Worker pay gains take a step back with inflation concerns remaining top-of-mind

The Hamrick American Prosperity Index holds steady as a rise in employment is offset by a decline in purchasing power

Inflation is in the central bank’s crosshairs

Connecting the dots between economic data and everyday life — analysis, context, and clarity on what the economy means for you. Click to read The Hamrick Brief, by Mark Hamrick, a Substack publication...

Are more people willing to work than official numbers count?

Economic news and analysis explained in plain English by Mark Hamrick

The Hamrick American Prosperity Index declined July. What's really happening with wealth distribution in the U.S.?

Connecting the dots between economic data and everyday life — analysis, context, and clarity on what the economy means for you. Click to read The Hamrick Brief, by Mark Hamrick, a Substack publication...

Connecting the dots between economic data and everyday life — analysis, context, and clarity on what the economy means for you. Click to read The Hamrick Brief, by Mark Hamrick, a Substack publication...

Police closed part of busy Pool Street in Biddeford on Monday morning and there was a significant police presence.

Connecting the dots between economic data and everyday life — analysis, context, and clarity on what the economy means for you. Click to read The Hamrick Brief, by Mark Hamrick, a Substack publication...

The Week Ahead: Has the Labor Market Found a Stronger Footing? The holiday-shortened week ahead culminates Thursday morning with the June employment report, the final major piece of U.S. economic dat...

This nagging key issue tops the nation's worry list, and yet we've been debating it for decades

Before we talk about where the economy may be headed, it helps to review what we've just learned. The biggest scheduled economic event of the past week wasn't a government report. It was the Federal ...

Ship traffic through the crucial Strait of Hormuz was extremely limited two days after the United States and Iran signed a preliminary deal aimed at ending their war.

The "Volatility Tax" on Housing and What the Spread Means to the Market If you’ve been tracking the housing market, you’ve likely noticed a sometimes frustrating fact: even when the 10-year Treasury ...

A rising recession risk and an economy with homes and jobs not really moving. Economists share their thoughts.

What that shift says about how Americans are thinking about money, the hidden cost of holding cash, a historical parallel in Thomas Jefferson’s financial life

Welcome to the debut of The Hamrick Brief: Making sense of the economy — for the life you're actually living. Clear analysis, historical context, and something you can use.

🚨 March Jobs Preview: When "Growth" Doesn't Feel Like Growth As we look toward Friday’s March employment report, the data is expected to show a modest gain of about 55,000 jobs added to payrolls. On ...

Some months confirm what many households are already feeling. This was one of them. February’s employment report missed the mark across the board. Payrolls declined by 92,000 jobs and the unemploymen...

Artificial intelligence’s impact on the labor market will depend on whether the technology automates or augments worker tasks.

Inflation made further progress in January — but affordability challenges remain very much alive. As a reminder, the Consumer Price Index -- the main gauge of prices at the retail level -- is up 26% s...

JOLTS and Challenger are telling a similar story: fewer “help wanted” signs, and more companies talking about cuts. New reads on the job market this week are pointing in the same direction. The econo...

You know the saying about we don’t know the value of some things until they’re no longer part of our lives. The great singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell captured it well in her song “Big Yellow Taxi” wit...

Bankrate’s Financial Outlook Survey finds fewer Americans expect their finances to improve in 2026, with inflation, income stagnation and debt driving pessimism.

Markets Eye Jackson Hole: Powell in Focus The week ahead for markets and the economy is all about Jackson Hole and the annual conference of central bankers there. The Federal Reserve’s annual economi...

July's much weaker-than-expected job growth was supported primarily by the health-care sector, data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics released Friday shows.

Are you tired of tipping at the self-checkout? You’re not alone. Consumer Investigator Rachel DePompa talks to Bankrate about tip fatigue and where your gratuities actually matter.

The job market continues to cool — but not collapse. New government data (Job Openings and Labor Turnover Summary, or JOLTS) shows job openings dipped to 7.4 million in June, well below expectations....

With nearly half of workers planning to look for a new job in the year ahead, now is the time to prepare — not just react. A new Bankrate survey finds that nearly half of those in the workforce expec...