Money, Wealth & Power—A Daily Look at the Financial World
August 3, 2026
Latest Insights
26,000 immigrant children just lost the lawyers Washington paid for
A federal contract quietly reached its expiration date on Friday, and with it went the funding that pays for attorneys to represent children who crossed the border without a parent. The network it supported covers roughly 26,000 children, most of them facing removal proceedings, some of them young enough to need cartoons to understand what...
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Markets and Macro
26,000 immigrant children just lost the lawyers Washington paid for
A federal contract quietly reached its expiration date on Friday, and with it went the funding that pays for attorneys to represent children who crossed the border without a parent. The network it supported covers roughly 26,000 children, most of them facing removal proceedings, some of them young enough to need cartoons to understand what...
Markets and Macro
Trump called off the Iran strike. The fuel bill is already $520 a household
President Donald Trump spent Saturday evening telling the country that a five-month war might be winding down. In a social media post, he said Mideast allies had reached the parameters of a deal that would reopen the Strait of Hormuz and end Iran’s nuclear threat, and that he had therefore agreed to cancel a strike...
Markets and Macro
41 states failed the SNAP error test that could cost them $9 billion
Nine states came in under the federal accuracy threshold for food assistance last fiscal year. The other 41 did not, and that arithmetic is about to stop being a bookkeeping curiosity and start being a line in state budgets. A law signed in 2025 converted the payment error rate from a performance statistic into a...
Corporate Wins/Losses
Amazon banked $600 million in tariff refunds. Only some shoppers get paid back
Amazon told investors that it has received roughly $600 million in refunded tariff duties, money the federal government collected under an emergency-powers program the Supreme Court struck down in February. Only part of that sum is heading back to the shoppers who absorbed the higher prices at checkout. The company says it will automatically reimburse...
Markets and Macro
Businesses offered buyouts worth 60%+ of delayed US tariff refunds
Importers owed tariff refunds by the U.S. government are now being offered upfront cash buyouts worth 60 percent or more of their pending claims, feeding a secondary market that has grown to an estimated $100 billion as federal processing delays stretch on. The offers come from investors betting they can collect the full refund later,...
Layoffs and Closures
KBR to lay off 758 workers at Fort Irwin in major California job cut
Defense contractor KBR plans to eliminate 758 jobs at Fort Irwin, a sprawling Army training installation in California’s Mojave Desert, according to a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification filed with the state. The cuts represent one of the larger single-site layoffs in San Bernardino County in recent memory and raise pointed questions about the stability...
Banking and Rules
Banking and Rules
How many CDs can you park at 1 bank? FDIC rules you must know
Savers chasing high CD yields at a single bank face a hard ceiling most do not fully understand: the Federal…
Fees and Policy Changes
Credit card fees explode as small businesses scramble to survive
U.S. merchants paid a record $160.70 billion in card processing fees in 2022, and the pressure on small businesses has…
Loans
Student loan interest and taxes: What many borrowers overlook?
Student loan borrowers filing their 2025 tax returns face a narrowing window of tax benefits that many will miss entirely.…
retirement and benefits
Retirement Planning
Why High-Income Earners Still Use Roth IRAs—And You Should Too
Roth IRAs are often pitched as the go-to retirement account for young workers in lower tax brackets. But take a closer look, and you’ll see plenty of high-income earners quietly using Roths to build long-term, tax-free wealth—despite earning too much to contribute the “normal” way. It’s not just about the account itself. It’s about how...
Retirement Planning
8 deadly 401(k) mistakes that could blow up your retirement
Federal regulators have spent the past year tightening the rules around 401(k) plans, and workers who fail to keep up risk losing tens of thousands of dollars in retirement savings to penalties, taxes, and forgone investment growth. From missed contribution limits and overlooked catch-up rules to early cashouts, hidden fees, and missed tax credits, eight...
Retirement Planning
3 low-volatility dividend ETFs suited to cautious retirees
Cautious retirees often want equity income without the stomach-churning swings that can come with broad stock indexes. Low-volatility dividend ETFs aim to smooth the ride while still delivering regular cash flow. The following three funds focus on quality companies, disciplined screening and defensive sector tilts that can help Retirement investors stay invested through market stress....
Retirement Planning
The ideal retirement withdrawal rate so your savings actually last
Retirees drawing down savings face a tightening set of competing pressures: bond yields have climbed well above the levels that defined the post-2008 era, life expectancies continue to stretch retirement horizons past 30 years for many households, and federal tax rules now force minimum withdrawals from retirement accounts starting at age 73. Together, these forces...
Social Security
$994 March Social Security check hits bank accounts in just 3 days
Supplemental Security Income recipients eligible for the maximum federal payment will see $994 land in their bank accounts for March 2026, with the deposit arriving as early as February 27 because the scheduled payment date falls on a weekend. The early arrival, combined with a 2.8% cost-of-living adjustment that took effect in January, means roughly...
Medicare
Medicare’s 2026 tweak could quietly cut $200 from your monthly check
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services set the standard monthly Part B premium at $202.90 for 2026, a $17.90 increase over the current year. Because that premium is typically deducted straight from Social Security checks, the hike will eat into much of the $56-per-month raise that the 2.8% cost-of-living adjustment was supposed to deliver....
Retirement Planning
Florida’s cheap-retirement dream is dying for new retirees
Middle-class retirees hoping to stretch their savings in the Sunshine State are running into a financial wall. Housing costs in Florida’s most popular retirement corridors are climbing faster than Social Security benefits can keep up, and the demographic profile of new arrivals is shifting toward wealthier households. For anyone planning a budget-conscious move south, the...
Social Security
No mortgage needed: 10 states where Social Security alone can work
Retirees who have paid off their mortgages can cover all basic living expenses on Social Security alone in exactly 10 states, according to analyses of federal benefit data and regional cost figures. With the 2.8% cost-of-living adjustment raising the estimated average monthly retirement benefit to $2,071 starting in January 2026, the math works in a...
Medicare
How the ACA subsidy lapse disrupted coverage for 22M Americans
The expiration of enhanced Affordable Care Act premium tax credits at the close of 2025 has put approximately 22 million Marketplace enrollees on a collision course, with sharply higher insurance costs. These subsidies, first created by the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 and later extended by the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, kept monthly...
Social Security
8 states still taxing Social Security in 2026 and what you’ll owe
Only eight states still tax Social Security benefits in 2026, and each uses its own income tests and formulas to decide what retirees owe. Key Points For 2026 from Dec reporting state that Only eight jurisdictions, including Colorado and Connecticut, still reach into Social Security checks. Understanding which states tax benefits and how they calculate...
Retirement Planning
5 money traps retirees must reject no matter how hard the push
Federal agencies are sounding alarms about a surge in financial schemes draining retirement savings, with Americans over 60 reporting more than $3.4 billion in fraud losses in 2023 alone. From high-pressure annuity sales to botched tax calculations, five specific traps keep catching retirees off guard, and the pressure to fall for them is only intensifying...
Medicare
Federal probe exposes scheme draining Medicare trust fund
Federal prosecutors have charged two foreign nationals in Chicago for allegedly running a $10 million health care fraud scheme that used fake labs and medical equipment suppliers to bill Medicare for services never provided, laundering the stolen proceeds overseas. The case is one thread in a far larger federal enforcement wave that has now charged...
Retirement Planning
Why so many Americans drain 401(k)s early?
Millions of Americans are cashing out their 401(k) accounts before retirement, sacrificing long-term financial security to cover immediate needs. Cash-outs at job separation alone totaled approximately $74 billion in 2006, dwarfing every other form of retirement savings leakage. The pattern has persisted for years, driven by a collision of economic shocks, thin household savings buffers,...
Social Security
JD Vance vows no Social Security cuts and here’s what that really means
Vice President JD Vance has built a consistent public message around Social Security: benefits will not be cut. He has called the program an “important promise” to older Americans and argued that rooting out fraud, not trimming checks, is the right path to keeping it solvent. But a closer look at the policies taking shape...
Retirement Planning
Here’s what you must save to spend $10,000/month retiring by 2026
Spending $10,000 a month in retirement requires $120,000 a year after taxes, a figure that dwarfs what most American retirees actually spend. For anyone targeting a 2026 retirement date, the core question is how much you must save to reliably cover the gap after Social Security. Using common withdrawal-rate guardrails, that typically translates to roughly...
Retirement Planning
3 sneaky expenses quietly wrecking your retirement plans
Rising Medicare premiums, a little-known tax on Social Security benefits, and forced retirement-account withdrawals are quietly compounding into thousands of dollars in annual losses for retirees who thought their budgets were locked in. These three costs share a common trait: they are tied to income thresholds that interact with each other, meaning one spike can...