The financial news that actually matters
National apartment rents have started to move in the other direction after years of relentless increases, giving tenants some long-awaited leverage. The shift is modest, but it matters. After rent spikes helped drive household stress and keep inflation stubborn, a softer market is finally emerging as thousands of newly completed apartments reach lease-up at the…
Social Security’s financing debate just took a sharper turn. A new Congressional Budget Office forecast moved up the expected depletion date for the program’s main retirement trust fund. The new estimate puts the Old-Age and Survivors Insurance fund, the account that pays retirement and survivor benefits, on track to run out of reserves in 2032….
Adoptive families filing 2025 federal tax returns have access to a benefit that could put real cash back in their pockets, even if they owe little or no income tax. For the first time in years, part of the federal Adoption Credit is refundable, allowing eligible filers to receive up to $5,000 per child as…
A handful of popular tax deductions created by the 2025 tax law are set to expire after 2028. The breaks cover seniors, tipped workers, and employees who earn overtime. Millions of Americans who may have come to rely on them could face a bigger tax bill when they disappear. Below is a quick look at…
Delaying Social Security is one of the few retirement decisions that can permanently raise guaranteed monthly income. For workers with strong earnings histories, the difference between claiming at 62 and waiting until 70 is not small. It can amount to well over $2,000 a month, every month, for life. That is where a six-figure lifetime…
Nearly 3 million people enrolled in Medicare Advantage plans were forced to find new coverage for 2026. That was after insurers pulled plans from markets around the country. This created one of the biggest disruptions the program has seen in years. The Medicare Advantage plan switch affected about 1 in 10 beneficiaries in non-employer HMO…
Social Security’s financing problem is no longer an abstract warning buried in an annual report. The latest projections now point to a much tighter timetable, with the program’s main retirement trust fund potentially reaching exhaustion early in the next decade if Congress does nothing. That does not mean Social Security disappears. It does mean the…
Tax refunds are up this filing season, but not by as much as Republicans promised after passing the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. IRS data through the week ending March 13 shows the average refund at $3,623, up from $3,271 at the same point last year. That $352 increase is real money for households that…
Mortgage rates moved lower again in mid-February, opening a refinance window that had been mostly shut for much of the past two years. For homeowners who financed at 6.5% to 7.5% during the recent rate spike, even a modest drop has started to change the math in a meaningful way. That shift matters because refinancing…
Retired workers collecting Social Security in 2026 receive an average monthly benefit of $2,076.41. On paper, that can still sound like a meaningful monthly cushion. In practice, a social security check rarely stretches as far as people assume once the most basic bills start hitting. For millions of older Americans, the problem is not one…