The people's voice of reason
The people's voice of reason
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How often do you buy something online? A couple of times a month? A couple of times a week? A couple of times a day? Everybody's answer will be different, but collectively, it's done a lot: Online retail accounted for over $1 trillion of purchases in the U.S. in 2022 and a record $277.6 billion in the second quarter of 2023 alone. Retailers ranging from titans like Amazon and Walmart, down to local small-town shops work very hard to land their share of that business. Sadly and inevitably—so d...
A recent study by the University of California, Los Angeles indicates that Americans are spending more time inside their homes and far less time outside. The LA Post provides details. Other studies—like a survey conducted by the Bureau of Labor Statistics—indicate that this could be a post-COVID-19 phenomenon. At the same time, there are studies that also suggest that Americans were spending more time alone even before the pandemic. A study published on Oct. 30 by Brian D. Taylor and Sam Spe...
Catastrophic inland flooding in North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee has made headlines across the country in recent months. Severe flooding in areas not typically associated with flood problems may have Americans wondering if they should buy federal flood insurance. But National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) coverage may not be available to everyone who wants it, Insurify reports. Nationally, 2,279 communities don't participate in the voluntary program that provides insurance against...
With the notable exception of mortgages, consumer debts are declining in 2024. This reverses a trend of larger borrowing balances among American consumers that goes back to the Great Recession. Non-mortgage debt includes the total balance of a consumer's loans and lines of credit when their first and second mortgages are removed from consideration. That's obviously a large carve-out: Mortgage balances exceed $250,000 on average in 2024, and collectively make up about two-thirds of the overall co...
Nearly half of the continental United States is currently experiencing moderate to exceptional drought, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor. Storms during this past winter brought heavy (in some areas, record-setting) rainfall and flooding to California, offering the state an expected two-year reprieve from widespread droughts that covered nearly 100% of the state from 2020 to 2022. But in other parts of the country, especially dry conditions continue. Six states currently have the most...
The real estate frenzy spurred by the coronavirus pandemic continues, though at a slower pace. Buyers are still competing for a limited supply of housing, driving up prices for affordable properties. The typical home value in the United States was $360,385 in October, 2.4% higher than the year before. Increasing mortgage rates have slowed growth, with prices even declining in some places. But some areas are still seeing price jumps compared to the year before. Stacker compiled a list of cities...
The real estate frenzy spurred by the coronavirus pandemic continues, though at a slower pace. Buyers are still competing for a limited supply of housing, driving up prices for affordable properties. The typical home value in the United States was $360,385 in October, 2.4% higher than the year before. Increasing mortgage rates have slowed growth, with prices even declining in some places. But some areas are still seeing price jumps compared to the year before. Stacker compiled a list of cities...
The real estate frenzy spurred by the coronavirus pandemic continues, though at a slower pace. Buyers are still competing for a limited supply of housing, driving up prices for affordable properties. The typical home value in the United States was $360,385 in October, 2.4% higher than the year before. Increasing mortgage rates have slowed growth, with prices even declining in some places. But some areas are still seeing price jumps compared to the year before. Stacker compiled a list of cities...
A recent study by the University of Southern California revealed that exposure to air pollution can harm children's learning and memory, the LA Post reports. Ammonium nitrate, a specific component of fine particle air pollution primarily produced by agricultural emissions, is associated with decreased learning and memory performance in children aged nine and 10. The comprehensive research analyzed data from 8,500 children nationwide, suggesting potential long-term implications for cognitive...
Americans are heading into the first holiday season in years where buying less may be the first thing on their minds. And this year, gift lists may exclude one important person: you. Stacker dug into Deloitte's 2024 holiday retail survey to explore the psychology behind Americans' reluctance to self-gift this year. In the modern era, holiday gifting includes a practice that may seem rooted in consumerism—giving ourselves gifts. However, "self-gifting," psychologists say, carries its own importan...
People from all over the world have long come to the United States in search of opportunities. That includes immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers, and temporary workers and students who come to the U.S. on specialty visas. Among the latter are skilled foreign workers, a select group granted special access by the H-1B visa program, designed to boost innovation and the economy via a "brain gain," according to the Brookings Institute. Since launching in 1990, the program has allowed U.S....
Despite their reputation as a financially privileged generation, millions of baby boomers are slipping through significant cracks in the U.S. retirement system. A new source of financial strain on retiree budgets is homeowners insurance premiums, which have skyrocketed by 20% between 2021 and 2023. Between 2024 and 2030, 30.4 million Americans will turn 65. More than two-thirds of this final baby boomer cohort will be "financially challenged" in retirement, according to the Alliance for Lifetime...
If you've consumed any kind of news in the past few years, you've likely scrolled across the very clickable headline "These are the states that will pay you to move there" a time or two. More than just a headline, the concept of cities offering incentives for people to relocate is a movement that has gained significant momentum in recent years. According to MakeMyMove, more than 5,000 remote workers have made the jump to new states since 2019. And get this: collectively, they've snagged over...
In the search for top-shelf versatility in a vehicle, it's hard to beat the following seven-passenger SUVs. The Acura MDX, Kia Telluride, and Toyota Highlander are among the bestselling on the market, but they've got more than a few competitors that are also worth looking at. Many of today's three-row SUVs sport comfortable passenger and cargo space, the latest safety equipment, and even good off-road capability that will fit anyone's intrepid summer vacation plans. But how do you know which is...
Data breaches are incidents in which confidential information, including consumer data, is stolen from a company or organization. In the first half of 2024, the number of data breach victims surpassed 1 billion, according to the nonprofit Identity Theft Resource Center. That's a 490% increase from the same time last year, when the number of recorded victims was about 183 million. If your personal information was exposed in a data breach, the breached company may notify you. It's important to...
Car insurance rates have soared in post-COVID-19 years, and despite many insurance industry experts predicting slower rate hikes in 2024, data from the first half of the year shows a 15% increase in full-coverage premiums. Insurify's data science team projects a total 22% increase in 2024. Rate increases in 2024 are largely a continuation of hikes in 2023, a year that saw full-coverage premiums rise by 24% in response to insurers' record underwriting losses ($33.1 billion) in the year prior....
The holiday season feels a little less jolly considering the amount of waste generated by gift-giving. The Environmental Protection Agency estimates the amount of household garbage in the U.S. increases by 25% between Thanksgiving and New Year's. After the decorations come down, all that waste heads to landfills, producing a significant contributor to climate change: methane gas. "Greening" the holidays is essential, and one simple tip is to think more about how sustainable the materials are in...
If there is one thing that fans of any sport love, it's a scandal. A fallen hero, a desperate plot, or an outrageous scam always offer a major talking point when the latest misdemeanor has been broken to the public. Be it drug cheats in track and field events, scandals in the casino or anything in between, the shock factor is always going to make the headlines; and when it comes to headlines, they do not get much bigger than a gambling scandal. These scandals can entail the desire to bend the...
The holiday season is the perfect time of year to enjoy a cup of coffee, whether you're settling into a coffee shop armchair and catching up with friends, or pulling into a drive-thru for a quick reprieve while running errands. Fast food restaurants have pulled out the stops when it comes to winter-inspired flavors this year. Hers looked at the largest U.S. fast-food chains with exclusive holiday drink menus and ranked them from "healthiest" to least healthy. There's quite a range when it comes...
There's nothing quite like hitting the open road in a lifted truck, but not if you're worried about getting stopped by the cops. Every state has its own lifted truck laws, and no two states are exactly alike. Even if you plan on spending most of your time off-road, you need to comply with your state's rules and guidelines for lifted trucks. You may scoff at the idea of anyone telling you what you can and can't do with your truck, but these laws put an emphasis on safety. They're designed to...
When pilot Kenneth Arnold took off from Chehalis, Washington, in his single-engine airplane one afternoon in June 1947, he was looking for a lost military aircraft that had crashed. But what he found was something completely different—something that would set off a cultural obsession in the U.S. that persists today. While flying around Mount Rainier, Arnold reportedly encountered nine curious, wingless objects speeding through the sky at 1,200 mph, faster than any plane at the time could. Arnold...
It seems there isn't a day that goes by without a headline about contaminated food resulting in a recall or outbreak. In mid-November 2024, the Food and Drug Administration began investigating an E. coli outbreak from organic carrots sold at popular grocery stores like Kroger, Wegmans, Sprouts, and Trader Joe's, affecting people in more than a third of U.S. states. Earlier in 2024, a listeria outbreak from Boar's Head deli meats resulted in the recall of 7 million pounds of meat, 61 reported...
The holiday shopping season can be the most wonderful time of year for consumers—but it's the most important time of year for small business owners. Yet many small business owners find themselves in a tight spot, as the growth of online shopping transforms major retailers into the go-to for shoppers seeking both convenience and good deals. While e-commerce platforms take precedence, many small businesses don't even have a website—and those that do may lack digital accessibility. This puts the...
Pivot counties are the 206 counties nationwide Ballotpedia identified as having voted for Barack Obama (D) in the 2008 and 2012 presidential elections and Donald Trump (R) in 2016. Media and political observers sometimes refer to these counties as swing counties. Trump won 179 pivot counties in all three of his presidential runs and won 175 of them by a larger margin in 2024 than in 2020. Harris won by a smaller margin than Biden in seven of the nine pivot counties they each won. Overall, pivot...
In the morning before class starts, one by one the students at the Würenloser Gesamtschule near Zürich in Switzerland turn off their smartphones and drop them into a simple wooden box at the front of their classroom. The devices will remain there until the gong rings at the end of their school day. "I don't even take it to school anymore," one 12th-grader says. "It only distracts me." His peers agree. "We talk more with each other instead of everybody staring at their screens," his friend s...
