A long weekend so the list and a couple of the articles are a bit longer.

Savings and Wealth

• I plan to dig into this one more this weekend from an NYT opinion piece by the authors of a study on wealth inequality and families. (There is a link to their paper in the article, if you want to really take a deeper dive.)
• Think having a million dollars in the bank makes you rich? Not according to bankers: bankers define rich as $25 million.
• The number of 401k millionaires at the end of the first quarter jumped 45% from a year earlier.
• On the flipside, the savings rate in the US is at a low….Megan McArdle of the WaPo tries to figure out why. There are excellent graphics in this one!

Technology

• Just when we were led to believe that chip cards were safer, instead of skimming hackers are shimming.
• If your thumb starts to hurt or go numb, it may be your phone!
• If that is the case, think about getting one of these new “brick” phones. Life was simpler in 2000.
• Here is a pretty comprehensive explanation of how blockchain can be effectively used in the supply chain. 

College Graduates

• It’s college graduation season, and there have been a lot of stories about the job market graduates are facing this year.
• Hard to imagine with unemployment at record lows that college graduations are having a tough time finding jobs. This article tries to explain the disconnect.
• The Atlanta Journal and Constitution describes which jobs are 2018 grads going for, and what is happening to starting salaries (they are up 5.2%!!!)  

College Financing

• Here is the 4-1-1 on 529 plans to clear up lots of misunderstanding and misinformation about how they work.
• Here is an update on grant to loan conversion of teacher loans….hopefully some good news.
• Also good news on the student loan front, there is now an appeals process for borrowers who have been turned down for the public service loan forgiveness program.  
• Can you imagine having a million dollars of student loan debt?  This story will give you (and your students) nightmares!

Home Ownership

• Home equity is at a record high in the US. Making use of it is not. This article explains three ways to do so.
• Are you in a hot real estate market, competing with people paying cash for a home? This new company, Ribbon, wants to level the playing field.
• We all talk about the impact student loans have on millennial home ownership. Here are some stories and statistics:
  • "More than 80 percent of millennials surveyed by the National Association of Realtors and the nonprofit group American Student Assistance said that student debt had forced them to shelve their plans to buy a home. And people who did not own homes estimated that the debt had forced them to put off buying by seven years."

• And a related chart: note the trend.

Economics News

• Congress reverses elements of Dodd-Frank for smaller banks: no more stress tests.

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