Category: Cost of Living
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Car insurance is projected to rise in 32 states in the second half, after Connecticut drivers absorbed an extra $251
Full-coverage car insurance premiums are climbing again after a rare year of relief, and the increase is landing unevenly across the country. Insurify, an online insurance marketplace, found that average full-coverage rates rose in 27 states during the first half of 2026, reversing a nationwide 6% decline logged in 2025. Connecticut absorbed the steepest increase…
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Water and sewer bills run a median $1,065 a year, and $245 a month in Maryland
American households paid a median of $1,065 for water and sewer service over the past year, according to a new industry report, a bill that rarely gets its own line item the way rent or groceries do. In Maryland, the same report found a typical monthly water and sewer bill of $245, the highest of…
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Fresh vegetables are forecast up 5.9 percent this year, with tomatoes 12.8 percent higher than a year earlier
The federal government’s newest price outlook shows the vegetable aisle climbing faster than the rest of the grocery cart this year, with the U.S. Department of Agriculture forecasting a 5.9 percent increase in retail fresh vegetable prices for 2026. Tomatoes are driving much of that increase already: retail prices for fresh tomatoes in July 2026…
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Eleven insurers are quitting the Affordable Care Act marketplace, and Cigna alone drops 369,000 people
Eleven health insurers have told state regulators and reporters they are leaving the individual Affordable Care Act marketplace, either everywhere or in specific states, once the current 2026 plan year ends. The single largest hit falls on Cigna, which is exiting ACA exchange business in eleven states and taking roughly 369,000 enrolled members with it.…
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Health Net ends every employer health plan in California and Oregon on February 28, 2027
Roughly three million Californians who rely on Health Net for health coverage are watching the company exit the business of insuring workers through their employers. Centene, Health Net’s parent company, confirmed to a healthcare trade publication that Health Net is leaving the traditional commercial group insurance market in California and Oregon entirely, ending every small…
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Trump’s beef order asks importers to sell at a 25 percent discount, and nothing in it requires them to
President Trump signed a proclamation in late August that temporarily lets more imported beef into the United States at a lower tariff rate, and the White House says the point is a 25 percent price cut on that beef. But read the actual text of the order, and there is no line that forces an…
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Electricity is up 37 percent in five years, more than rent, gasoline or groceries
Electricity has quietly become the household bill nobody can shop around, and the government’s own price data now backs that up in hard numbers. Comparing Consumer Price Index figures from July 2021 to July 2026, the cost of residential electricity climbed faster than rent, gasoline or the weekly grocery bill — the four largest recurring…
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Employer health costs are set to rise 8.2 percent next year, the steepest jump since 2003
Workers with job-based health insurance are bracing for the steepest premium increase in more than two decades. A new survey from benefits consultant Marsh projects that employer health plan costs will rise 8.2% in 2027 even after companies trim benefits to soften the blow, the largest such increase since 2003. For a household already juggling…
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The Justice Department pulled Walmart, Costco, Amazon and Kroger into its beef price investigation
The Justice Department’s Antitrust Division has widened its year-long look at beef prices beyond the meatpacking plants and onto the shelves where households actually shop. Four of the country’s biggest grocery sellers — Walmart, Costco, Amazon and Kroger — are now among eight retailers that received formal letters asking about recent increases in retail beef…
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Six months of war has added about $1,250 to a typical household’s gasoline and heating bills
Six months after the United States and Israel launched military strikes against Iran, the war’s economic fallout has moved well past headlines about the Strait of Hormuz. It has landed in the household budget: at the gas pump today, and in the heating bill this winter. A new analysis from the association representing the state…