The financial news that actually matters
Homeowners who signed mortgage deals above 7% during the rate spike of 2023 are now finding real relief. Refinance applications climbed 20% compared with the same period a year earlier in late May, as the 30-year fixed rate settled near 6.57%. That gap of roughly half a percentage point or more between old and new…
Homebuyers shopping for a mortgage and consumers carrying credit card balances face the same problem this summer: borrowing costs are not going down. The Federal Reserve’s next policy meeting is scheduled for June 16 and 17, and futures markets assign a 97 percent probability that the central bank will leave interest rates unchanged. That expectation…
Private employers added 122,000 jobs in May, the largest single-month gain since January 2025, according to the ADP National Employment Report produced in collaboration with Stanford’s Digital Economy Lab. Workers who changed employers saw annual pay growth of 6.5 percent, while those who stayed in their current roles received 4.4 percent. That 2.1 percentage-point gap…
Millions of Americans carrying unpaid medical bills lost a planned layer of credit-report protection after a federal court in Texas struck down the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s rule that would have banned medical debt from appearing on consumer files. The Eastern District of Texas vacated the regulation, which had been published in the Federal Register…
Families planning cash gifts to children or grandchildren in 2026 will work with the same per-recipient ceiling that applied in 2025. The IRS confirmed that the federal gift-tax annual exclusion for tax year 2026 stays at $19,000 per recipient, and a married couple electing to split gifts can transfer up to $38,000 to each donee…
American families earning between roughly $50,000 and $100,000 a year are absorbing the sharpest blow from a global energy shock that the Federal Reserve now describes in blunt terms. The Fed’s June 2026 Beige Book, released on June 3, reported that “prices increased at a moderate to strong pace overall,” with energy costs tied to…
Somewhere in Ohio, a retired teacher deposits $1,976 from Social Security each month and stretches it across a mortgage, utilities, and the medications her insurance does not fully cover. In Texas, a disabled warehouse worker counts on his benefit to make rent. In Florida, a 72-year-old widow has no other income at all. None of…
A Vietnam veteran who developed high blood pressure years after returning from service used to face a brutal catch-22 when filing a VA disability claim: prove that herbicide sprayed in a jungle 50 years ago caused a condition that millions of Americans develop for other reasons. The medical evidence was nearly impossible to produce, and…
Restaurants, retailers, and card-issuing banks operating in Illinois will lose a state-level shield against interchange fees on tips and sales tax in less than a month. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency has issued an interim final rule, effective June 30, 2026, that confirms national banks can charge non-interest fees, including interchange fees…
American homebuilders broke ground on fewer houses in April than at any point in more than two years, a pullback concentrated in single-family construction that threatens to deepen the country’s housing shortage. Total housing starts fell to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.465 million units, a 2.8% decline from March. Single-family starts dropped 9%…