Look at economic data, and you’d think that young voters would be riding high right now. Unemployment remains low. Job opportunities are plentiful. Inequality is down, wage growth is finally beating inflation, and the economy has expanded rapidly this year. Look at TikTok, and you get a very different impression — one that seems more […]
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When the Supreme Court struck down President Biden’s $400 billion plan to forgive up to $20,000 in federal student loan debt for 43 million borrowers, the prospect of substantive debt relief appeared to vanish. But then millions of borrowers received surprise notices that their federal student loans were being eliminated through other government relief programs. […]
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America’s federal budget deficit effectively doubled in the 2023 fiscal year as slumping tax receipts, rising interest rates and persistent demand for expiring pandemic relief benefits strained the nation’s finances. The latest Treasury Department figures showed a budget deficit of $1.7 trillion in 2023, up from $1.37 trillion in 2022. Those numbers make the deficit […]
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Now that the federal student loan machinery has been set back into motion, hundreds of thousands of borrowers are discovering that their monthly payments had been miscalculated, often for higher amounts than they actually owed. The mistakes have come to light as more than 28 million federal student loan borrowers returned to repayment this month […]
Read MorePresident Biden canceled an additional $9 billion in student debt on Wednesday as repayments started up again this month after a three-year pause. The move affects 125,000 people who qualify under existing programs, including for public-service workers such as teachers and firefighters and for people on permanent disability, according to a White House statement. “This […]
Read MoreWith federal student loan payments due again for the first time in nearly four years, financially stretched borrowers may be concerned about the consequences of missed payments. Many student loan borrowers have taken on more debt during the payment pause, and their total monthly obligations — even without their student loan bill — now exceed […]
Read MoreAfter about 42 months, the student loan payment hiatus is officially over: Interest on federal loans began accruing again in September, and monthly payments are due this month. Many borrowers may be worried about squeezing the payment back into their monthly budget. Life is more expensive than when bills and interest were initially frozen because […]
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Rohit Chopra became one of the most powerful financial regulators by pairing bark with bite. As director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, he has attacked — often with a hammer — the perpetrators of what he considers injustices against everyday Americans. When the bureau slapped Wells Fargo last year with $3.7 billion in fines […]
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Washington braced for a government shutdown over the weekend as Congress remained mired in dysfunction on Friday. Federal agencies planned to send home hundreds of thousand workers, who would not be paid until the shutdown ended. Hundreds of thousands of others deemed essential, like air traffic controllers, would be ordered to work. They, too, would […]
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Policymakers at the Federal Reserve will announce their latest decision on interest rates on Wednesday, after a series of increases squeezed the budgets of debt-laden Americans and rewarded those with money to stash in savings. The Federal Reserve has raised its benchmark rate, the federal funds rate, to a range of 5.25 to 5.5 percent […]
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Mykail James has a plan for when payments on her roughly $75,000 in student loans restart next month. She’ll cut back on her “fun budget” — money reserved for travel and concerts — and she expects to limit her holiday spending. “With the holidays coming up — I have a really big family — we […]
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