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.
When a spouse who paid into Social Security dies, the survivor faces a choice that can shape the rest of their retirement income — and getting the order wrong can leave money unclaimed for years. A widow or widower can receive as much as the full benefit the late spouse was collecting, or was entitled…
A common fear after a long marriage ends is that a former spouse’s Social Security record disappears along with everything else divided in the divorce. It does not. Federal rules let a divorced person collect a benefit worth as much as half of an ex-spouse’s full retirement amount, as long as the marriage lasted at…
The White House is preparing to announce another round of agreements aimed at lowering U.S. prescription drug prices, this time with a group of midsized biotechnology companies. Under the deals, first reported by Bloomberg on August 26, the drugmakers would offer state Medicaid programs the same lower prices they charge for outpatient medicines in other…
Health insurers are pulling out of the Medicare Advantage market at a pace the program has never seen, and the fallout is landing on older Americans who assumed their coverage was settled. A new analysis from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health estimates that as many as 2.9 million Medicare Advantage members —…
Converting a traditional retirement account to a Roth is one of the more popular moves for retirees who expect their tax rate to stay flat or climb, but the strategy carries a timing trap that catches early retirees off guard. Each conversion sets off its own five-year countdown, and pulling the converted money out before…
A stretch of low income in retirement — the years after a paycheck stops but before required withdrawals and, for some, Social Security begin — is often treated as a lull to wait out. Financial planners increasingly see it as an opening. Moving money from a traditional retirement account into a Roth during those lean…
One of the most consequential rules in retirement planning is also one of the least understood: a workplace 401(k) is legally set up to pass to the participant’s spouse, no matter whose name sits on an old beneficiary form. Federal law treats the surviving husband or wife as the default heir of an employer plan,…
When an older adult leaves the hospital still needing rehabilitation or nursing care, Medicare can step in to cover a stay in a skilled nursing facility. What families often miss is that the coverage is generous only at the start and then changes sharply as the days add up. The program pays in full for…
Among the benefits Medicare already pays for, one of the least used is also one of the simplest: a yearly screening for depression, available at no cost to the enrollee. Older adults face real rates of depression, often tangled up with grief, chronic illness or isolation, yet the condition frequently goes unnamed because no one…
Original Medicare is often described as comprehensive coverage, yet it carries a gap that many households discover only after a serious illness: there is no cap on what a beneficiary can be charged in a single year. Part A and Part B each leave the enrollee responsible for a deductible and for ongoing coinsurance, and…