US Finance news summary | 7 October 2023
US Finance News: Latest Updates
- The US unemployment rate held steady at 3.8 percent in September
- Gas prices are dropping in the US, how low will they go?
- Thrifty Food Plan adjustment for SNAP benefits goes into effect
- Next week, the SSA will announce the 2024 Cost-of-living adjustments (COLA); forecasts estimate the COLA will be around three percent.
- States delivering checks and refunds in October
- 125,000 more borrowers become eligible for student loan forgiveness after the White House announced an additional $9 billion in debt relief.
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Walgreens’ corporate management have announced that they would be closing 150 stores in the United States by the end of August 2024 as profits decline.
Bank of America has several branch closures scheduled for October. We share with you how many banks will close and which ones.
Studying to be a pharmacist can lead to a career that could earn you a six-figure salary. But not every employer pays the same. How does Walgreens compare?
While not a silver bullet to the quandary of how to get a higher education degree that pays off in future earnings compared to investment but 2-year associate degree majors have some promising lucrative career outcomes.
Thousands of Kaiser Permanente workers are on strike for better pay and conditions. What happens to membership fees during a strike?
Your local Walgreens pharmacy could see disruptions on Monday as workers will stage a walkout for better pay and conditions.
As employees are being called back into offices many are finding a way to do so but without really doing so.
The United States has various economic relief, among them, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, SNAP, also known as food stamps.
Through this program, the government provides money to low-income families so that they can buy healthy, nutritional foods. The payment is issued on a monthly basis through an EBT debit card and the amount depends on the family’s economic situation, as well as the number of members that make up the household.
Needs, wants, savings, otherwise known as the 50-30-20 rule, is a way of budgeting your income that can help you get control of your finances.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the median weekly income for workers in the US from January to March 2023 was $1,100 a week. The median refers to the midpoint, meaning that fifty percent of workers make more than this amount, with the other half making less. If we apply the 50-30-20 rule to this income, a worker would spend $550 on their needs (i.e., housing, utilities, food, transport, childcare, etc.), $330 on their wants (i.e., non-essential purchases), and the remaining $220 would be put into savings.
Read more on the benefits and challenges of sticking with this financial advice.
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Since last year, several US states have approved stimulus checks and tax rebates in a bid to combat the rising cost of living.
One of these states is New Mexico. Given the strain that inflation has placed on households’ budgets, governor Michelle Lujan Grisham and the state legislature this year brought in an income tax rebate of up to $1,000 for New Mexican taxpayers.
The state also approved the payment of relief checks for New Mexico residents who don’t have to file taxes.
Read more about the rebate in our full coverage.
Senior Citizens League forecasts 2024 COLA to be 3.2 percent
The senior rights advocacy organization, the Senior Citizens League (SCL), has released its latest forecast for the 2024 COLA for Social Security, estimating it to be 3.2 percent. This comes after the 2023 COLA clocked in at 8.7 percent as inflation rattled the US and global economy. While a COLA above three percent is likely to help seniors and other beneficiaries of programs overseen by the Social Security Adminstration (SSA), the SCL still believes there could loss in purchasing power. The organization has reported that since 2000 around forty percent of the purchasing power associated with Social Security benefits had been lost by 2022.
Three years after the implementation of the student debt moratorium, payments resumed on October 1. However, as part of his presidential campaign, President Biden promised to relieve student debt for millions of borrowers. Since then, the president has been under pressure to keep his word, particularly after the Supreme Court rejected his initial plan to forgive up to $20,000 per loan for borrowers with an annual income under $125,000 a year.
Fortunately, for some, President Biden has unveiled a new plan to forgive $9 billion in student debt for 125,000 eligible borrowers.
Read more in our full coverage for details on who will be impacted by this latest round of relief.
At the beginning of October, an increase in monthly payments for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), commonly known as ‘food stamps’, came into effect. This was thanks to a revaluation of the cost of living and minimum requirements for each individual.
SNAP benefit amounts are updated each year based on the cost of the Thrifty Food Plan in June and then the adjustment goes into effect on October 1. “The Thrifty Food Plan is the cost of food necessary to provide a healthy, budget-conscious diet for a family of four,” explains the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA).
The average price per gallon of gasoline spiked in the third quarter of the year experiencing an unusual post-Labor Day rise. The higher price of crude oil and a lack of supply due to refinery issues helped drive up the cost at the pump for American drivers.
The former though gave investors whiplash this week with the US per barrel price plunged by 5.6 percent on Wednesday, the biggest one-day drop in a year. The market rout that started last week has continued and the average price per gallon is beginning to follow suit.
Read more in our full coverage on how much prices could drop.
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Yesterday, the BLS released the September Unemployment Report, which found that unemployment held steady at 3.8 percent last month. This is one closely watched indicator by the Federal Reserve, which has paused rate increases in current months, awaiting more information on how the hikes implemented over the last year have impacted the labor market and consumer and producer prices.
Next week, the Social Security Adminstration will release the 2024 Cost-of-living adjustment (COLA), which will be applied to Social Security benefits and the other programs administered by the SSA. We will bring you the latest forecasts, but beneficiaries should be prepared that the figure is likely to be less than half of the 8.7 percent that was granted this year.