Granger Wootz | Tetra Images | Getty Images The average tax refund is 10.8% higher so far this season, compared with about the same period in 2025, according to the latest IRS filing data. As of March 13, the average refund amount for individual filers was $3,623, up from $3,271 about one year ago, the IRS reported on Friday….
Garrett Mauch spreads manure as fertilizer on fields at his family’s farm in Lamar, Colorado, on January 21, 2026. RJ Sangosti | The Denver Post Via Getty Images | Denver Post | Getty Images The Strait of Hormuz shutdown caused by the war in Iran is jacking up fertilizer prices, hitting farmers in their pocketbooks…
Luana Lopes Lara, co-founder of Kalshi, spends all day thinking about probabilities. Coming out of an elite math degree background and positions at some of the most successful hedge funds in the world, a mindset focused on thinking clearly about potential outcomes comes naturally to her. But the youngest self-made female billionaire ever still had…
Economic growth was much slower than expected in the final three months of 2025 while core inflation rose to start 2026, the Commerce Department reported Friday. Gross domestic product, a measure of all the goods and services produced across the sprawling U.S. economy, rose at a seasonally and inflation-adjusted annual rate of just 0.7% in…
The war in Iran has caused oil prices to spike, prompting concerns about a resurgence of inflation. That has led Federal Reserve officials to raise the possibility that they may pause the Fed’s recent efforts to lower interest rates, or potentially even raise rates. But that is the Fed as it’s now known. The central…
Gas prices at a Sunoco gas station in Media, Pennsylvania, US, on Monday, March 2, 2026. Oil surged the most in four years as the first impacts of the war in the Middle East began to be felt, with a near halt to traffic through the Strait of Hormuz and disruption at a big refinery…
Skaman306 | Moment | Getty Images Even as many consumers feel stretched to cover rising daily costs, more low- and moderate-income individuals have turned to investing, according to a new report. Since 2020, the number of low- and moderate-income investors has increased by 2.7 times, or 167%, according to new research from the BlackRock Foundation, the private…
Wholesale prices rose at a faster-than-expected pace in January, countering hopes that inflation was easing, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday. The core producer price index, which excludes volatile food and energy prices, increased a seasonally adjusted 0.8%, more than the 0.6% gain in December and well ahead of the Dow Jones consensus estimate…
Shop owners of a 70-year-old “takoyaki”, or octopus balls, restaurant chat while cooking along a street in the Taito Ward area of Tokyo on February 21, 2025. Richard A. Brooks | Afp | Getty Images Japan’s headline inflation rate fell to 1.5% in January, its lowest level since March 2022. The reading ended a run…
Carl Smith | Fstop | Getty Images Social Security benefits are typically adjusted every year to keep up with rising prices. Social Security beneficiaries saw record-high COLAs in 2022 and 2023, when the annual increases climbed to 5.9% and 8.7%, respectively. Yet as the pace of inflation subsided, the size of the annual COLA increase…
