The financial news that actually matters
Every two weeks, millions of American workers deposit a paycheck that is smaller than it needs to be. Not because their employer is underpaying them, but because they are not contributing enough to their 401(k) to collect the full employer match. The money their company has agreed to put into their retirement account simply never…
Long-term care insurance premiums can easily run $2,000 to $4,000 a year for someone in their mid-50s, and for workers under 59½, the most obvious pot of money to pay them has always been off-limits. Tap a 401(k) early and the IRS charges a 10 percent penalty on top of ordinary income tax. That math…
A 55-year-old engineer in Dallas who started maxing out her 401(k) in her late twenties recently watched her balance cross seven figures. A 38-year-old warehouse worker in Ohio, employed by a company that offers no retirement plan, has $900 in a savings account and no investment portfolio at all. Both are real composites drawn from…
Starting in July 2026, parents of roughly 5.4 million children will be eligible to open a new kind of federally funded investment account. Under a provision in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed into law in 2025, the U.S. government deposits $1,000 into an account for every American baby born between January 1, 2025,…
A 61-year-old engineer in Dallas maxing out her 401(k) in 2025 could have socked away $3,250 more than her 58-year-old colleague down the hall, and most people in her position never touched the extra room. That gap exists because of a provision buried in the SECURE 2.0 Act that created a higher catch-up contribution limit…
For the first time in decades, the federal tax code includes a standalone deduction built specifically for Americans 65 and older, and it is worth up to $6,000 per qualifying filer. A married couple filing jointly where both spouses meet the age requirement can claim $12,000. The benefit was created by Section 70103 of the…
A 52-year-old worker paying $1,800 a year for long-term care insurance just got a new way to cover that bill: pull the money straight from a 401(k), skip the usual 10 percent early-withdrawal penalty, and keep the policy in force. The catch is that the annual limit is $2,500, the withdrawal is still taxed as…
A $6,200 car repair bill is what finally broke the seal for one 38-year-old warehouse supervisor in Ohio. He had never touched his 401(k), but with $900 in checking and a credit card already near its limit, he filed a hardship withdrawal request on a Tuesday and had $8,000 pulled from his retirement account by…
Picture a 62-year-old warehouse supervisor in Ohio who, after 30 years of work, has $14,000 in a retirement account she opened just five years ago when her employer finally added a 401(k). Now picture a 35-year-old software engineer in Seattle whose balance just crossed $200,000. Both are real composites of the people behind the data,…
Two numbers released in the spring of 2026 tell opposite stories about American finances. The first sounds like good news: the average 401(k) balance reached roughly $146,400, a record, according to Fidelity Investments, which manages more than 49 million workplace retirement accounts. The second number is harder to celebrate. The personal saving rate fell to…