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Daily Archives: December 12, 2014

Gallup – In U.S., Standard of Living Ratings Improving in 2014

News release: “In line with a recent raft of good economic news — including robust gross domestic product growth in the third quarter and November’s strong jobs report — nearly six in 10 Americans said in November that their standard of living was getting better (58%). This is close to the highest monthly value in the question’s seven-year history (60%), and nearly double the estimates seen at the depths of the recession…Even as Gallup’s indicators of the public’s views of the national economy approach new heights, Americans’ views about their own finances and self-reported financial habits have shown, at best, only moderate improvement compared with their two-year averages. Importantly — as has consistently been the case — large majorities of Americans continue to say they are watching their spending very closely (88%) and are cutting back on spending (61%). These attitudes appear to be fundamental to the way Americans approach their spending, and thus are not subject to much change. Meanwhile, many still feel uneasy about their personal financial situation — half of U.S. adults say they would be able to make an emergency purchase, while less than half (47%) say they are feeling pretty good about the amount of money they have to spend. Less than half of Americans also report that they are feeling better about their financial situation (47%) — even as the prices of critical necessities decline.”

New GAO Report – College and Career Readiness, Health Care, Hurricane Sandy, Aviation Securrity

College-and-Career Readiness: States Have Made Progress in Implementing New Standards and Assessments, but Challenges Remain, GAO-15-104R: Published: Dec 12, 2014. Publicly Released: Dec 12, 2014. Grant Program Consolidations: Lessons Learned and Implications for Congressional Oversight, GAO-15-125: Published: Dec 12, 2014. Publicly Released: Dec 12, 2014. Grants Management: Programs at HHS and HUD Collect Administrative Cost Information but… Continue Reading

CFPB Spotlights Concerns with Medical Debt Collection and Reporting

“…the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) released a report that found medical debt has a significant impact on consumer credit, as 43 million Americans have overdue medical debt on their credit reports. The CFPB is concerned that the systems for incurring, collecting, and reporting medical debt can create difficult challenges for consumers. To better address… Continue Reading

The association between exaggeration in health related science news and academic press releases

The association between exaggeration in health related science news and academic press releases: retrospective observational study. BMJ 2014; 349 doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmj.g7015 (Published 10 December 2014) Cite this as: BMJ 2014;349:g7015 “Objective To identify the source (press releases or news) of distortions, exaggerations, or changes to the main conclusions drawn from research that could potentially influence a reader’s… Continue Reading