Category: Cost of Living
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One power auction added $16.1 billion to electricity costs across 13 states
A power auction most households never hear about just set a $16.1 billion price tag for keeping the lights on across a stretch of the country that runs from Chicago’s suburbs to the Virginia coast. PJM Interconnection, the grid operator that runs the wholesale electricity market for 13 states and the District of Columbia, finalized…
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Beef prices are running nearly 10 percent higher as cattle supplies stay tight
Beef and veal cost 9.4 percent more in July 2026, the most recent month with published federal price data, than they did a year earlier, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The department’s Economic Research Service now forecasts beef and veal prices will finish all of 2026 up 9.8 percent, a projection tied directly…
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Diesel costs about $1.90 a gallon more than it did a year ago, and that rides into every grocery aisle
The average price of diesel fuel in the United States hit $5.6046 a gallon this week, according to AAA’s daily national survey, up from $3.7072 a gallon a year ago — a gap of about $1.90. Almost nobody drives a diesel-powered car to the grocery store, so that number rarely shows up on a household’s…
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Gas prices topped $4 a gallon every single day this August, the first August on record to do that
AAA’s daily fuel-price tracker has never made this claim about any previous August: not one day this month has closed with the national average below $4 a gallon. That finding, published in AAA’s August 27, 2026 report, means a household that fills up two vehicles a week has been paying real extra money at the…
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A federal judge threw out SNAP soda and candy bans in five states, and USDA told stores to stop enforcing them
Grocery carts in Colorado, Iowa, Nebraska, Tennessee and West Virginia can hold soda, candy and other recently-banned items again without the SNAP card getting rejected at the register. A federal judge in Washington threw out the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s approval of each state’s food-restriction waiver, and the agency has since told grocers, in writing,…
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State Farm is returning about $5 billion to auto customers, roughly $100 a vehicle
State Farm is handing back a lot of money to its auto insurance customers, and for most it will arrive without any effort on their part. The company is distributing a record dividend of about $5 billion to policyholders, averaging roughly $100 per insured vehicle. For a household watching every line of the budget, an…
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New 50% tariffs on Canadian goods are lifting prices on liquor, clothing and building materials
A fresh round of steep U.S. tariffs on goods from Canada took effect on August 22, and the sting is starting to reach ordinary shopping carts and home-improvement receipts. The new duties add 50 percent to the cost of a wide list of Canadian products, from bottles of whisky to lumber and certain clothing. Because…
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Kroger is closing about 60 supermarkets, thinning grocery and pharmacy access in some towns
Kroger, the country’s largest traditional supermarket operator, is working through a plan to close about 60 of its stores — and for the towns losing one, the hit lands on both the grocery aisle and the in-store pharmacy at once. The retailer laid out the plan in mid-2025 and has been carrying it out on…
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Tariffs are adding hundreds of dollars a year to the typical household, the heaviest burden since the 1930s
Tariffs are usually discussed as a fight between governments, but the cost lands much closer to home. Independent analysts estimate that the import taxes now in place are adding hundreds of dollars a year to what a typical American household pays, and that the overall tariff burden is the heaviest the country has carried since…
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Marketplace health premiums doubled for 2026, and the Senate is stalled on an extension before open enrollment
Millions of people who buy their own health insurance through the Affordable Care Act marketplaces are staring down a sharp increase in what they pay out of pocket. The extra subsidies that held premiums down for the past several years expired at the end of 2025, and for many households that change roughly doubles the…