URI Studying Jonah Crabs to Learn about Offshore Wind Turbines’ Effect on Underwater Ecosystems

Boost to local fishing?

By Joshua Geaughan / ecoRI News contributor

Jonah crabs are being studied in Rhode Island waters
as part of a project examining the effect of offshore
wind turbines on underwater ecosystems.
(Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission)

Since the first offshore wind project was developed in Rhode Island in 2016, University of Rhode Island researchers have been attempting to understand their impacts on local marine ecosystems. That work is continuing with first-year URI Ph.D. student Emmanuel Oyewole’s study of the artificial reefs that are often found at the base of turbines.

It’s been established through research surrounding offshore wind that the base of turbines serves as a foundation for algae and coral, which acts as a base for a booming ecosystem.

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In an attempt to find the cause of this blossoming of aquatic activity, Oyewole is studying the movement and dietary habits of one special creature found at the base of offshore wind turbines: Jonah crabs. He’s working with his academic advisor, Kelton McMahon, an associate professor of oceanography.

RI Jobless Claims Nearly Double in a Single Month

New claims jump - Why This Matters

Eddie Exxe, Labor & Workers

26,700 Rhode Islanders were counted as unemployed in July, and the state's jobless rate has climbed nearly two percentage points in a year while running above New England's for ten straight quarters — meaning a harder job hunt and thinner leverage for workers here than in neighboring states.

Here's the thing about a 400-job loss in a state with 510,300 payroll jobs: on its own, it's noise. It's eight hundredths of one percent. If that were the only number in the July employment bulletin, nobody would write about it.

But it isn't the only number.

The Department of Labor and Training's July figures show jobs at Rhode Island businesses fell by 400 from June, and the state's unemployment rate rose to 4.5 percent. Total nonfarm jobs came in at 510,300, down from a revised June figure of 510,700. Over the year, jobs are still up 6,200, or 1.2 percent. So far, so mixed.

Then look at the unemployment insurance claims.

Initial UI claims averaged 1,559 per week in July. In June, that average was 825. That is close to a doubling in a single month, and it's up 109 claims per week from July 2023. New claims are the closest thing the state has to a real-time signal — people don't file for unemployment because a statistical model told them to. They file because they just lost a job.

And the year-over-year comparison on the jobless rate is the number that should stop you. In July 2023, Rhode Island's unemployment rate was 2.7 percent. It is now 4.5 percent. That's a jump of one and eight-tenths percentage points in twelve months. There were 26,700 Rhode Islanders counted as unemployed in July, up 1,200 over the month.

Charlestown unemployment is comparatively low: 

You’re not imagining it: Your kid’s school supplies cost more this year

From lunchboxes to No. 2 pencils, the prices are skyrocketing. Here's how much.

Chabeli Carrazana, Economy and Child Care Reporter

This story was originally reported by Chabeli Carrazana of The 19th. Meet Chabeli and read more of their reporting on gender, politics and policy.

Pencils are more expensive. So are notebooks, scissors, glue sticks — just about every back-to-school item that families will load into their literal or virtual carts this summer has gone up in price at a time when American families already feel crushed by rising costs.

According to one analysis of the 21 most common school supply items by the Groundwork Collaborative and The Century Foundation, two progressive think tanks, prices are up about 7.7 percent with parents paying an average of $173.45 for their school supply haul. That’s an even bigger jump than last year. Add to that an 11 percent hike in prices for school lunch essentials — from the literal tons of blueberries needed to feed young children to apple juice — and costs balloon to nearly $4,000 a year to cover supplies and meals. 

That data was first shared exclusively with The 19th. The analysis is based on weekly retail transaction data on millions of products collected by NielsenIQ from about 50,000 retailers.

With school supply costs outpacing inflation, many families — and especially the women who do the majority of purchases in American households — are going to feel the sticker shock, said Lindsay Owens, the president and CEO of the Groundwork Collaborative.

“Women in this country are rip-roaring mad about the price hikes that they're absorbing. They're trying to manage household finances and budgeting. They're trying to feed their kids healthy food,” Owens said. “The work is getting harder of providing for your family.”

Here are the school supplies with the biggest spikes in price: 

• Lunch boxes are up 27 percent
• Notebooks, notebook paper, tissues and index cards are all up about 20 percent
• Scissor costs rose 14 percent
• Dry erase markers and glue sticks are up 8 percent
• Headphones, binders, crayons, colored pencils and No. 2 pencils increased between 5 and 7 percent

On the lunch side: 

• 12 ounces of blueberries are up a whopping 48 percent
• A loaf of sandwich bread is up 22 percent
• Apple juice prices have risen 20 percent
• A pound of oranges has risen 17 percent
• A box of packaged animal crackers will run you nearly 16 percent more 
• A package of chocolate chip cookies is up 14 percent

Driving up some of these costs are tariffs and the war on Iran. 

Voters Are Realizing that Trump Doesn’t Care About Them

He has his own priorities

Mark Schauer for Common Dreams

This month, the bipartisan 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act became law—without Donald Trump’s signature, exactly as he’d threatened. It’s a small, recent example of a much bigger habit: Trump keeps showing voters exactly how little he thinks of them. 

The bill wasn’t controversial at all. It was negotiated by both parties’ top committee members and aimed squarely at lowering housing costs. 

But Trump let it sit for weeks rather than sign it, hoping to extract an unrelated voter-suppression bill in return.

At this point, childish behavior from the president shouldn’t be surprising.

In his first inaugural address, Trump claimed to be the champion of America’s “forgotten men and women.” But it was a lie from the start. He never cared about the poor and marginalized. 

He cared about cutting taxes for his friends; scapegoating immigrants for the struggles of the working class; and restoring a mythical era of American “greatness” characterized by the supremacy of straight, white, Christian males.

Although his lie was obvious, it was also effective. In 2016, Trump won around one-eighth of voters who’d supported Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in the Democratic primaries. In 2024, he significantly increased his share of the Black and Hispanic vote. 

Why Is He Using the Communist Trump Card?

He's run out of other cards.

Robert Reich for Inequality.org

The cover of “Is This Tomorrow,” an anti-communist comic
book published in 1947, suggests the chaos and ruin
that would follow a communist takeover of the United
States. The publications reflected a fevered politics that
prevailed after World War II and through the 1950s.
(Image via Wikimedia Commons)

Trump has run out of cards to play in the midterm elections, which is why he’s now talking about the “communist menace.”

He can’t talk about the economy, because prices continue to rise faster than wages, which means most Americans are getting poorer. He can’t talk about foreign policy, because his war in Iran has been a debacle, his tariffs are an utter failure, and he obviously hasn’t settled the war in Ukraine on “Day 1.” He can’t talk about immigration, because his raids and mass deportations have become so unpopular.

So, facing the midterm elections, what’s left?

He’s resorting to the oldest of right-wing tropes — accusing Democrats (especially a rising generation of new, young, vigorous Democratic politicians) of being commies.

He kicked off America’s 250th anniversary celebrations on Friday with a speech at Mount Rushmore extolling American culture and warning of a resurgence of the “communist menace.” With the granite faces of four of his predecessors behind him, Trump took aim at what he called “radicals” and “extremists.”

“There is now a resurgence of the communist menace in our land, including from newcomers to our country who embrace ideas totally opposed to our way of life and our great success. You can be a communist, or you can be a patriot. You cannot be both.”

Oh, please.

For years, Trump has been trying to scare Americans about progressive Dems who advocate Medicare for All, universal childcare, free public higher education, and higher taxes on the super-wealthy to pay for them (all of which the rising young Democrats are advocating).

But he hasn’t gotten anywhere because these initiatives are supported by most Americans.

So now he’s throwing the commie label at the wall and seeing if it sticks.

Communism was the scare word used by right-wingers after World Wars I and II to crack the whip on the left. It provoked witch hunts and ruined careers.

It made former Wisconsin Senator Joe McCarthy a one-man bomb squad in the early 1950s, when he rid
iculed the “pitiful squealing” of “those egg-sucking phony liberals” who “would hold sacrosanct those Communists and queers,” and forced American citizens to “name names.”

McCarthyism was a by-product of the Republican Party’s postwar effort to eradicate the New Deal. The GOP had portrayed the midterm election of 1946 as a “battle between Republicanism and communism,” and the Republican National Committee chairman claimed that the federal bureaucracy was filled with “pink puppets.”

Southern segregationist Democrats joined in the red-baiting. Mississippi senator Theodore Bilbo, a Klansman who filibustered to block anti-lynching legislation, described multiracial labor unions’ advocacy for civil rights as the work of “northern communists.” 

Latinos in U.S. are indispensable to nation's prosperity, health, future

Trump attacks are against US self interest

By Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine

Edited by Sadie Harley, reviewed by Andrew Zinin

The conventional narrative that Latinos are taking more from the United States than they contribute is not just wrong—it is dangerous. In a new "Medicine and Society" analysis published in the New England Journal of Medicine, researchers from the Center for Latino Adolescent and Family Health (CLAFH) at John Hopkins University School of Nursing report that Latinos are among the nation's most important contributors to economic growth, workforce participation, and population health.

At the same time, they warn that false narratives and discriminatory policies are exacting a measurable toll on Latino communities, contributing to rising rates of preventable illness, psychological distress, and death.

In "Correcting False Narratives—Indispensable Latino Contributions to U.S. Population Health," Vincent Guilamo-Ramos, PhD, RN, founding director of CLAFH and executive director of the Institute for Policy Solutions at the School, and colleagues document the breadth and depth of Latino contributions across economic, social, health, and political sectors—and make clear that addressing the health and social needs of the U.S. Latino community is not about serving outsiders: Latinos are not loose fringe at the edges of the great United States of America tapestry, they are essential threads woven throughout its core.

The paper presents striking data that overturn prevailing assumptions about the U.S. Latino community and what they contribute to the nation's well-being:

• Four in five Latinos in the United States—approximately 79%—are U.S. citizens by birth or naturalization, and one in four U.S. children is of Hispanic origin. Latinos are the second-largest racial/ethnic group in the country; by 2060, they are projected to reach nearly 100 million, or 27% of the U.S. population.

• The U.S. Latino economy generates more than $4 trillion in annual economic output. If measured independently, it would rank as the world's fifth-largest economy—larger than the United Kingdom, Germany, India, or France.

• Latinos hold the highest labor force participation rate of any racial or ethnic group. They represent more than one-third of the U.S. construction workforce, making crucial contributions to combating the nation's housing shortage. They also are contributing to U.S. wealth creation through higher rates of new homeownership than any other racial or ethnic group.

• Far from draining the health care system, undocumented immigrants (a small share of the overall Latino population) contribute more than $50 billion annually in health insurance premiums and taxes, five times as much as the system spends on their care. They effectively subsidize the care of U.S.-born citizens and sustain the system for everyone.

• Politically, a record 16.6 million Latinos voted in the 2024 presidential election—the highest U.S. Latino participation ever recorded, and a decisive factor in several key states. With approximately 1.4 million more becoming eligible to vote each year, Latinos are the second-largest racial/ethnic voting bloc in the country and a growing force in shaping federal, national and state policies. 

Trump's war on green energy is about as successful as his war on Iran

How US renewable-energy growth persists despite federal policy uncertainty 

This guest post is by:

Dhruv Modi, research analyst, Center for Global Sustainability, University of Maryland

Alicia Zhao, research manager, Center for Global Sustainability, University of Maryland

Tyler Stotland, research analyst, Center for Global Sustainability, University of Maryland

Prof Nate Hultman, director of the Center for Global Sustainability, University of Maryland, and professor in the School of Public Policy, University of Maryland

Despite recent shifts in federal energy policies, our analysis shows that the US transition to renewable energy is continuing. 

The current administration has enacted a range of changes to prioritize fossil-fuel energy and environmental deregulation in the US, while withdrawing support for renewables. 

Yet solar, wind and battery storage accounted for over 90% of new energy capacity in 2025.

This is thanks to the falling cost of renewable energy technologies, investments spurred by the Inflation Reduction Act and Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and local and state policies, according to our research at the Center for Global Sustainability, University of Maryland.  

Our analysis examines recent trends in the US energy landscape, focusing on rising electricity demand, new electricity capacity additions and generation, as well as fossil-fuel production and state-level case studies. 

Energy costs are high and unaffordable

What utilities, governments, communities and you can do to help cut energy costs

Sanya Carley, University of Pennsylvania; Alexandra Klass, University of Michigan; Alison L. Knasin, University of Pennsylvania; David Konisky, Indiana University, and Shelley Welton, University of Pennsylvania

For many Americans, energy bills are becoming increasingly unaffordable.

Energy prices increased approximately 30% on average from 2021 to 2026. In some places, the rates of increase have been much steeper. In the Mid-Atlantic and eastern Midwest region where several of us live, the regional electricity grid is run by PJM Interconnection, and power prices in the first quarter of 2026 were 76% higher than the same period in 2025.

These rising utility costs are a shock to many people, including those already having a hard time paying for the energy they need. In 2024, 1 in 3 American households reported struggling to pay their energy bills, and 15.1 million homes were disconnected from their electricity or gas services because the residents couldn’t pay their bill. Energy insecurity is a pervasive and potentially dangerous predicament for these millions of households, and a growing challenge for America as energy bills rise.

Energy markets, which we study, are famously complex. But many parties in these marketplaces, from the federal government to individual consumers, have opportunities to help provide Americans with affordable energy. Some may not be obvious to the casual observer, or even to savvy energy wonks.

He's going to need more Sharpies

Trump is fighting the green energy revolution. He'll lose.

Market forces are stronger than MAGA.

Paul Waldman

Something historic happened in May: For the first time in American history, more electricity was generated in the United States with solar power than with coal.

While natural gas remains our largest electricity source, the crossing of the lines between solar and coal — one representing the future and one the past — is something we may look back on as one of the key moments in the planet’s transition to green energy.

We don’t know whether someone told Donald Trump about this milestone, but if they did, he wouldn’t have been happy. Since taking office, he has waged an all-out war against renewable energy, not just making it more difficult to create and use clean power, but pouring taxpayer money into fossil fuels.

That’s the bad news. The good news is that though Trump has done significant damage to America’s green energy industry — and given us more pollution, higher costs, and more insecurity in the bargain — that industry continues to grow.

There is a global energy revolution underway, and Trump’s efforts to slow it down are destined to fall short.

Soaring US beef prices likely to rise further thanks to trade tensions and disease outbreaks

Trump blunders lead to more expensive burgers

Andrew Muhammad, University of Tennessee and Charles Martinez

It’s summer grilling season, but for many Americans, surging prices mean beef is no longer what’s for dinner.

The cost of beef, having spiked since early 2025, is coming under even more pressure. The most recent is the screwworm outbreak that hit cattle in Mexico and has now spread to the United States, where the cattle herd has already fallen to levels not seen since the 1950s, due in part to drought.

Meanwhile, potential trade disruptions loom. Just before U.S. and Mexican trade negotiators began meeting on June 16-17, 2026, to discuss the long-standing deal binding North America, Donald Trump warned that Washington may not renew the agreement, which was negotiated during his first term, and instead potentially withdraw from it altogether.

As international trade and livestock economists, we have studied how North American trade has deeply integrated cattle and beef markets, influencing production, prices and the movement of animals and meat products across Canada, Mexico and the United States. 

And because beef is both a top agricultural import and export for the U.S., the industry is especially vulnerable to any disruptions to the existing trade deal. As one example, the cost of ground beef is up by more than 20% just since January 2025.

Current trade uncertainty, reflecting Trump’s more fragmented, bilateral approach to negotiations, couldn’t come at a worse moment for inflation-weary consumers. The growing turmoil in the North American beef market risks further tightening supplies and raising prices.

The Age of the Super A*sholes

Trump and Musk dominate our economy and our politics

Robert Reich

Elon Musk has just become the world’s first trillionaire. Donald Trump is America’s first dictator. But they have more in common than their economic and political dominance.

To describe both as selfish narcissists would be a wild understatement. Both are maniacally obsessed with increasing their own personal wealth, power, and control.

Both have been willing to break laws, norms, and other social constraints in pursuit of these goals. Both have manipulated, bribed, conned, robbed, and bullied their ways to dominance.

Trump tried to overturn the results of the 2020 election, was impeached twice, found criminally liable for cooking his corporate books, and civilly liable for sexual abuse.

Musk paid a quarter of a billion dollars to get Trump elected president, then ran Trump’s illegal and hugely destructive DOGE. Musk’s SpaceX has all the hallmarks of a gigantic Ponzi scheme in which insiders pocket the winnings and leave latecomers holding the bag.

Both pride themselves on paying little or no taxes. Trump famously said that paying not paying federal income taxes "makes me smart." Musk paid zero taxes in 2018.

While the country suffers,
Trump posts images like this

Both are notoriously lacking in empathy; they view all relationships as transactions. Trump refuses to be a "consoler-in-chief" in national tragedies and openly withholds sympathy for families of political opponents who die. (When Rob Reiner and his wife were murdered, Trump asserted they were killed “due to the anger [Reiner] caused others through his massive, unyielding, and incurable affliction with a mind crippling disease known as TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME.”)

Musk has stated that "the fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy” — arguing that a society can only afford to practice broad empathy if it operates from a position of systemic strength.

Both regard themselves as omnipotent and invincible. Both lash out verbally or physically at anyone who crosses them, often getting into raging disputes and fights.

And this

To the extent they have any belief beyond their own omnipotence, it’s white male nationalism. “Whites are a rapidly dying minority,” Musk wrote his 240 million followers in a January post on X. In a February post, he declared that “there has been unrelenting hate and poisonous propaganda in the West against anyone White, straight or male over the past decade or more,” adding, “No more guilt trips. ENOUGH.”

Musk has suggested that race plays a detrimental role in hiring. He’s touted the role of white people in eliminating slavery. He’s accused public figures of racism against white and Asian people.

In recent months, Musk has increased his online posts about perceived threats to whiteness, or what he views as calls for a “genocide” against white people. Over the past seven months, he has posted 850 times about race, nearly daily and triple the rate for the previous two years.

Trump also has a well-documented history of white supremacist actions and rhetoric, including the 1973 lawsuit brought against Trump management for allegedly discriminating against Black renters; his full-page ads in 1989 calling for the death penalty for the five Black and Latino teenagers eventually exonerated in the Central Park jogger case; his leading role in the debunked, racially-charged conspiracy theory that Barack Obama was not born in the United States; his 2016 accusation that Mexican immigrants were criminals and “rapists;” his 2017 “Muslim ban;” his “fine people on both sides” of the violent white supremacist rally in Charlottesville; his view of Haiti, El Salvador, and African nations as “shithole” countries; his determination to erase Black history from America’s classrooms; and his campaign against diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Both Musk and Trump have pushed the conspiracy theory that Democrats are seeking to import undocumented immigrants so they can take over the U.S. government forever.

Both have fomented white nationalism abroad. Trump was an enthusiastic ally of Viktor Orbán, who saw Western civilization threatened by Muslim immigration into Europe. Many people in Trump’s circle continue to support and encourage leaders of the European far-right.

Musk, too, encourages white nationalism abroad. During the recent anti-immigrant protests and riots in the United Kingdom—particularly in Belfast and London—Musk posted that “civil war is inevitable” and urged British protesters to “fight back or die” (prompting British Prime Minister Keir Starmer to condemn Musk’s comments as “dangerous.”) In response to the recent killing in Belfast, Musk blamed “murderous migrants beheading innocent people in their home town.” He shared an image of the stabbing suspect, who is Black, alongside the caption declaring “millions must go.” And he reposted messages claiming that Starmer “hates white people.”

Researchers from the nonprofit watchdog Center for Countering Digital Hate report that “Musk’s amplification” of anti-migrant narratives to his hundreds of millions of followers was “instrumental” in provoking the violence in Belfast: “No individual played a bigger role in spreading [hateful] content on X than Musk himself.”

It's Easy To Create Lots of Shitty Jobs

So don't break out the champagne about Friday's jobs report

Robert Reich

Friday’s jobs report — showing that America added 172,000 jobs in May — stimulated a lot of celebratory bullsh*t.

Trump said, “It’s raining jobs!” White House National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett claimed the job market is "hitting on all cylinders.” The mainstream media called it a “blowout jobs report,” “stronger-than-expected jobs data,” the labor market’s “best three-month stretch in more than two years.”

What all this acclaim left out was that wages are falling relative to prices.

Average hourly earnings for private-sector production and non-supervisory workers — that is, for most employees — rose by only 8 cents (or 0.2 percent) in May. That’s the weakest pace of wage growth since 2021.

Meanwhile, prices are rising quickly — by around 3.8 percent annually. Hence, real wages — that is, their actual purchasing power — are dropping. The paychecks of most American workers aren’t covering rising costs. They’re getting poorer.

This is how King Donald keeps his promises

The triple toll of Trump’s terrible tariffs

Ultimately, American workers and consumers suffer three different ways.

Tom Schaller

Following the Supreme Court’s February ruling that Donald Trump’s tariff policy violated Congress’s tax authority, the administration must now refund the $159 billion it collected from its unconstitutional tariffs.

But unfortunately for American workers and consumers, winding down this fiscal fiasco results in a lose-lose-lose situation:

• First, most Americans will never be reimbursed for what were effectively temporary sales taxes they paid for various imports, nor will they receive the public benefit of having those sums spent on government programs or projects.
• Second, because it is logistically easier to reimburse the American companies that directly paid the tariffs, some corporations may enjoy windfall refund profits — presuming, that is, those companies did not go bankrupt.
• Finally, the surviving businesses and the employees who still work for them — hundreds of thousands of workers were laid off because of the tariffs — will for the foreseeable future continue to suffer because foreign countries, companies, and citizens quite rationally retaliated against Trump’s policies.

Let’s work through the three-fold ruin wrought by Trump’s catastrophic policy.

When ICE ramped up enforcement, US‑born workers didn’t see any economic gains

US workers don't want or get jobs done by deported workers

Chloe N. East, University of Colorado Boulder and Elizabeth Cox, University of Colorado Boulder

Donald Trump campaigned on a promise to strengthen the labor market. His immigration platform – including a pledge to conduct the largest deportation campaign in U.S. history – was central to that promise.

“For too long, Washington ignored how mass illegal immigration artificially suppressed wages, hurting working-class Americans – especially young men,” wrote Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on X in July 2025. “But under President Trump, we now have a secure border, a blue-collar wage boom, and major investments from trade deals.”

The labor market tells a different story. In the first year of Trump’s second term, unemployment rose, hiring slowed and wage growth stagnated. The construction sector was hit particularly hard.

We’re scholars of labor markets, immigration and public environmental policy who have examined how these economic trends can be traced to the mass deportation campaign of Trump’s second term. Notably, while areas with heavier ICE enforcement saw a drop in employment among immigrants, there was no increase in either employment or wages among U.S. citizens.

Trump Official Tells Millions Kicked Off Food Aid That They’re ‘Moving Into the American Dream’

This is how Republicans dealt with the Great Depression

Jake Johnson for Common Dreams

The head of the US Agriculture Department celebrated that millions of people have lost federal nutrition assistance under the second Trump administration, declaring that families who have seen their modest aid disappear are closer to realizing “the American dream.”

Speaking at an event in Arizona, USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins—who has an estimated net worth of around $15 million—said that the Trump administration has “moved about 4 million off of SNAP,” referring to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. Rollins suggested, without evidence, that some of those who have lost SNAP benefits were receiving them fraudulently.

But others, claimed Rollins, are “moving into the American dream and off of welfare.”

Katie Bergh, a senior policy analyst at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP), wrote in response that “unless the Trump administration has redefined ‘the American dream’ to mean ‘losing the help your family needs to afford groceries because of federal cuts,’ I have some bad news for Secretary Rollins.”

Watch Rollins’ remarks: https://twitter.com/i/status/2060055304423756173

Trump administration officials, including Donald Trump himself, have repeatedly used euphemistic language to describe the large-scale loss of food aid following passage of the Republican budget reconciliation package last summer. That measure contains $186 billion in SNAP cuts over the next decade—the largest in the program’s history.

During his State of the Union address in February, Trump boasted that his administration has “lifted” millions of Americans off SNAP, falsely suggesting that the mass loss of benefits was attributable to stronger economic conditions rather than deliberate policy changes designed to boot people from the program.

It’s not just high gas prices – inflation is now spreading through the US economy

Trump's war-driven energy cost hikes affect the whole economy

D. Brian Blank, Mississippi State University and Brandy Hadley, Appalachian State University

Americans don’t need a press release to know that inflation is rising. Gasoline is above $4 per gallon amid the ongoing conflict in the Middle East and closure of the Strait of Hormuz, and the release of key price data on May 28, 2026, underscores why policymakers are worried these pressures could spread into the broader economy.

The report offered a mixed but still uncomfortable picture. The month-to-month rise was softer than expected, but the change year over year still points to concern: a 3.8% jump from a year earlier, the fastest pace since 2021, and a less volatile index that excludes food and energy up 3.3%.

This increase suggests inflation isn’t limited to gasoline. Housing, utilities and recreational spending are also keeping underlying inflation elevated, even as other data shows a slowing economy and weaker income growth.

As finance and applied investments professors who study how businesses make decisions amid uncertainty, we have been watching this tension build. In our 2026 economic outlook, we warned that recession fears could persist alongside rising prices. Fresh inflation data now suggests the challenge may be deeper and longer lasting than many expected.

Are all prices rising?

The fresh inflation data comes from the Personal Consumption Expenditures Price Index, or headline PCE, which is maintained and released by the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis. Headline PCE had already been getting hotter, rising to 3.5% year on year in March 2026, up from 2.8% in February. But an even more important metric for the Federal Reserve is core PCE, which excludes the more volatile categories of food and energy. Core PCE matters because it gives policymakers a clearer read on underlying inflation pressures and is generally considered a better predictor of where inflation is headed, the Fed’s chief concern. That has been rising this year as well.

The key question isn’t simply whether gas prices are rising, but whether those higher energy costs are spreading into the rest of the economy.

Trump Aide Claims Americans ‘Spending More Money on Everything’ Shows They’re ‘Optimistic’ About Economy

Multiple consumer surveys have shown that Americans have never been more pessimistic

Brad Reed for Common Dreams

For the second time in a month, National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett on Tuesday claimed that Americans spending more money on gasoline and other goods is a sign of strength for the US economy—rather than evidence of the Trump administration’s inflationary policy decisions.

During an interview with Fox Business, Hassett tried to counter recent data showing US consumer sentiment hitting all-time lows during Donald Trump’s second term.

“The thing that I’ve seen when I look at credit card data,” Hassett said, “is that while people have been spending more money at gas stations, they’ve been spending more money on everything else, which means that they’re still very, very optimistic about the state of the economy, and they should be.”

In fact, multiple consumer surveys have shown that Americans have never been more pessimistic about the state of the economy.

Last week, the University of Michigan’s latest Surveys of Consumers showed consumer sentiment hitting the lowest level ever, driven primarily by concerns about the cost of living.

Gallup last week published new data showing that Americans’ economic confidence has fallen to its lowest level since October 2022, with just 16% of Americans rating the economy as excellent or good, and nearly half describing it as poor.

Richmond Takes Action on Climate Resilience

Climate change-driven storms threaten more than the coast

By Jonmaesha Beltran / ecoRI News staff

As climate-fueled disasters rise, municipalities are no longer asking if a catastrophe will strike but whether their communities will be prepared when it does. 

In Richmond, where a little more than 8,000 people live, Town Councilor Daniel Madnick is working to close gaps that recent wildfires and brushfires across the state revealed in the town’s environmental planning. 

Bottom of Form

Madnick proposed creating an environmental resiliency commission to prepare the town for threats, including drought, flooding, hurricanes and wildfires, while monitoring its hazard mitigation plan.

“We don’t have a board or commission that their sole focus is to make sure that we are prepared for any environmental issues that come,” he said during a May 19 town council meeting. 

The proposal is modeled after the Charlestown Climate Resilience Commission, which was established in 2021 and worked with state Rep. Megan Cotter, D-Exeter, Hopkinton, and Richmond, on forest management and fire prevention.

Cotter, who serves on the Northeastern Forest Fire Prevention Commission, urged the commission to reach out to Charlestown landowners with five acres or more to connect them with resources and federal funding available for private land management.