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Summary List Placement A company that handles 8.5 million Americans’ student loans is shutting down after lawmakers like Elizabeth Warren accused it of misleading borrowers, lying to Congress, and failing to properly issue loan forgiveness. The Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency (PHEAA) notified the Education Department on Thursday that it will not extend its 12-year-old […]

Summary List Placement It’s summer and Americans are hitting the road and traveling again.  According to the US Energy Information Administration, travel on roads and streets is up 54.6% in April 2021 from the same time a year ago when many states had stay-at-home orders in place.  If you’re planning to take a road trip […]

Summary List Placement All 50 states agree on something: Student-loan servicers, or the companies that charge you interest if you have any debt from higher education, need to be reined in. On Tuesday, the Conference of State Bank Supervisors (CSBS), comprising financial regulators from every state, joined the North American Collection Agency Regulatory Association (NACARA) […]

Summary List Placement Last month, the city of Los Angeles laid out a strategy for its reinvention. By 2028, when the Olympics arrive in LA, the city will lose its status as “car capital of the world,” according to its new, lengthy roadmap. It plans to employ additional policing technologies, digitize public transit and, in […]

The average 30-year fixed-rate mortgage fell eight basis points from the week prior to 2.9%, according to data released Thursday by Freddie Mac‘s PMMS. According to Sam Khater, Freddie Mac’s chief economist, last week’s dip followed the concurrent drop in U.S. Treasury yields earlier this week. “While mortgage rates tend to follow Treasury yields closely, other factors […]

Summary List Placement The number of layoffs in the US hit a record low in May, jobs data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) showed. It’s a sign that companies are clinging onto their workers during a severe labor shortage. The layoffs and discharge rate dropped to 0.9% in May, according to the BLS […]

Summary List Placement Low pay, bad benefits, and a stressful workplace are putting off former restaurant and hotel staff from returning to the industry, according to a survey by job site Joblist. Massive lay-offs, remote working, and caring responsibilities have forced thousands of Americans to consider switching their careers during the pandemic. Some were forced out […]

Summary List Placement A GOP congressman from Texas said in a secretly taped video that he supports blocking Democrats with “18 months of chaos” so Republicans have a shot of reclaiming Congress in the 2022 midterms. “For the next 18 months, our job is to do everything we can to slow all of that down […]

Summary List Placement As the economy continues its strange reopening trajectory, May once again saw workers quitting in droves. The latest data release from the Bureau of Labor Statistics found that 3.6 million workers opted to leave their jobs, a quit rate of 2.5%. That’s lower than April’s 20-year high, where just shy of 4 million […]

Summary List Placement Starter homes are running dry, and it’s a big pain for those who need them most — millennials. The generation, which turns ages 25 to 40 this year, has reached peak age for first-time homeownership. More millennials became homeowners than any other generation in 2020, driving a yearlong housing boom. But this […]

Summary List Placement Most Americans spend over a decade planning for the golden years of retirement, with many relocating to areas with better weather or a lower cost of living.  A new study by Bankrate.com analyzed the best — and the worst — states in the US to retire in. The final rankings are based […]

Summary List Placement In a normal labor market, the number of open positions that businesses are hiring for tends to go up as unemployment goes down, as available workers become more scarce and openings become harder to fill. Like so many other aspects of American life, the pandemic has at least temporarily shattered that relationship. […]

Mortgage servicing, origination and transaction-based services company Mr. Cooper Group announced on Tuesday the sale of its reverse mortgage servicing portfolio – operating under the Champion Mortgage brand – to Mortgage Assets Management (MAM). Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but statements from Mr. Cooper company leadership detailed that the transaction will not have […]

Summary List Placement Gas prices are expected to reach $3.25 by the end of August, according to AAA, which will mark a seven-year high as consumer demand skyrockets and the industry faces supply-chain bottlenecks and production cuts.  The average fuel price in the US is currently $3.14, an eight-cent increase from last month and almost […]

Sellers, rejoice. Roughly 77% of respondents to Fannie Mae’s Home Purchase Sentiment Index (HPSI), a composite index designed to track the housing market and consumer confidence to sell or buy a home, said now is a good time to sell. That’s up from 67% the prior month. To boot, a reported 64% of survey respondents said it’s […]

Summary List Placement A new debate is unfolding as the economy settles into a post-pandemic normal. One side espouses centuries-old views of automation, arguing such innovation harms economies by erasing jobs. The other sees automation as a welcome boost to productivity that pays dividends for workers in the long run. Yet a new side has […]

Summary List Placement Job openings in the US edged higher in May as businesses continued to jostle over an unusually small supply of workers. Openings rose to a record-high 9.21 million from 9.19 million last month, according to Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, or JOLTS, data published Wednesday. That landed below the median estimate […]

Mortgage applications decreased again, this time falling 1.8% in the week ending July 2, 2021, according to the latest report from the Mortgage Bankers Association. This marks the third straight week of application declines, and represents the lowest level since the January 2020. “Treasury yields have been volatile despite mostly positive economic news, including last week’s June jobs […]

Summary List Placement Skipping a brand-new car for one that’s lightly used has always been the most wallet-friendly way of going about things. Not anymore.  In the strange and sometimes utterly backward-seeming times we’re living in, it’s actually cheaper to buy some cars new rather than second hand. A recent study from automotive research site […]

Summary List Placement House Speaker Nancy Pelosi slammed Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell for touting the benefits of the stimulus law for his home state of Kentucky. The $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief law cleared Congress in March without any Republican support. “Vote no and take the dough,” Pelosi wrote on Twitter.  Vote no and take […]

Summary List Placement Jobless workers in Ohio are the latest group to push back against Republican governors cutting off their federal benefits early — in court. Federal benefits in the state wound down on June 26, months ahead of their scheduled expiration in September. Now, a new lawsuit representing three Ohio workers claims that the […]

For the 18th straight week, servicers’ forbearance portfolio volume fell. It dropped four basis points to 3.87% last week, according to a survey from the Mortgage Bankers Association.  The MBA estimates 1.9 million homeowners are still in some form of a forbearance plan. The share of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac loans in forbearance also decreased three basis points to 1.99%, and Ginnie Mae loans decreased […]

Summary List Placement A new hire at the Education Department is another in the growing number of experts who have fought alongside Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren to reform the student-loan debt system.   Toby Merrill, founder of the Project of Predatory Student Lending at the Legal Services Center of Harvard Law School, was hired as […]

Summary List Placement Stimulus checks remain popular with average Americans. Congress under both the Trump and Biden administrations issued three direct payments amounting to $3,200 for millions of Americans. However, a fourth round is unlikely to be sent anytime soon as the economy continues regaining jobs. No lawmaker in Congress has pitched a plan so […]

Summary List Placement Working Americans are enjoying the biggest pay boost in four decades. Experts don’t expect it to last long. Wage growth over the last three months hit an annualized rate of 6.6%, the strongest since the early 1980s. Job openings sit at record highs, and the number of job listings mentioning signing bonuses doubled […]

Summary List Placement President Biden has challenged all of us to think big and cast aside any doubts regarding what we’re truly capable of: “America has always been propelled into the future by landmark investments.” Under President Biden’s leadership, a bipartisan agreement has been reached to move part of the American Jobs Plan forward, a […]

Summary List Placement On June 15, player advocacy group Advocates for Minor Leaguers called out the Baltimore Orioles for their treatment of Double-A affiliate the Bowie Baysox.  Baysox players, Advocates for Minor Leaguers tweeted, were “considering sleeping in their cars” because the team wouldn’t pay for housing and the cost of a hotel would come […]

Summary List Placement America may be running out of houses, but young adults are continuing to set their sights on homeownership. More than half of them (59%) said they plan to use their pandemic savings on a down payment for a home, according to a recent Zillow survey that polled over 1,200 millennials and Gen […]

Summary List Placement Massive lay-offs, remote working, and caring responsibilities have forced thousands of Americans to consider switching their careers during the pandemic. Some were forced out of their roles because their employers downsized or even shut down during the pandemic. Others have been “rage quitting” in search of better pay and conditions. People were […]

Summary List Placement A Texas chicken chain with eight restaurants recently paid $118 for a single 50lb case of chicken — up from its pre-pandemic price of $55, its CEO told Insider.  The US labor shortage is to blame for the spike in prices, according to Garrett Reed, who owns the Layne’s Chicken Fingers brand.  […]

Summary List Placement Almost 3 million people have collectively signed online petitions calling for another round of US stimulus payments. “We need immediate checks and recurring payments so that we can keep our heads above water,” Stephanie Bonin, one of the larger petitions‘ creators told Newsweek.  Bonin’s petition is called “$2000/month to every American #moneyforthepeople […]

Summary List Placement Maryland will continue to pay federal unemployment benefits for at least ten more days after a judge ruled against Governor Larry Hogan on Saturday. The benefits were set to end this weekend, but Circuit Judge Lawrence Fletcher-Hill issued a temporary restraining order requiring Maryland to continue administering the benefits, The Baltimore Sun […]

Summary List Placement Subway has accused a group of leading US pork producers of taking part in a long-running illegal conspiracy to fix wholesale prices.  In a late-June lawsuit filed in US District Court in Connecticut, the chain said pork producers who control about 80% of the wholesale market in the US shared data that they […]

Summary List Placement June’s jobs report brought some surprisingly optimistic figures. The economy added 850,000 jobs, healthily beating expectations and signaling that recovery may be on the horizon. But, as with much of the pandemic recovery, the economic benefits are still uneven. For women and people of color, the unemployment situation is much more disparate […]

Summary List Placement Less than a decade ago, celebrity chef Guy Fieri was a joke. New York Times restaurant critic Pete Wells’s 2012 viral slam of Fieri’s Times Square restaurant beclowned Fieri with such casual brutality that it seemed the host of tv shows like “Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives” would never fully rehabilitate his reputation.  […]

Summary List Placement Many US retail and service-industry jobs that went away during the pandemic weren’t expected to return, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said.  “The real issue, I think, is that a lot of the jobs that folks lost are the kinds of jobs — let’s say, for example, in retail or services industries — […]

Summary List Placement While the June jobs report exceeded expectations, adding 850,000 payrolls, it also blew up a developing narrative that teenagers were helping solve the country’s labor shortage. According to Bureau of Labor Statistics data, teen unemployment rates in April and May were at 12.3% and 9.6%, respectively, signaling that in the spring, teenagers […]

Summary List Placement As the US continues to recover from job losses in 2020, some industries are still far below pre-pandemic employment. Notably, the motion-picture and sound-recording industry in June was around 34% below employment in February 2020.  Based on the new employment figures released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the US saw its […]

Summary List Placement The Friday jobs report exceeded expectations by adding 850,000 payrolls, more than economists had estimated. President Joe Biden cited the data as proof that his efforts to revive the economy are working. When asked if he thinks Congress will enact his infrastructure plans, Biden said, “Look, all I know — only thing […]

Summary List Placement In Indiana, federal unemployment benefits ended early — until they didn’t. Biden’s Labor Secretary told Insider that he’s on the case. After the state’s announcement that the $300 weekly benefits would end on June 19, instead of the scheduled September end date for the program nationwide, impacted Hoosiers brought a lawsuit against […]

Summary List Placement The number of people with jobs might have increased in June, but remote work decreased, suggesting a possible end to what became the norm for working during the pandemic. The June jobs report went beyond expectations, adding 850,000 payrolls accompanied by higher wages, mainly in the leisure and hospitality sectors. But beyond […]

Summary List Placement The pace of the nation’s economic is continuing to gain momentum. On Friday, the latest jobs report showed the US regained 850,000 jobs in June, a sharp increase from the previous month and significantly above economists’ expectations. But the accelerating recovery obscures a troubling sign: the stubbornly high Black unemployment rate. It […]

Summary List Placement While the number of jobs added in June trounced expectations, another measure also paradoxically ticked up: More unemployed people said their reason for being jobless was quitting than any other month of the pandemic. In June, 164,000 more unemployed people quit or voluntarily left their jobs, according to data from the Bureau […]

Summary List Placement Hiring accelerated again in June as Americans returned to the workforce and reopening further juiced demand. The US economy added 850,000 nonfarm payrolls last month, the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced Friday. The median estimate from economists surveyed by Bloomberg was for an increase of 720,000 jobs. The data suggests the labor […]

Summary List Placement The International Monetary Fund has lifted its outlook for US economic growth to 7% for this year, and believes the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates by the end of 2022, as recovery takes root.  The IMF had previously anticipated an annual growth rate of 4.6% for this year. Should the US […]