Live updates for US financial news: Social Security checks, stock market, interest rates, inflation
Hello and welcome to AS USA’s live blog covering financial news.
This has been a big week. The chairman of the US Federal Reserve, Jerome Powell, made an announcement on Wednesday that there will be no interest rate increase for June. This is the first time in the last fifteen months that rates will remain unchanged. Although Chairman Powell mentioned the possibility of a rate hike in July, The Federal Open Market Committee is currently evaluating the impact of its monetary policy changes and has determined that a temporary pause is the most prudent course of action.
On Tuesday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced that the consumer price index rose 0.1[ads1] percent in May, bringing the annual inflation rate down to four percent. The increase was driven by the housing sector, where costs have increased by eight per cent over the past year, with tenants facing a particularly higher burden with an average new lease rising by 8.7 per cent.
On Thursday, the Ministry of Labor published the report on unemployment claims for this week. Last week, claims held steady at 262,000 new claims, a sign that the labor market is cooling and more workers are being laid off.
