Finances

Poverty Severely Hits Suburban Areas in America

4798 Poverty has grown everywhere in the U.S. in recent years, but mostly in the suburbs. During the 2000s, it grew twice as fast in suburban areas as in cities, with more than 16 million poor people now living in the nation's suburbs -- more than in urban or rural areas.

Volunteers sort donated food into barrels at the Manna Food Center in Gaithersburg in Montgomery County, Md. Poverty in the county, just outside of Washington, D.C., has grown by two-thirds since 2007.

U.S. Treasury Seeks to Avoid Default

4798 The Obama administration notified Congress on Friday that it was taking steps to free up about $260 billion so that it can keep paying the nation's bills when a temporary suspension in the debt ceiling lapses this weekend.
Boomers lost a significant chunk of their retirement nest eggs in the recession, but it was members of Generation X who were really hit the hardest, according to a report released Thursday.

While Boomers on the cusp of retirement lost significant wealth in the Great Recession, it was younger Americans who were hit the hardest.
4798 In a typical week, about 10 applicants will walk into a recruiting center in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, hoping to enlist in the United States Army. Sergeant First Class Israel Herrera doesn't like to turn them away, but he often finds that six out of 10 simply don't measure up to military standards.

Feds Propose Major Overhaul for Child Care Centers

4798Federal health officials say they will propose Thursday to overhaul federally funded child care centers across the country, beefing up safety standards including background and fingerprint checks for employees and requiring states to better monitor the facilities.

Avoid These 4 Mortgage Mistakes

4798When you hear things like "1.99 percent mortgage interest rate" or "no-cost refinancing," it can be tempting to rush out and sign up for a loan or refinance - but doing so could cost you big in the long run.

Yahoo! Homes/Photo: Thinkstock - Avoiding these mortgage mistakes can prevent you from enduring some bad financial situations.
4798Congress was not told tea party groups were being inappropriately targeted by the Internal Revenue Service, even after acting agency Chief Steven Miller had been briefed on the matter.

Why Student Loan Debt Is a Drag on the Economy

4798 The anemic economy has left millions of younger working Americans struggling to get ahead. The added millstone of student loan debt, which recently exceeded $1 trillion in total, is making it even harder for many of them, delaying purchases of things like homes, cars and other big-ticket items and acting as a drag on growth, economists said.

Shane Gill, a 33-year-old high-school teacher in New York, owes about $45,000 in federal student loans, plus another $40,000 to his parents.
4798 OVER her 22 years in Congress, Maxine Waters has likened bank executives to "gangsters," snarkily addressed them as "captains of the universe" and threatened to tax their companies "out of business."

Representative Maxine Waters meeting with community bankers in Torrance, Calif., which lies in her House district.
4798In case you still thought millennials are opposed to working, it turns out the young generation tarnished as slackers has serious career aspirations.

Secret agent is among millennials' top dream jobs. (Here, Daniel Craig as the latest James Bond from the long-running movie franchise.) (Photo: Greg Williams, Getty Images)
4798US Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew said Tuesday that reducing the nation's deficit should not overshadow the need to boost economic growth and job creation.
4798A hospital in Livingston, N.J., charged $70,712 on average to implant a pacemaker, while a hospital in nearby Rahway, N.J., charged $101,945.

The government has released data on bills submitted from virtually every hospital in the country in 2011 for the 100 most common treatments and procedures performed in hospitals. Above, a hip replacement surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital in 2011.

The Generation of the Jobless

4798 Around the world almost 300m 15- to 24-year-olds are not working. What has caused this epidemic of joblessness? And what can abate it?
4798 Bank of America and insurer MBIA on Monday announced a $1.7 billion settlement deal resolving their dispute over mortgage securities that soured as the housing market collapsed.

Bank of America and insurer MBIA announced a $1.7 billion settlement deal (AFP/Getty Images/File, Justin Sullivan)

8 Best-Paying Summer Jobs for Teens

4798 Getting a summer job is a rite of passage for many young people. In addition to earning wages to help pay for tuition or make car payments, it's where many first-time employees learn the fundamentals of work -- showing up on time, teamwork, communicating effectively, managing workloads and more. But summer jobs can also be fun, giving teenagers an opportunity to bond and hang out with a group of people beyond their schools and neighborhoods.

MIT Aims To Hone Students' Startup Ideas

4798 The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is expanding a program for student entrepreneurs to include six teams from overseas that will come to the United States this summer to hone ideas for start-ups alongside collegians from the Cambridge school.
4798 The U.S. Labor Department announced Friday morning that the economy has been steadily adding jobs, pushing the unemployment rate down to 7.5 percent from 7.6 percent. The improvement won't mean much to people without jobs, especially people who've been unemployed a long time.

A crowd of job seekers attends a healthcare job fair, Thursday, March 14, 2013 in New York. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)

Did The Recession Cause a Rise In Suicides?

4798 The suicide rate among middle-aged Americans climbed a startling 28 percent in a decade, a period that included the recession and the mortgage crisis, the government reported Thursday.
4798 President Barack Obama rounded out his second-term Cabinet on Thursday by nominating Penny Pritzker as his new Commerce secretary and Michael Froman to be the next U.S. trade representative.

WASHINGTON, DC - MAY 02: U.S. President Barack Obama (C) shakes hands with his nominee for trade representative, economic adviser Mike Froman (L) as nominee for Commerce Secretary, Chicago business executive Penny Pritzker, looks on in the Rose Garden at the White House May 2, 2013 in Washington, DC. If approved by the Senate, the two appointments will round out the administration's economic team for Obama's second term. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
Adam Crain reckoned he was due $125,000. That amount would come as compensation for losing his Oak Harbor, Wash., home to foreclosure while he was serving aboard a naval vessel in the Middle East. He calculated that sum using a table distributed by federal regulators as part of a $9.2 billion settlement with mortgage companies over a wave of improper foreclosures.

In this file photograph taken Feb. 23, 2009, a foreclosure sign blows in the wind in front of a home under foreclosure in Antioch, Calif. Homeowners who received checks as part of a large foreclosure settlement say the sums are much smaller than they expected. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma, File)

Laying Bare Your Finances to Apply for Healthcare

After a storm of complaints, the Obama administration on Tuesday unveiled simplified forms to apply for insurance under the president's new health care law. You won't have to lay bare your medical history but you will have to detail your finances.

Home Price Rise Continues to Pick up Speed

4798 The pace of home price increases continued to accelerate in February, according to a reading Tuesday that showed the biggest gain since near the height of the housing bubble.
4798 The U.S. government paid out billions in unemployment benefits to people who were actually working, a new report finds, sparking concerns that a big share of the money meant for the jobless isn't going to the workers who are struggling the most.

In this Wednesday, Feb. 6, 2013 photo, job applicants, right, complete forms at a job fair sponsored by Swissport, in Newark N.J. The Labor Department reports Thursday, Feb. 7, 2013, on the number of Americans who applied for unemployment benefits for the first time in the last week. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)

The New Secret To Finding A Job

4798 WHEN the e-mail came out of the blue last summer, offering a shot as a programmer at a San Francisco start-up, Jade Dominguez, 26, was living off credit card debt in a rental in South Pasadena, Calif., while he taught himself programming. He had been an average student in high school and hadn't bothered with college, but someone, somewhere out there in the cloud, thought that he might be brilliant, or at least a diamond in the rough.

Jade Dominguez, 26, never went to college, but was hired by Gild, a start-up, after its algorithm put him atop a list of programmers.

39,000 Tax Cheats Come Forward Under New IRS Programs

4798 The Internal Revenue Service has recouped more than $5.5 billion under a series of programs that offered reduced penalties and no jail time to people who voluntarily disclosed assets they were hiding overseas, government investigators said Friday.

High Health Costs Exclude Millions Of Americans

4798 More than 40 percent of U.S. residents went without health insurance or had coverage that didn't protect them against high medical costs last year, survey results released Friday reveal.

More Low-Wage Workers in Chicago Go On Strike

4798 When Chris Thomas, 25, started working at the Nike store in downtown Chicago in 2008, he made $10.15 an hour -- at least a few dollars short of what he'd need to move out of his parents' house in Oak Park, Ill.

Striking low-wage workers protest outside a Victoria's Secret retail store in downtown Chicago Wednesday, April 24, 2013. (HuffPost photo/Saki Knafo)
4798 The panel of senior U.S. regulators charged with safeguarding the financial system will warn this week about risks posed by the rapidly growing amount of student debt, increasing pressure on policymakers to deal with the potential problem.

CFPB director Richard Cordray said Tuesday student loan risks "should be of deep concern." (Photo by T.J. Kirkpatrick/Getty Images)

Online Shopping Close To Getting Much More Expensive

4798 Tax-free shopping on the Internet could be in jeopardy under a bill making its way through the Senate.

The bill would empower states to require online retailers to collect state and local sales taxes for purchases made over the Internet. The sales taxes would be sent to the states where a shopper lives.

World Bank Sets 'Expiration Date' For Extreme Poverty

4798 Global finance officials endorsed a new World Bank goal to end extreme global poverty by 2030 and emphasized that its focus should be on ensuring that the poorest benefit from strong growth and rising prosperity in developing nations.

A Filipino street child bites a styrofoam bowl as he participates in an event in observance of International Day of Overcoming Extreme Poverty at the Rizal Park in Manila, Philippines on Sunday Oct. 16, 2011. The annual event also observed in other countries seeks to find ways of effectively easing poverty, which afflicts nearly a third of the Philippines' 94 million people. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila)

Countries With The Highest Unemployment

4798 The U.S. unemployment rate continues to tick down, hitting a more than four-year low of just 7.6% in March. In much of Europe, however, the situation is very different. If the latest developments in Cyprus are any indication, the economic and employment woes of Europe are nowhere near over.

Obamacare Could Hurt Already Struggling Part-Time Workers

4798 The American economy has generated 30 straight months of job growth. But for millions of people looking for more work and greater income, that improvement provides little solace.

Amie Crawford accepted a position as a cashier after failing to find a job as an interior designer, which she had been for 30 years before the recession.

IRS Employees Charged With Theft Of Government Benefits

17118-45.jpg Federal prosecutors say 24 current and former Internal Revenue Service employees have been charged with stealing government benefits.

Who Should We Blame for the Middle Class Struggle?

4798The middle class is feeling squeezed, and they have plenty of blame to throw around. Some are very quick to point the finger at the poor. In fact, they were more resentful of the poor than the rich, big business and government.

ATM Fees Just Got More Expensive

4798It's getting more expensive to visit ATMs outside of your bank's network.

Typically, you face two fees when using an ATM that doesn't belong to your bank or credit union's ATM network: Your own financial institution charges you a fee for cheating on them and the ATM you use charges you as well.

Walmart Called Out Over Minimum Wage Deal

4798Several labor unions say more than $400,000 in contributions by Wal-Mart Stores Inc. since 2010 helped bring about the creation of an unusual taxpayer-paid subsidy last month to help employers offset a higher minimum wage in New York.
4798 The Federal Reserve's dual mandate demands stable prices and maximum employment. But if forced to choose, there's good reason to consider Bernanke's recent route the correct one.

LOS ANGELES, CA - MARCH 20: Veterans listen to a speaker as they look for job openings at the University of Southern California booth during a jobs fair for veterans. (Photo by Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images)

Obama's Budget Plan Could Hit Middle Class Hard

4798 Retired city worker Sheila Pugach lives in a modest home on a quiet street in Albuquerque, N.M., and drives an 18-year-old Subaru.
4798 Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said on Friday that despite improvements in the U.S. economy overall, the country's lower-income communities continue to face hard times.

U.S. Unemployment Applications Drop to 346,000

4798 The number of Americans seeking unemployment benefits fell sharply last week to a seasonally adjusted 346,000, suggesting March's weak month of hiring may have been a temporary slowdown.