This month’s highlights include updated preschool and college enrollment data, and updated Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) and Medicare enrollment figures.

Big businesses use forced arbitration to funnel consumers into a secretive process where an arbitrator, often selected by the company, decides the outcome. Over 99 percent of payday loans and 85 percent of private student loans include forced arbitration clauses. Most consumers have no idea these clauses are included in the fine print.

Earlier this month, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) released its final rule on small-dollar and payday loans establishing much needed borrower safeguards and protections to help families break out of the payday debt cycle. For far too long, the payday loan lenders—who have more branches nationwide than Starbucks—operated with little oversight, depleting consumers’ bank accounts along the way. New consumer protections take commonsense steps to prevent predatory lenders from targeting vulnerable working Americans.