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Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) introduced a bill yesterday that would cap the interest rate for credit cards at a “common sense level” of 18 percent in an effort to protect vulnerable borrowers, The Hill reported. “Americans are being crushed under the weight of record credit card debt — and the biggest banks are just getting richer,” Hawley said. “Capping the maximum credit card interest rate is fair, common-sense, and gives the working class a chance,” he added. American credit card debt passed $1 trillion this summer, contributing to quickly rising consumer debt, which grew by nearly $18 billion from May to June, according the most recent federal data available. The average U.S. household carries about $10,000 in credit card debt, according to another analysis. Credit card debt fell significantly in 2020 after the government sent out stimulus checks, but the figure has continued to rise since then, now surpassing its previous pre-pandemic high. Interest rates on credit card debt have also increased in recent months. The average rate was about 21 percent as of June. It was about 17 percent last spring. Hawley’s legislation would also prevent credit card companies from implementing fees to get around the 18-percent cap and issue penalties to enforce the limits.

U.S. inflation-adjusted household income decreased 2.3% in 2022 from a year earlier, highlighting the toll of a higher cost of living for American families, Bloomberg News reported. The median income last year was $74,580 compared with $76,330 in 2021, according to the Census Bureau’s annual report on income, poverty and health insurance coverage. At the end of 2022, annual inflation stood at 6.5% after reaching a four-decade high in June that year. It’s since cooled. The report also showed the U.S. poverty rate — which is calculated before taxes and excludes stimulus payments and tax credits — edged lower to 11.5% from 11.6% in the prior year. In 2019, the poverty rate dropped to the lowest level in Census data back to 1959. Last year, 37.9 million people were in poverty, little changed from the prior year. The US poverty rate has been roughly cut in half over the past six decades. While the official poverty rate ticked down, a supplemental measure — which is based on post-tax income and includes government-transfer payments like stimulus checks — rose to 12.4% last year. That’s up 4.6 percentage points from 2021, which likely reflected the end of pandemic-era relief programs.

Americans’ overall views on inflation were little changed in August, even as they predicted rising price increases for things like rent, homes and food, while downgrading their views of their personal financial situations, the New York Fed reported Monday, Reuters reported. The bank said in its Consumer Sentiment Survey for August that respondents see inflation a year from now at 3.6%, up from July’s 3.5%, while they project inflation three years from now to hit 2.8% versus 2.9% in July. Five years from now respondents see inflation at 3% from July’s 2.9%. The relative stability of inflation expectations last month came as the survey found respondents predicted accelerating price increases for a range of key categories. In August, the survey found expected price gains for gasoline, food, rent, medical costs and college. Respondents also predicted that house prices would rise 3.1%, the highest reading since July 2022. At the same time, survey respondents were more downbeat about access to credit and their current and future financial positions. They predicted future household income would rise by 2.9% in August, the weakest reading since July 2021, from July’s 3.2%.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) today took action against Tempoe, LLC for tricking consumers into expensive leasing agreements by concealing the contract terms and costs, and failing to provide legally required disclosures, according to a CFPB press release. Forty-one states and the District of Columbia are entering into a parallel multi-state settlement addressing the same conduct. Tempoe offered financing at the point of sale to customers at major retailers such as Sears and Kmart. By hiding the true nature of the agreements, Tempoe tricked consumers into signing the leases, and consumers found themselves unable to return products and on the hook for unexpectedly large payments. The CFPB is permanently banning Tempoe from offering consumer leases, requiring the company to close each of its outstanding consumer accounts, and ordering the company to let customers keep leased merchandise with no further payment, representing approximately $33.6 million in released payments. Tempoe is also paying a $2 million penalty, with $1 million deposited into CFPB's victims relief fund and $1 million paid to the states entered into the settlement.

Credit-line increases are becoming more common as companies dole them out to entice customers to spend more, which boosts their revenue, the Wall Street Journal reported. Higher limits tend to be followed by more spending, according to data from the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia. Most people consider credit-line increases a gift, but the option to put more purchases on a card can be tough for many to resist. America’s total credit-card balance hit $1 trillion for the first time last month, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. The nation’s largest banks raised limits on 18.4 million credit-card accounts in the first quarter of this year, up 22% from the same period in 2019, according to the Philadelphia Fed. As limits increased, so did spending, with consumers continuing to use roughly 8% of total available credit.

Health-insurance costs are climbing at the steepest rate in years, walloping businesses and their workers, the Wall Street Journal reported. Costs for employer coverage are expected to surge around 6.5% for 2024, according to major benefits consulting firms Mercer and Willis Towers Watson. Willis Towers Watson projects the increase will be the biggest in more than a decade. Such a boost could add significantly to the price tag for employer plans that already average more than $14,600 a year per employee, driving up health-insurance costs that are among the biggest expenses for many American companies and a drain on families’ finances. For people who have individual insurance plans sold under the Affordable Care Act, premiums are also expected to rise by about 6% next year, according to public insurance filings analyzed by health-research nonprofit KFF, though that increase is comparable to this year’s.

America’s suburbs are posting the country’s fastest-rising rents, a sign that the recent migration of families from major cities is starting to look more long-term, the Wall Street Journal reported. Many white-collar workers with remote jobs moved out of city apartments for roomier accommodations during the early months of the pandemic in 2020. Now, high mortgage rates and home prices are keeping some of the same families renting for longer periods. A rise in crime and homelessness in several big cities has some renters looking to the suburbs. The trend is propping up rents and fueling concerns about rental affordability in suburban areas, leading some governments to pass new rent-control measures in response. Rents in suburbs had climbed 26% through this past July since March 2020, 8 percentage points higher than the gain in urban cores, according to a report from rentals website Apartment List. Suburban rent growth was greater than its urban counterpart in 28 of the 33 metro areas studied, the company said.

Interest on federal student loans has started accumulating again after a three-year pause because of the COVID-19 pandemic, but borrowers still have at least another month before they'll need to start paying back loans, the Associated Press reported. The first step for borrowers is to log in to their StudentAid.gov account and check who their loan servicer is. Many loan servicers changed during the pandemic, so borrowers might have a different one than they did back in March 2020. Once the loan servicer is found, borrowers should log into their account with them to access the student loan balance, monthly payment amount and interest rate. Betsy Mayotte, president of The Institute of Student Loan Advisors, recommends updating your personal information in your account with your loan servicer to make sure you receive all important correspondence. Interest rates have risen significantly since the pandemic, but most borrowers with federal student loans will still have the same interest rate as before the payment pause.

The cost to rent a home or apartment has soared, and it isn’t just because of super high rents. Landlords are hitting tenants with an abundance of fees every month, the Wall Street Journal reported. Many are no more than five or 10 bucks each, but when stacked up they can amount to hundreds of dollars more each year. Some fees, such as those for parking and pets, have been around for years, but many renters now pay up for things they were rarely charged for in the past. That includes fees for trash pickup, pest control, the use of a mailbox, and for making routine maintenance requests. Then there are fees for move-ins and move-outs and for “lease administration.” One Minnesota landlord collected a $100 so-called January fee the first month of each year, though it isn’t clear what tenants got in return for that charge. In suburban Phoenix, buildings increasingly charge for valet trash pickup that can add more than $30 to the monthly rent. “I can carry the trash 50 feet to the dumpster,” said Debbie Giannecchini, who moved out of a building that started charging the fee. Apartment asking rents rose 25% between early 2021 and summer 2022, straining the budgets of many renters whose wages didn’t keep up. While rent growth has since flattened in much of the country, large property-investment companies continue with these add-ons to boost their bottom lines. The five largest single-family-home rental landlords increased their annual fee income per lease by about 40% between 2018 and 2021, according to a report last year from the House of Representatives’ Committee on Financial Services, which obtained fee data from the companies.