Credit card debt in America has reached $905 billion dollars, according to a recent NerdWallet survey. Kimberly Palmer, Personal Finance Expert at the company, joins Cheddar to explore some of the reasons behind the increase.
Two categories have outpaced income growth over the past decade: medical expenses and food. Healthcare costs, in fact, have increased by 34% while income has only grown by 20%. She gives some alternatives for how to pay off those expenses without whipping out the credit card.
Plus, people always say you're throwing out money when you rent a home, but how much money are homeowners throwing away in credit card interest? Palmer says that a house may be a great asset, but owners tend to ring up double the amount of credit card interest versus renters when spending on things like upkeep.
An independent watchdog within the IRS reports that while taxpayer services have vastly improved, the agency is still too slow to resolve identity theft cases. And National Taxpayer Advocate Erin Collins says those delays are “unconscionable.” Erin M. Collins said in the report released Wednesday that overall the 2024 filing season went smoothly, though IRS delays in resolving identity theft victim assistance cases are worsening. It took nearly 19 months to resolve self-reported identity theft cases as of January, and Wednesday's report states that now it takes 22 months to resolve these cases.
Amazon.com Inc. surpassed $2 trillion in market value for the first time in afternoon trading on Wednesday. The push higher for Amazon’s stock market valuation comes a little more than a week after Nvidia hit $3 trillion and briefly became the most valuable company on Wall Street. Nvidia’s chips are used to power many AI application and its valuation has soared as a result. Amazon has also been making big investments in AI as global interest has grown in the technology. Most of the company’s focus has been on business-focused products.
Climate change doesn’t just mean more extreme weather – it also leads to billions of dollars in lost productivity, tourism, and stresses infrastructure.
