The financial news that actually matters
Many older workers reach retirement with a substantial block of their former employer’s stock sitting inside a 401(k), built up over the years through payroll purchases and company matches. The automatic move, and the one most plan administrators nudge people toward, is to roll the entire account into an individual retirement account and be done…
Millions of workers change jobs and leave a 401(k) behind at a former employer, often without a second thought. The balance is still theirs, but it keeps paying fees the entire time it sits there, and those charges rarely announce themselves. Over years, administrative costs and pricey investment options can shave a meaningful slice off…
Most retirement savers grow up hearing a single hard rule: touch a 401(k) before age 59½ and the government adds a stiff penalty on top of the ordinary tax owed. That is broadly true, but it comes with an exception that many people who leave work in their mid-fifties never hear about. The tax code…
Nearly everyone enrolled in Medicare pays a monthly premium for Part B, the portion that covers doctor visits, lab work, and outpatient care, and for most beneficiaries that charge is pulled straight out of the Social Security check every month. For older Americans living on a fixed income, it is one of the most reliable…
Medicare Advantage plans are popular for good reasons, often bundling extra benefits and, unlike Original Medicare, capping a member’s out-of-pocket costs each year. What far fewer enrollees understand is that leaving one to return to Original Medicare is not always a simple round trip. A retiree who drops an Advantage plan can find that the…
Most people picture Medicare premiums as a flat, predictable line in the retirement budget. For higher-income beneficiaries, though, the amount owed is tied to a tax return filed years earlier, and a single unusual year can quietly push the cost up long after the money was spent. The surcharge that does this is called the…
Medicare leaves gaps, and for decades older Americans have filled them with private Medigap policies that pick up costs Original Medicare does not. What many do not realize is that the right to buy one of those policies on favorable terms is time-limited. There is a single six-month window when insurers must sell a Medigap…
One of the most common and costly misunderstandings about Medicare involves care in a nursing home. Many older Americans assume that if they need to move into a skilled nursing facility, Medicare will simply cover the stay for as long as it lasts. In reality, Original Medicare pays for skilled-nursing care for a limited stretch,…
The age at which a worker first files for Social Security sets the size of every monthly payment that follows, usually for the rest of that person’s life. For someone whose full retirement age is 67, the distance between the earliest claim at 62 and the last worthwhile claim at 70 is striking: the later…
Social Security survivor benefits are one of the most valuable and least understood pieces of the program for older Americans. A surviving spouse does not have to choose, once and forever, between a survivor benefit and a benefit earned on their own work record. In many cases the smarter path is to claim one benefit…