Financial related news.
With the pandemic officially over, leftover coronavirus relief money for vaccines, public-health initiatives and other programs has become a target as negotiators try to reach a budget deal to raise the nation's debt limit. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that $30 billion of pandemic-related spending could be canceled. That's just a tiny fraction of the [...]
WASHINGTON — The Federal Reserve will make only modest progress in its fight against inflation for the rest of this year, even while keeping its benchmark interest rate at a 16-year high, a group of business economists predict in a survey released this week. The National Association for Business Economics' survey of 45 economists found [...]
WASHINGTON — The stubbornness of high inflation is dividing the Federal Reserve over how to manage interest rates in the coming months, leaving the outlook for the Fed's policies cloudier than at any time since it unleashed a streak of 10 straight rate hikes beginning in March 2022. Many Fed watchers have expected the central [...]
NEW YORK (AP) — Most taxpayers are interested in filing their taxes directly to the IRS for free, a new report shows, and that option will be tested next year. The IRS has spent the past nine months studying whether taxpayers want to see a free, e-filing system run by the government — and is [...]
LOS ANGELES (AP) — The average rate on a long-term home loan is down to the lowest level in five weeks, welcome news for house hunters facing a market constrained by persistently high prices and a near-historic low number of homes for sale. Mortgage buyer Freddie Mac said that the average rate on the benchmark [...]
Inflation remains “stubbornly high” and is no longer making much progress toward the Federal Reserve’s 2 percent target, a top Fed official said last week, hours after price data for April were released. In an interview, Tom Barkin, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, said he is also seeing some signs that banks [...]
WASHINGTON (AP) — Consumer prices rose again in April and measures of underlying inflation stayed high, signs that further declines in inflation are likely to be slow and bumpy. Prices increased 0.4 percent from March to April, the federal government said earlier this week, up from a 0.1 percent rise from February to March. Compared [...]
The U.S. has approved more than $42 billion in federal student loan debt forgiveness for more than 615,000 borrowers in the past 18 months as part of a program aimed at getting more people to work in public service jobs, the U.S. Department of Education said this week. The Public Service Loan Forgiveness program is [...]
WASHINGTON — A Federal Reserve report this week showed that banks raised their lending standards for business and consumer loans in the aftermath of three large bank failures and expect to lift them more this year, a trend that could slow the economy in coming months and increases the risk of a recession. The report, [...]
WASHINGTON (AP) — For President Joe Biden, economic news last week has raised hopes that the nation’s economy can stick a soft landing—possibly avoiding a recession as the 2024 election nears. Most adults have downbeat feelings about Biden's economic leadership, as high inflation has overshadowed a strong jobs market. It's long been economic orthodoxy that [...]