The financial news that actually matters
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation is proposing a faster track for small bank mergers: under a proposed rule published in the Federal Register on September 22, 2026, a “de minimis” merger transaction would be deemed approved five business days after a substantially complete filing is received, or after the Attorney General’s competitive review is complete,…
The Bureau of Economic Analysis reported on September 30, 2026 that disposable personal income, which is personal income less taxes, rose $68.6 billion in August, a gain of 0.3 percent. Personal consumption expenditures, the measure of what households spent, rose $190.8 billion over the same month, up 0.9 percent. For households living on fixed or…
An executive order signed September 29, 2026 directs federal agencies to bring online services that serve more than 100,000 users in a 12-month period into America.gov, a single entry point that uses Login.gov to sign people in. IRS tax filing is excluded from the order, along with national-security-sensitive services of the Department of War and…
Shares given to a child’s Trump Account come with a sale restriction attached. Under temporary Treasury regulations in effect since September 30, qualified stock placed in an account may not be sold before the earlier of two dates: five years after the contribution, or the end of the child’s growth period, which closes on December…
Temporary Treasury regulations published on September 30 let a state, a tribal government or a 501(c)(3) charity put the same amount into every Trump Account in a defined group of at least 5,000 children. The rules, issued as Treasury Decision 10056, took effect the day they appeared and remain in force through September 30, 2029….
Medicare will require prior authorization for an ultralightweight manual wheelchair and for three types of back brace starting October 28, 2026, along with four other items on a list of eight added by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. The supplier has to ask for approval before the item is delivered, and a claim…
A watchdog referral program has trimmed $78 million from what Medicare and its enrollees pay for Part B drugs since 2013, according to a September 2026 data brief from the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General. Patients generally owe 20 percent of the Medicare-approved amount on those drugs after the Part…
The federal government stopped issuing paper checks for most payments on September 30, 2025, and a year later the one stated way around that rule is a request made to Treasury by phone or on a printed form. No federal page read on October 2, 2026 says who qualifies for that exception, which leaves a…
The Social Security Administration’s revised medical criteria for heart and blood-vessel disorders take effect October 30, 2026, replacing the cardiovascular listings that SSA staff use to decide whether a disability claim is allowed on medical grounds. Until that date the current listings stay in force. From October 30, the new text governs both fresh applications…
A Social Security rule called the hold harmless provision keeps a Medicare Part B premium increase from shrinking a benefit payment, but the Social Security Administration’s own explainer lists who falls outside it: people enrolling in Part B for the first time, people who pay an income-related monthly adjustment amount, dual eligibles whose premium Medicaid…