The financial news that actually matters
The U.S. Treasury on May 1, 2026, set the new Series I bond composite rate at 4.26% for all bonds purchased between May 1 and October 31, 2026. That marks a notable jump from the previous cycle and pairs with a 0.90% fixed rate that locks in for the bond’s full 30-year life. A saver…
When Marcus Ellington closed on his three-bedroom in suburban Denver in September 2023, his 30-year fixed rate came in at 7.12%. “I knew it was ugly,” he told himself at the time, “but the house wasn’t going to wait.” Two and a half years later, Ellington is one of a growing wave of homeowners rushing…
A homeowner in Cape Coral, Florida, who locked in a 3.25% mortgage rate in 2021 expected a stable monthly payment for the next 30 years. The loan has performed exactly as promised. What nobody underwrote was the insurance bill: her annual premium jumped from $1,800 to nearly $5,400 over three years, and when the increase…
Filling up the tank has become one of the most dreaded parts of the week for gig delivery drivers, and DoorDash is betting more than $50 million that it can take some of that sting away. The company announced alongside its first-quarter 2026 earnings release that it will temporarily boost fuel cash back to 10%…
A bartender in Miami pulling double shifts. A nurse in Houston clocking 50-hour weeks. A delivery driver in Phoenix still paying off a used sedan. For millions of workers like these, tax season brought a noticeably fatter refund check this spring, and a new batch of federal deductions is a big reason why. Through March…
Somewhere in the United States, a 70-year-old retiree who spent 35 years earning near the top of the pay scale and strategically delayed claiming Social Security is collecting roughly $5,200 a month. Under a proposal to cap individual benefits at $50,000 per year, that check would shrink by more than $12,000 annually. The idea comes…
A driver in Los Angeles paying $5.89 a gallon for regular on Friday morning could be forgiven for wondering whether the oil market crash everyone was talking about was happening on a different planet. Brent crude futures fell roughly 7% this week, settling near $101 a barrel after President Trump floated a deal with Iran…
Kevin Warsh is on track to become the next chair of the Federal Reserve, and if the Senate vote goes the way both parties expect, he will get there without a single Democratic vote. That would make him the first Fed chair confirmed on purely partisan lines since at least 1979, when the modern confirmation…
If you have been earning 4% or better on your savings without thinking much about it, check your account. That number has probably slipped. As of late May 2026, three of the most popular online savings accounts in the country have trimmed their rates below the 4% APY threshold that became a benchmark for rate-conscious…
On Friday, May 8, at 8:30 a.m. ET, the Bureau of Labor Statistics will publish the April 2026 Employment Situation report, and the range of expectations heading into the release is unusually wide. Analyst forecasts for nonfarm payroll gains stretch from roughly 53,000 to 150,000 new jobs. A gap that large reflects more than normal…