Mary Tomkins is a freelance writer located in Spartanburg, SC, with emphasis on economic news and research on the financial industry.
Homeowners who are strapped with loans that are more than their homes are worth may be able to get some help for their traditionally hard-to-refinance underwater mortgage. The Federal Housing Finance Agency on Monday announced…
The economy added more jobs than expected in September, the government reported on Friday. While not quite enough to reduce the unemployment rate, it may be enough to thwart another recession. Labor Secretary Hilda L.…
The job market remains depressed and the number of people filing first-time claims for jobless benefits was higher than expected last week. The Labor Department said on Thursday that initial unemployment claims fell by 9,000…
Reflecting the ongoing difficulty in the market for new single family homes, home builder confidence was virtually unchanged for September, according to an industry report released on Monday. Builder confidence fell one point to 14…
The IRS announced that it continues to make “strong progress” in their efforts to fight international tax evasion and has recieved up to 30,000 voluntary disclosures since 2009. “By any measure, we are in the…
As consumers depend more on electronic communication, mail volume has plummeted by more than 43 billion pieces in the past five years – and continues to fall. The U.S. Postal Service said on Thursday that…
Most Americans are skeptical about whether President Obama’s $447 billion American Jobs Act will actually help the nation’s employment situation, according to a Bloomberg National Poll conducted last weekend. The unemployment rate has stagnated at…
The median household income fell in 2010, resulting in an increase in the percentage of people living in poverty for the third year in a row, the government reported on Tuesday. The U.S. Census Bureau…
A solar panel manufacturing plant that received a $535 million loan backed by the Department of Energy announced on Wednesday that they were filing bankruptcy and cutting 1,100 jobs. Solyndra, LLC based in Fremont, CA…
The U.S. has been hit hard by natural disasters this year. The Groundhog Day blizzard in the Northeast, tornadoes across several regions, drought and wildfires in the Southern Plains and Southwest, and flooding along the…