The financial news that actually matters
Homeowners who took out a reverse mortgage expecting to stay in their home indefinitely can lose that home to foreclosure if they fall behind on property taxes or hazard insurance. Federal regulations, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and the Federal Trade Commission all classify these ongoing costs as the borrower’s responsibility, even after a Home…
Social Security beneficiaries got a fresh signal about the size of their next annual raise. The Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers, the specific inflation measure that determines the cost-of-living adjustment for benefits, climbed 4.4% over the 12 months ending in May 2026. That year-over-year pace, paired with a 0.7% one-month…
American shoppers paid more for beef in May than at any point on record, with the average price of uncooked steaks climbing about 16 percent compared with the same month a year earlier. The Bureau of Labor Statistics confirmed the new high in its May 2026 Consumer Price Index release, and ground beef prices rose…
Families with estates between $14 million and $15 million will no longer owe federal estate tax after the basic exclusion amount jumped to $15,000,000 per person for deaths occurring in 2026. The increase, up from $13,990,000 in 2025, traces directly to the One, Big, Beautiful Bill, signed into law on July 4, 2025 as Public…
Federal and state regulators across the country are telling consumers the same thing: no legitimate bank, utility, or government office will ever direct someone to deposit cash into a cryptocurrency ATM. The warning comes as the FTC reports that people aged 60 and older are more than three times as likely to lose money through…
Families with three or more qualifying children stand to receive up to $8,231 through the Earned Income Tax Credit for tax year 2026, a $185 increase over the prior year’s cap of $8,046. The IRS published the updated figure as part of its annual inflation adjustments, setting the stage for millions of lower-income households to…
More than seven million federal student loan borrowers who were placed into administrative forbearance nearly a year ago now face a hard deadline to pick a new repayment plan or risk being automatically enrolled in one they did not choose. The U.S. Department of Education has confirmed that servicers will begin sending notices as early…
Grocery shoppers in California will face a new set of rules on food packaging in less than three weeks. Starting July 1, 2026, any food product manufactured on or after that date that displays a quality or safety date must carry one of two standardized phrases: “BEST if Used by” or “USE by.” The mandate,…
Workers saving for retirement through a 401(k) or similar plan will be able to set aside $24,500 in 2026, a $1,000 increase over the 2025 cap. Those age 50 and older get an even bigger boost: their catch-up contribution limit rises to $8,000, up from $7,500. The IRS announced the changes in IR-2025-111, and the…
About 111,000 layoff announcements hit the U.S. labor market in June, the highest count for that month since 2004. The figure, drawn from private tracking of employer-announced job cuts, arrived just as the Bureau of Labor Statistics published its own June 2025 separations data through the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey. The gap between…