The financial news that actually matters
When Social Security’s last May deposit hits bank accounts on May 27, 2026, retirees born after the 20th of the month will collect a check that looked like a raise back in January but has since been overtaken by rising prices. The 2.8 percent cost-of-living adjustment added roughly $56 a month to the average retirement…
Some widows, widowers and surviving divorced spouses have been opening their bank statements in recent months to find Social Security deposits several hundred dollars larger than expected. They did not file a new application. They did not call anyone. The Social Security Administration simply bumped them up. Under rules that have been on the books…
A retired school aide in Ohio. A former truck driver in Florida. A grandmother in Texas who co-signed a loan for a grandchild who never finished college. Across the country, millions of Americans over 55 are heading toward retirement with almost nothing saved, and a federal debt-collection mechanism that was dormant for years is now…
Fill up your tank this summer and you are, in a roundabout way, helping to set the size of next year’s Social Security raise. Federal inflation data through April 2026 points to a 3.9 percent cost-of-living adjustment for January 2027, which would add roughly $81 a month to the average retired-worker benefit and mark the…
Millions of Social Security recipients woke up to their May deposits this morning, May 20, 2026, only to find that the raise Congress promised them in January is already underwater. If your birthday falls between the 11th and 20th of any month, today’s payment includes the 2.8 percent cost-of-living adjustment the Social Security Administration announced…
Somewhere between $81 and $87 a month. That’s the gap separating two early forecasts for the 2027 Social Security cost-of-living adjustment. Based on the current average retired-worker benefit of about $2,081 per month, 3.9 percent yields roughly $81 per month and 4.2 percent yields roughly $87 per month. The variable driving the disagreement is one…
A rival plan to save Social Security would tax every dollar earned above $250,000 – closing most of the shortfall without cutting a single check Social Security’s clock is ticking. The program’s combined trust funds are on track to run dry by 2035, according to the 2024 Trustees Report, the most recent available projection as…
Right now, a married couple who both earned top wages and waited until 70 to claim Social Security can collect roughly $122,000 a year, based on the Social Security Administration’s published maximum monthly benefit of $5,108 at age 70 in 2025. Within seven years, that income could drop by nearly a quarter overnight, with no…
Somewhere in the United States, a 70-year-old retiree who earned top wages for 35 straight years is collecting a Social Security check north of $5,000 a month. That person exists, but statistically, you almost certainly are not that person. The average retiree deposits about $2,071 a month from Social Security, according to the Social Security…
Turn 67 this month, file for Social Security, and the check that lands in your bank account will average about $2,071. That figure comes straight from the Social Security Administration’s 2026 COLA fact sheet. Now set it next to what a typical American in their late 60s actually spends: the Bureau of Labor Statistics Consumer…