Mortgage rates have experienced fluctuations over the last few months, with a general upward trend in recent weeks. As of January 15, 2025, the average 30-year fixed-rate mortgage stands at 7.01%, reflecting a slight increase from earlier this year — and from the rates we saw in late 2024.

President Biden discussed the economy in the last interview of his administration on MSNBC’s “The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell" Thursday night.

The consumer price index (CPI) rose 2.9 percent year-over-year in December, the largest annual increase since July. When stripping out the more volatile food and energy sectors, core inflation slowed to 3.2 percent, from 3.3 percent.

The latest inflation report slashed the risk that the Fed could go back to hiking interest rates this year, Wall Street strategists say.

Brazil's Finance Minister Fernando Haddad said on Friday that high interest rates are poised to have a much stronger effect on inflation than many expect, dismissing fears that fiscal challenges could undermine the effectiveness of monetary policy.

Entering 2025, models from forecasting companies like Trading Economics anticipate inflation rates between 2.4% and 2.9% between the end of 2024 and the start of 2026. Unfortunately, actually predicting inflation can be difficult, as rates can be affected by a variety of factors, including political climates and supply-chain interruptions.

Gas prices rose sharply, but investors homed in on a small decline in the core CPI.

The consumer price index increased by 2.9 percent in December from a year earlier, the Labor Department reported Wednesday, in line with economists’ expectations and hotter than a 2.7 percent rise in November. It was also above a 2.6 percent annual increase in October.

The outgoing Biden Administration has made resources available to help individuals navigate the Inflation Reduction Act's provisions.

Clearly Trump wants to hit the ground running, and from an economic perspective his key policy platforms are tariffs, taxes and liberalisation.

There seems to be much confusion among the citizenry regarding how our economy is being managed, and challenges are addressed.