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Dec. 18— In September, 12 of the 19 voting members of the Federal Reserve Board said they expected the Fed to raise interest rates one more time before the year was out. They must have caught the Christmas spirit as Fed Chairman Jerome Powell announced last week the Fed would not raise interest rates. The Center for American Progress reported that low income…

Half of the children in the U.S. are eligible for Medicaid. Missouri's Republican-dominated state legislatures don't care whether the 52,000 children who lost their Medicaid eligibility in this state were naughty or nice. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, which researches health policies, nearly 80% of young Medicaid recipients lost coverage…

The Federal Reserve's battle against inflation has led to sky-high interest rates, likely frustrating even Chairman Jerome Powell's biggest fans. The impact of interest rates on Treasury yields, which banks use to set mortgage rates, has made home ownership unaffordable to millions of Americans. Mortgage rates could be significantly impacted by the…

The Fed's decision to keep its key lending rate between 5.25 percent and 5.50 percent lets policymakers determine "the extent of any additional policy firming that may be appropriate," the US central bank said in a statement. The Fed's stance signals a continuation of its long-running battle to slow inflation towards its long-term target of two percent amid a…

"For the last quarter of 2023, 48 Medicare Part B drugs raised their prices faster than inflation, and some drug companies raised prices of certain medications faster than inflation for every quarter over the last year," the White House said in a statement. The White House on Thursday also announced that 64 drugs in total saw price increases that outpaced the rate…

The jobs market is seen as one of the key indicators of whether the Federal Reserve will keep record high interest rates steady or start lowering them as the economy cools down. The November jobs report showed that the U.S. economy added 199,000 jobs, according to the Labor Department's Bureau of Labor Statistics. That dropped the U.S. unemployment rate to 3.7%…

When it comes to making decisions on interest rates, the personal consumption expenditures index, or PCE, is something the Federal Reserve pays a great deal of attention, said Ryan Loy, extension economist for the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture. The Federal Open Market Committee meets Dec. 12-13 to decide its next move on interest rates.

It has been a miracle year for the U.S. economy. Inflation has plummeted without triggering a recession. Many experts said that could not happen without widespread layoffs and a downturn.

—Can the U.S. economy achieve a much-hyped“ soft landing”? Friday's jobs report for November will provide some signs of whether that elusive scenario is coming into view. All of which means the Federal Reserve may stand an increasingly good chance of bringing inflation down to its 2% annual target without causing a deep recession— the common definition of a soft…

More than 250 members of the National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors took to Capitol Hill today to meet with over 200 Congressional offices to advance the need to protect the worker classification of financial service professionals as independent contractors and to provide consumers a variety of choices in financial service professionals.

Ro Khanna and I disagree on any number of political questions, but I've never doubted his intelligence. Everyone knows Johnson's fiscal commission will recommend cuts in Social Security& Medicare. "The budget hawks in the GOP have been effectively vanquished by the Trump faction, and the days when Democrats strove to claim the mantle of fiscal responsibility…

Job openings in October dropped to their lowest total in more than two years according to new statistics from the Labor Department released on Tuesday. The monthly Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, which is closely watched by the Federal Reserve to find signs of slack in the labor market, showed that there were 8.73 million job openings in October, down…

U.S. inflation broadly slowed in October, which markets cheered as a strong indication that the Federal Reserve is done hiking interest rates. The S&P 500 index opened higher and Treasury yields declined significantly as traders essentially wiped out the chance of another rate hike. "The bar for further rate hikes is getting higher and higher," Wells Fargo& Co….

The 38 surveyed economists come from such organizations as Morgan Stanley, the University of Arkansas and Nationwide. Such predictions imply the belief that the Federal Reserve can pull off the delicate balancing act of slowing the economy just enough through high interest rates to get inflation under control, without snuffing out its growth completely.

The broadest Wall Street consensus, centered on signals from the bond market, Federal Reserve rate hikes and the likely impact they would have on hiring, had a 2023 recession as a near certainty. Related: Wall Street cheers lower inflation, but a new risk has investors on edge. "Although the headline numbers were revised higher and look rosy, it is concerning that…

The Biden administration needs to ensure that Florida and other states are not haphazardly removing the neediest from this vital health insurance. Congress passed a coronavirus relief package in 2020 that offered states additional federal funding in exchange for guaranteeing that recipients of Medicaid, a joint federal-state program for low-income…

Martin O’ Malley toward commissioner of the Social Security Administration, nudging President Biden’ s pick to a confirmation vote before the full Senate. Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, Bill Cassidy of Louisiana and Thom Tillis of North Carolina joined Democrats in advancing Mr. The Social Security Administration processes and doles out retirement, disability,…