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| Subscribe to The Daily Money newsletter, our roundup of each day's top stories from USA TODAY Money. |
| Good morning and happy Friday, Daily Money readers. Jayme Deerwester with you once again, writing from what I'm pretty sure must be Arendelle because everything is frozen. |
🗞 News you should know 🗞 |
| Amazon is raising the price of its Prime membership for the first time since 2018. An annual membership will go up $20 from $119 to $139 and the monthly fee will go up $2 from $12.99 to $14.99, the company said Thursday, pointing to the "the continued expansion of Prime member benefits as well as the rise in wages and transportation costs." |
| For new members, the price change will go into effect Feb. 18. For current Prime members, the new price will apply after March 25 on the date of their next renewal. |
| Looking for an Amazon Prime membership discount? Here's how to save up to 50%. |
💡 Daily insight 💡 |
| A day after Facebook reported that its streak of user growth has come to an end, its parent company's stock plunged more than 26% in a staggering loss that obliterated more than $230 billion in market value and triggered Wall Street's worst drop in close to a year. (Meanwhile, Snap has reported its first profitable quarter.) |
| It wasn't just Facebook colliding with a brick wall in user growth. Like a horror movie killing off victims one by one, the hits kept coming when Meta reported earnings Wednesday: |
| • | Facebook said Apple changes that made it harder for apps to track iPhone users would cost about $10 billion in advertising revenue this year. | | • | CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Facebook was struggling to compete with short-video app TikTok. | | • | The company's expenses were skyrocketing as it poured $10 billion in augmented and virtual reality hardware to build its "metaverse." | |
| But perhaps most unsettling to some was the revelation that Facebook, for years a hot-rod stock, had experienced its first-ever decline in daily active users. |
| Many of the top Meta shareholders who took losses, too, on Thursday will be familiar as many Americans have investments including 401(k) plans with them. The Vanguard Group, BlackRock and Capital Research and Management Co. and public employee retirement funds in California and New York lost billions. |
🚨 Other stories you shouldn't miss 🚨 |
| Economy added booming 467,000 jobs in January. Gains came despite omicron surge and unemployment rising to 4%. |
| Hiring surge calms markets after Facebook implosion. Dow, stock markets stabilize Friday after strong jobs report. |
| Winter storm disrupts 5,000+ Thursday US flights. Thursday's disruptions follow more than 2,300 U.S. flight cancellations on Wednesday. |
| Where's the tuna melt? Worker shortages mean smaller menus, limited choices and fewer shows. |
| Netflix lets users clean up their 'Continue Watching' row. This is how you do it. |
💵 Smells like tax season 💵 |
| Taxes are a part of life – whether you're deep in the throes of your career or you've left the workforce behind. But while workers often know to anticipate taxes, retirees can often be caught off guard by them. With that in mind, here are a few tax surprises every senior should have a heads-up on: |
| • | Pension income is taxable. | | • | Retirement plan withdrawals are taxable – even if you don't want to take them | | • | Social Security benefits can be taxable. | |
🎶 Mood music 🎶 |
| Today's lyrical choice from Van Morrison echoes the misgivings of anyone who's thinking about quitting Facebook: "Why are you on Facebook? Why do you need those second-hand friends? Why do you care who's trending? Or is it something that you're defending?" |
| Remember, you can find this song and every other track I've ever quoted in Mood Music on our Spotify playlist. |
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