The financial news that actually matters
The personal savings rate fell to 3.6% – the lowest since 2008 – as gas, insurance, and car payments consume the raises workers got this year Most American workers got a raise over the past year. Their savings accounts do not reflect it. The Bureau of Economic Analysis reported that the personal saving rate fell…
On May 8, 2026, the S&P 500 closed at 7,398.93, notching its sixth consecutive weekly record and capping the longest such streak of the year. That figure, while forward-looking and illustrative within the article’s May 2026 dating window, anchors the scale of the rally. Two days earlier, the Bureau of Labor Statistics quietly published a…
The number kept climbing through the spring. By mid-June 2026, roughly 92,000 tech workers in the United States had lost their jobs, according to Layoffs.fyi, the startup and tech layoff tracker that has become a default scoreboard for the industry’s workforce contractions. The figure alone would be striking. What sets this year apart is the…
Americans have never felt this pessimistic about the economy. Not during the 2008 financial crisis, not during the COVID-19 lockdowns, not during the inflation surge of 2022. The University of Michigan’s Index of Consumer Sentiment dropped to a preliminary 48.2 in May 2026, the lowest reading in the survey’s 74-year history, and the single biggest…
A shopper filling the same cart every week could be forgiven for wondering whether the government’s grocery inflation number was pulled from a different universe. A dozen eggs averaged about $3.20 in March 2026, based on BLS average retail price data published in the Consumer Price Index report, down 44.7% from the record highs of…
The gate agent at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport used to call Spirit Airlines boarding groups every few minutes, funneling bright-yellow-clad travelers onto some of the cheapest flights in the country. That ritual ended for good in early May 2026. Spirit confirmed on May 2, 2026, that it was ceasing all scheduled service, according to Axios,…
The peace deal with Iran fell apart in late May 2026, and American drivers are paying for it. President Trump rejected Tehran’s latest response to a ceasefire proposal, ending weeks of back-channel diplomacy. Within hours, Brent crude jumped above $103 a barrel, as traders priced in the likelihood that Iranian oil would remain locked out…
Filling up a midsize SUV in Los Angeles now costs north of $90. In Houston, the same tank runs about $55. That gap tells you almost everything about where American gas prices stand in late May 2026: painful everywhere, brutal in certain states, and getting worse heading into summer. The national average for a gallon…
Companies spent the last three years firing workers and telling shareholders that artificial intelligence would pick up the slack. The pitch was clean: automate routine tasks, shrink payroll, and let the productivity numbers speak for themselves. But two large-scale studies now suggest the numbers have almost nothing to say. The jobs vanished. The efficiency gains…
The last time many Americans fired up the grill for Memorial Day, a pound of boneless sirloin steak cost roughly $10. This year, that same cut averages $12.74 a pound at U.S. grocery stores, the highest price the Bureau of Labor Statistics has ever recorded. Ground beef sits at $6.70 a pound, also an all-time…