Money, Wealth & Power—A Daily Look at the Financial World
Households headed by someone 65 or older spend an average of $4,343 a year on federal income taxes, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ 2023 Consumer Expenditure Survey. That figure reflects the combined tax burden from pensions, Social Security, required minimum distributions, and investment income, and it represents real cash that could otherwise cover…
The Social Security system is not going bankrupt, but the checks retirees receive could shrink meaningfully within the next decade. The 2025 Trustees Report projects that the Old-Age and Survivors Insurance trust fund will run dry in 2033, and after that point, incoming payroll taxes would cover only a fraction of promised benefits. For tens…
Social Security pays the average retired worker $2,071 per month, but that figure obscures a wide range of outcomes. For someone who spent decades earning at or near the taxable maximum and delayed claiming benefits, the monthly check at age 83 can be roughly double the national average. Understanding how the program treats high earners…
Your 60s are the final stretch before retirement, and how your 401(k) stacks up against others in your age group can shape decisions about when to stop working, how aggressively to save, and whether catch-up contributions are worth the squeeze. For 2026, new IRS contribution limits give workers in their early 60s an unusually large…
Millions of retirees will open their Social Security statements in 2026 and find less money than they expected, not because benefits were cut on paper, but because a series of automatic deductions will quietly shrink what actually hits their bank accounts. The combination of a sharply higher Medicare Part B premium, aggressive overpayment recovery rules,…
SECURE 2.0 gave millions of American workers two new ways to pull emergency cash from their retirement plans without the usual 10 percent early-withdrawal penalty. One option lets participants take up to $1,000 a year for urgent personal expenses. The other creates a sidecar savings account attached to a 401(k) with a $2,500 cap and…
The Internal Revenue Service announced on November 13, 2025, in Washington that the standard 401(k) contribution ceiling will rise to $24,500 for 2026, while IRA limits climb to $7,500. But the bigger story is not the higher caps. A new mandatory Roth requirement for catch-up contributions will force higher-earning workers over 50 to pay taxes…
Retiring on a single Social Security check sounds like a stretch, but a handful of Southern cities make the math surprisingly workable. The estimated average monthly retirement benefit for January 2026 sits around $1,900, and in the right ZIP code, that figure can cover rent, groceries, healthcare premiums, and still leave a small cushion. I…
Retirement planning often collapses into a single anxiety: will healthcare costs consume the budget before anything else gets a chance? For retirees willing to relocate, a handful of smaller U.S. metros offer a rare combination of low rents and below-average medical expenses that can stretch fixed incomes far beyond what coastal or Sun Belt hotspots…
The 2025 Social Security Trustees Report, released today, projects that the combined Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance trust funds will run dry by 2034, one year sooner than last year’s estimate. That does not mean checks stop arriving. It means the program would shift from paying what retirees were promised to paying only what incoming…