The daily business briefing: January 20, 2021

Yellen faces little opposition in Senate hearing, Netflix surpasses 200 million subscribers, and more

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1. Yellen sails through Senate hearing

Janet Yellen, President-elect Joe Biden's treasury secretary nominee, breezed through a key Senate hearing on Tuesday. The former Federal Reserve chair, who would be the first woman to run the Treasury Department, told members of the Senate Finance Committee that the federal government's priority at the start of the Biden administration should be helping Americans weather the coronavirus crisis. "The focus right now is on providing relief and helping families keep a roof over their heads and food on the table and not raising taxes," she said. Some senators expressed concerns about the repercussion for the massive deficits prompted by the pandemic, and about their expectations of higher taxes on the rich and corporations. Still, there were no signs of significant opposition to Yellen's confirmation.

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Harold Maass, The Week US

Harold Maass is a contributing editor at The Week. He has been writing for The Week since the 2001 debut of the U.S. print edition and served as editor of TheWeek.com when it launched in 2008. Harold started his career as a newspaper reporter in South Florida and Haiti. He has previously worked for a variety of news outlets, including The Miami Herald, ABC News and Fox News, and for several years wrote a daily roundup of financial news for The Week and Yahoo Finance.