Category: Cost of Living
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Cigna is leaving the individual insurance marketplace in 11 states on January 1, and 369,000 people must repick
Cigna sold you an individual health plan this year in one of 11 states. Come January 1, 2027, that plan won’t exist. Roughly 369,000 people are in this position right now, and most of them don’t know it yet, because the decision was made back in April during a routine earnings call, not a headline…
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A budget request would end LIHEAP, the $4 billion program that helps pay heating bills, weeks before winter
The White House’s budget blueprint for the fiscal year that begins October 1 calls for eliminating the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program entirely, zeroing out the roughly $4 billion a year the federal government sends to states to help households cover heating and cooling bills. The request lands just as state energy offices wrap…
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HUD published the rent ceiling every housing voucher in the country follows, and the new numbers start October 1
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has finalized the rent figures that will govern the Housing Choice Voucher program for the next year, and they take effect in less than a month. Those figures, called Fair Market Rents, set the ceiling on what a housing agency will subsidize toward a voucher holder’s rent,…
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Homeownership under 35 fell to 35.2 percent, the only age group where the drop was big enough to count
The share of Americans under 35 who own their home fell to 35.2 percent in the second quarter of 2026, down a full percentage point from 36.4 percent a year earlier. It was the only age bracket where the U.S. Census Bureau’s own statisticians flagged the year-over-year change as large enough to be meaningful rather…
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The median asking rent hit $1,531 as the share of empty rentals reached its highest second quarter since 2020
The median asking rent for an empty apartment or rental home hit $1,531 in the second quarter of 2026, according to new Census Bureau data, and the share of rental units sitting vacant climbed to its highest second-quarter level since 2020. For the country’s renter households, that combination is unusual: asking rents are still climbing,…
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Eating out is rising 3.6 percent this year while groceries rise 2.5 percent
Restaurant meals are set to get costlier at a faster pace than groceries this year, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s latest economic forecast. The agency’s Economic Research Service projects food-away-from-home prices rising 3.6 percent in 2026, while grocery store prices climb a slower 2.5 percent. That’s a wider split than the two categories…
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Candy and sweets are running 7.1 percent higher, the grocery store’s second-fastest riser
Chocolate bars, bagged candy, and gum are getting measurably more expensive this year, and the increase shows no sign of leveling off before Halloween. The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s latest grocery price forecast puts sugar and sweets on track for one of the steepest increases of any food category tracked in 2026, trailing only beef…
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Electricity costs three times more in California than in New Mexico, and Hawaii’s rate rose 35.5 percent in a year
California households now pay nearly three times as much for electricity as households in New Mexico, and the gap is only getting wider in parts of the country. Federal energy data covering June 2026 puts a 19.54-cent-per-kilowatt-hour spread between the priciest and cheapest states in the lower 48, while Hawaii’s average electricity revenue jumped more…
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Two orders on ranchers were signed Friday, and neither one changes the price of beef
President Trump signed two executive orders on the cattle industry at the White House on Friday, September 4, both framed as wins for ranchers. Grocery shoppers scanning the price of ground beef might assume that kind of presidential attention to the beef supply chain comes with a number attached — a rebate, a cap, a…
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A new order tells USDA to let small meat processors ship across state lines
A state-inspected meat plant in most of the country cannot legally ship a single package across a state line. An executive order signed September 4, 2026 directs the U.S. Department of Agriculture to widen the narrow federal programs that make an exception, so small, state-inspected processors can sell their beef, pork and poultry beyond their…
