Americans are getting smaller pay raises while tariffs and higher gas prices are threatening to make everything more expensive. Subscribe to read this story ad-free Get unlimited access to ad-free articles and exclusive content. Translation: The affordability problem isn’t improving. New government data released Friday showed non-supervisory workers getting a 3.4% pay raise on average hourly earnings over the last year. That’s the slowest pace of wage gains since 2021, and a downshift from the last two years, when pay bumps were closer to 4%. The slowdown comes as economists worry about rising inflation, with the Iran war choking off oil tankers and pushing gas prices up over $1 per gallon in just a month, to a national average of $4.09 on Friday. As diesel costs break $5.50 a gallon (compared to just $3.89 a month ago), retailers and grocers are now contending with higher transportation costs. Amazon said Thursday…

Savannah Guthrie returned to the “TODAY” anchor desk Monday, more than two months after her mother disappeared. Subscribe to read this story ad-free Get unlimited access to ad-free articles and exclusive content. “We are so glad you started your week with us, and it is good to be home,” Guthrie said at the start of the show. She wore a bright yellow dress, echoing the yellow ribbons and flowers left at her mother’s home. “TODAY” co-anchor Craig Melvin, wearing a yellow tie, patted Guthrie’s hand and replied: “Yes, it is good to have you at home.” The two anchors then turned to the morning’s top headlines, including an opening segment about the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran. “Well, here we go, ready or not,” Guthrie said. “Let’s do the news.” Savannah Guthrie on Monday’s “TODAY.”TODAY Guthrie, who has co-anchored “TODAY” since 2012, stepped away from her role in early February after…

The United States added 178,000 jobs in March, blowing past expectations and showing a resilient labor market just as the war with Iran began escalating, sending up oil prices. Subscribe to read this story ad-free Get unlimited access to ad-free articles and exclusive content. The unemployment rate fell to 4.3% last month, down from 4.4%. The gains were concentrated in health care, construction, transportation and warehousing. Despite the outsized headline figure, there were further indications that the job market remains wobbly. Wage growth declined to 3.5% in March from 3.8% in February, falling short of forecasts. Jobs report estimates from January and February were also revised, upward and downward respectively. Combined, they show that U.S. payrolls fell by a net 7,000 over those two months. The labor force participation rate, or the share of the overall population either employed or looking for work, fell to its lowest level since November…

Oil prices surged Thursday, threatening to further drive up the price of gas as hopes for a near-term resolution to the Iran war faded following President Donald Trump’s address to the nation. Subscribe to read this story ad-free Get unlimited access to ad-free articles and exclusive content. Stocks were volatile, with major indexes plunging early in the day before moving higher at the close on shifting headlines about the war in the Middle East. U.S. indexes recovered their early losses on news that Iran’s deputy foreign minister said his country would outline a “new navigation regime” in the Strait of Hormuz after the war ended, injecting fresh optimism into markets over the future of the key waterway. At the closing bell at 4 p.m. ET, the S&P 500 closed up 0.11%, the Nasdaq Composite ended higher by 0.18%, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 61 points. The Russell 2000…

Fourth-generation Iowa farmer Mark Mueller is no stranger to the ups and downs of the agriculture industry. But right now, he thinks America is on the cusp of a farm crisis. Subscribe to read this story ad-free Get unlimited access to ad-free articles and exclusive content. “I am more concerned now than I have been in my 30 years of farming,” Mueller told NBC News. Even before the Iran war, Mueller said, many farmers felt they were being squeezed. Consolidation in the fertilizer industry and increased competition from abroad have resulted in higher prices for fertilizer and feed — and smaller returns on Mueller’s corn and soybean crops. Many farmers who couldn’t pay their bills in recent years went under. In 2025, the number of Chapter 12 farm bankruptcies reached 315, according to the American Farm Bureau Federation. That was up 46% from the previous year. Now, the Iran war…

WASHINGTON — House and Senate Republican leaders jointly announced a plan Wednesday that they said would end the shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security that caused major airport delays. Subscribe to read this story ad-free Get unlimited access to ad-free articles and exclusive content. “In the coming days, Republicans in the Senate and House will be following through on the President’s directive by fully funding the entire Department of Homeland Security on two parallel tracks: through the appropriations process and through the reconciliation process,” House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said in a statement. The two leaders were vague about the exact plan, but it appears to closely resemble the Senate’s preferred path from Friday. Johnson and Thune heavily implied that it would be for the Senate to, once again, pass a bill it approved unanimously last week, which it could try to do…

The grandson of the inventor of the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, who has publicly criticized The Hershey Company for tinkering with the classic formula in its spinoff products, appears to have gotten some sweet revenge. Subscribe to read this story ad-free Get unlimited access to ad-free articles and exclusive content. The candy company has announced that it will return to using “classic milk and dark chocolate recipes” in all its Reese’s and Hershey’s products by 2027. “If this is true, the people who deserve the credit are the loyal fans who were alarmed by what Hershey was doing,” Brad Reese told NBC News on Wednesday. “But I am seeing a lot of red flags here. I think what Hershey is trying to do here is change with PR narrative.” Reese, whose demands that Hershey stop skimping on chocolate went viral in February, said he trusts his taste buds more than…

The average price of a gallon of gasoline hit $4 Tuesday for the first time since mid-2022, as the cost of oil surges due to the Iran war. Subscribe to read this story ad-free Get unlimited access to ad-free articles and exclusive content. In the month since the United States and Israel attacked Iran, the average price of unleaded gas has spiked more than a dollar a gallon. On Tuesday morning, the average price nationwide was $4.02 per gallon, motor club AAA said. It’s not just retail gasoline. The diesel fuel used to power trucks delivering goods to stores, farm equipment and public transit has risen to $5.45 per gallon, more than $1.80 higher than it was a year ago. Driving that is the soaring cost of crude oil worldwide. U.S West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude has risen more than 50% since the war began Feb. 28, while Brent, the…

Surging oil prices continue to ripple through the global economy because of the war with Iran. Now, some analysts say the worst could still be ahead as the conflict drags on. Subscribe to read this story ad-free Get unlimited access to ad-free articles and exclusive content. The concern is that beyond immediate knock-on effects from rising gasoline prices, the war’s disruption could come in waves — ones that will play out over weeks and months and leave few parts of the global economy untouched. “We haven’t seen the brunt of it yet,” said Samantha Gross, director of energy security and climate at the Brookings Institute. “I feel like markets are so far underestimating the effect of the war. It seems that they expect this war to go quickly, and they expect that we can go back to the world before when it’s over. And I don’t think either of those…

Colombian officials discovered a body Friday amid the search for a U.S. flight attendant who went missing in the country last weekend. Subscribe to read this story ad-free Get unlimited access to ad-free articles and exclusive content. Medellin Mayor Federico Gutiérrez announced the discovery in a post on X, saying that “a lifeless body has just been found between the municipality of Jericó and Puente Iglesias,” in the northeast region of the South American country. The mayor said the body was likely that of Eric Fernando Gutierrez Molina, a 32-year-old American Airlines flight attendant from Texas who vanished while out with colleagues in Medellín, Colombia, during a layover. “There is a very high probability that it is this person. The lifeless body is being transported to legal medicine in Medellín for identification and recognition,” Gutiérrez wrote on X. “We express our solidarity to his family and friends. I have just…