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(NEW YORK) — The sneaky sting of inflation is catching many Americans by surprise as soaring prices erode their savings and prompt major sticker shock at the supermarket, gas pump and seemingly everywhere they look.

Rapidly rising prices have become a major new wellspring of anxiety for American families. Some 3 in 10 Americans said everyday bills (15%) or inflation specifically (14%) was the single biggest concern facing their family right now, according to a Monmouth University poll released last month. This is nearly double the 16% of Americans naming rising prices or household bills as their biggest concern last July, and more than triple the 8% who named household bills as their top concern in August 2020.

Government data indicates consumer prices last month jumped at their fastest pace since 1982 — the tail-end of an agonizing period in the U.S. economy when out-of-control inflation forced policymakers to orchestrate a steep correction that resulted in a recession and double-digit unemployment rates.

Many who remember this painful historical era are now retiring, and research reveals that peoples’ expectations about inflation are mostly shaped by their experience of it. This results in a “substantial disagreement between young and old individuals in periods of highly volatile inflation,” economists at the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Chicago, wrote in a 2014 paper. It also suggests a majority of consumers are now unsure of how to navigate inflation or may be less aware of its broader dangers.

Here is how experts say inflation is eroding Americans’ cash and how they can brace themselves for what might come next as policymakers seek to anchor in the surging prices.

Savings dissolving as those with no cushion get crushed by so-called ‘cruelest tax’

Inflation, defined by the Federal Reserve as increases in the overall prices of goods and services over time, means that Americans are going to have to pay more money than they are used to for their essentials and other expenses.

While the ascending price tags can be a more obvious sting, rising inflation can also impact the value of savings accounts for those who have been able to practice financial prudence in building up a rainy day or retirement fund.

Many Americans were able to save over the course of the pandemic thanks to fiscal support and the fact that COVID-19 shuttered businesses and urged people to stay at home rather than spend on the services they used to go out for, according to Wells Fargo Senior Economist Sarah House.

“But that financial cushion is getting whittled away more quickly. Given these elevated rates of inflation, that savings isn’t stretching as far,” House told ABC News.

Chester Spatt, a professor of finance at Carnegie Melon University and former chief economist and director of the SEC’s Office of Economic Analysis, added that rising inflation suggests that Americans’ “spending power, potentially, is going to decrease quite substantially.”

If inflation is rising at a clip of 7%, and your savings account offers interest rates of some 0.5% (or even an enviable higher-yield 1% rate), then “that spending power might decline by about 6%,” Spatt told ABC News.

This means for those with $1,000 saved up, their financial buffer might actually be closer to $940 as inflation at its current pace eats into that money. For those with $10,000 saved up, they might expect to see about $600 seemingly evaporate from that nest egg — without even touching it.

For Americans who are living paycheck to paycheck, the impacts of inflation can be even more devastating. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell warned lawmakers on Tuesday that high inflation takes a toll “particularly for those less able to meet the higher costs of essentials,” such as food, housing and transportation.

“People sometimes talk about inflation being kind of ‘the cruelest tax’ that really hurts poor people disproportionately, and I can see that certainly to be the case,” Spatt told ABC News.

Ultimately, the historically high inflation we are seeing now is becoming impossible for consumers to ignore, House added.

“When you’re seeing roughly 2% price increases, it’s kind of running in the background, that 2% number is by design,” House said of the past. “But when we are seeing 5, 6, 7% inflation, it’s hard for consumers not to notice, and that begins to affect how they think about their decisions, including what they’re asking for in terms of wages out of a job.”

Asking for higher wages is generally a good thing, but during times of inflation, those who were working during the 1970s and ’80s know it can also be linked to further skyrocketing prices — and at the broader level, throw a wrench into efforts to rid inflation from the economy as a whole.

Policies to combat inflation have historically carried painful consequences

Inflation historically has been extremely difficult to eradicate, and past efforts to do so by the government and policymakers have sometimes been accompanied by painful consequences.

At the same time, the inflation we are seeing now is being fueled by vastly different circumstances than in the past, specifically supply-demand imbalances spurred by a global pandemic and the fiscal and monetary policies that buoyed the economy during the unprecedented health crisis.

As supply chains recover from pandemic shocks and reach of pandemic-era stimulus policies wanes, many remain hopeful that this will help ease inflationary pressures.

Economists also note that policymakers now have the lessons from the past to glean how best to respond to inflation.

During “The Great Inflation” period of the 1970s and early 1980s, the most-recent inflationary period that those on the cusp of retirement are warning their children about, inflation snowballed out of control as prices climbed and workers in turn asked for higher wages — creating the economic phenomenon now referred to as the “wage-price spiral.”

Wages are again increasing at headline-making rates, as major companies — especially in the service industry — report struggles to attract and retain staff.

“We are in a tight labor market,” House told ABC News, meaning workers are “able to flex some of that clout a little bit more, and extract some more wage increases” from their employers.

“We’re seeing this filter into inflation expectations to some extent; we’re also seeing it filter into wages, and so I think that’ll be key in the year ahead as to how much inflation comes down,” House said. “We are expecting it to recede, given the unwinding of some of these pandemic distortions — but I think now that we’re seeing more pressure coming from wages in the labor market, it’s going to be harder to cool off.”

As a result, House said she expects the Fed “to step in a little more aggressively” than they may have initially planned to help anchor inflation.

This will likely manifest in interest rate hikes, which the Fed has already signaled will likely occur three times in 2022, and a more rapid end to pandemic-era monetary policies that flushed financial markets with liquidity.

These actions can help cool off inflation and uncertainty, House said, because “it will send a signal to markets, to consumers, to businesses, that they are on top of that, that they are watching inflation numbers and they do not want to let this get out of hand, or at least further out of hand.”

“That signal will help anchor inflation expectation and that can have an influence on further price setting, whether that’s for goods, services or for labor,” she added.

Looking back at history, the Fed was seen as initially behind the curve and slow to raise interest rates in the ’70s to respond to inflation — before announcing a shockingly sudden federal funds rate increase of almost 20% in 1980. Those who held bonds directly or through retirement accounts subsequently suffered huge losses, and real interest rates also soared. The move ended up having ripple effects that devastated the overall economy, as well as the stock market.

“The difference here is that we do have some forces that I think will help bring down inflation on its own,” House said when comparing the present to late-’70s inflation, such as the waning pandemic-era fiscal support that boosted consumer demand and shifting patterns on how consumers are spending their money.

“It’s a fine line for monetary policy to walk, between not choking off a recovery or an expansion and also not letting it overheat to the point where you have further pain down the road,” she said.

There are also only so many tools at the Fed’s disposal, she noted, saying the Fed can’t manufacture semiconductor chips or do much to address the beleaguered global supply side of the equation.

In figuring out how to best anchor inflation without triggering an economic downturn, simply put, House said the Fed is “not in a very enviable position.”

So how can Americans protect their hard-earned cash?

At the individual level, meanwhile, Carnegie Melon’s Spatt warns there is very little consumers can do on their own to tackle inflation as a whole once it takes root in the economy.

“Individuals can, of course, try to make the best decisions that they can to watch out for themselves,” Spatt said. “To the extent that they see opportunities for higher wages, obviously, they should go for those. To the extent that they see prices that haven’t yet moved up, but they think are going to move up, they might want to lock in their purchases.”

To protect their savings, Americans “might want to consider, or might be more open to, buying bonds or buying equities,” Spatt added.

Uncertainty brought on by inflation has traditionally been bad news for the stock market, but at the same time stocks have also been a good source historically for investors looking to grow wealth over the longer term. While there is potential to guard against inflation with sound stock investments (and conversely to further deplete savings with investments that go down in value), going this route comes down to personal risk tolerance and financial goals.

Other savings vehicles that “may be a little bit better than bank accounts” in regards to inflation are inflation-protected government savings bonds, according to Spatt.

“At least in the near term, those [Series] I Bonds are offering extraordinary rates, about 7% because of the current levels of inflation,” he added.

These are capped at relatively modest levels, he noted, but said he still views them as a “terrific kind of low-risk type of inflation hedge of a different kind than investing in equity.”

Investors can also protect themselves from inflation by purchasing Treasury Inflation Protected Securities, or TIPS, which were not around during the ’70s and also have interest rates adjusted for inflation.

The Treasury has a useful breakdown for Americans comparing I Bonds and TIPS on its website.

As inflation tightens its grip on the economy and previous assurances from policymakers that it is “transitory” have gone out the window, Spatt said Americans should now recognize “prices are going to change over time, and they’re going to change adversely.”

People should keep this in mind when doing their shopping and financial planning, and then assess based on individual needs, options and goals how they can best adapt to this ever-evolving economic reality.

At the broader level, however, Scott warned inflation’s unwelcome return to the U.S. economy presents “a tremendous problem.”

“When you think about the policies that may be followed to stamp out the inflation, they may actually bring the economy into recession; that may be necessary like it was in the 1980s,” Spatt said. “It’s not easy to knock it out of the economy; this is one of the lessons of the 1980s.”

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(NEW YORK) — Martin Shkreli became infamous, and earned the nickname “Pharma Bro,” after he hiked the price of a potentially lifesaving antiparasitic medication in 2015. On Friday, a federal judge ruled he should pay $64 million for his actions.

The judge said Shkreli should pay the financial penalty, equivalent to the profits from his scheme, and receive a lifetime ban from participation in the pharmaceutical industry.

Shkreli earned widespread condemnation in 2015 when he raised the price of Daraprim — an anti-malaria medication often prescribed for HIV patients — by 4,000% and initiated a scheme to block the entry of generic drug competition so that he could reap the profits from Daraprim sales for as long as possible, the judge said.

Through his tight control of the distribution of Daraprim, Shkreli prevented generic drug companies from getting access to the quantity of Daraprim they needed to conduct testing demanded by the Food and Drug Administration. Through exclusive supply agreements, Shkreli also blocked access to the two most important manufacturers of the active pharmaceutical ingredient for Daraprim.

Through these strategies, the judge said, Shkreli delayed the entry of generic competition for at least 18 months. Shkreli and his companies profited over $64 million from this scheme.

“Envy, greed, lust, and hate, don’t just separate, but they obviously motivated Mr. Shkreli and his partner to illegally jack up the price of a life-saving drug as Americans’ lives hung in the balance,” said New York Attorney General Letitia James, whose office sued with several other attorneys general and the Federal Trade Commission.

Shkreli is currently serving a seven-year prison sentence after being convicted of securities fraud in August 2017 related to his work at hedge funds MSMB Capital Management prior to founding Turing Pharmaceuticals. He had called the trial a “witch hunt” and blamed his increase in the cost of Daraprim for making him a target of federal investigators.

In May 2020, Shkreli petitioned for an early release from prison, saying he wanted to research a potential cure for COVID-19. The request was denied.

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(NEW YORK) — More rainy days and extreme rainfall likely will hurt global economies, according to new research from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.

“This is about prosperity — and ultimately about people’s jobs,” Leonie Wenz, a lead scientist, told ABC News. “Economies across the world are slowed down by more wet days and extreme daily rainfall, an important insight that adds to our growing understanding of the true costs of climate change.”

“We know from previous work that flooding associated with extreme rainfall can damage infrastructure, which is critical to economic productivity, and also cause local disruptions to production,” said Wenz, adding that the new findings also suggest everyday disruptions caused by more rain will have “a disruptive effect on businesses, manufacturing, transportation.”

The analysis, conducted by a team of scientists who examined 40 years of data in more than 1,500 regions across the globe, shows that as wet days go up, economic growth goes down.

“Intensified daily rainfall turns out to be bad, especially for wealthy, industrialized countries like the U.S., Japan or Germany,” Wenz said. But smaller, more agrarian economies can see some benefits.

More rainfall is occurring as the planet warms because warm air holds more water vapor. While global precipitation trends vary wildly, and are extremely complex because of factors including geography and terrain, extreme precipitation is increasing — it’s widely accepted by many climate scientists that regions already prone to intense rainfall events will see them more frequently.

“It’s rather the climate shocks from weather extremes that threaten our way of life than the gradual changes — by destabilizing our climate, we harm our economies,” said Anders Leverman, a co-author of a study.

Some of those extremes can include devastating flooding that has massive consequences, Stamford University researcher Frances Voigt Davenport explained to ABC News in 2021.

“We’re seeing that climate change increases extreme precipitation and makes the most extreme events bigger,” said Davenport, adding that nearly one-third of U.S. flood damage from 1988 to 2017 — costing roughly $73 billion — resulted from long-term changes in precipitation.

Other recent extreme rainfall events have resulted from tropical cyclones or severe weather outbreaks, which cost the U.S. some $101 billion last year. Among the 10 costliest events from extreme rainfall, tropical cyclones and severe weather in the U.S., nine have happened since 2004.

Dr. Kai Kornhuber, a climate researcher from Columbia University, told ABC News in an interview how these extreme events have both direct and indirect consequences.

“Extreme rainfall,” Kornhuber explained, “often leads to floods, and thereby can cause significant economic damage — directly, by destroying property, and indirectly by disrupting supply chains, infrastructure and production sites.”

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(WASHINGTON) — The latest government data on inflation indicates consumer prices are continuing their rapid rise as pandemic-battered supply chains struggle to keep up with rebounding consumer demand.

The consumer price index — a measure of the prices Americans pay for a market basket of everyday goods and services — jumped 7% over the last 12 months, the Labor Department said Wednesday. This marks the largest one-year increase since the period ending in June 1982, the DOL noted.

The so-called core index, or measure for all items except the more volatile food and energy indices, climbed 5.5% over the last year — the largest 12-month change since February 1991. The core index spiked 0.6% in December, building on the 0.5% increase seen in November.

The energy index alone rose a whopping 29.3% over the last year (driven hikes in the gas index), and the food index increased 6.3%.

Steep climbs in the prices for shelter and used cars and trucks were the largest contributors driving up the all items index in December, the DOL said, but the indexes for household furnishings, apparel, new vehicles and medical care also increased in December. The indexes for motor vehicle insurance and recreation were among the few to decline last month.

The index climbed 0.5% in December, a slight reprieve from the 0.8% seen in November.

The fresh data comes as economists and policymakers decide how to respond to inflation as data indicates it isn’t going away. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said Tuesday the Fed is prepared to raise interest rates faster than originally planned to respond to the climbing prices.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

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(WASHINGTON) — Tax season will begin early this year and is already forecast to be an especially “frustrating” one, the Internal Revenue Service has warned, as pandemic-era tax changes and staffing limitations squeeze the nation’s tax agency.

The IRS announced that it will begin accepting and processing 2021 tax year returns on Monday, Jan. 24. This date is more than two weeks earlier than the start of last year’s tax season, which the IRS said will allow more time to ensure everything runs smoothly amid the ongoing pandemic and programming changes introduced over the past year, including the Child Tax Credit.

Meanwhile, the deadline to file or request an extension this year is April 18.

“Planning for the nation’s filing season process is a massive undertaking, and IRS teams have been working non-stop these past several months to prepare,” IRS Commissioner Chuck Rettig said in a statement.

“The pandemic continues to create challenges, but the IRS reminds people there are important steps they can take to help ensure their tax return and refund don’t face processing delays,” Rettig added.

Some of the steps Americans can take include filing electronically and receiving their refund via direct deposit, Rettig said, and he also urged those who received an Economic Impact Payment or advance Child Tax Credit last year to pay extra attention when filing to ensure all forms are accurate in order to avoid delays. The IRS said that people who received these tax credits for children or stimulus payments in 2021 will need the amounts of these payments when preparing their tax returns. The IRS is mailing letters to recipients and they can also check amounts received on the IRS website.

People can still file 2021 returns even if they are awaiting the processing of previous tax returns, the IRS added.

Finally, Rettig urged that filers “should make sure they report the correct amount on their tax return to avoid delays.”

The tax agency encouraged people to seek out online resources (such as information available on IRS.gov) before calling the IRS, saying that as a result of pandemic-era tax changes and challenges, the IRS phone systems received more than 145 million calls between Jan. 1 and May 17 of last year — representing over four times more calls than in an average year.

The IRS commissioner warned Americans to expect some snags or delays this year, saying the understaffed and underfunded agency is doing the best it can given the challenges of processing over 160 million individual tax returns.

“In many areas, we are unable to deliver the amount of service and enforcement that our taxpayers and tax system deserves and needs. This is frustrating for taxpayers, for IRS employees and for me,” Rettig stated. “IRS employees want to do more, and we will continue in 2022 to do everything possible with the resources available to us. And we will continue to look for ways to improve. We want to deliver as much as possible while also protecting the health and safety of our employees and taxpayers. Additional resources are essential to helping our employees do more in 2022 — and beyond.”

Overall, the IRS said it anticipates most taxpayers will receive their refunds within 21 days of when they file electronically — if they choose the direct deposit option and there are no issues with their return. The agency recommends against filing paper returns whenever possible to avoid delays and to get refunds faster, adding that the average refund last year was some $2,800.

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(ATLANTA) — When Michelle Lockhart was a teenager in Atlanta, she had to work two jobs — as a camp counselor and fast-food worker — to take care of her family.

She said her mother became disabled at that time due to a brain tumor, but it took months of cutting through red tape to qualify for desperately needed federal assistance.

If they had gotten more help then, “I could have focused on going to college and doing what people my age were doing: going to prom and enjoying their teen years,” Lockhart, now 41, told ABC News.

In the early months of this year, 650 Black women across Georgia — a demographic hit particularly hard by poverty — will get some of that help. Payments of $850 per month will roll out over the next two years in one of the biggest guaranteed income experiments in the country. Some participants in the $13 million initiative may receive lump sum payments totaling the same amount they would have received over two years. For now, the process of inviting and selecting participants is ongoing.

The program will run alongside Atlanta’s own basic income program which plans to serve about 300 residents that live below 200% of the federal poverty line. The initiative is currently working on making its first round of payments to the starting cohort of 25 participants, according to Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms’ office.

Guaranteed income programs like these have seen a resurgence in recent years amid attempts to address racial and economic equality and reduce poverty. The scope can be either targeted or universal. They have had successes, but some critics say these initiatives have to be multifaceted to work and address the nuances of poverty. Others claim it will stop people from working (though the claim has been debunked) or be too expensive to maintain.

As a community advocate and member of the Old Fourth Ward Economic Security Task Force, Lockhart said many of her neighbors continue to experience similar hardships, despite working day and night in an effort to escape poverty. many of her neighbors continue to experience similar hardships, despite working day and night in an effort to escape poverty.

“Everybody’s on this hamster wheel,” Lockhart said. “They’re working two or three jobs … they’re working low wage jobs, but they’re still in poverty.”

Burden on communities of color

Black residents in Atlanta are more four times as likely to be living under the federal poverty line than their white neighbors, with 46% of Black households earning below $25,000 a year, according to recent research by the Old Fourth Ward Economic Security Task Force.

Some 38% of Black women and 26% of Black men in the city are living in poverty, compared to 8% of white women and 5% of white men in the same city, the task force reports.

“We’re working, we’re tired, we’re stressed,” Lockhart said. “With an extra $850 a month, people will be able to enjoy the sunlight and will be able to spend more time with their babies.”

Hope Wollensack, the executive director of the Georgia Resilience & Opportunity Fund, said the program is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of what is needed to address inequality.

“It’ll take a multifaceted approach — and probably many different policies — to even begin to address the racial wealth gap,” she said. “But we do know that stabilizing one’s income can be a powerful tool not only to improve one’s material circumstances in the short term and to improve quality of life and opportunities but also to enable individuals across the board to plan for the long term.”

The program, called “In Her Hands,” was shaped by discussions and surveys from community members that examined the causes of economic insecurity and wealth disparities in the city.

The project, run by the Georgia Resilience & Opportunity Fund, is an initiative from the Atlanta City Council, as well as the nonprofit cash assistance service GiveDirectly. It will begin rolling out in the Old Fourth Ward, the childhood neighborhood of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., who was a fierce advocate for universal basic income as a way of addressing racial wealth inequities.

“We have economic insecurity that is pervasive and it’s the result of decades of policies, if not more, that have made it harder for the majority of Americans to get ahead,” Wollensack said.

The ability to access quality education, transportation and higher-paying jobs, the burden of childcare or predatory debt — factors like these, Wollensack said, are also more likely to burden communities of color.

Poverty and food insecurity can impact a community’s physical and mental health, and is considered one “of the most serious and costly health problems,” according to the Food Research & Action Center, a national nonprofit research organization working to eradicate poverty.

‘Hard to budget from zero’

Cash assistance and guaranteed income have been repeatedly proven to be a major force against poverty, according to researchers at the Columbia University, Center on Poverty & Social Policy.

Past studies and research has shown evidence that basic income experiments improved the happiness and health of its recipients and appeared to affect crime rates in the regions where it was implemented.

The program won’t offer any financial literacy courses and advise how participants will use the money. Wollensack says that, in surveying and researching the community and its financial needs, people can be trusted to make the right choices using their resources, but don’t have a lot of resources to start with.

“It’s hard to budget from zero,” Wollensack said. “In fact, we’ve seen oftentimes community members with some of the fewest resources are the most resilient and resourceful.”

She added, “Instead of viewing communities that may have experienced cash shortfalls as a deficit, we actually know and believe that these communities were huge assets.”

Lockhart said she expects to see the effects of the income boost almost instantaneously.

She says that when the COVID-19 stimulus reached the bank accounts of Old Fourth Ward residents, she saw a mood shift among her neighbors. She says people were out and chatting with neighbors, engaging with neighborhood businesses — the weight of financial stress lessened for just a while.

“They want to get out and work. They want to start their own businesses. They want to spend more time with their children,” Lockhart said “This will help slow people down a little bit so that they can focus and center themselves and center their energy right.”

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(NEW YORK) — Bank of America announced Tuesday that it will slash overdraft fees — the fines consumers pay when they make a purchase with their debit card but don’t have enough money in their account — from $35 to $10 starting this May.

The changes come in the wake of pressure from consumer advocacy groups that say these fees disproportionately impact vulnerable and low-income Americans.

A report released last month by the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau found that overdraft and non-sufficient funds fees remain lucrative for banks, reaching an estimated $15.5 billion in 2019. The CFPB also said fewer than 9% of consumer accounts pay 10 or more overdrafts per year, accounting for close to 80% of all overdraft revenue.

Moreover, despite a drop in fees collected, the CFPB said “many of the fee harvesting practices persisted during the COVID-19 pandemic.”

In addition to reducing overdraft fees, Bank of America also announced Tuesday that it was entirely eliminating “non-sufficient funds fees,” or the charges for a rejected transaction or bounced check.

The bank, which has 66 million consumer and small business clients, said it will have reduced overdraft fees by 97% from 2009 levels with these new changes.

Other major financial institutions including JP Morgan Chase and Capital One have cut or eliminated these fees that can seemingly catch customers by surprise at times, when something they think they are purchasing for only a few dollars can end up being closer to $40.

“Rather than competing on quality service and attractive interest rates, many banks have become hooked on overdraft fees to feed their profit model” CFPB Director Rohit Chopra said in a statement last month. “We will be taking action to restore meaningful competition to this market.”

Bank of America’s president of retail banking, Holly O’Neill, said the company has made significant changes to overdraft services over the last decade and now provides resources to help clients manage accounts.

“Throughout the process we have engaged our National Community Advisory Council (NCAC) for their guidance and feedback on our changes,” O’Neill said. “These latest steps will further support our clients and empower them to create long-term financial wellness.”

“We remain committed to taking actions that will further bring down overdraft fees in the future and continue to empower clients to drive positive changes to behavior pertaining to overdraft,” she added.
 

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(NEW YORK) — Former President Donald Trump has asked a federal judge in New York to halt a civil investigation into his business practices by New York Attorney General Letitia James, accusing her in a new court filing of weaponizing her office to carry out a “targeted attack against a political adversary.”

Trump sued James last month in federal court to block her investigation into how the Trump Organization valued its real estate holdings. He is now asking for a preliminary injunction while the outcome of his lawsuit is decided and for James to recuse herself from the civil investigation.

“Letitia James has displayed a shocking irreverence for her prosecutorial ethics and has routinely exploited her position to malign the former president by turning an unfounded investigation into a public spectacle,” Trump’s motion said. “In doing so, she has exposed the vindictive and self-serving nature of her actions.”

In response, James said this was merely a delay tactic by the former president.

“The Trump Organization has continually sought to delay our investigation into its business dealings. To be clear, neither Donald Trump nor the Trump Organization get to dictate if and where they will answer for their actions,” James said in a statement. “Our investigation will continue undeterred because no one is above the law, not even someone with the name Trump.”

James recently subpoenaed two of Trump’s children, eldest son Donald Trump Jr. and eldest daughter Ivanka Trump, and indicated in a court filing neither would cooperate.

The Trump Organization sought to vacate the subpoenas, arguing they were improperly issued while the Manhattan District Attorney’s office, with assistance from James’ office, conducts a parallel criminal investigation.

“The all too familiar subject areas identified in the document subpoenas include requests for information about valuations and appraisals of properties and assets of Plaintiffs. These matters have long been the subject of Defendant’s joint criminal investigation with the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office and Defendant’s civil investigation dating back to 2019,” Trump’s motion said.

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(WASHINGTON) — Americans will soon be seeing the face of the late Maya Angelou on U.S. quarters.

On Monday, the United States Mint announced it has begun shipping quarters featuring Angelou, the first of five trailblazing American women to be featured on quarters in 2022.

The new quarter, available in local banks starting in late January, depicts Angelou, an award-winning author and civil rights activist, with her arms uplifted, in front of a bird in flight and a rising sun, images that are “inspired by [Angelou’s] poetry and symbolic of the way she lived,” according to the Mint.

Angelou is now the first Black woman to appear on a U.S. quarter.

The heads side of the quarter featuring Angelou also marks a first, according to the Mint. It depicts a portrait of George Washington originally composed by Laura Gardin Fraser, described by the Mint as “one of the most prolific female sculptors of the early 20th century.”

Gardin Fraser’s portrait was a recommended design for the quarter in 1932, but was not chosen by the then-treasury secretary.

“Laura Gardin Fraser was the first woman to design a U.S. commemorative coin, and her work is lauded in both numismatic and artistic circles,” Mint Deputy Director Ventris C. Gibson said in a statement. “Ninety years after she intended for it to do so, her obverse design will fittingly take its place on the quarter.”

The designs are part of the American Women Quarters Program, a four year program featuring coins with reverse (tails) designs of women who have made their mark in American history.

For each year until 2025, the Mint will issue five quarters honoring individuals with a wide range of accomplishments and fields, including suffrage, civil rights, abolition, government, humanities, science, space and the arts.

In addition to Angelou, the women being featured this year include Anna May Wong, the first Chinese American film star in Hollywood; Dr. Sally Ride, the first American woman to soar into space; Wilma Mankiller, the first woman elected principal chief of the Cherokee Nation and an activist for Native American and women’s rights; and Nina Otero-Warren, a leader in New Mexico’s suffrage movement and the first female superintendent of Santa Fe public schools.

“Each 2022 quarter is designed to reflect the breadth and depth of accomplishments being celebrated throughout this historic coin program,” Gibson said. “Maya Angelou, featured on the reverse of this first coin in the series, used words to inspire and uplift.”

Angelou was the author of more than 30 bestselling titles, including her autobiography, “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. A teacher, poet and performer, in addition to her work as a writer and social activist, Angelou became the first African-American woman to write and present a poem at a Presidential inauguration when she read “On the Pulse of Morning” at then-President Bill Clinton’s 1992 inauguration, according to the Mint.

In 2010, Angelou was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by then-President Barack Obama.

She passed away in 2014, at the age of 86.

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(WASHINGTON) — Employers added a lackluster 199,000 jobs last month — significantly lower than economists’ expectations — and the unemployment rate fell to 3.9%, the Department of Labor said Friday.

Hiring in December was even less than the revised figure for the previous month, when 249,000 jobs were added to the economy in November. The stalled job growth comes as new coronavirus variants continue to sow uncertainty and threaten the post-pandemic economic recovery — though the data for December was collected in the earlier half of the month, before the full extent of omicron’s severity unfolded.

The unemployment rate remains heightened compared to the pre-pandemic 3.5% seen in February 2020, indicating the labor market recovery still lags nearly two years into the health crisis. As of last month, employment is up by 18.8 million jobs since the April 2020 low but still down by 3.6 million compared to February 2020.

December’s hiring data is also significantly less than 2021’s average job growth of 573,000 jobs per month seen during the past year.

The DOL said employment continued to trend upwards in the pandemic-clobbered leisure and hospitality sector (which gained 53,000 jobs last month), but employment in the industry is still down by 1.2 million jobs (or 7.2%) compared to February 2020.

Employment in professional and business services gained 43,000 jobs last month and notable job gains were also seen in manufacturing (where hiring rose by 26,000 in December).

Average hourly earnings, meanwhile, rose by 19 cents last month to $31.31 an hour. Economists have linked the rising wages to struggles major firms have reported in hiring in recent months and the new wave of workplace activism brought on by that trend. Just this week, the Labor Department separately reported that a record 4.5 million workers quit their jobs in November.

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