Money, Wealth & Power—A Daily Look at the Financial World
A retired worker collecting the national average Social Security benefit of roughly $2,000 a month could see that check shrink to about $1,540 if the agency flags an overpayment and withholds roughly 23 percent by default. The Social Security Administration has shifted its default recovery rate three times in barely a year, landing on a…
Social Security deposits reaching as high as $5,181 per month are arriving in bank accounts across the country this week, reflecting the full effect of the 2026 cost-of-living adjustment. That top figure applies only to a narrow slice of retirees who delayed claiming until age 70 and earned the taxable maximum every year since age…
The Department of Veterans Affairs has been on a sustained push to clear its benefits claims backlog, and the numbers now tell a striking story. The agency processed an all-time high of 3 million claims in fiscal year 2025, cut the backlog by 57 percent, and brought average disability claim completion times down to 84.7…
Social Security checks keep millions of retirees housed and fed, but the program was designed as a floor, not a ceiling. With trust fund reserves on track to run dry within the next decade and annual cost-of-living bumps that barely keep pace with grocery bills, the real question is how much purchasing power those monthly…
The idea that a 401(k) can double as a down payment fund has gained traction as home prices continue to climb, but the math tells a different story. For a typical 40-year-old, the median 401(k) balance sits just under $40,000, while the median down payment in the fourth quarter of 2024 hovered around $30,000. Those…
The retirement squeeze in the United States and a bold policy experiment in Germany are moving in opposite directions at the same time. U.S. labor force data show more Americans working at older ages, a trend that can coincide with inadequate savings and rising costs, while Germany has approved plans to start state-subsidized retirement saving…
Millions of workers check their Social Security Statement expecting a reliable preview of retirement income, only to discover later that the number printed on the page was never a promise. The gap between the estimate and the actual benefit check traces back to a specific set of projection assumptions the Social Security Administration (SSA) uses…
For the second consecutive year, the rapid expansion of Medicare Advantage has stalled, with federal projections pointing to an enrollment decline in 2026 and major insurers pulling back from markets they once aggressively pursued. The slowdown signals a structural shift in the program that covers tens of millions of older Americans through private health plans,…
Robert Kiyosaki, the author of “Rich Dad Poor Dad,” has repeatedly warned that baby boomers face a financial reckoning that could leave many homeless as retirement safety nets erode. His alarm may sound extreme, but federal data on both homelessness and Social Security solvency suggest the underlying pressures are real and accelerating. More than 770,000…
Social Security checks got a little bigger in January 2026, but for millions of retirees the raise is already spoken for. The 2.8% cost-of-living adjustment adds roughly $56 a month to the average retirement benefit, a gain that sounds helpful until you stack it against the bills that keep climbing faster. I want to walk…