The financial news that actually matters
Plenty of people sign up for Social Security the day they become eligible, then watch their finances settle into a stronger shape and wish they had held off. What many of them never learn is that the decision is not always final. Federal rules give retirees a limited chance to erase an early claim, hand…
A new work requirement is set to reshape Medicaid across most states, and it lands on enrollees no later than January 2027. Under a rule the federal government issued in June 2026, many adults will have to show they are working, studying, or volunteering at least 80 hours a month to keep their coverage. Health-policy…
An executive order President Trump signed in August 2025 set in motion a change that could reshape what sits inside millions of workplace retirement accounts. The order pushes federal regulators to clear the way for 401(k) and similar plans to hold private equity, private credit, real estate, and cryptocurrency — assets long reserved for pensions…
A new federal tax break aimed squarely at older Americans took effect for the 2025 tax year, and by law it is set to disappear after 2028. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed in July 2025, created a temporary senior deduction worth up to $6,000 for each taxpayer who is 65 or older, stacked…
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 year into the largest overhaul of federal food assistance in decades, the number of people dropped from the program has climbed past four million — and a large share of them are children. The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, still widely called food stamps, has lost participants every month since the summer of 2025, when…
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…
Some of the largest companies in America are collecting billions of dollars in refunds on tariffs that were later ruled illegal, while the shoppers who absorbed those costs in higher prices are getting little or nothing back. Apple has recovered about $2.2 billion, Ford roughly $1.3 billion, and Amazon around $600 million, part of a…
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 —…