Finance Globe

The nation's unemployment rate hit 10% last year, and a long, two year global recession has threatened the financial security of families around the world.It comes as no surprise that state governments are the next to feel the painful effects of a shaky economy; less money being earned and less money being spent across the nation has resulted in a severe drop in state income. State governments reported that tax collections decreased $67 billion in fiscal...

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) testified today to the U.S. House Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit of the Committee on Financial Services that the agency has completed most of the consumer credit protection projects required by the Fair and Accurate Credit Transaction (FACT) Act of 2003, also known as FACTA.The FACT Act was signed into law by President George W. Bush as an amendment to the Fair Credit Reporting Act. Since 2004, this legislation...

New claims for jobless benefits showed slight improvement for the week ending March 13, the Department of Labor reported on Thursday in its weekly report.There were 457,000 new claims last week, down 5,000 from the previous week after a drop of 6,000 in the week prior. The four-week moving average, which smooths out weekly volatility, fell by 4,250 to 471,250. These numbers show very little change from February and are well above the readings in January.Continuing...

The U.S. Census Bureau announced on Friday that advanced estimates of February retail trade sales were $355.5 billion. This is an increase of .3% from the previous month after a .1% rebound in January, and is 3.9% above February 2009. This beat analysts' projections, who as a group expected a decline of .3%. It was expected that February's winter storms that hit much of the Mid-Atlantic could have negatively affected retail sales figures. February's numbers look...

The over-the-month unemployment rate for January rose in 30 states, fell in 9 states, and remained the same in 11 states, according to a report released Wednesday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).Over the past year, the unemployment rate rose in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The national unemployment rate fell from 10% in December to 9.7% for January, but it is still two percentage points above what it was in January...

Since 2006, Lifelock Inc. ads have claimed that it could prevent identity theft for consumers willing to sign up for its $10-a-month service. The company even went so far as to put the CEO's social security number on the side of a truck in big, bold print as if daring any identity thief to steal it.The Federal Trade Commission reported today that Lifelock, Inc. has agreed to a $12 million settlement for making false claims to...

The unemployment situation changed very little with 14.9 million unemployed persons in February, and the unemployment rate held steady at 9.7%, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported today. Non-farm payroll employment fell by 36,000 in February and has fallen by 8.4 million since the start of the recession in December 2007.White House advisor Christina Romer said in a statement, "Although the labor market remains severely distressed, today’s report on the employment situation is consistent with...

The Internal Revenue service sent out an announcement on Monday to inform taxpayers that more than $1.3 billion in tax refunds are due to nearly 1.4 million people who did not file a 2006 tax return.The IRS gives taxpayers a three-year window for claiming refunds for prior tax years - after that the refund becomes the property of the U.S. Treasury and the taxpayer misses out permanently. The deadline to claim the 2006 refund is April...

Identity theft remains the number one consumer complaint for the tenth year in a row, according to the Consumer Sentinal Network (CSN) report released on Wednesday by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).The FTC, the nation's consumer protection agency, publishes the statistical data from the CSN report each year. The CSN is a secure online database of consumer complaints to the FTC, Federal Bureau of Investigations, Department of Defense, Better Business Bureau, U.S. Postal Service Inspector, and...

Fewer consumers applied for new residential mortgages and refinancing last week, according to a weekly survey released on Wednesday by the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA). For the week ending February 19, the index used to measure mortgage loan application volume decreased 8.5% from the previous week, seasonally-adjusted. Unadjusted, the index dropped 7.3% from the previous week.For purchases, the seasonally-adjusted index decreased 7.3% from the week before, putting the index at its lowest level since May 1997,...