The financial news that actually matters
Covers broad economic trends including inflation, interest rates, GDP, employment data, and central bank decisions. It explains how macroeconomic factors influence markets and everyday finances.
The call came from Chase. At least, that is what the screen said. The number matched the one printed on the back of the customer’s debit card. The voice on the line sounded like every fraud-department representative who had ever asked to “verify recent activity.” Within minutes, $40,000 was gone. That case, reported in consumer…
The price tag on a pound of uncooked steak at the average American grocery store now reads $12.74, the highest the Bureau of Labor Statistics has ever recorded in its decades of monitoring beef costs. That figure reflects the March 2026 monthly reading from the agency’s consumer price tracking, and it has held at that…
The U.S. economy added 115,000 jobs in April 2026, nearly doubling the roughly 65,000 that forecasters in the Reuters consensus survey as reported by the Associated Press had expected. The unemployment rate held at 4.3 percent. On the surface, that looks like resilience. But zoom out five months and a very different picture comes into…
For the second month in a row, artificial intelligence was the single most cited reason American companies gave for eliminating jobs. In April alone, employers announced 21,490 AI-driven cuts, roughly 26% of every layoff disclosed nationwide, according to the latest monthly report from Challenger, Gray & Christmas, the outplacement firm that has tracked corporate layoff…
The pound of ground beef in your cart costs $6.70. The gas you burned driving to the store ran about $4.55 a gallon. And if you’re one of the millions of Americans carrying a 30-year fixed mortgage, or trying to get one, the rate on that loan just climbed back to 6.37%. Each of those…
The U.S. economy added 115,000 jobs in April 2026, enough to beat most Wall Street forecasts and keep the unemployment rate pinned at 4.3%. By the simplest measure, the labor market is still holding together. But the paychecks attached to those jobs are telling a less reassuring story. Average hourly earnings for private-sector workers rose…
PayPal is preparing to shed roughly 4,760 jobs over the next two to three years. Upwork, the freelance-work marketplace, already eliminated about 24% of its workforce in what the company’s SEC filing describes as a restructuring plan adopted in May 2026. Both companies pointed to artificial intelligence as a driving force, and both made their…
The Senate returns on May 11 with a vote that has no precedent in the Federal Reserve’s 113-year history: confirming a chair over the unified opposition of the minority party. Kevin Warsh, the former Fed governor and longtime critic of the central bank’s communication playbook, is expected to clear both of his nominations, one for…
A pound of steak has never cost more at the American grocery store. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported the average retail price for uncooked beef steaks at $12.74 per pound in February 2026, the highest reading in the agency’s decades-long tracking series. March held almost flat at $12.73. Ground beef, the cut millions of…
In the spring of 2022, filling up the family car went from routine expense to budget emergency. Between January and mid-May of that year, the national average price of gasoline jumped from roughly $3.30 per gallon to $4.56, according to AAA’s daily tracking data. For a household burning about 41 gallons of fuel a month,…
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