Main Street Dollars

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A gallon of diesel costs $1.717 more in California than it does across the country as a whole, and the gap has been widening for months. The U.S. Energy Information Administration’s weekly survey put California’s on-highway diesel average at $8.246 a gallon on September 21, compared with $6.529 nationally that same week. The state’s price…

Chicago gas jumped 46 cents in one week to $4.88 a gallon

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Drivers in Chicago paid an average of $4.879 a gallon for regular gasoline on September 21, up 45.9 cents from the week before. The increase, recorded in the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s weekly survey, was nearly three times the size of the gain posted for the country as a whole that same week. Gas in…

Computer and TV prices rose 12.2 percent in a year, the Minneapolis Fed says

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in Cost of Living

Neil Mehrotra and Michael E. Waugh, researchers at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, set out to measure how much of the past year’s stubborn inflation actually traces back to tariffs. One category kept throwing off their numbers: computers, televisions and other video and information-processing equipment, whose prices climbed 12.2 percent over the year through…

The average new car sold for $50,089 in August as dealer discounts shrank

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in Cost of Living

Erin Keating had been expecting this move for months. The Cox Automotive executive analyst said her team anticipated new-vehicle transaction prices climbing back above $50,000 at some point in 2026, and Kelley Blue Book’s August count put the figure at $50,089. Behind that headline number sits a quieter shift: the discount dealers were willing to…

Beef prices are up 5.9 percent and coffee 6.1 percent from a year ago

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Two items in the grocery cart pulled far harder on household budgets than the rest of the cart over the past year. Beef and veal cost 5.9 percent more in August 2026 than a year earlier, and coffee cost 6.1 percent more, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Consumer Price Index report. Both…

Energy prices rose 16.3 percent in a year, while core prices rose 2.4 percent

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in Utilities & Energy

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics measured two very different price stories inside the same August 2026 Consumer Price Index report. Energy — the combined cost of gasoline, electricity, natural gas service and heating fuel — rose 16.3 percent over the twelve months ending in August. Set energy and food aside, and the rest of…

Regular gas averaged $4.48 on September 21, $1.30 more than a year ago

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For the third week in a row, the national average price of regular gasoline moved higher, reaching $4.478 a gallon on September 21. The U.S. Energy Information Administration’s weekly survey put that $1.305 above the same week last year. Gasoline has not strung together a run of increases this size since the price spikes of…

Diesel hit $6.529 a gallon on September 21, the highest in government records that began in 1994

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On-highway diesel averaged $6.529 a gallon across the United States on September 21, the highest weekly price the federal government has recorded since it began tracking the fuel in March 1994. The number rose 24.4 cents in a single week and now sits $2.78 above where diesel stood a year earlier. Three straight weeks of…

Tariffs on imported kitchen cabinets and vanities are scheduled to double to 50 percent on January 1 under Trump’s proclamation

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in Housing & Rent

January 1 is the date stamped into Proclamation 11000, the presidential order that sets a course for how much it will cost to import a kitchen cabinet or bathroom vanity into the United States. On that day in 2027, absent a new trade agreement, the tariff on those products is scheduled to double from 25…

Anyone using an agent for 2027 HealthCare.gov coverage must give a Social Security or immigration document number for every applicant but newborns

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