Debt on the rise - especially among Millennials

It appears all that avocado toast is finally catching up to the first digital native generation. Millennial borrowers’ average credit card balances jumped 26% from three years ago to $6,750 as of this January (Read More ) as their total debt surpassed $3.8T (Read More ). It’s not just Millennials struggling to manage debt while they live paycheck to paycheck, as 9.3% of low-credit vehicle loans are at least 30 days late — the highest since 2010 (Read More ).

CONSUMER

TOP STORIES

52% of Gen Z are concerned about the IRS plans to report income for app payments (Read More ). The other 48% are concerned about not getting enough likes on TikTok.

More than one in five Americans with disabilities were employed last year - the highest level since 2008 (Read More ).

The balance of the average 401k with Fidelity Investments plummeted by more than 20% in 2022. The same was true for Vanguard accounts (Read More ), which recently announced a 2-for-1 split on six equity ETFs. (Read More )

Well, it’s the thought that counts: Americans have $21 billion in unspent gift cards. (Read More )

MARKET

TOP STORIES

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that individuals cannot use the bankruptcy process to wipe out debts incurred through fraud even in instances when they were not the ones who personally deceived their creditors. (Read More )

A New York district court judge ruled that emojis can count as investment advice (Read More ). When asked for a comment, the judge said “??????.”

The Fed and other federal agencies issued a new policy advising banks not to engage with crypto companies (Read More ) as the IMF laid out a nine-point crypto action plan, recommending against legal tender status (Read More ).

The Biden administration has opted not to tax state payments to residents (Read More )

Arguments begin tomorrow before the Supreme Court over the Biden administration's roughly $400 billion plan to forgive federal student debt for tens of millions of borrowers (Read More ). Federal student loan payments could restart in roughly 2-6 months (Read More ).

The US Copyright Office canceled copyright protections for Midjourney AI-generated images used in a graphic novel. (Read More ).

Good news for omelet-enthusiasts: The retail price of eggs are expected to drop after a collapse in wholesale prices. (Read More ) even as grocery prices start to inch up again (Read More ).

Real-estate investors are fleeing the once hottest markets in the US (Read More ). US average mortgage rates rose for a third straight week to 6.5% (Read More ). Office landlords, including major asset managers, are defaulting on loans in signs of permanent WFH trend (Read More ).

A partnership between Web3 payment protocol Immersve and payments giant Mastercard will allow users to make crypto payments on digital, physical and the metaverse worlds. (Read More )

Amazon’s $3.9B purchase of primary-care clinic operator 1Life Healthcare has finally closed, giving Amazon access to medical offices in 20+ US markets (Read More )

TikTok owner Bytedance has launched Lemon8, that has been described as Instagram-meets-Pinterest (Read More ).

Mercedes-Benz partnered with Google to offer 'supercomputer-like performance' (Read More ). TikTok has teamed up with Mercedes to integrate its app into the luxury automaker's E-Class vehicles (Read More ). Because nothing says “safe driving” quite like TikTok.

Etsy topped Wall Street’s revenue estimates, reporting $802.7M in 2022 revenue (Read More )

Sandwich giant Subway is planning to build electric car-charging "oases" with green spaces, bathrooms and playgrounds (Read More )

Mark Zuckerberg’s quest for a new passion project continues: Meta introduced LLaMA, Large Language Model Meta AI, their ChatGPT competitor (Read More ). Snapchat released My AI, their new experimental chatbot built with @OpenAI starting for subscribers to Snapchat+ in the US (Read More ).

Apple is closer than ever to creating tech that can monitor blood glucose levels without a skin prick for its Apple Watch. (Read More ) The device will not come with a charger or a headphone jack.

Layoff Roundup

• CEO Elon Musk laid off at least 200 workers from Twitter, which was about 10% of the ~2,000 employees still left at the company (Read More ). When Musk bought the company last fall, there were roughly 7,500 people working there.
• BarkBox owner Bark is getting 12% smaller by cutting 126 jobs, in addition to curbing its use of contractors. (Read More )
• Daily Harvest, which is facing wilting sales after one of its products allegedly made customers sick, is aming to lay off about 60 people this month (Read More )
• Rent-to-buy startup Divvy Homes laid off 12% of its staff, or about 40 people, as rising mortgage rates batter home sales. (Read More )
• Secondhand apparel marketplace Poshmark is laying off employees (Read More )
• After predicting a $30 million deficit for the year, NPR will eliminate at least 100 positions, or approximately 10% of its staff (Read More ).
• Tom Brady and Michael Strahan’s Religion of Sports is laying off employees and shuttering their audio division (Read More ).

Forbes’ Layoff Lifeline, a new, pop-up email newsletter that brings expert career advice directly to inboxes (Read More ).