The financial news that actually matters
Social Security’s maximum retirement benefit for a worker who starts at full retirement age in 2026 is $4,152 a month, according to the Social Security Administration. The figure belongs to a hypothetical worker who earned the taxable maximum in every year beginning at age 22. The agency’s published examples also show how far the amount…
The Bureau of Labor Statistics will publish the September Consumer Price Index at 8:30 a.m. Eastern on Wednesday, October 14, 2026. That report supplies the last monthly reading that goes into the cost-of-living adjustment for Social Security benefits, so the release date is the date the final input becomes public. As of this writing, the…
Federal employees who retire under the Federal Employees Retirement System and are younger than 62 on December 1 receive no annual cost-of-living adjustment on their annuity, according to the Office of Personnel Management. The agency’s CSRS and FERS handbook states the bar in absolute terms and then lists four groups that are excepted from it….
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services says 43 states and the District of Columbia must put a Medicaid work and community engagement requirement in place no later than January 1, 2027. Adults aged 19 to 64 in the expansion group will have to show 80 hours a month of qualifying activity, or an exemption….
The Social Security Administration will not begin taking payment-status calls about the new $90 Medicare rebate until October 15, 2026, according to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. Direct deposits are expected on or around October 8, so enrollees who see no payment in the first week have no phone line at Social Security…
Kansas will have twelve stand-alone Medicare prescription drug plans for 2027 and Colorado eight, according to CMS’s state fact sheets. Twelve is the highest count among the eleven states whose figures could be read, and eight is the lowest, tied there with Hawaii and Idaho. These are Part D plans sold on their own, a…
As of September 28, 2026, the Department of Veterans Affairs reported 74,448 claims in its disability backlog, meaning claims pending more than 125 days. VA’s own detailed claims data puts total pending disability compensation and pension claims at 670,845 on that date. A backlog figure is only meaningful with its date, and VA refreshes the…
The paperwork behind Ticket to Work, the Social Security Administration’s (SSA) return-to-work program for people on disability benefits, is up for a proposed revision. SSA’s estimate is that 65,095 respondents a year deal with it: ticketholders who are working or trying to, the employment networks that serve them, and the state vocational rehabilitation agencies. The…
VA finalized an estimated 5,900 benefit cuts on the ground that its own earlier decision contained a clear and unmistakable error, according to an August 31, 2026 report from the VA Office of Inspector General. Within the inspector general’s examination of adverse actions on service-connected disability compensation, those 5,900 rating decisions form the largest single…
Two bills that would end the cap on cost-of-living adjustments for Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS) annuities, H.R. 491 in the House and S. 624 in the Senate, have been in committee since they were introduced in early 2025. Both carry the short title Equal COLA Act and would put FERS adjustments on the same…