Finance Globe

The unemployment rate in August was lower than it was a year ago for 182 out of 372 metropolitan areas tracked by the Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the agency reported on Wednesday.The BLS also said that the unemployment rate was higher than it was a year ago in 169 areas and stayed the same in 21 metros.For August, 124 metropolitan areas had jobless rates of at least 10%, eight fewer than there was...

The Federal Trade Commission has halted an operation that’s fraudulently taken millions of dollars from consumers by placing bogus charges on their phone bills, the agency reported on Thursday.Inc21 has been ordered by a U.S. District court to pay back almost $38 million to consumers as a result of the FTC’s effort to halt this huge scam. The FTC alleged that Inc21 hired offshore telemarketers to call prospective clients to sell Web-based services. The company then...

The Federal Trade Commission announced on Wednesday that they will be mailing 360 consumer redress checks to customers of Briggs & Baker, a company that advertised it could “drastically” reduce consumers’ credit card debt.The FTC alleged that the company’s ads were false and misleading, and says that customers who signed up for their debt negotiation services ended up with worse credit ratings and a higher debt load. Some of Brigg’s & Bakers customers even became the...

Well, the recession that began in December 2007 was technically over in June 2009, officials at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) said this past week. The experts use all kinds of macroeconomic data to determine that a “trough” occurred in business activity in the summer of 2009, such as real GDP, real income, employment, industrial production, and wholesale-retail sales.But the Great Recession that ended over a year ago has smacked us so hard that...

Existing home sales in August rose 7.6% after a big correction in July, but are still 19% lower than the sales pace from a year ago, the National Association of Realtors (NAR) reported on Thursday. Lawrence Yun, NAR chief economist, said existing home sales still remain subpar. “The housing market is trying to recover on its own power without the home buyer tax credit. Despite very attractive affordability conditions, a housing market recovery will likely be...

New jobless claims rose unexpectedly last week to 465,000, up 12,000 from the previous week’s revised figure of 453,000, the Labor Department reported on Thursday. The four week moving average, which smooths out weekly volatility, was 463,250 - a decrease of 3,250 from the previous week’s revised average of 466,500. The national insured unemployment rate was little changed for the week ending September 11 at 3.5%, down slightly from the prior week’s revised rate of 3.6%....

The poverty rate in the U.S. rose to 14.3% in 2009 - its highest level in fifteen years, the Census Bureau reported on Thursday. Up from 13.2% in 2008, this was the second statistically significant increase in the country’s poverty rate since 2004.Defined as an income level of $21,954 or less for a family of four, poverty struck 43.6 million people in 2009, up from 39.8 million in 2008. This makes the third year in a...

American consumers are keeping big spending in check by putting off buying cars, furniture, electronics, and appliances, but the back-to-school season fueled the second monthly retail sales increase in a row and slightly beat analysts’ expectations.Following a revised .3% increase in July, retail sales in August rose .4% to $363.7 billion, the Commerce Department reported on Tuesday. Excluding the data for automobile sales, parts dealers, and gasoline stores, sales rose .5%.Retail trade sales are 3.7% above...

American consumers have been responsibly managing their checking accounts and keeping the costs of banking to a minimum.Most bank customers paid no overdraft fees over the past year, according to a report released on Wednesday by the American Bankers Association (ABA).A survey of 1,000 bank customers found that 77% paid no overdraft fees in the previous twelve months, and 21% paid for one or more overdrafts. 2% of consumers said they weren’t sure.Of those who had...

AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile are working on a program that could make smartphones a source of payment - taking the place of credit and debit cards, according to a report released last week by Bloomberg.It’s reported that a pilot project is planned for stores in Atlanta and three other U.S. cities, where consumers can pay by simply waving their smartphone in front of a reader. No date has been set for when the project will commence,...