Money, Wealth & Power—A Daily Look at the Financial World
Social Security left hundreds of thousands of warnings about unreported paychecks sitting in its system, and the result was an estimated $1 billion in Supplemental Security Income that should not have gone out, the agency’s inspector general reported. Most of that money is gone for good. The watchdog estimates $664 million can no longer be…
The Social Security Administration failed to tell an estimated 8,726 disabled beneficiaries that they could file for a higher retirement benefit, and the money they could have collected is now beyond the agency’s reach, according to an audit released October 6 by the agency’s inspector general. The people involved share a specific situation: their disability…
Social Security paid an estimated $435,000 in Supplemental Security Income to about 660 people whose unreported vehicles affected their eligibility, its inspector general has found. The dollar figure is small by federal standards. The finding behind it is not: the agency relied on what recipients told it about their cars and had no policy requiring…
About 600,000 people in Humana Medicare Advantage plans are learning this month that the plan they are in will not exist next year. The company told investors in July that its targeted 2027 plan exits would affect roughly that many members, and the letters carrying the news are dated October 2 under a federal rule…
For anyone whose full retirement age is 67, starting Social Security retirement benefits at 62 lowers the monthly payment by 30%. The Social Security Administration’s own example shows a $1,000 benefit shrinking to $700. Age 67 is the full retirement age for people born in 1960 or later, so the first group to reach it…
The federal Medigap open-enrollment window lasts six months and generally does not repeat every year like Medicare’s fall enrollment period.
The White House added nine more pharmaceutical manufacturers to its most-favored-nation pricing program on Monday, and the running total is the part worth reading. Twenty-six companies have now signed, and the administration says they account for 89% of the branded drug market in the United States. A year ago the number was zero. The instrument…
A charter jet carrying deported Haitian nationals touched down in Cap-Haïtien this week, the second such landing in barely a week and the clearest proof yet that the Trump administration intends to empty out a protection that had shielded hundreds of thousands of Haitians from removal. The flights are the downstream result of a Supreme…
Up to 200,000 foreigners who came to the United States as tourists or on business and then filed for asylum could soon lose their visas, under a Trump administration plan that would amount to the single largest mass visa revocation in American history. Still being finalized, the plan would strip so-called B1 and B2 visas…
A federal judge in Maryland spent Monday afternoon undoing one of the Trump administration’s clearest attempts to stop a federal construction project before it swallowed billions of taxpayer dollars. Judge Theodore Chuang, appointed to the bench by Barack Obama, ruled that the FBI and the General Services Administration acted unlawfully when they scrapped a planned…
How the week's news hits your wallet
One Washington money change, translated every weekday — what it means for your wallet.