Even some of those seeking the nation’s highest office have weighed in on college debt with payment plans and relief proposals. Voters and the media ask for details on the campaign trail. And that highlights a remarkable shift: Policymakers and politicians are paying attention to this issue like never before. Read the full article in […]
The modern family has replaced the traditional family. The share of children living in a two-parent household is at the lowest point in more than half a century, according to a new report, “Parenting in America,” released Thursday by the Pew Research Center, a non-profit and nonpartisan think-tank in Washington, D.C. Some 69% of children […]
The Fed has set in motion a gradual increase in the federal funds rate,which is the interest rate banks and depository institutions charge one another for overnight loans. But that rate, central as it is to the making of monetary policy, has only a wobbly effect on how banks and other financial institutions price certain loans […]
Recent college graduates may intuitively feel that they have it worse than their peers who graduated a decade ago. Now they can really see the difference. The average student debt at graduation soared 56% to $28,950 in 2014 from $18,550 in 2004, according to a new graph based on data released earlier this yearby the Institute […]
New research has looked not only at Medicare but also at a huge, new database drawn from private-insurance plans – the sorts used by most Americans for health care. And it shows that places that spend less on Medicare do not necessarily spend less on health care over all. Grand Junction, as it happens, is one of the […]
Surveys conducted by Towers Watson indicated a large disconnect between what employers say they did, and what retirees remember being told about their medical benefits before they retired.While 43 percent of retirees surveyed said their employers took no steps at all to help them understand and manage the cost of retiree medical benefits before they retired, […]
Scarred by the Great Recession and laden with student debt, few millennials are in the mood, or in a position, to seek out a traditional financial adviser. But they need financial advice just the same.Hence the arrival of new and unconventional approaches that try to help 20- and 30-somethings start saving and investing. These range […]
Tony James and Teresa Ghilarducci are unlikely allies. He is president of Blackstone, the giant private equity firm; she’s a labor economist who has long advocated replacing 401(k)’s with a universal, federally managed saving plan.But the two have teamed up to push what they are calling Guaranteed Retirement Accounts, a government-sponsored plan that would require participation and […]
Alan B. Krueger, a former chief economist to President Obama, and Seth D. Harris, a former deputy labor secretary, argued in a paper released this week that many workers in the so-called online gig economy should have more rights and protections than most do now. At the same time, they wrote, “forcing these new forms of work […]
Consumer credit card debt is rising again. The average indebted household now carries a revolving balance of $15,355, according to a new study by NerdWallet. With credit cards carrying an average interest rate of 18%, that balance costs the average household $6,658 — 9% of income — in interest per year. Read the full post in […]
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