Category: Cost of Living
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Colorado insurers want 13.4 percent more for individual health plans next year, and one carrier asked for 23.9 percent
Colorado’s insurance regulator released preliminary 2027 premium filings from health insurers in late July, and buried in that filing data is a bigger number than the one the state highlighted in its own headline. Insurers filed for a weighted average request of 13.4 percent more across Colorado’s individual market for next year, with one carrier’s…
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Cage-free eggs are advertised at $3.07 a dozen while conventional eggs go for $1.36
Grocery shoppers scanning the egg case this week are looking at one of the widest price gaps between egg types tracked in recent months. Federal market researchers who survey supermarket advertising nationwide found conventional caged eggs on sale for $1.36 a dozen this week, while cage-free barn and aviary eggs carrying the UEP-certified label were…
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Housing agencies have until October 1 to ask HUD to redo a local rent ceiling they say is set too low
When HUD sets a fair market rent for an area, that number becomes the ceiling a Housing Choice Voucher will cover there for the entire fiscal year, whether or not the local housing authority thinks it reflects what units actually rent for. This year’s notice includes a formal way to challenge that number before it…
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Every phone bill carries a universal service charge, and the FCC is asking whether to cap the $266 million operator
Somewhere on most phone bills, wireless or landline, sits a line usually labeled “Universal Service” or “Regulatory Recovery Fee.” Few people know what funds it or who runs it. The Federal Communications Commission just opened a formal review of exactly that question, asking whether the company that administers the multibillion-dollar universal service program, and spent…
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Mortgage rates rose to 6.71 percent, higher than a year ago, and the 15-year loan reached 6.04 percent
Freddie Mac’s weekly mortgage survey, released September 3, 2026, put the average 30-year fixed-rate mortgage at 6.71 percent, and the 15-year fixed-rate loan at 6.04 percent. Both numbers are higher than the week before, and both are higher than where rates sat a year ago. For anyone house-hunting or trying to time a refinance, the…
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Rhode Island held a utility to a 9.275 percent profit rate
Buried inside a much larger utility rate order is a single percentage that shapes what every Rhode Island Energy customer pays for years to come: 9.275 percent. That’s the annual return regulators say Rhode Island Energy is allowed to earn on the equity portion of its investment in the state’s electric and gas delivery system,…
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One state just ordered a separate rate class for power users above 20 megawatts
Rhode Island regulators have told the state’s dominant utility to build an entirely new pricing category for its biggest electricity customers, the kind of scale a data center or a large industrial plant represents, and to have it ready before the year ends. It’s a narrow, technical directive buried inside a much bigger rate case,…
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Rhode Island regulators are sending more than $170 million back to utility customers, with credits starting in October
More than $170 million in bill credits are about to move through Rhode Island Energy’s electric and gas accounts, and the first ones land with the bills customers get this October. The Rhode Island Public Utilities Commission closed out the company’s base rate case on August 21, 2026, and Rhode Island Energy confirmed four days…
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Wheat costs a quarter more at the farm, yet bread and cereal are forecast to rise at their normal pace
Wheat prices at the farm gate have jumped sharply this summer, and the reason is a shrinking harvest. USDA’s Economic Research Service says farm-level wheat prices climbed more than 9 percent in a single month and are now running roughly a quarter above where they stood a year ago. Despite that spike, the agency’s own…
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Vegetable prices paid to farms fell 29 percent in a single month, and produce relief usually lands within two
Farm-level vegetable prices just posted their sharpest one-month drop of the year, and USDA’s own numbers suggest the produce aisle tends to start feeling that kind of move within a month or two. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service, prices paid to farms for fresh vegetables fell 29.4 percent from June…
