Inflation—and rising interest rates—are at the center of the American economic conversation. And for good reason, as the Fed anticipates more increases. Keeping interest rates in historical perspective Inflation is the highest it’s been since the early 1980s. Combined with the volatile swings in data throughout the pandemic, “We’re in uncharted territory,” said Ginger Chambless, […]
Bricks-and-mortar store owners are emerging from the pandemic with surprising strength, posting some of their best numbers in years and plotting expansions as more Americans venture out to buy things again. U.S. retail vacancy fell to 6.1% in the second quarter, the lowest level in at least 15 years, while asking rents for U.S. shopping centers in the […]
By Prashant Gopal October 3, 2022 at 12:01 AM EDTUpdated onOctober 3, 2022 at 8:59 AM EDT Home prices in the US have taken a turn and are now posting the biggest monthly declines since 2009. Median home prices fell 0.98% in August from a month earlier, following a 1.05% drop in July, mortgage-data provider […]
Last year, Massachusetts was ranked among the top 15 states for business by CNBC. This year, the state dropped down from 14th to 24th. Each year, CNBC creates its America’s Top States for Business list by scoring all 50 states on 88 metrics in 10 broad categories of competitiveness. These include categories like access to capital, infrastructure, […]
By Arianne Cohen September 28, 2022 at 12:12 PM EDT When employees can slash their traditional five-day workweek to four days, they tend to allocate their new free time to one surprising activity: sleep. Workers who shifted to 32-hour workweeks logged 7.58 hours per night of sleep, nearly a full hour more than when they were keeping 40-hour […]
For more than a month, the campaign championing a special tax on the wealthy has blasted TV airwaves with a simple message: “They pay less and we pay more.” “They” are the people who earn more than $1 million a year, as one ad intones and pans to a shot of a businessman boarding a private jet. […]
Lumber prices have fallen to their lowest level in more than two years, bringing two-by-fours back to what they cost before the pandemic building boom and pointing to a sharp slowdown in construction. Lumber futures ended Tuesday at $429.30 per thousand board feet, down about one-third from a year ago and more than 70% from […]
Massachusetts consumers and businesses could be in for some sticker shock this winter when they open their electric bills — and feel the impact of a war an ocean away. A rate filing on Wednesday from National Grid, showing wintertime power bills rising more than 60 percent from a year ago, is just the latest […]
Some states and counties were already winning the migration battle before the Covid-19 took the world by storm. Like with many other trends, the pandemic sent several migration patterns into overdrive — shifting thousands of people and billions of dollars into fast-growing counties and leaving other areas scrambling to recapture their losses. Massachusetts was a net loser […]
Federal Reserve officials ramped up their battle against the fastest inflation in 40 years on Wednesday, ushering in a third straight supersize rate increase while projecting a more aggressive path ahead for monetary policy, one that would lift interest rates higher and keep them elevated longer. Central bankers raised their policy interest rate by three-quarters of […]
