Americans who take on debt to fund their university studies tend to have less wealth and lower homeownership rates over long periods than those who don’t rely on loans, research from the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston finds. U.S. student loans outstanding climbed past the $1 trillion mark in 2013 to become the second-largest type […]
By Samurai Artist | January 30, 2015 Agrarian Ales out of Eugene, Oregon, is offering public shares in the farmhouse brewery under a new state law in order to expand. Perhaps Oregon’s most truly “farmhouse” brewery, Agrarian grows 100% of its own hops 98% of the ingredients used on the menu at the tasting room […]
Preliminary Nielsen Figures Pegged at 114.4 Million By Joe Flint A record 114.4 million people watched the New England Patriots defeat the Seattle Seahawks in the Super Bowl on Sunday, the largest audience for a U.S. television program in history, according to preliminary figures from Nielsen. NBC’s telecast of Super Bowl XLIX, a nail-biter that […]
IR-2015-12, Jan. 29, 2015 WASHINGTON — The Internal Revenue Service today warned taxpayers to be on the lookout for unscrupulous tax return preparers pushing inflated tax refund claims. This scam remains on the annual list of tax scams known as the “Dirty Dozen” for the 2015 filing season. “Every filing season, scam artists lure victims […]
We’ve all used behavioral interview questions—questions that ask job candidates to recount a past experience so we can assess their likely future performance. In theory, behavioral interview questions should work just fine (because past behavior is usually a decent predictor of future behavior). But most interviewers ask behavioral questions in a way that gives away […]
Tax audits are rare. The average taxpayer has a 1-in-100 probability of being formally audited by the IRS in a given year. The odds of a tax audit rise if, among other things, you itemize deductions, report profits or losses on a home business or rental property, or have an income of $200,000 or more. […]
By BEN CASSELMAN Every January since the recession ended in 2009, economists have predicted that this was the year the economic recovery would take off. In 2014, they were finally right. The year didn’t get off to a good start. Gross domestic product, the broadest measure of economic output, shrank in the first three months […]
A new year brings with it all sorts of opportunities to think about how we can improve ourselves, not just in our personal lives, but also professionally. It’s a great time to take a few moments to ponder what we did well in the previous year and think about what we can do better in […]
Health insurance costs are growing faster than income in all 50 states, a new study says, and workers are feeling the pinch in rising out-of-pocket costs. Workers who receive health insurance through their employer are spending more of their income on premiums and deductibles but their wages are not keeping up with the increases, according […]
Public assistance to working Oregonians costs an estimated $1.7 billion annually, according to a new report on the impact of low-paying jobs. Nearly 197,000 workers don’t earn enough to cover their basic needs and rely in some part on public support, shows the study released Thursday by the University of Oregon Labor Education and Research Center.