The financial news that actually matters
A growing number of American workers are tapping their 401(k) retirement accounts for emergency cash, even as average balances have slipped to roughly $141,000. The trend puts a sharp tension on display: employees facing immediate financial pressure are drawing down savings that federal rules were specifically designed to protect for decades. The regulatory framework governing…
Adrian Lawrence, a Jamaican national who operated under the alias “Mastermind,” was sentenced to 66 months in federal prison for running a sweepstakes fraud scheme that stole millions from elderly victims across the United States. U.S. District Judge Joan M. Azrack imposed the sentence in Central Islip and ordered Lawrence to pay $5.4 million in…
Roughly 70 million Americans who depend on Social Security checks each month now face a fixed deadline: the combined Old-Age and Survivors Insurance and Disability Insurance trust funds are projected to run dry in 2034. After that point, incoming payroll taxes would cover only about 78 percent of scheduled benefits, according to the 2026 Trustees…
Employees of NextEra Energy stand to receive their share of an $8 million 401(k) settlement without filing a single claim form. The payout will rely on records already held by the company’s Employee Retirement Savings Plan, bypassing the traditional claims process that often leaves money uncollected. The approach represents a direct test of whether automatic…
Retirees collecting Social Security face a tax hit that grows larger each year, not because Congress passed a new law, but because it never updated an old one. A single filer whose provisional income crosses $34,000 can have up to 85% of benefits included in gross income, a formula written into the tax code in…
Homeowners aged 62 and older can now tap up to $1,249,125 in home equity through a federally insured reverse mortgage, the highest cap ever set for the program. The Department of Housing and Urban Development raised the 2026 Home Equity Conversion Mortgage limit after the Federal Housing Finance Agency pegged the national conforming loan baseline…
Federal prosecutors in Washington state filed a civil action to seize $7.1 million in cryptocurrency tied to an alleged $97 million oil-and-gas investment fraud that targeted victims over a two-year span. The filing, brought by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Washington, follows the indictment of a Seattle-area resident on money-laundering charges…
Millions of Medicare Part D enrollees who rely on high-cost drugs for cancer and chronic conditions are set to pay less starting January 1, 2027, when negotiated prices for 15 widely used medications take effect. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services projects that beneficiaries will save an estimated $685 million once the new Maximum…
Bradley Heppner, founder of the investment firm Beneficient, fabricated a $141 million debt that the company supposedly owed to a shell entity he secretly controlled, then used that fictional obligation to divert funds from publicly traded GWG Holdings, federal prosecutors say. A jury convicted Heppner of fraud in the case filed as US v. Heppner,…
Only about two-thirds of long-tenured workers displaced between 2021 and 2023 had found new employment by January 2024, and older workers accounted for a disproportionate share of those who left the labor force entirely rather than landing a new role. As companies accelerate the adoption of AI-driven tools, the workers closest to retirement face the…