Jimmy Barrett and Shara Fryer take you through the stories that matter on the morning of 05/30/2019, including: Americans are feeling mostly good about their finances, according to data recently published by analytics firm Gallup. At the start of 2019, in fact, their optimism “reached levels not seen in more than 16 years,” Gallup found. Nearly 70% expected to be financially better off in a year. It’s worth noting that of the respondents who feel good about their finances, a majority tend to have higher household incomes, own stocks and be college-educated, and as a result, are “more likely than their counterparts to rate their own financial situation positively,” Gallup says.
However, not everyone is as optimistic. Nearly 30% of respondents rate their financial situation as “only fair” and 15% say it’s “poor.” Meanwhile, 25% worry “all” or “most” of the time that their household income won’t be enough to cover their expenses. Their biggest concerns: Saving enough for retirement and unplanned medical costs, with 54% and 51%, respectively, saying they’re “very” or “moderately” worried about each prospect. American soil: Those are two words that are commonly used to stir up patriotic feelings. They are also words that can't be taken for granted, because today nearly 30 million acres of U.S. farmland are held by foreign investors. That number has doubled in the past two decades, which is raising alarm bells in farming communities. When the stock market tanked during the past recession, foreign investors began buying up big swaths of U.S. farmland. And because there are no federal restrictions on the amount of land that can be foreign owned, it's been left up to individual states to decide on any limitations. The grounding of the 737 Max after two air disasters and the potential loss of TSA staff to the Mexico border means cancelled flights and long lines. The U.S. carriers’ trade group, Airlines for America, estimates that a record 257.4 million people will fly from June 1 through the end of August, the tenth consecutive summer increase. Those throngs—totaling on average 2.8 million people each day—will confront two unique challenges: the possible reassignment of hundreds of aviation security personnel to the Mexican border, and the continued worldwide grounding of Boeing’s 737 Max.