As fears of recession loom, the consumer price index up 6.5 percent and inflation at historic highs, funds that Americans saved during the COVID-19 pandemic are nearing depletion.
During the height of the pandemic, Americans were able to save more than $2.7 trillion as businesses shuttered. Investment bank Goldman Sachs estimated that 35 percent of COVID-19 relief funds have already been spent and by the end of 2023, that number will be up to 65 percent.
Lower income households have seen their savings diminish first. Folks that make under $50,000 annually saw their savings slashed by 36 percent compared to people who make between $100,000 and 15,000 who lost just 14 percent of their savings.
The use of credit has surged during this time as well, pushing the credit card debt to a new record of more than $930 billion at the end of 2022. It's a jump of 18 percent from the previous year.
Meanwhile, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen rejected concerns that the U.S. isn't headed for a recession and believes that inflation can be eased.
"You don't have a recession when you have 500,000 jobs and the lowest unemployment rate in more than 50 years. What I see is a path in which inflation is declining significantly, and the economy is remaining strong," she said in an interview with ABC's Good Morning America.
Seth Schachner, Managing Director at Strat Americas, talks Disney's taking control of Hulu, Warner Bros. and Discovery's split and how if affects the viewers.
The Tony Awards on Sunday lured 4.85 million viewers to CBS, its largest broadcast audience in six years. CBS says Monday that Nielsen data shows the telecast — hosted by “Wicked” star Cynthia Erivo — scored a 38% increase over last year’s 3.53 million viewers. That’s the largest audience for the Tonys since 2019, when the telecast that year nabbed 5.4 million viewers and “Hadestown” was crowned best new musical. The latest version also had to compete with the second game of the NBA Finals, between the Thunder and Pacers,
After stumbling out of the starting gate in Big Tech’s pivotal race to capitalize on artificial intelligence, Apple tried to regain its footing Monday during a developers conference that focused mostly on incremental advances and cosmetic changes in its technology.
Six weeks before UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was gunned down outside a Manhattan hotel last December, Luigi Mangione mused about rebelling against “the deadly, greed fueled health insurance cartel” and expressed that killing the executive “conveys a greedy bastard that had it coming."
