Maria Gamez’s monthly Social Security check went up one dollar this year. “Luckily, I haven’t gotten really sick,” she said, “if I have a headache I take a Tylenol, you know?” She relies on Social Security and a pension to fund her rent in Jamaica, Queens, buy a jacket for […]
photo by Bernhard Benke, used under the CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 license U.S. inflation continues its steady upward trend as the Fed gets ready to increase interest rates next week. The Labor Department reported Tuesday consumer prices rose 0.2 percent in February, matching expectations of creeping inflation pressures as the economy continues into […]
Gas Pump photo by Michael Kappel, used under the Creative Commons’ Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 Generic license. Higher gasoline and apparel prices pushed up inflation last month, but consumers aren’t likely to face rapidly increasing prices. The Labor Department reported Wednesday consumer prices rose 0.5% in January, spurred by a 5% increase in […]
Restaurants could be in trouble as their menu costs soar and grocery stores lower their prices. Over the past year, the consumer price index – an index measuring the changes in prices for goods and services – showed a 2.3 percent increase in the food-away-from-home index and a 0.8 percent […]
Customers are paying less for airfare but overall more to travel because of airlines fees for optional services once included in the ticket price. Some of the complaints from customers are being unaware of fees until they arrive at the airport, having to pay for once complimentary amenities and the […]
By Mariah Brown Consumer prices barely increased in February but the Federal Reserve Board raised interest rates because of increasing inflation, signaling the strength of the economy. The consumer price index, a scale tracking the costs of goods and services month-after-month, showed consumer prices increased 0.1 percent for the month […]
An acceleration in consumer prices, for the month of January, could push the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates. The consumer price index, a scale of changes in prices and goods, showed a 0.6 percent increase from December to January, Bloomberg reports. This was the largest month-over-month increase since February […]
Tomorrow morning the Labor Department releases its monthly inflation report for March at 8:30 a.m., and economists surveyed by Bloomberg expect both the overall index and the core index (less volatile energy and food prices) to tick up 0.2 percent. The last two months saw solid growth in the core […]
The U.S. agriculture industry, especially in Florida, has a rotten tomatoes problem that has nothing to do with film reviews. Erratic weather patterns have wreaked havoc on U.S. tomato crops from West Coast to East this winter, causing prices to spike in recent months. Tomato prices had been on a […]
February’s core 12-month inflation rate met or surpassed the Federal Reserve’s target for the fourth month in a row, showing signs of a strengthening economy. The core index, which strips out volatile food and energy prices, increased 0.3 percent in February and rose 2.3 percent over the past year — […]