Finance (Personal)

Canada’s Consumer Price Index rose by an annualized 3.3% in July, up from 2.8% in June and posing a continuing challenge to the central bank’s anti-inflation campaign. [node:read-more:link]

U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg says he’s ready to take a harder line with airlines when it comes to passengers’ rights. Responding to the industry’s ongoing issues, he has already investigated and penalized carriers for how they respond to complaints but now says “we’re going to beat ‘em up when we think that’s important to get passengers a better deal.” [node:read-more:link]

At 2.8% in June, Canada’s annualized inflation rate eased to its lowest level since early 2021. The deceleration from 3.4% in May moved the Consumer Price Index into the Bank of Canada’s 1-3% target range for considering its lending rates. [node:read-more:link]

The Bank of Canada increased its benchmark overnight interest rate by 25 basis points today to 5%, the highest since 2001. “The stubbornness of core inflation in Canada suggests that inflation may be more persistent than originally thought,” it said, adding that it expects inflation to hover around 3% for the next year. [node:read-more:link]

Starting a three-day meeting today in Winnipeg, provincial and territorial leaders are focusing on affordability and its impact on a broad range of goods and services, notably housing, fuel and food. [node:read-more:link]

Statistics Canada reported today that as the economy added 60,000 mainly fulltime jobs in June, the unemployment rate rose to 5.4 per cent, its highest in more than a year. Job gains were concentrated in wholesale and retail trade, manufacturing, health care and social assistance, and transportation and warehousing. [node:read-more:link]

Twenty Canada Revenue Agency employees have been fired for inappropriately receiving pandemic benefit payments. The CRA also is investigating a “limited number” of others, about 600, and other dismissals are “likely.” [node:read-more:link]

The Competition Bureau said today that Canada’s grocery sector needs more competition to help keep food prices down, give shoppers more choice and encourage new entrants. It pointed out that concentration in the industry has increased in recent years and that the major chains have posted higher profits. [node:read-more:link]

Canada's annualized inflation rate fell to 3.4% in May, its lowest since June 2021. -- the lowest it's been since June 2021. Statistics Canada said today that the deceleration from April’s 4.4% was due mainly to gasoline prices being lower than a year-earlier but grocery prices continued to rise. [node:read-more:link]

A new federal income supplement for low-income disabled persons of working-age is about to go into effect. Modelled on the Guaranteed Income Supplement, the Canada Disability Benefit cleared Parliament June 20 when Bill C-22 was approved by the Senate. Employment, Workforce Development & Disability Inclusion Minister Carla Qualtrough expects hundreds of thousands of beneficiaries but the amount to be offered remains unspecified. [node:read-more:link]

More than half of Canadians still in the workforce past the age of 60 are there by necessity, not choice, according to a Statistics Canada review of data from 2022. Essential expenses and pension ineligibility are cited as the main reasons people are continuing to work past potential retirement age. [node:read-more:link]

The Bank of Canada raised its overnight rate by 25 basis points today to 4.75 per cent, its first increase since January. The rate is now at its highest since April 2001. [node:read-more:link]

The world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, Binance, has been accused by the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission of lying to regulators and investors and transferring “billions of dollars” to a separate company controlled by its Canadian co-founder, Chinese expatriate Changpeng Zhao. “We allege that Zhao and the Binance entities not only knew the rules of the road, but they also consciously chose to evade them and put their customers and investors at risk,” the SEC’s director of enforcement said today. [node:read-more:link]

The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, which manages the primary retirement program for working Canadians, has reported a 1.3% return in the 2022-2023 fiscal year compared with the previous year’s 0.2%. Gains in private investment offset weak performance by stocks and bonds. [node:read-more:link]

Canada Mortgage & Housing Corporation reported today that Canadian households are carrying more debt than their counterparts in the other G7 countries. Their debt is equal to 107% of the country’s gross domestic product and CMHC’s deputy chief economist warned that it “makes the economy vulnerable to any global economic crisis.” [node:read-more:link]