The financial news that actually matters
Americans who inherited an IRA in the last few years are entering a new phase of the rulebook. After several rounds of IRS transition relief, the agency is now enforcing the inherited IRA 10-year payout rules for distribution years beginning in 2025, which means beneficiaries who miss a required withdrawal can face a penalty that…
The age at which many Americans must begin taking required minimum distributions from retirement accounts is set to rise again under SECURE 2.0, moving to 75 in 2033 for savers who fall into the later birth cohorts covered by the law. The shift extends the window for tax-deferred growth and gives retirees more control over…
Social Security’s cost-of-living adjustment for 2026 is set at 2.8%, giving beneficiaries a modest increase after the unusually large raises of the past few years. For the average retired worker, that translates to about $56 more per month, according to federal estimates. The increase reaches far beyond retirees alone. The adjustment affects Social Security and…
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….
Most retirement savers picture their nest egg as locked away. Money goes into a 401(k) or IRA, sits inside familiar funds, and waits for retirement. However, the reality is less reassuring. Federal rules allow brokers and other financial firms to invest some of the cash and collateral tied to customer accounts in approved investments, and…
For millions of Generation X workers, retirement at 65 is starting to look less like a milestone and more like a luxury. Americans born roughly between 1965 and 1980 are moving toward retirement with too little saved, less access to traditional pensions than the generation ahead of them, and growing uncertainty around Social Security. For…
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 after insurers pulled plans from markets around the country, creating one of the biggest disruptions the program has seen in years. The shift affected about 1 in 10 beneficiaries in non-employer HMO and PPO Medicare Advantage plans, according…
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…
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, it rarely stretches as far as people assume once the most basic bills start hitting. For millions of older Americans, the problem is not one oversized expense. It…