the cost of the cookout is up 17%. the biggest increase, ground beef, up 36%. they are worried that inflation could lead to a recession, having a huge impact on wall street, of course. they are logging their worst start in more than half a century. join now by nbc news business jo ling kent an nbc editor jeff cox. let s talk first about inflation. what kind of predictions here? we are six months into this year. i can t even believe that, by the way. right. what are the predictors for inflation going ahead? where are we going from here? is hard to say exactly, but this is what we do know. there is that going rate of inflation which will continue to persist at high levels this year with the fed expecting to raise interest rates yet again later this year. then there are concerns of course that that could trigger a recession. we are making changes based on
it s not their fault. wall street and the fed are blameless. the problem is you, the problem is that you selfishly want to have children and children are bad for gdp. all the big corporations now agree on that. they re all now against human reproduction. watch jo ling kent explain more. but the other important financial question is if the birthing program is able to travel and if they work for the right company and are seeking an abortion, more individuals will need to rely on their employer for that financial support to carry that out. for example, dick s sporting goods is now telling us they re promising $4,000 for any employees or family member on their insurance plan to access an aborgs. there s a long list of companies doing the same thing. you have levi s and starbucks and j.p. morgan. these benefits are provided because these companies are willing to do it not just
after a big-ticket item that you really need, say a house, should you be approaching this in a certain way? yeah. honestly, we won t see a dramatic drop in prices after inflation stabilizes maybe it s time to say instead of buying this year, maybe i can rent somewhere affordable and wait until i have more savings to buy those big-ticket items. reporter: big-ticket items whose costs seem to just keep going up. jo ling kent, nbc news. of course, it s not just soaring home prices and mortgage rates. so many factors are combining into an economic picture painful for many americans. high gas prices are contributing to the 8.6% inflation rate that shoppers are all too familiar with. markets are down substantially. the dow has dropped more than 16% since the start of the year though closing up today as we noted earlier. meantime, household debt is rising, setting a new record this year by nearly
interest rates, as you heard, will likely send mortgage rates higher in coming weeks pushing some people to buy now for fear of paying more later. jo ling kent reports in our series priced out. i m so glad that we found these. reporter: sky callahan was in a rush so financially overall it s been a little bit of a struggle we had to either buy before the rates went up or completely wait. reporter: with a growing family, she needed a bigger house. calculating what the new jersey family could afford depended on interest rates which have surged. a 30-year fixed rate mortgage climbing from 3.3% at the start of this year to 6.22% now. home prices have been soaring, too median sale prices have skyrocketed 16% in the past year the combination can mean as much as $1,000 increase in monthly payments for families like the callahans, a trend pushing some to act in a hurry
of amber heard s testimony, rejecting abuse allegations outright it is all the more striking because of the way the law is set up here. that s right. if the jury believed amber heard was the victim of abuse once and not necessarily physical abuse, but any kind of abuse, even once, they could have found her not credible on certain issues, could have found some evidence not compelling one instance of abuse and she should have gotten a defense verdict. that means by implication they rejected all her testimony, all her evidence, and johnny depp s road was even harder because of the supreme court case law on public figures like these two plaintiffs and counter plaintiff. they have to show much more, they have to show actual malice, knowledge of the statement is false or reckless disregard of its falsity. the bar is high and the jury said he crossed it. danny, thank you very much the desperate search for baby formula. president biden today announcing new overseas shipments are on the w