The financial news that actually matters
A dozen eggs cost $4.75 at the average U.S. supermarket in April 2026. Ground beef crossed $6 a pound months ago and stayed there. Cooking oil, bread flour, cheddar cheese: category after category, the receipt at checkout keeps growing, and the pipeline feeding those prices has been moving in one direction since last fall. Federal…
The phone screen showed Chase’s real customer-service number. The voice on the other end said they were calling from the bank’s fraud department and that the account had been compromised. Everything about the call looked right. But it wasn’t Chase. According to a federal criminal complaint filed by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District…
Consider a homeowner who closed on a house in early 2021 with a 30-year fixed rate of 3%. The monthly principal-and-interest payment on a $405,000 loan came to about $1,707. If that same person sold today and financed an identical amount at 6.58%, the new payment would land near $2,583. That is roughly $876 more…
A family borrowing $30,000 through the federal Parent PLUS program this fall will pay roughly $3,400 more in interest over a standard 10-year repayment than a family that took out the same loan last year. The reason: starting July 1, 2025, new Parent PLUS loans carry a fixed rate of 9.07%, up from 8.05% the…
A 24-year-old carrying a $3,000 credit card balance at 28% APR watches roughly $70 in interest pile up every month. Minimum payments alone would stretch repayment past a decade and more than double the total cost. Miss a few payments entirely, and penalty rates, late fees, and credit-score damage follow, raising the price of car…
Millions of Social Security recipients woke up to their May deposits this morning, May 20, 2026, only to find that the raise Congress promised them in January is already underwater. If your birthday falls between the 11th and 20th of any month, today’s payment includes the 2.8 percent cost-of-living adjustment the Social Security Administration announced…
Starting in July 2026, parents of children born since January 1, 2025, can open a new type of federally seeded investment account written into the tax code under Section 530A of the Internal Revenue Code. The government deposits $1,000 into each account. Parents can add up to $5,000 per year. The money goes into approved…
American employers put 83,000 planned job cuts on the record in April, the highest single-month total since January’s 92,000 and a sharp jump from March, according to data released by outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas. “The April number is elevated, but it is important to remember that a single large restructuring can distort an…
When married couples sit down to file their 2026 federal tax returns early next year, they will be able to shield $32,200 of income from taxation before a single bracket kicks in. That is $2,200 more than the 2025 standard deduction of $30,000, and it marks the largest single-year increase to this cornerstone tax provision…
A gallon of regular gasoline costs more than it did a month ago. So does a carton of eggs, a visit to the doctor, and the rent check. For months, Americans absorbed those increases with a shrug and a functioning job market. That cushion is thinning. In the span of a single week in May…