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Layoffs · Workforce · Job Market · Economy · Foreclosures · Retail
Nearly half of women laid off in a new national survey said they received no severance or support. For one former CDC employee, years at the agency offered little protection after she had recently moved into a new role.
Safe-haven demand and rate expectations pushed the dollar to its strongest level since April 2025.
Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh wants financial markets to rely more on economic data and less on central bank forecasts. Other policymakers argue that withholding guidance could make an already uncertain economy harder to navigate.
Bank of America entered earnings day carrying an unusually large problem. Federal regulators had just imposed more than $1.2 billion in penalties over failures in the bank’s anti-money-laundering controls, forcing the company to book a $1.2 billion charge against third-quarter results. The settlement followed findings that the bank failed to adequately monitor suspicious activity and did not report billions of dollars in potentially suspicious transactions on time.
Retail sales rose 0.8% in September, but gasoline accounted for an unusually large share of the increase. For commuters already reorganizing their lives around fuel costs, higher spending is increasingly a measure of what it costs to maintain the same routine.
U.S. stocks recorded their worst trading day since July on October 14 as accelerating inflation renewed expectations that the Federal Reserve could raise interest rates again. The S&P 500 declined 1.1% to 7,718.94, while the Nasdaq Composite fell 1.9% to 26,692.87, according to the Associated Press. The Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped 0.1%, and the Russell 2000 index of smaller companies also declined 1.9%. The selloff followed inflation data showing consumer prices had risen 3.7% over the previous year, increasing concern about tighter monetary policy. Higher financing costs can affect business expansion, corporate investment and hiring decisions, particularly for companies dependent on borrowed capital. However, a single trading session does not establish that employers will reduce hiring or that economic growth will slow. The more consequential development is the return of uncertainty around the cost of financing future growth. For businesses already evaluating whether to invest, expand or preserve cash, that uncertainty may become more important than the stock market’s daily movements.
Nearly 72 million Social Security beneficiaries will receive a larger payment in 2027. The increase arrives as inflation continues to pressure household budgets.
One in four financed new-car buyers is now signing up for at least seven years of payments. As vehicle prices remain high and delinquencies rise, repossession is becoming the final consequence of a much longer affordability problem.
Universal Music Group is eliminating roles and reshuffling senior leadership even as revenue continues to rise. The cuts show how the music business is reorganizing around slower streaming growth, short-form platforms, technology and global scale.
Disney will pay roughly $900,000 a year per person to hire most of bankrupt chatbot startup Character.AI’s staff, weeks after its third round of layoffs this year.
Pfizer is cutting 150 jobs in Portage while Kroger plans thousands of corporate reductions. Michigan shows how a labor market can remain far from recession-level unemployment and still become substantially harder for workers to navigate.
Older workers often have lower unemployment rates than younger workers. But when they lose long-held jobs, getting back to comparable work is much harder — and the financial damage can be severe.
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