The financial news that actually matters
Americans age 50 and older will be able to stash an extra $8,000 in their 401(k) plans in 2026, a jump in the catch-up contribution ceiling that the IRS confirmed through its annual cost-of-living adjustment notice. Combined with a new standard elective deferral limit of $24,500, the change means an eligible worker could shelter up…
At Home, the home decor superstore chain, is shutting down 32 locations across the country as its Chapter 11 bankruptcy case accelerates. The closures are split into two waves: an initial round of 26 stores followed by six more, with liquidation firm Hilco Consumer-Retail managing the wind-down sales at each site. The staggered approach raises…
Roughly 15,000 workers at Verizon and a comparable number at Microsoft have lost their jobs in 2026, as two of America’s largest employers shed management and engineering roles in rapid succession. Verizon cut more than 13,000 non-union positions, while Microsoft eliminated thousands across multiple rounds. The scale and timing of these reductions raise a pointed…
Fidelity Investments customers affected by a data breach that occurred over the summer of 2024 face a July 27 deadline to file claims, with payouts of up to $100 requiring no documentation and up to $5,000 available for those who can show proof of harm. The breach, which state regulators logged as spanning August 17…
Retirement savers in the United States ended 2024 with account balances at all-time highs, driven by strong equity markets, even as a growing share of participants tapped their 401(k) plans early through hardship withdrawals. The tension between rising balances and rising leakage sits at the center of a policy experiment that began with the Bipartisan…
Americans who turned 73 this year face a hard deadline: withdraw the required minimum distribution from their retirement accounts by December 31 or owe the IRS an excise tax equal to 25% of the shortfall. That penalty, set by the SECURE 2.0 Act of 2022, replaced the older 50% rate but still represents a steep…
Amazon has eliminated roughly 16,000 corporate positions so far this year across two rounds of cuts, according to the Associated Press, which attributed the figure to a blog post by Beth Galetti, the company’s senior vice president of people experience and technology. The reductions follow an October 2025 announcement that about 14,000 corporate roles would…
Consumers who lost money to scams on Zelle, the popular instant-payment network, became the center of a federal enforcement fight after the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau filed suit against the platform’s operator and three of the nation’s largest banks. The CFPB named Early Warning Services, LLC, the company behind Zelle, alongside Bank of America, JPMorgan…
Roughly 150 million individual tax returns will land at the IRS for the 2026 filing season, and the vast majority of those filers will skip Schedule A entirely. The agency confirmed that the standard deduction for married couples filing jointly will rise to $32,200 for tax year 2026, up from $31,500 in 2025. Single filers…
Lower-income American households are burning through their remaining savings buffers at a pace that Goldman Sachs analysts say will drag real consumer spending growth down to 1.3 percent, well below the trajectory federal forecasters have projected. That figure, if it holds, would represent a sharp deceleration from the post-pandemic spending surge and put direct pressure…