The financial news that actually matters
A new set of import tariffs aimed at drones is scheduled to hit on September 3, and the price of everything from a hobbyist’s camera quadcopter to a farmer’s crop-scouting aircraft is likely to move with it. The duties, running as high as 100 percent, flow from a presidential proclamation signed August 13 under a…
The word “Advantage” in Medicare Advantage sells a promise of extra benefits, but it hides a mechanism that Original Medicare largely lacks: prior authorization. Before a private Advantage plan will pay for a scan, a hospital admission, a nursing-home transfer, or a piece of home medical equipment, it can require advance sign-off, and it can…
Millions of retirees plan a trip abroad on the assumption that the Medicare coverage they paid into for decades follows them across the border. It does not. Original Medicare, meaning Part A and Part B, generally pays nothing for hospital care, doctor visits, or prescriptions obtained outside the United States and its territories. A single…
Medicare’s coverage of nursing-home care carries a condition that surprises many families at the worst possible moment. Original Medicare will help pay for a stay in a skilled nursing facility only after a patient has spent at least three consecutive days admitted to a hospital as an inpatient. The rule is decades old, rarely explained…
A 401(k) match is the closest thing to guaranteed free money in the American retirement system, and a striking number of workers walk past it every payday. When an employee contributes less than the amount an employer is willing to match, the unmatched portion is simply forfeited, an immediate return on savings that never gets…
Inheriting a parent’s retirement account once came with a quiet tax advantage: an heir could stretch withdrawals over a lifetime, letting the money grow tax-deferred for decades. That strategy, known as the stretch IRA, is largely gone. Under the SECURE Act, most heirs who inherit an IRA must now empty the entire account within 10…
For older Americans still carrying federal student debt, one of the harshest collection tools in the government’s arsenal is coming back into use. The Treasury can withhold up to 15 percent of a monthly Social Security payment to collect a defaulted federal student loan, and after a long pause those offsets are resuming in the…
A common fear keeps some couples from claiming everything Social Security allows: the worry that a lower-earning spouse who files for a benefit on a partner’s record will somehow shrink that partner’s own check. It will not. A spousal benefit is paid on top of the higher earner’s retirement benefit, and the worker whose record…
When a Social Security recipient dies, the federal government pays a one-time lump-sum death benefit that has become a symbol of how far a fixed dollar figure can fall behind the cost of living. The amount is $255. It has not moved since 1954, when a burial in most of the country cost a small…
Millions of married and formerly married Americans approach retirement expecting two Social Security checks: one earned through a lifetime of payroll taxes and a second earned as the spouse of a higher-earning husband or wife. Social Security was never built to pay both in full. A provision called dual entitlement delivers the larger of the…
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