After telling a group of workers laid off from COVID-19 shutdowns that it wouldn't approve federal aid to help them pay up to $1,000 a month in home mortgage payments, Wells Fargo Bank on Tuesday said it had had a change of heart and would let them use the money to pay the bank what they owe, less than a week before the program is due to expire....Read more

The pandemic is hard on us all — but spare a thought for those with small children, forced to balance work and childcare, closed daycares, and entertain bored, lonely kids during lockdowns.

Millions of couples have postponed weddings because of the coronavirus, and others are reconsidering whether to have a child now.

The good news? While at...Read more

Last week's public spat between Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell may have set an end date for the central bank's unprecedented intervention in U.S. credit markets. But make no mistake, the legacy of this episode will most likely permanently change investors' mindset during periods of crisis.

In ...Read more

The outlook continues to be clouded by COVID-19 but a team of University of Michigan economists sees encouraging signs that could bring economic life close to normal by the end of 2021.

Much, though, will depend on how readily a vaccine becomes available by next summer.

The annual U.S. Economic Outlook, released Thursday morning, indicated ...Read more

Q: I am getting on in years and want to leave my home to a relative when I pass. I know I can do this in my will, but I think it might be easier to add him to the deed. I looked online, and there are so many options. What type of document should I use? — Andrea

A: Having a proper estate plan for when you pass is one of the greatest favors a ...Read more

CHICAGO — It's not quite like winning the World Series, but getting listed as a National Historic Landmark, as Wrigley Field was Thursday, is pretty sweet stuff.

There are only about 2,600 National Historic Landmarks, including Mount Vernon and Pearl Harbor. The National Park Park Service, which administers the list, says it is reserved for "...Read more

It rises 1,401 feet over midtown Manhattan like a monument to another time — a shiny new skyscraper commissioned long before the world had ever heard of Covid-19.

Donning masks, the developers cut the ribbon at One Vanderbilt in September, six months into the pandemic that has emptied offices across New York. Now what once seemed like a grand...Read more

Monster growth in online sales this holiday season will trigger an explosion of duplicitous deals, fake websites, phony emails and outright shopping scams.

More than ever, online buyers better beware.

Instead of standing in line to snag deals on Black Friday, many consumers will be hitting their laptops and iPhones to spend $10.3 billion ...Read more

Home Depot is giving raises to frontline and hourly workers that will add $1 billion a year to their paychecks after revenue and profit soared at the giant retailer.

Since the pandemic took hold earlier this year, the company has spent $1.7 billion on extra bonuses, paid leave and other benefits. The raises announced Tuesday will replace those ...Read more

Your college-age son or daughter, statistically speaking, is likely clueless about the vast range of careers on offer in the world.

Oh sure, they know what you and the spouse do, we hope, and maybe have in mind a half-dozen occupations they've either come into contact with or admired from afar. A survey of 600,000 teens by the Organization for ...Read more

Despite repeated messages in recent years that every parent's primary obligation should be to save more for retirement, the "college at any cost" dynamic remains alarmingly entrenched in many American households

Through the end of September, the total tab for federal college loans taken by parents was $98 billion, a 44% increase in five years. ...Read more

Women often defer to husbands on financial decisions. But what if your man is setting you up for an old age — your likely time as a widow — of impoverishment?

Consider childcare and work. The intense collision of work-from-home and 24/7 childcare-from-home will ease once there is a widely adopted coronavirus vaccine. But the financial ...Read more

The Robinhood generation of day traders has famously driven scores of sharp stock moves this year, from high-flyers like Tesla Inc. to beaten-down companies such as Hertz Global Holdings Inc. Now, retail investors are propelling growth in a hot corner of the exchange-traded fund universe: Thematics.

ETFs built around a theme — think ...Read more

Many of us won't be putting airline tickets on our credit card or using plastic to pick up the tab for a big holiday dinner at a fancy restaurant with the extended family. We're just not looking at that kind of holiday spending in 2020.

But consumers, being consumers, are bound to pile on a little debt, as well as a few pounds, from ...Read more

The holidays are around the corner and, for tens of millions of our neighbors across the U.S., this will be a time of scarcity, insecurity, worry and, in the richest nation on earth, hunger. Consider these facts:

Prior to COVID-19, 37 million people in the U.S. struggled with hunger. Feeding America, the nation's third largest charity, ...Read more

Adam Seidler set several goals to hit by the time he turned 30 — start a family, own a home.

With the help of a loan from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, he achieved them. This year, he purchased a five-bedroom home for his family in Diamond, Ill.

"It was pretty smooth sailing," he said.

Seidler, 30, is one of many millennial ...Read more