After years of bruising negotiations, 136 countries agreed yesterday to establish a global corporate minimum tax of 15% and laid out other measures that will help them scoop up more tax revenue from large, multinational corporations.

• How much revenue? As much as $150 billion annually, according to the Organization for Cooperation and Economic Development (OECD).

How a minimum tax works

If you establish a tax floor, it prevents countries from perpetually lowering their tax rates to make themselves more attractive to globe-trotting corporations looking for a new, cheaper home. In economic circles, this is called the “race to the bottom.”

Exhibit A: Ireland. In 2003, Ireland lowered its corporate tax rate to a measly 12.5%, and soon after welcomed a wave of multinationals looking to lower their tax bills. The largest US tech firms, including Facebook, Google, and Apple, have all set up their European headquarters in the country.

Because of its success with a low tax rate, Ireland was one of the key holdouts of the minimum tax plan, but it finally came on board Thursday in the name of cooperation.

Important note: The minimum tax is just one pillar of the new global tax framework. Another will allow countries to tax large companies that sell goods or services in their jurisdictions but don’t have a physical footprint—an acknowledgment of how digital commerce has transformed the global economy.

So what’s next?

Countries agreeing with each other was the easy part. Now, they'll have to sell the plan to their own legislatures. That could be tough, especially in the US, a country that is crucial to any global tax agreement but also home to fierce disagreements between its only two major political parties.

An aggressive date has been set for the updated global tax scheme to take effect: 2023.—NF

The September jobs report was about as underwhelming as a Secret Santa gift. The US economy added 194,000 jobs in September, well below expectations of 500,000. It’s the weakest job growth of any month in 2021.

• There’s a twist: The unemployment rate dropped to 4.8% from 5.2% in August.

Don’t stress if you’re confused—so are experts. They thought that a record number of open positions +  a recovering economy would lead to a surge in job growth in the back half of the year. But the persistent challenge of finding workers and the Delta variant has made hiring an uphill battle.

A few other nuggets from the report:

• Women are leaving the job market. Experts believed that schools reopening in-person would take some of the childcare burden off moms and allow them to get back to work. However, September saw the lowest number of women employed or looking for a job since February.
• Removing enhanced UI benefits was not a panacea. Enhanced federal unemployment benefits expired nationwide on Labor Day. But, confirming previous research, taking away the extra payments appeared to do little to boost employment.

Bottom line: What’s holding back the job market right now is the significant number of Americans not looking for work at all, according to the NYT.—MM

Climate change deniers are no longer allowed to make money from their beliefs on Google and YouTube, according to a new policy the tech giant posted Thursday.

That means on YouTube no ads will display on content that contradicts the existence of climate change, deny that human activity has contributed to it, or generally disappoint Bill Nye.

• Google wrote that advertisers have been specifically asking for a crackdown on climate-denying content because they “simply don’t want their ads to appear next to” it. Which...fair.

Big picture: The move to strip climate deniers from monetizing their content is the latest volley in Google’s attempt to rein in misinformation. Just last week, YouTube banned all content that makes speculative or downright false claims about approved vaccines.

The policy’s also part of a recent push from Google to highlight environmental issues. On Wednesday, Google Flights rolled out a feature that lets you see how carbon-friendly your flight is, on a scale of Greta Thunberg → flamethrower-equipped monster truck.

+ While we’re here: Climate change is a hot topic (whoops) in the advertising world right now. Fossil-fuel clients are becoming a “reputational risk,” Marketing Brew’s Ryan Barwick reports.—JW

Stat: With an estimated $10 trillion in assets under management, the investment giant BlackRock is as big as the global hedge fund, private equity, and venture capital industries combined.

Quote: “It was a nice break from everything.”

Livae Nanjikana was feeling refreshed after he and another man from the Solomon Islands spent 29 days lost at sea. You know the world’s going through a rough patch when being stranded by a storm off the coast of Papua New Guinea sounds like a yoga retreat in Joshua Tree.

Read: What I learned about my writing by seeing just the punctuation. (Creators Hub)

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World Mental Health Day: Ahead of the holiday tomorrow, here’s an excellent list of mental health resources, from teletherapy options to sleep tips.

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