The financial news that actually matters
Covers Social Security benefits, eligibility rules, payment calculations, and policy changes. It explains how benefits are determined and how they impact retirement income.
Losing a spouse triggers one of Social Security’s more generous — and more misunderstood — provisions. A widow or widower can eventually draw a benefit worth the full amount their late spouse was receiving, dollar for dollar. But that full replacement comes with a catch that trips up many survivors at claiming time: it replaces…
Retirees are getting an early read on next year’s Social Security raise, and it looks bigger than the one they got this January. Two of the most-watched independent trackers now put the 2027 cost-of-living adjustment somewhere between 3.6% and 3.8% — but neither number is final, and the Social Security Administration will not lock in…
President Trump campaigned on eliminating taxes on Social Security benefits, and he has continued describing the tax-and-spending law he signed in July 2025 as delivering exactly that. The text of the law tells a narrower story. Instead of exempting Social Security income from federal tax, the law added a new deduction for people 65 and…
A marriage that ended decades ago can still be worth real money in retirement. Under longstanding Social Security rules, a divorced person can draw a benefit based on an ex-spouse’s earnings record — worth up to half that ex’s full benefit — even if the ex has moved on and remarried since. The rule surprises…
Many retirees are surprised to learn that Social Security benefits can be taxed at all, and even more surprised by what sets it off. As income from pensions, part-time work, and retirement-account withdrawals climbs, a larger share of those benefits becomes subject to federal income tax, reaching as high as 85 percent of the benefit…
A debt collector armed with a court judgment can persuade a bank to freeze an account, but federal benefits sitting in that account carry a layer of automatic protection that many account holders never learn about until they need it. Under a longstanding federal rule, when a bank receives a garnishment order it must look…
Retirees waiting to learn how much larger their Social Security checks will be next year now have an early, unofficial marker. The Senior Citizens League, an advocacy group that tracks the figure closely, projects the 2027 cost-of-living adjustment at 3.8 percent, which would add roughly $79 to the average monthly benefit. The number is only…
After a pause that stretched across the early months of 2026, the federal government has switched involuntary collections on defaulted student loans back on, and older borrowers are squarely in range. The Treasury Offset Program can divert up to 15 percent of a monthly Social Security payment toward a federal student loan that has fallen…
The Social Security Administration has quietly reset how aggressively it recovers money it believes was paid out by mistake. For overpayment notices dated on or after April 25, 2025, the agency’s default is to withhold 50 percent of a beneficiary’s monthly retirement or disability payment until the balance is cleared. That is a sharp reversal…
A retiree does not have to be careless to lose a Social Security payment to fraud. The vulnerability that criminals exploit most often is an empty seat: an account that the beneficiary never claimed, which a thief can then open in that person’s name using stolen personal data. Once inside, an impostor can change where…
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