The bottom line

The net worth of Congress

In 2010, members of Congress had a collective net worth of at least $2 billion, a 25 percent hike over 2008, and that does not even include home values. The 50 richest lawmakers account for 80 percent of the wealth, and the median net worth is about $513,000.

Roll Call

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Companies resume 401(k) payments

The 401(k) match is making a comeback. A survey of 260 companies that stopped matching 401(k) contributions during the economic downturn found that three quarters have since resumed payments. But 23 percent of them are matching contributions at a lower rate.

Associated Press

Losing money to ‘typosquatter’ websites

The 250 most-trafficked websites miss an estimated $285 million each year in lost sales and other expenses to ‘typosquatter’ sites like Goggle­.com and Faecbook.com. Goggle.com alone received nearly 835,000 unique U.S. visitors in September—more than many popular blogs.

Bloomberg Businessweek

Customers flee from new bank fees

Americans opened around 650,000 credit union accounts between Sept. 29—the day Bank of America announced its now-canceled $5 debit fee—and early November, according to the Credit Union National Association. Credit unions took on about 600,000 new customers in all of last year.

Time.com

Among the G-20, U.S. stocks perform well

U.S. stocks have delivered the best performance among G-20 member countries this year, with total returns up 8.1 percent, compared with the United Kingdom (2.2 percent), Canada (0.98 percent) and China (-15.7 percent). But over the past five years, the emerging markets have boomed, with Indonesia (18.8 percent), Brazil (14.8 percent), and China (10.6 percent) leading the pack.

Financial Times