Average math scores for 9- and 13-year-olds remain lower than they were 10 years ago — a warning sign not only for schools, but also for the economy, according to some researchers.
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Inflation crossed 4% for the first time in three years in May, exacerbating Americans’ pain at the pump.
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Despite higher inflation, the job market appears to be improving, with hiring increasing to a healthy level in May.
U.S. consumers haven’t stopped spending money since the Iran war drove up fuel prices, but many shoppers are reassessing what they buy and where, according to company executives and retail analysts.
The Labor Department’s April report showed the highest number of openings since May 2024.
As costs continue to rise at an uncomfortable rate, even well-off households are struggling to maintain their basic lifestyles. Have we normalized overconsumption?
U.S. consumer confidence declined slightly this month as gas prices stayed high and inflation remained elevated.
The gains came even though fighting continued in the region, and the U.S. military said it carried out “self-defense” strikes in southern Iran, including on missile launch sites and boats placing mines.
Excluding volatile food and energy costs, so-called consumer core prices rose 2.8% from April 2025, a relatively modest reading that suggest the energy price burst has yet to spill over more broadly into other prices.
Nearly half of American business economists who responded to a survey by the National Association for Business Economics say that the conflict has negatively impacted their operations.
The recent uptick in hiring raises hopes that the job market will break out of a recent rut – in which Americans who have jobs are relatively secure from layoffs but jobseekers struggle to find work.
International Energy Agency Executive Director Fatih Birol painted a sobering picture of the global repercussions of what he called “the largest energy crisis we have ever faced,” stemming from the pinch-off of oil, gas and other vital supplies through the Strait of Hormuz.
The latest number was marked down from the Commerce Department’s previous estimate of 0.7% fourth-quarter growth.
Stalled tanker traffic at the Strait of Hormuz has disrupted the global oil market, and stock investors have yo-yoed along with mixed signals from Washington, D.C.
The report showed signs that employers had begun to regain confidence in stable business conditions following the volatile policy swings of the first year of the second Trump administration.
Ongoing strikes and counterstrikes on Persian Gulf refineries, pipelines, gas fields and tanker terminals threaten to the prolong the global economic pain for months, even years.
The U.S. economy, hobbled by last fall’s 43-day government shutdown, advanced at an unexpectedly sluggish rate from October through December, the Commerce Department reported Friday.
Speakers at IBJ’s Technology Power Breakfast, including Purdue University President Mung Chiang, talked about the changes that artificial intelligence is bringing and what people can do to be ready.
Should the conflict wind down in a week or two, its economic effects would be minor and short-lived, economists say.
The story the Trump team is telling — that a visionary Federal Reserve chair, Alan Greenspan, fueled the 1990s boom by keeping interest rates low — is incomplete at best.
The 191-country lending organization’s assessment of the world’s biggest economy was mostly positive.
Home Depot and other retailers have seen customers cut back on their spending amid concerns about inflation and economic uncertainty.
