The financial news that actually matters
Covers retirement planning, Social Security benefits, pension systems, and long-term financial security. It helps readers understand how to prepare financially for retirement.
Millions of Social Security and VA beneficiaries could see an extra $200 added to their monthly checks for six months under a House bill introduced during the 119th Congress. The measure, titled the Social Security Emergency Inflation Relief Act, arrives just months after the Social Security Administration set the 2026 cost-of-living adjustment at 2.8 percent,…
Anyone who inherits a traditional IRA from a family member who died after 2019 now faces a hard deadline and a steep penalty for missing it. Congress rewrote the rules through the SECURE Act of 2019, replacing the old “stretch” option with a 10-year window that forces most non-spouse beneficiaries to drain the entire account…
Retirees and disability applicants who depend on the Social Security Administration are now competing for help from a shrinking workforce. The agency announced plans to cut roughly 7,000 positions from a baseline of about 57,000 employees, aiming for a target of 50,000. Some field offices have shifted to phone-only service, and about 1,000 customer-service representatives…
Medicare has locked in lower prices for Wegovy and 14 other high-cost medicines starting January 1, 2027, after federal officials completed a second cycle of drug negotiations. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services says the new Maximum Fair Prices, or MFPs, will apply to treatments for cancer and chronic disease that are widely used…
Workers born in 1960 or later who file for Social Security at 62 accept a permanent monthly benefit cut of 30 percent compared with waiting until their full retirement age of 67. That reduction, locked in by federal statute, applies to every check for the rest of the recipient’s life. For someone entitled to $2,000…
Millions of married Americans who earned less than their spouse over a working lifetime can collect a Social Security payment equal to half of the higher earner’s Primary Insurance Amount, or PIA. That formula, set directly in federal statute, determines how much extra monthly income a lower-earning partner can secure without relying solely on their…
Millions of divorced Americans over age 62 could qualify for Social Security benefits based on a former spouse’s earnings record, yet many never file. The qualifying rule is straightforward: if the marriage lasted at least 10 years before the divorce became final, and the applicant meets age and marital-status conditions, a divorced spouse can collect…
Families who transfer savings to adult children before entering a nursing home can face months or even years without Medicaid coverage for long-term care. Federal law requires every state to review asset transfers made within 60 months of a Medicaid application, and gifts made for less than fair market value trigger a penalty period during…
Workers who need fast cash for an emergency can now pull up to $1,000 from a 401(k) or IRA once per calendar year without paying the 10% early-withdrawal penalty that has long discouraged retirement savers from touching their accounts before age 59 and a half. The exception, created by Section 115 of the SECURE 2.0…
Roughly 31.9 million 401(k) accounts holding a combined $2.1 trillion in retirement savings have been left behind by American workers who changed jobs or lost track of old employer plans. The average forgotten balance sits at $66,691, a sum large enough to cover more than a year of median household expenses. Federal regulators are now…