Word: gas
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...unions say that since the start of the year, food prices have risen 7.9%, electricity 20%, gas 50% and coal for heating 59%. The consumer price inflation rose 5.46% year-on-year in September. They say the government is still offering businesses "expensive gifts" like tax relief to foreign investors, but it has done nothing to relieve creeping living prices. Union demands include for higher minimum wages, a VAT cut on energy bills, and lower income taxes...
...main indices measure consumer confidence in the U.S., where consumer spending accounts for about two-thirds of the economy. One is a monthly report by the Conference Board, a nonprofit supported by business executives. The University of Michigan publishes a similar monthly survey. During the summer, despite high gas prices and swings in the real estate market, consumer confidence edged upward to hover at a fairly strong level, considering the mounting bad economic signs. The Conference Board put its consumer confidence rating at 59.8 for September, a slight improvement from 58.5 in August. Compare that with the index's nearly...
...signs of hope on the horizon for solutions to alleviate the effects of the market crash. In September, employment continued to fall in construction, manufacturing and retail trade, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which put the nation's unemployment rate at 6.1%. Shutoffs of electricity and gas are rising as families struggle to pay bills with the onset of winter weather across much of the country. And tent cities are beginning to pop up in places like Reno, Nev., and Seattle for the first time in decades...
...says, he hasn't been able to find a classroom job in over four years, working as a roofer instead. Simmons' stipend, meanwhile, "isn't enough to live on," she says. Paying for day-care and diapers on top of a commute that was already growing more expensive as gas prices rose, she adds, "puts a big strain on the budget." The food bank's offerings include applesauce, one of her 21-month-old's favorites...
...still not functioning, portable toilets have been lined up outside. Dozens of moldy, battered refrigerators ripped out of the low-rise seaside condos are corralled on street corners. Stacks of new drywall stand outside. Just two blocks from the beach, a tall wire fence has been erected around the gas pumps and doorway of Luke's Supermarket and Deli, a 50-year island institution where West Enders could sit out front and munch on barbecue and boudin...