The financial news that actually matters
Families who finalize an adoption in 2025 can claim up to $17,280 per eligible child from the IRS, and for the first time, up to $5,000 of that credit will be paid out as a cash refund even if the household owes zero federal income tax. The change took effect after Public Law 119-21, signed…
New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli’s office has been sitting on roughly $10 billion in unclaimed funds, and a program launched in January 2025 now sends checks directly to verified owners of small accounts without requiring them to file a claim. Through April 2026, the Expedited Payment Program had issued more than 210,000 checks totaling…
American diners are pulling back from restaurants, choosing cheaper menu items or skipping meals out entirely, and the financial strain is starting to show across the industry. McDonald’s reported that lower-income customers cut visits during its July through September 2025 quarter, even as the chain leaned on value promotions to lift sales. Rubio’s Coastal Grill…
Workers in Alaska, Cook County, Oregon, Los Angeles, and more than a dozen other jurisdictions will see larger paychecks starting today as minimum wage increases take effect across the country on July 1, 2026. Alaska’s hourly floor jumps from $13 to $14, Chicago-area employers face a new $15.40 baseline in Cook County, and Los Angeles…
More than 330,000 American importers are collectively owed about $166 billion in tariff refunds after the duties they paid were struck down, yet only a fraction of that money has actually reached their accounts. The federal government has disbursed roughly $20 billion to $22 billion so far, leaving tens of billions of dollars in limbo…
A taxpayer who sells stock at a $5,000 loss and buys the same shares back within 30 days will see that entire deduction wiped out on their federal return. The wash-sale rule, codified in Section 1091 of the Internal Revenue Code, operates on a strict 61-day window and leaves no room for timing errors. With…
Scammers posing as government officials, bank representatives, and tech-support agents drained $3.5 billion from Americans in 2025, a nearly 20 percent jump from the prior year. More than one million people filed imposter-scam complaints with the Federal Trade Commission, making this category nearly one in three of all fraud reports the agency received. Older adults…
Hotels, restaurants, and entertainment venues across the United States cut 61,000 jobs in June, wiping out the seasonal hiring surge that typically defines the start of summer. The loss was large enough to drag total nonfarm payroll growth down to just 57,000 for the month, one of the weakest readings of the year. For workers…
Borrowers with low credit scores are falling behind on car payments at a pace not seen in more than three decades, and vehicle repossessions have climbed past 1.73 million. The headline numbers paint a picture of widening stress at the bottom of the auto lending market, but Federal Reserve researchers point to a less obvious…
Anyone who converts money from a traditional IRA to a Roth IRA before the end of 2025 will trigger a separate five-year waiting period on that specific batch of dollars. Convert again in 2026, and a second clock starts. Each conversion carries its own countdown before the converted amount can be withdrawn free of the…