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ABC And Disney Sues FCC Over Alleged First Amendment Violations 

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The ABC network has sued the Federal Communications Commission in federal court this week. ABC and its corporate parent, The Walt Disney Company, are alleging major First Amendment infractions, arguing that the Trump administration has violated their free speech rights by launching investigations and challenging the network’s broadcast licenses in retaliation for its news coverage, late-night satire, and views on talk shows, according to reports.  

ABC and Disney allege that the FCC is working to appease President Trump due to the fact that he has repeatedly called out the network to be stripped of its licenses because of material that he viewed as unfavorable to himself and his administration. 

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“Government censorship is deeply un-American,” the lawsuit begins. 

Within the suit itself are Trump’s social media posts which condemn ABC’s news coverage, talk show The View, and late-night host Jimmy Kimmel, who has often gone back and forth with the president. 

The lawsuit continues to point out that the government “may not use the power of the State to punish or suppress disfavored expression.”

“The case concerns the Administration’s sustained effort to do just that. The Administration has waged a retaliatory campaign against ABC for a single reason: it disapproves of what ABC broadcasts.”

ABC and Disney together own eight local TV stations, and among them are stations in six of the United States’ largest markets which contribute significantly to ABC’s bottom line, NPR reports. 

These shows require federal licenses because they rely on the public airwaves, but the FCC forces all eight of them to undergo early scrutiny within the renewal process, years ahead of schedule. 

FCC Chairman Brendan Carr stated in an interview with NPR this week that Disney and ABC were “jumping the gun,” because the agency has not made any decision about whether to renew the licenses. 

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“Disney seems a little jumpy right now. Disney has chosen to go to court to try to block the FCC from moving forward with respect to at least some of the procedural options that are in front of the agency. But from our perspective, we’re going to continue to follow the facts and the law wherever they may lead. Perhaps Disney is concerned or worries about how the record is developing,” Carr said. 

“Ultimately, they’re going to get a fair shake before the agency.”

This lawsuit and the FCC’s decision is being regarded as unprecedented. Traditionally, the commission has acted with the president party holding three seats and the opposing party with two. However, before Trump took office for his second term, he publicly stated that he saw the FCC as an extension of the executive branch. 

Carr stated that he makes sure broadcasters operate in the public interest without violating Trump’s executive order regarding diversity, equity, and inclusion. He also has been vocal over his support of Trump’s views and criticisms of ABC, Kimmel, The View, and the network’s journalists in general. 

When Trump called for Kimmel to be pulled off the air, Carr said that ABC and Disney could “do this the easy way or the hard way.” The host was suspended and returned to air days later after public backlash and calls of First Amendment violations. 

With Trump consistently speaking out against ABC, The View, Kimmel, and its journalists, as the parent company Disney has decided to speak out against the president’s attempts to take over the programs. 

“We’re very principled on this,” Disney CEO Josh D’Amaro told CNBC.

“We’re going to stand up to what we believe is journalistic integrity, and we’re not going to be told how to run that side of our business.”  

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Google Is Buying Spirit Airlines’ Data for $10 Million to Train AI

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Spirit Airlines’ planes may be grounded for good, but years of data generated by the bankrupt carrier could soon have a second life inside Google’s artificial intelligence models.

Google has agreed to pay $10 million for a trove of Spirit’s corporate data, according to a deal disclosed in bankruptcy court late Monday. Judge Sean Lane is expected to rule on the proposed sale at a hearing Wednesday.

The purchase covers a wide range of information accumulated through the airline’s operations, including emails and other internal communications, spreadsheets, customer transactions, booking and frequent flyer records, and human resources information involving employees.

Spirit’s bankruptcy filing says the material has been stripped of information that could identify individuals.

A Google spokesperson said in a statement to CNN that it will not receive any personal information as part of the purchase.

“We acquired part of an enterprise dataset from Spirit Airlines, which can be helpful in improving our products and AI models.”

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That means anyone who flew Spirit, worked for the airline or communicated with people there could have contributed in some form to the enormous collection of business information Google is buying, though the company is also claiming personally identifying details will not be included.

The data drew interest from more than one artificial intelligence company. Mercor.io, an AI company, submitted the second-highest bid at $7.5 million before Google prevailed with its $10 million offer.

The competition for Spirit’s records comes as artificial intelligence plays a growing role in the airline industry. Numerous carriers have said they are increasingly using AI to set fares, improve scheduling and make other parts of their operations more efficient.

Spirit’s data became available under circumstances that are relatively rare in the airline business.

The discount carrier halted all operations in May and has spent the months since selling what remains of the company through the bankruptcy process. Much of what is being liquidated is what might be expected from a defunct airline — planes, equipment and real estate — but its years of accumulated information also proved valuable enough to attract multimillion-dollar bids from technology companies.

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Usually, a major airline’s bankruptcy ends differently.

Failing carriers are often acquired by another airline, with their aircraft, operations and corporate records absorbed into the buyer’s existing business. Their data consequently changes hands as part of the larger acquisition rather than being auctioned off as a standalone asset.

Spirit did not find such a buyer.

Instead, it became the first significant U.S. airline in about 25 years to be forced to stop flying altogether rather than being purchased and folded into another carrier.

That unusual collapse has allowed pieces of the former airline to be sold separately to buyers with little connection to commercial aviation—including, in Google’s case, a company interested in using Spirit’s anonymized business records to help improve AI.

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Michael Phelps Discusses Money, Success, And The Business Lessons That Shaped His Career 

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Michael Phelps recently sat down to discuss his iconic career, money, what life looks like in retirement, and the initial business lessons that he held with him throughout his time as one of the most successful Olympic athletes of all time.

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US Weekly Unemployment Filings Fall To Lowest Since 1969

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United States applications for unemployment benefits hit the lowest level in over five decades last week as layoff rates remain historically low despite global economic uncertainty. 

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The amount of Americans who applied for unemployment benefits in the week ending on July 18th declined by 22,000 to hit 187,000, the Labor Department reported this week. This marks the lowest number of weekly applications for jobless benefits since 1969, according to data from the Labor Department. 

The weekly filings of unemployment benefits are viewed as a proxy for layoffs and are the closest thing to a real-time indicator of the health of the US job market, according to AP. These recent filings are also well below the 215,000 estimate that was given from data firm FactSet. 

There has been a lot of economic concern in relation to the US military attack on Iran, and while it has been impacted, the US job market has remained relatively stable with historically low layoff rates. 

While everything is relatively stable at the moment, analysts and financial experts have warned that a prolonged war and higher than average energy costs could eventually start to impact the job market, as companies will have to reduce certain costs by lowering the amount of people they employ. 

Carl Weinberd, chief economist at High Frequency Trading, stated that “the economic crisis caused by the energy supply shock is not over yet. But the labor market has yet to show any sign of wear and tear from the surge in oil prices.” 

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The price of a barrel of US crude has increased by nearly 5% on Thursday to over $91, marking the highest level in around six weeks. Gas prices in the US are also remaining above $4 a gallon, on average. 

The government also reported that employers have been pulling back on hiring, and have only added 57,000 jobs to the market. That marks less than 50% from the previous month and is telling that many companies are remaining cautious about adding to their work population based on the current economic state. 

The unemployment rate also dropped to 4.2% from 4.3% in May. It’s also important to note that a lot of the unemployment filing rates are also caused by out-of-work individuals who gave up looking for new jobs and are no longer counted as unemployed. 

Reports indicate that weekly jobless aid applications have remained mainly between 200,000 and 250,000 since the recession that occurred during the pandemic. However, hiring has been slowing within the past two years and especially in 20205 due to President Donald Trump’s tariffs, his administration’s layoffs in the federal workforce, and the after effects of high interest rates. 

The total number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits for the previous week ending in July 11th was down by 2,000 to just under 1.8 million.

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Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery Merger Hit With Multistate Antitrust Lawsuit

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A coalition of 12 state attorneys general sued Monday to stop Paramount Skydance’s planned acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery, arguing that the merger would reduce competition across the film, television, streaming and cable industries.

The transaction is valued at approximately $111 billion, making it one of the largest media mergers ever proposed. The states’ case also focuses specifically on the market for “tentpole” films, costly blockbuster releases that generate a significant share of major studios’ revenue.

The antitrust lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California and is led by California Attorney General Rob Bonta. Attorneys general from Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon and Washington also joined the case.

“The unlawful merger of these two entertainment behemoths would lead to higher prices, lower quality, and less content for film and television, harming movie theaters, basic cable distributors, and ultimately, audiences on every sofa and movie theater seat in the U.S.,” Bonta said in a release.

“The coalition has asked Warner Bros. and Paramount not to close the merger until after the judicial process concludes, and if they do not agree, the coalition will be filing a temporary restraining order.”

Paramount pushed back against the allegations, saying it was willing to address genuine competition concerns but did not believe the WBD transaction presented any.

“We are confident the facts and the law support this transaction, and we will continue to defend it vigorously,” a Paramount spokeswoman said.

The lawsuit represents the most substantial remaining legal threat to the merger in the United States after the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice completed its review in mid-June and declined to challenge the deal.

“The Division has completed its analysis of the proposed merger of Paramount and Warner Bros. and determined based on the evidence received in its investigation that the transaction is not likely to result in harm to competition or American consumers.”

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The states’ action also reflects a broader effort by state attorneys general to pursue antitrust cases independently as federal regulators under President Donald Trump have approved major transactions or settled other competition lawsuits.

In April, state officials obtained a restraining order temporarily halting the proposed combination of broadcasters Nexstar and Tegna. That same month, a coalition of states secured a jury verdict finding that Live Nation, the owner of Ticketmaster, had operated as a monopoly after the Justice Department settled its portion of the case.

Internationally, Paramount has received clearance from more than 20 countries and regions, including China and Australia. The European Union is still reviewing the transaction, however, and the European Commission has set a new provisional deadline of July 22.

The commission said in a public filing this month that Paramount had submitted concessions intended to address concerns about the merger. Britain is also among the jurisdictions that have not yet approved the acquisition, and a British government official said in June that the country was leaning toward conducting its own examination.

If completed, the merger would unite Paramount and Warner Bros., two of Hollywood’s oldest and most recognizable film studios, under one corporate owner. It would also combine the companies’ major streaming services, Paramount+ and HBO Max.

The deal would create the largest collection of television networks in the United States. Paramount’s portfolio includes the CBS broadcast network and cable channels such as MTV and BET, while Warner Bros. Discovery owns CNN, TNT and several other major networks. The resulting company would bring CBS News and CNN under a single media organization.

In their lawsuit, the states pointed to the scale of the proposed company, alleging that it would control nearly one-third of the film market and close to one-third of basic cable television programming.

Paramount has argued that a company of that size is necessary to compete with streaming heavyweights such as Netflix and Amazon. It has also said that savings from combining the two businesses would allow it to spend more on programming and deliver stronger content to consumers.

Concerns about the transaction have grown across Hollywood, where actors, documentary filmmakers and producers have warned that further consolidation could lead to fewer theatrical releases, reduced spending on film and television projects and significant job losses. More than 1,000 writers, performers and directors signed a letter in April opposing the merger.

Paramount CEO David Ellison has said he is committed to protecting jobs after the transaction. In sworn declarations filed last month in a separate lawsuit brought by streaming subscribers, Paramount executives said the combined company planned to release at least 30 movies in theaters each year.

The executives also said new films would remain exclusively in theaters for at least 45 days before becoming available on streaming platforms.

Paramount additionally floated potential investments in California while attempting to avoid a state challenge. One proposal involved creating a $50 million training fund for unionized workers whose jobs could be disrupted by emerging technologies, including artificial intelligence, according to people familiar with the discussions.

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Bonta has publicly indicated that he favors “structural remedies” to address his competition concerns, a term that generally refers to requiring a company to sell or spin off part of its business rather than relying solely on promises about its future conduct.

Warner Bros. Discovery shareholders approved the transaction in April. Ellison said during a recent earnings call that the deal remained on schedule to close by September.

Under the agreement, Paramount would owe Warner Bros. Discovery shareholders roughly $650 million in cash for every quarter the transaction remains unfinished beginning in October.

Ellison first turned his attention to WBD last September. Within weeks of the Paramount-Skydance merger closing, the newly combined company made its initial approach, triggering multiple bids and eventually prompting a formal sale process.

David Ellison, a producer whose credits include “Top Gun: Maverick,” acquired Paramount last year with financial backing from his father, Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison. He later mounted a campaign to outbid Netflix for Warner Bros. Discovery and reached an agreement to buy the company in February.

Warner Bros. Discovery had initially agreed to sell its film studio and streaming businesses to Netflix. Paramount later disrupted that agreement by launching a hostile takeover effort and revising its offer.

Netflix ultimately abandoned its deal, leaving Paramount with an agreement to purchase all of Warner Bros. Discovery for $31 per share.

Lawmakers in the United States and Europe subsequently scrutinized the transaction, including the foreign financing involved in Paramount’s bid.

The acquisition has also renewed attention on the Ellison family’s relationship with Trump. Larry Ellison is a friend of the president, and David Ellison attended a CBS News dinner in Washington in April where he sat with Trump and Paramount Chief Legal Officer Makan Delrahim.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche was also present at the event, which was held while the Justice Department was still reviewing the merger.

Paramount has expanded its legal team in preparation for a possible court battle. Its hires include Jeffrey Kessler, the Winston Taylor attorney who represented the states in their successful Live Nation case, and Paul Clement of Clement and Murphy, who is known for arguing cases before the Supreme Court.

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Meta Facing $1.4 Trillion In Damages In Teen Safety Case 

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Meta is currently facing $1.4 trillion in damages in a social media addiction case brought on by four states. Thirty-three states have teamed up to sue Meta over allegations that the tech giant was exploiting its young users on Instagram and Facebook for profit by collecting data from children without parental consent, according to reports. 

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California, New Jersey, Colorado, and Kentucky are four states that are claiming Meta misled consumers regarding the addictive design features on the platforms and causing mental health problems in children and teenagers who began using the internet at an early age. 

Those four states specifically are requesting damages that total to $1.4 trillion, according to Meta in a recent court filing. This number could allegedly increase even further with penalties that the attorneys general could add. 

Meta has denied the allegations and even recently attempted to get the addiction claims dismissed, which failed. In the most recent court submission, Meta’s attorneys argued that the $1.4 trillion in damages was unsubstantiated and disproportionate. 

“Meta has not found any case, under any cause of action, where one defendant was ordered to pay over one trillion dollars – or any number remotely close to that staggering figure.”

Reuters reported that although the states’ filings are sealed, the penalties were calculated by multiplying the number of violations, and the estimated amount of younger users impacted by the addictive aspects of the platforms.

Meta is arguing that the number is so high that “it has no parallel in the history of consumer protection enforcement.”

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“Indeed, the Federal Trade Commission recently described a ‘$1 billion penalty’ as the ‘largest ever in a case involving an FTC rule violation.’ The AGs’ demand exceeds even those record figures by several orders of magnitude, and is in gross disproportionate to the specified violations alleged here,” the filings state.”

The case will be moving to a court in August and if the judge rules against Meta, it could become a major financial issue for the company, whose market capitalization is right above $1.5 trillion. 

Meta executives have admitted for months now to investors that they were anticipating some material loss this year over “the scrutiny on youth-related issues.”

Meta has also been facing growing litigation over alleged deceptive social media practices that specifically target vulnerable young users.

Earlier this year, a judge found Meta and Google liable and ordered them to pay $6 million in damages to a young user, who’s now 20-years-old, who stated that the “deliberate addictive design features on social media platforms like Instagram got her hooked from a young age and exacerbated menthol health problems like depression and anxiety,” Ece Yildirim wrote for Gizmodo.  

Meta also currently has over 3,000 similar cases that are pending in California state court. Another 14 states have also brought up claims similar to the $1.4 trillion case and are set to go to trial early next year.

Eileen Mendel The Balanced Millionaire

Empowering Executives to Lead with Purpose and Principle | Eileen Mendel

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Effective leadership is crucial in the ever-changing business world, and leadership consulting provides valuable guidance in developing the skills and mindset for success. Eileen Mendel, an experienced consultant and CEO of The Balanced Millionaire, empowers executives to build values-driven companies. Having forged her own way as an entrepreneur, her personal journey informs her work.

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Supreme Court Sides With Bayer in Roundup Cancer Warning Case

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A Supreme Court ruling in Bayer’s favor on Thursday could reshape thousands of pending claims from people who say they developed cancer after using Roundup, the widely used weedkiller originally made by Monsanto.

The 7-to-2 decision overturned a $1.25 million jury award for John Durnell, a St. Louis gardener who said decades of exposure to Roundup caused him to develop non-Hodgkin lymphoma, a type of blood cancer. Durnell had argued that the company failed to adequately warn consumers about the product’s risks.

At the center of the case was a narrower legal question with potentially broad consequences of whether state-law failure-to-warn claims can move forward when the Environmental Protection Agency has allowed Roundup to be sold without a cancer warning.

Writing for the majority, Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh said the Missouri lawsuit would “require a cancer warning on Roundup’s label,” putting it at odds with the label approved under federal pesticide law. Because that state-law requirement would conflict with the federal label overseen by the E.P.A., he wrote, the claim was “expressly pre-empted” by federal law.

Kavanaugh also pointed to the pesticide law’s requirement for national consistency in labeling, writing that the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act requires “uniformity” and bars states from imposing pesticide-labeling rules that go beyond or differ from federal requirements.

The decision is a major victory for Bayer, the German pharmaceutical and chemical company that acquired Monsanto in 2018 and inherited a sprawling wave of Roundup litigation. Thousands of similar lawsuits are still pending in state and federal courts, and Thursday’s ruling could make those claims harder to pursue.

Bayer said the decision should sharply narrow the litigation that has followed Roundup for nearly a decade, arguing that the ruling should lead courts to dismiss current warning-based claims and prevent similar failure-to-warn claims from being brought in the future. The ruling also appeared to reassure investors, with Bayer’s shares jumping sharply after the decision.

Bayer has argued that because the E.P.A. has not required a cancer warning for Roundup, the company should not face state-level lawsuits claiming it had a duty to add one. The company has maintained that the federal agency’s position should override lawsuits brought by Durnell and other plaintiffs under state law.

Government lawyers under the Trump administration backed Bayer’s position, reversing the Biden administration’s stance. They argued that once the E.P.A. determined Roundup could be sold without a cancer warning, Bayer was required to follow that labeling decision. If the company had changed the label on its own, they said, it would have violated the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act.

That shift by the Trump administration drew sharp criticism from some supporters of the Make America Healthy Again movement, whose activists had broadly aligned with President Trump’s 2024 campaign. For them, the administration’s support for Bayer marked a break from promises to challenge corporate influence over health and food policy.

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The backlash was sharpened by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s role, now the Secretary of Health and Human Services and a key figure for many MAHA supporters. Before joining the administration, Kennedy had been involved in litigation against Monsanto and helped win a similar case in 2018 for a man who claimed the company failed to warn consumers about glyphosate’s cancer risks.

Zen Honeycutt, founder of Moms Across America and an advocate in the MAHA movement, called the ruling “worse than treason” and said it represented a betrayal of what Trump had pledged to the movement. “It really is chemical warfare on the American people,” she said.

Alex Clark, a prominent MAHA supporter and Trump ally, also criticized the administration’s role in the case.

“Today, the Supreme Court made it impossible for people who develop cancer after using Roundup to sue Bayer for failing to warn them about the potential cancer risk. The Trump administration URGED and PLEADED the Court to reach this result to protect a FOREIGN chemical company—and it did at the expense of Americans. What happened to America First? For an administration that promised to take on corporate capture and Make America Healthy Again, this is a STUNNING betrayal. Farmers, families, and cancer patients currently in litigation with Bayer will never forget this.”

Vani Hari, the food activist and prominent MAHA voice known as “the Food Babe,” also condemned the outcome. “It’s really sickening,” she said, adding that glyphosate, Roundup’s active ingredient, “becomes now the midterm issue.”

Roundup has been sold since Monsanto developed it in the 1970s and remains one of the world’s most commonly used herbicides. Its active chemical, glyphosate, is absorbed by plants and moves into their roots, where it blocks an enzyme they need to grow.

Concerns about glyphosate have fueled one of the largest waves of product-liability litigation in U.S. history. Plaintiffs have pointed to evidence in laboratory animals, along with more limited evidence involving humans, that has suggested a possible link between glyphosate and cancer. In 2015, the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer classified the chemical as “probably carcinogenic to humans.”

The E.P.A., however, has reached a different conclusion in its own reviews. In February 2020, the agency said that “there are no risks of concern to human health when glyphosate is used in accordance with its current label” and that glyphosate was “unlikely” to cause cancer in humans.

Those findings were later withdrawn after a court challenge, and the agency’s review of glyphosate’s safety remains ongoing.

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Kelly Ryerson, a MAHA advocate who posts online as “Glyphosate Girl,” cast the ruling as a political breach by the administration.

“Today’s SCOTUS ruling is historic. Never in history has an administration so blatantly and willingly sold out our fertility, vitality, and health to corporate interests. It is unforgivable. We will make sure all voters know exactly how this domestic chemical attack happened.”

In 2023, a jury in the Circuit Court of the City of St. Louis ruled in Durnell’s favor and awarded him $1.25 million. Bayer appealed, and the case ultimately reached the Supreme Court.

Before the case reached the high court, a Missouri appeals court had upheld the judgment in Durnell’s favor. The Supreme Court reversed that ruling and sent the case back to the lower courts for further proceedings consistent with its decision.

The justices’ ruling split the court in an unusual way. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, a liberal, dissented alongside Justice Neil M. Gorsuch, a conservative. In her dissent, Justice Jackson said the majority had read the federal pesticide law too broadly, leaving Durnell “without a remedy for the significant harms he has suffered.”

Jackson also said the majority had broken from what she described as the near-unanimous approach of other state and federal courts that had rejected Bayer’s preemption argument. In her view, Durnell’s claim did not impose a separate state labeling requirement but instead mirrored FIFRA’s own ban on misbranded pesticides.

Bayer praised the outcome. Brian Leake, a company spokesman, said in a statement that the decision was “good for science, farmers, and industries that depend on regulatory clarity for innovation.”

Environmental advocates, however, said the ruling would make it easier for chemical manufacturers to avoid accountability when federal labeling decisions fail to capture potential dangers.

Earthjustice, a nonprofit environmental law organization, called the decision “deeply troubling.” Patti Goldman, a lawyer for the group, said the ruling “allows Monsanto and other chemical companies to avoid responsibility when their labels leave people unprotected from serious harm.”

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Elon Musk Could Become World’s First Trillionaire As SpaceX Enters Wall Street 

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Elon Musk’s company SpaceX made its debut on Wall Street this week with both institutional and retail investors expected to grab the 555.6 million shares on sale for $135 each. This move could propel Musk to become the world’s first trillionaire.

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US Food Insecurity Is Causing Citizens To Go More Hungry Than They Did During The Pandemic 

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A survey released this week by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York revealed that more people in the United States are going hungry now than during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The survey showed that there are higher levels of food insecurity this year than there was during the summer of 2020, when the coronavirus outbreak led to “double-digit unemployment,” according to reports from NPR. 

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The New York Fed periodically asks Americans about whether they have to skip meals, rely on food donations, or receive federal assistance in order to buy groceries. The most recent survey was taken in February, and showed how hunger is a more intense problem now than any other time within the past six years. 

Amy Breitmann runs the Golden Harvest Food Bank in Augusta, Georgia. She recently told NPR how she’s witnessed first-hand the increasing number of families and children that are in need of food this year. 

“We have some distributions where people are sitting in a 2-to-3-mile line the night before the [food] distribution starts. They’re sleeping in their cars.”

The February survey from the New York Fed found that nationwide, 10% of families reported missing meals or having a lack of food in their household. About 16% of respondents relied on food donations. Families that are earning less than $50,000 annually are experiencing food insecurity twice as high as the last report. Nearly 20% of families have been forced to skip meals or went completely without food. 

CEO of the Community Food Bank of Central Alabama, Nicole Williams, also told the publication that they have to move their services to a larger building in order to accommodate the increased demand for food. The food bank serves 12 counties throughout the state. 

“Food insecurity could be your next-door neighbor. When gas costs a little bit more or food costs a little bit more, or they have a repair on their car or a medical bill, that takes away what they might be using to spend on food.”

Experts have been stating that what’s occurring is a part of a “K-shaped economy,” which represents a growing divide between individuals who have proper access to their basic needs and those who don’t. 

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The New York Fed recently wrote that “while many households are doing fine and economic activity overall has been expanding at a solid pace, large segments of the population are facing high levels of economic insecurity and financial strain, and consumer sentiment on the whole has dropped to low levels.”

In 2020, just 4% of households reported missing meals, which also included less than 7% of families that earn less than $50,000 annually. 

During the pandemic, families experienced some relief from their food insecurity thanks to government relief payments and supplemental unemployment benefits. Those same benefits, however, were pandemic-specific and are no longer available. Additionally, within the past six years food prices have increased rapidly. 

The most recent survey from the New York Fed was also conducted before the US war with Iran, which has caused gas prices to increase and the economy to strain further. 

Breitmann posed the question: “If you’re adding on another $100 to your budget a month just to put gas in your car to get to work or drop your kids at school and whatever they need their car for, where is that $100 coming from?”

“Most typically, they’re having to pull it from the grocery budget,” Breitmann said.

The survey also found that there is a growing number of Americans that are relying on Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits. This is surprising due to the fact that eligibility for the program has become even more strict as of late. 

About 18% of families this year had received SNAP benefits, compared to 10.6% in 2020. Lower-income families had over 38% receiving SNAP benefits, compared to around 22% in 2020.