Unemployment claims rise to 240,000, highest since August

The October Consumer Price Index rose by 0.4% while the core rate increased by 0.3%. In response to the numbers, financial markets rallied strongly with expectations of future tightening by the Federal Reserve lowered: The S&P 500 Index was up by a bit more than 5.5%, and the yield on the 10- year Treasury note was down by an astounding 30 basis points to around…

The “Paid Family Leave Insurance Model Act” makes family leave plans a type of insurance that employers can voluntarily purchase for their employees

As we enter the homestretch for 2022, consumers, investors and Federal Reserve officials are saying "good riddance!" Bill McBride of Calculated Risk notes that "the overall participation rate is impacted by both cyclical and demographic reasons," which is why focusing on 25- to 54- year-old workers makes sense. The most important aspect of the jobs report for the…

Much of the drop in consumer commodity prices was offset by another large increase in services prices, albeit a smaller one than in the prior month. In response to the numbers, financial markets rallied with expectations of future tightening by the Federal Reserve lowered: The S&P 500 Index was up by a bit more than 5.5%, and the yield on the 10- year Treasury note…

Members of the Federal Reserve System are weighing the next interest rate hike coming in December, deciding between an increase of one percentage point or possibly less. Federal Reserve governor Christopher Waller said he is encouraged by key recent market reports that indicate the economy is cooling down and would consider a smaller rate hike, possibly a…

The Biden administration "s euphoria over last week" s midterm election results risks lulling the White House into a false sense of complacency about the economic challenges ahead. On Tuesday, the Federal Reserve reported that household debt had increased during the third quarter at the fastest rate in 15 years, primarily because of higher credit card use and…

The COVID-19 public health emergency will be extended into another year, as CNBC quoted a Biden administration official as saying Friday that the emergency will be extended through spring 2023.

The Labor Department reported Friday that the economy created 261,000 new jobs in October, which beat Wall Street's expectations. The upshot is that the job market is headed for harder time as the Federal Reserve's interest-rate increases continue. Lyft is laying off workers, as is CNN.

Welcome to the United States of exhaustion. Some of the money-making enterprises include selling items on sites like eBay, Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace, freelance work and selling used clothes. They're also hitting the road, joining up as drivers for ride-share companies like Uber and Lyft.

Higher interest rates are no doubt causing pain to investors and consumers, but the economy has been able to handle them better than anyone thought possible six months ago. The worst-case fear was that the Federal Reserve would move too aggressively to correct inflation caused by pandemic distortions in the supply chain, wages and the housing market, and that…

"If they really wanted to get inflation down in the 2% to 3% range on a sustained basis, they might need a Fed funds rate at 6% or higher." The Federal Reserve Board has been saying it for most of this year. For those with great memories, it was only on March 17— six months ago and four days after we switched to Daylight Saving Time— that the rate was first increased from…

Joe Manchin on Thursday called for a broad bipartisan deal to protect the solvency of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, popular programs that face serious funding issues over the next few decades. "If we don't look at the trust funds that are going bankrupt, whether they be Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, highway, all the ones— there are tremendous…

In private, though, White House aides have been drawing up contingencies should Republicans take control of one, or both, chambers of Congress- a scenario Biden said would make his life "more difficult. Regardless of the outcome, the votes will help reshape the balance of Biden's term after an ambitious first two years and will reorder his White House priorities.

It should have come as no surprise, but it did. Investors were poised for a slightly less hawkish Jerome Powell but were once again disappointed by the Federal Reserve Bank chairman. Chairman Powell and his Federal Open Market Committee's decision to maintain a course of rising interest rates for longer punctured this most recent bear market rally.

The Federal Reserve announced that it's raising interest rates by 0.75 percentage point, following its November 1-2 meeting, bumping the federal funds rate to a target range of 3.75% to 4%. The Fed's decision comes as inflation rages in the U.S. economy at some of the highest annual rates in 40 years, reaching 8.2% in September following an 8.3% report in August.

Federal Reserve officials are battling the fastest inflation in four decades, and as they do they are parsing a wide variety of data sources to see what might happen next. If they check in on how executives are describing their companies' latest financial results, they might have reasons to worry. "While we are seeing signs of economic slowing, consumers and…

It’ s always the economy. With the Federal Reserve pushing interest rates higher in the hope of cooling generational-high inflation, high gasoline prices, while home prices are falling in parts of the nation, what could the other two-thirds of Americans be more worried about? Over half of those surveyed by Gallup in September 2021 had not very much or no trust at…