On Our Radar

The New York Times, September 20, 2022, Railroad Unions And Companies Reach A Tentative Deal To Avoid A Strike Freight rail companies and unions representing tens of thousands of workers reached a tentative agreement to avoid what would have been an economically damaging strike, a relief for businesses and consumers and a victory for President Biden, […]

GoErie, September 9, 2022, Let’s Get Real About Who Biden’s Student Loan Forgiveness Helps And Why It Matters Women hold two-thirds of the nation’s student loan debt, and Black women have the highest average total undergraduate and graduate loan debt. Women and people of color are juggling higher amounts of student loan debt with lower

The Wall Street Journal, September 9, 2022, Affordable Care Act Health-Plan Premiums Set To Rise Premiums for many Affordable Care Act health-insurance plans are set to rise sharply next year, a sign of how rising labor costs and other expenses are starting to ripple through the healthcare economy.

American Banker, September 7, 2022, Home Equity Loans Back In Vogue As Cash-Out Refis Fade Higher interest rates are crushing mortgage refinancing volumes, but homeowners are increasingly turning to second loans and are unlikely to slow down soon. Lenders originated some $100.8 billion in home equity lines of credit, or HELOCs, through the first five

The New York Times, September 7, 2022, Clean Energy Projects Surge After Climate Bill Passage In the weeks since President Biden signed a comprehensive climate bill devised to spur investment in electric cars and clean energy, corporations have announced a series of big-ticket projects to produce the kind of technology the legislation aims to promote.

NPR, September 7, 2022, Racial Disparities In D.C.’s Opioid Arrests New arrest data shows that Black D.C. residents are arrested almost seven times as often as white residents for opioid-related offenses, which advocates say bolsters their case for decriminalization and the need to move funds away from policing and into safe-use resources.

Them, September 2, 2022, A Nebraska School Ended Its Journalism Program After A single LGBTQ+ Edition Of Its Paper Students and staff at Northwest High School in Grand Island, Nebraska, were notified that the 54-year-old journalism program was being eliminated on May 19, just three days after its June issue of the Viking Saga was printed, local

American Banker, September 2, 2022, Bank Of America Aims Mortgages, CRE Loans At Women And Minorities Two new Bank of America lending programs seek to promote homeownership among minority borrowers as well as incentivize economic development in disadvantaged communities. One is a pilot program that would offer mortgages to Black and Hispanic Americans using rent,

The Washington Post, September 2, 2022, The Washington Post: Arlington Offered $23M For Amazon HQ2. So Far, It Hasn’t Paid A Dime When Amazon announced its plans to build a second headquarters somewhere in North America, cities and states around the continent stopped at nothing to woo the tech giant. They made promises of billion-dollar tax breaks and

CNN, September 2, Free Healthy Grocery Deliveries Kept Her Community Fed Through The Pandemic, But This Chef’s Battle Against Food Insecurity Is Far From Over A former restaurant chef, Calichio had built a cooking and gardening business that halted completely, leaving her with no income. Her husband, Omar, also a chef, continued his restaurant job,

CNN, August 22, 2022, 72% of economists expect a US recession by the middle of next year Nearly three in four forecasters (73%) in the NABE survey say they are not at all confident or not very confident the Fed can get inflation back down to its 2% goal without causing a recession within the

NPR, August 22, 2022, All-Black, All-Female American Airlines Crew Flies From Dallas To Honor Bessie Coleman In honor of the 100th anniversary of Bessie Coleman, the first Black woman to earn a pilot’s license, American Airlines operated a flight out of Dallas with an all-Black, all-female crew.