Money

Friday’s Commerce Department report showed that Americans stepped up their spending in May despite a 4.2% decline in personal income, which had soared by 10.8% the previous month.

President Trump signaled this week that he supports sending a second round of direct cash payments to Americans still reeling from the coronavirus pandemic and subsequent economic lockdown.

“The Chapter 11 process will allow us to strengthen our financial structure as we recover from what has undoubtedly been the most challenging event in our company’s history” said CEO David McKillips in a prepared statement.

Full-time hourly associates were given a $300 bonus and part-time hourly and temporary associates received $150 on June 25.

While the IRS has asked survivors to return the money, it's not clear they have to.

The number of laid-off workers who applied for unemployment benefits fell to 1.48 million last week, the 12th straight drop and a sign that layoffs are slowing but are still at a painfully high level.

It was the sharpest quarterly decline since an 8.4% fall in 2008 during the depths of the financial crisis.

The legislation authorizing the payments during the pandemic doesn’t specifically exclude jail or prison inmates, and the IRS has refused to say exactly what legal authority it has to retrieve the money.

For the 47 percent who are worried about money issues currently, 23 percent said their cause of stress revolved around everyday expenses, which Bankrate noted was down from the 32 percent who said the same last year.

Individuals can roll distributed funds back into a plan through August, according to IRS.

Sales of new homes rose a surprisingly strong 16.6% in May suggesting that the reopening of major parts of the country were giving a boost to the housing market.

Millions of Americans’ financial information was compromised in an Equifax data breach in 2017.

The National Association of Realtors said Monday that the monthly decline pushed sales down to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 3.91 million, the slowest pace since a home buyers tax credit expired in October 2010.

IRS permits more Americans to tap retirement accounts without penalty.

The latest figure from the Labor Department marks the 11th straight weekly decline in applications since they peaked at nearly 7 million in March.

“The longer the downturn lasts, the greater the potential for longer-term damage from permanent job loss and business closures,” Powell said. “Long periods of unemployment can erode workers’ skills and hurt their job prospects.”