Alan bjerga of Bloomberg News. It is a 21 billion a year program. How many people does that reach and what is the amount of assistance at each one of the individual recipients in the program gets . It has gone from the 20 million level and its been 70 billion now. It affects 40 one million americans. That is about one out of every eight. During the recession at one point it was one out of seven. You have seen the number go down. The amount of money people get can very much vary. Some people get very small checks. It is based on what your income level is and what youre need may be at the time. Host what are you allowed to spend benefits on and what cant you spend it on . Spend it onannot cigarettes or alcohol or nonnutritious foods. You cannot spend it on hot meals. This is a subsidy for Grocery Store purchases. There are no other real restrictions on what you can get. That is different from some other different programs. Other than those things, you can buy what you want. Host you ment
Details on senator ted cruz and his decision to run for president in 2016. And hans nichols is in berlin as the greek Prime Minister meets with the german chancellor. First lets hit you to the top stories we are following at this hour. Shares of previously owned homes came up short for the second month in a row. They were again below and annual sales rate of 5 million homes will stop the Real Estate Industry is struggling because of higher prices and a lack of inventory. We heard from the Federal Reserve ice chairman, stanley fischer, speaking in new york. He said raising Interest Rates from near zero will likely be warranted before the end of the year and subsequent increases probably wont be uniform or predictable. The Interest Rate is expected to lift off before the end of this year as the normalization of Monetary Policy gets underway. The extra gary Monetary Policy accommodation the fed has undertaken in response to the crisis has contributed importantly to the economic recovery.
Drought in the state of california. Manus cranny is in paris with highlights of his excuses interview with greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis. First, lets get right to the top stories we are following this thursday. A number of americans filing for on a plummet benefits is that a 15year low. Claims averaged 282,000 a week over the past month, the fewest since june 2000. That raises a key question. Was the worst than expected jobs report last week an anomaly . According to the labor department, the u. S. Economy created 126,000 jobs in march. Data out this week showed job openings at a 14year high. Consumer confidence has climbed to the highest level in almost eight years according to the Bloomberg Consumer comfort index. Americans view the economy in a more favorable light and said it was a better time to spend. That pickup in confidence could signal a rebound in demand. Mortgage rates have fallen to their lowest levels in two months. Last fridays weaker than expected jobs report
This government is not seeking some extra european solution to what is a european problem. Cory grace, meanwhile has named the 495 million loan payment to the imf which was once in question. They have also increased the emergency funding available to greek banks. The news from greece helped to propel banks today. The stock 600 index of 1. 1 to an alltime high. Investors hoping the Quantitative Easing Program will boost the european economy. Meanwhile, a new report out of germany showed production recovered in january. Intels potential purchase of its fellow chipmaker altera is off. Talks have ended. People familiar say altera rejected the offer of 54 a share and will be looking for new growth as it faces a slowdown in the pc market. Hbo passed new standalone web channel has gone live today on dish tvs sling tv service. Game of thrones premiere is expected to provide another heavy day of outages. Here is the sling tv ceo on dealing with all that demand. The fundamental way the internet
Next year or so, there are going to be ramifications for that. They relate to implementation of the law. They tie everybodys hands because we cant get agreement on moving forward. We need to move forward and fix the things that need to be fixed. The problems in the launch at the federal level scared away a lot of early adopters, particularly in the business community. Thats not a good thing. The federal government has done a great job recovering and theyre moving forward really well. But we have to acknowledge that there was some damage done in the context of the marketing and outreach. And that marketing and outreach piece has to be addressed. And we have to redouble efforts in that area. It is real private sector kind of Customer Service that we need to provide. Because were providing services to a range of people. Youve got the medicaid population. Youve got middle income and upper income individuals getting tax credits or buying as 100 of the cost. And then you have Small Businesse