Money & The Economy

President Donald Trump’s North American trade deal received good news Friday when the U.S. and Canada agreed to end their tariff battle that began in the summer of 2018. “Now that we’ve had a full lift on these tariffs, we are going to work with the United States on timing ratification” of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), Canadian Prime Minister Justin ...

WASHINGTON, DC, MAY 17 – Robocall Social Security Administration scams are on the rise. The Federal Trade Commission [FTC] says SSA telephone shakedowns specifically targeting senior citizens now surpass phony IRS calls, according to the Association of Mature American Citizens [AMAC]. For the past few years, fake IRS calls topped the list of complaints received by the FTC. “But the new SSA ...

(NASDAQ: RDFN) — U.S. home-sale prices edged up 2.8 percent year over year to a median of $307,600 in April, according to a new report from Redfin (www.redfin.com), a technology-powered real estate brokerage. This marks a rebound from March’s slight annual price decline and a return to a more sustainable level of price growth than the 7 to 9 percent home price increases seen ...

Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley pushed legislation Tuesday that would make it more difficult for American tech companies to export their technology to China. Hawley’s bill, which has few details. would require President Donald Trump to restrict any technology to China that would contribute to the communist country’s military. The Republican’s legislature would also place heavy restrictions on technology that influences ...

According to the latest study from the Global Financial Literacy Excellence Center (GFLEC) at the George Washington University School of Business, 90 percent of teachers and 93 percent of other professionals believe that financial education should be a priority in school. Currently, an average of 65 percent of teachers are motivated to teach it, but findings indicate that professional development and their own ...

The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) continues to lose money despite a booming economy under the Trump administration. USPS reported total revenue of $17.5 billion for the second quarter of fiscal 2019 (January 1, 2019 – March 31, 2019), a decrease of $8 million compared to the same quarter last year. The postal service is working to replace lost first class mail revenue with increased parcel ...

Chick-fil-A is on track to become the nation’s third-largest fast-food chain, behind McDonald’s and Starbucks. The fast-food chain’s sales have tripled over the last 10 years and it reported $10.8 billion for 2018, according to food-service consultancy Technomic Inc., The Wall Street Journal reported. The company has faced repeated boycotts and protests against expansion locations by political interests. The protests ...

Conservative groups signed a letter Thursday warning a group of bipartisan lawmakers that extending electric vehicle tax credits will likely be a giveaway to wealthy people at the expense of poor Americans. Electric vehicle tax credits “overwhelmingly benefit the rich,” American Energy Alliance head Tom Pyle and other conservative groups said in the letter to Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of ...

The federal regulatory apparatus imposed a roughly $14,600 “hidden tax” on American households last year, according to a new report by the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI). “That amounts to 20 percent of the average pretax income of $73,573, and 24 percent of the average expenditure budget of $60,060,” CEI’s Wayne Crews wrote in his annual Ten Thousand Commandments report released ...

The U.S. economy added 263,000 jobs in April while the unemployment rate fell to 3.6 percent, making March the 103rd straight month of job growth, according to Department of Labor data released Friday. Economists predicted 190,000 jobs would be added and the unemployment rate would hold at 3.8 percent, according to The Wall Street Journal. Jobs numbers for March were ...

Both the GDP report and today's jobs numbers blew out analyst expectations and have largely killed the narrative that the Trump economy is short-lived and that a recession is near.

The Department of Labor (DOL) issued an “opinion letter” Monday recognizing a gig business’s workers as contract labor, a favorable sign for other companies built on the gig economy business model. A gig business is a company that uses a tech platform based online or on a smartphone app to connect customers to service providers. A couple of popular examples ...

The rate of high school graduates enrolling in higher education increased from 2017 to 2018 despite record levels of open jobs in the U.S., The Wall Street Journal reports. Roughly 69 percent of all high school graduates enrolled in some form of higher education by October 2018, according to Labor Department data analyzed by WSJ. The rate is about a ...

The U.S. economy grew at an amazing pace during the first quarter of 2019, according to data from the government. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) grew at 3.2% smashing economists’ expectations of only 2.5% and the best showing in the first quarter since 2013. The great quarter came due to private industries increased investment spending, an increase in exports by American ...

Tesla’s first quarterly earnings report of 2019 showed the company took a massive financial hit after losing a $7,500 electric vehicle tax credit on Jan. 1, Greentech Media reports. Tesla released its Q1 earnings report Wednesday, showing losses greater than the already pessimistic predictions from analysts. The electric car company posted a $702 million net loss, according to Generally Accepted ...