Money, Wealth & Power—A Daily Look at the Financial World
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,…
Costco is testing a new limited-time food court item that has shoppers drawing direct comparisons to one of McDonald’s most iconic seasonal offerings, the Shamrock Shake. The timing is no accident: the warehouse giant’s latest play arrives just as McDonald’s brings back its own green-tinted shake for 2026, complete with a charitable tie-in. With both…
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…
Target Corporation eliminated 500 corporate and field positions on February 9, 2026, just eight days after a CEO transition that capped months of boycott pressure and sliding sales. The cuts, split between district management and supply chain operations, arrived as new chief executive Michael Fiddelke began reshaping the retailer’s leadership structure. Together, the layoffs, the…
Federal Express Corp. and FedEx Logistics, Inc. have filed a lawsuit in the U.S. Court of International Trade demanding a full refund of every dollar paid in tariff duties imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act during the Trump administration, plus interest. The suit, which names the United States, U.S. Customs and Border Protection,…
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics released its May 2024 Occupational Employment and Wage Estimates, and the data confirms what many workers already suspected: the best-paying careers increasingly overlap with those offering location and schedule flexibility. Several of the 20 occupations with the highest median annual pay, according to BLS data, can now be performed…
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…
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…
Tipped workers across the United States could see a new tax break under the No Tax on Tips Act, which creates an above-the-line deduction allowing eligible employees and self-employed individuals to subtract up to $25,000 in qualified tips from their taxable income. The deduction applies to tax years 2025 through 2028, meaning the first returns…
California’s proposed 2026 Billionaire Tax Act, a one-time wealth levy targeting the state’s ultra-rich, may already be pushing billionaires and their assets out of the state before a single dollar has been collected. A nonpartisan fiscal analysis warns that while the tax could produce a short-term revenue windfall, it risks triggering a lasting decline in…