees but to keep those she hires as well.
After an employee left her role to take care of her child in July, Park said she posted a job listing on SimpleHired, which garnered her just 21 applicants over a two-month period. While she hired someone from that process, that person just quit three weeks after starting without notice, leaving her back at the starting point. She also hired someone who worked for roughly two weeks but then tested positive for Covid-19 and stepped away following that, and she has had several applicants just not show up for scheduled interviews.
“It takes a lot of time to look for people, a lot of time and money to train them, do background checks, and really show them how to do this job,” Park said. “It’s just been super frustrating.”
Park said that she believes a few factors are playing into why it has been so hard to find new employees, with one of them being that many workers, especially women, are having to stay home to take care of children.
Recent research from the National Women’s Law Center suggested that were nearly 1.1 million fewer women in the labor workforce in February 2022 compared to 2020 while men have recouped all of their job losses since the pandemic began, a gap that is being furthered by childcare concerns.
“We’re not even getting those kinds of applicants, because if they have little children, they’ve had someone to care for them or they haven’t had school to send them to,” Park said.
She also noted the realities of working in a retail environment for a small business, which often requires weekend work, as being “lower on the rung” compared to other jobs that are out there.
While Park said she has tried to increase the perks that she’s offering and has increased the opportunity of things like sales commissions, she is also facing the same challenges as nearly every other business in terms of rising costs and supply chain problems which limit what she can do.

More from CNBC’s Small Business Playbook

Didier Trinh, director of policy and political impact at the progressive small business trade group Main Street Alliance, said that even given some of the government measures such as the American Rescue Plan, many small businesses are still struggling financially.
“Despite the fact that small businesses have shown time and time again that they’re resilient and able to adapt to very fast-changing circumstances, they are nowhere near at the level of profitability that they were before the pandemic,” he said.

Attractiveness of roles waning

Leisure and hospitality led job gains in February, adding 179,000 for the month, but on Main Street employers remained challenged to find the workers they need.
Marie Raboin, the co-founder of cider company Brix Cider in Mount Horeb, Wisconsin, said that for her 20-person company, part of the challenge has been attracting people back into the restaurant and foodservice sector as opportunities in other industries have expanded.
“I think service industry workers were able to go and find 9-to-5 jobs that paid as good as they were making the service industry, and they got nights and weekends off, and benefits,” she said. “I don’t blame them, I don’t blame anyone for doing that and I get it.”

Raboin has raised wages and looked to offer other perks like free yoga classes at a local studio, but that has not resulted in an influx of new applicants. Recently, she said, she received one application for a job that was posted for three weeks.
“We’re finding turnover is costing us more money than if we were to just like suck it up and work a lot more hours,” she said. “We’re willing to be more patient than just kind of hiring to hire.”
Raboin said she expects hiring to be difficult for the foreseeable future, particularly in her industry, especially as larger companies in other industries offer more and more to potential workers.
“With the economy booming the way it was in various specific sectors, people were able to find better jobs,” she said. “My mom waitressed and my dad bartended, those were really good-paying jobs in the 80s and you could raise a family on that, but things haven’t improved for those people.

Arrows pointing outwards

To learn more and to sign up for CNBC’s Small Business Playbook event, click here. More

Brandon Sanderson’s publishing campaign is now the highest-funded project in Kickstarter history.
The campaign has secured more than $20.8 million from 84,600 backers in just three days.
The previous record holder was a smartwatch that generated $20.3 million in funds back in 2015.
The Kickstarter project offers backers four new novels as well as monthly subscription boxes of items related to Sanderson’s work.

Portrait of American fantasy author Brandon Sanderson taken on June 3, 2011.
Sfx Magazine | Future | Getty Images

Prolific fantasy writer Brandon Sanderson’s publishing campaign is now the most funded project in Kickstarter’s history.
Sanderson, who initially sought $1 million to self-publish four novels he wrote during the pandemic, has secured more than $20.8 million from 84,600 backers in just three days. The previous record holder was a smartwatch that generated $20.3 million in funds back in 2015.

There are 27 more days to go until Sanderson’s campaign ends.
“Everyone, I’m supposed to write fantasy worlds — not live in them,” Sanderson wrote to backers in a Kickstarter updated Friday.
Sanderson is best known for creating the Cosmere fictional universe, in which most of his novels are set. This includes the “Mistborn” series and “The Stormlight Archive.” He also helped finish the final three novels in Robert Jordan’s “The Wheel of Time” book series, which was recently turned into television series by Amazon.
The Kickstarter offers backers four new novels, three of which are set in Cosmere, as digital e-books, audio books or physical copies based on their donation level. People who spend over a certain threshold will also receive eight monthly subscription boxes of items related to Sanderson’s work.
As the owner of a small book company named Dragonsteel Entertainment, Sanderson used the crowdfunding site as a way to drum up enough funds to meet demand and so that he could offer a yearlong subscription box service.

Part of the intrigue of this Kickstarter campaign is that Sanderson has revealed very little about the plot of the four novels. He has managed to foster enough clout in the industry from his previous works that backers don’t seem worried about the quality of the products they will receive. In fact, this secrecy seems to be part of the appeal.
“Who would have thought that a group of quirky stories could rival — then topple — technological innovations and beloved game projects,” Sanderson wrote. “I’m floored. And you did this all without even knowing what you were getting, save that I promised you it was awesome.”
Correction: Brandon Sanderson’s book company is Dragonsteel Entertainment. A previous version of this story misspelled the name.

WATCH LIVEWATCH IN THE APP More

New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy has unveiled a property tax relief plan for nearly 1.8 million state residents for fiscal year 2023.
Homeowners making up to $250,000 per year may be eligible for rebates averaging $700, lowering the effective rate to 2016 levels.
And renters earning up to $100,000 may qualify for up to $250.

New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy delivers a victory speech on Nov. 3, 2021, in Asbury Park, New Jersey.
Eduardo Munoz Alvarez | Getty Images

Property tax relief may soon be coming to New Jersey.
Gov. Phil Murphy has proposed the ANCHOR property tax relief program, extending savings to nearly 1.8 million households, as part of the state’s 2023 fiscal year budget.

Homeowners earning up to $250,000 per year may be eligible for rebates averaging $700, lowering the effective property tax rate to 2016 levels for many households, according to the plan.
More from Personal Finance:IRS rule offers higher penalty-free withdrawals for early retireesThese 3 last-minute moves can still slash your 2021 tax billSold your home? Here’s how to avoid a tax bomb this filing season
Renters making up to $100,000 may also qualify for a rebate up to $250, to help offset higher housing costs.
“This program will provide direct property tax relief to households regardless of whether they own or rent,” Gov. Murphy said. “While the state does not set property taxes, we believe that we must take action to offset costs and make life in New Jersey more affordable.”
The $10,000 cap on the federal deduction for state and local taxes for filers who itemize, known as SALT, has been a pain point as New Jersey faces the nation’s highest property taxes.

While some New Jersey and New York lawmakers have fought to include SALT reform in the Democrats’ spending package, the status of the plan is unclear.

Meanwhile, if New Jersey’s tax relief passes in the Democrat-controlled state legislature, it may distribute $900 million in property tax relief for fiscal year 2023.
The program aims to boost relief over a three-year period, increasing rebates to an average of $1,150 by 2025 for eligible families.
The proposal comes as many states are eying tax cuts, including income, sales, corporate, property and more, amid budget surpluses resulting from federal Covid-19 relief.

WATCH LIVEWATCH IN THE APP More