Money, Wealth & Power—A Daily Look at the Financial World
Social Security was built on a simple promise: workers pay in during their careers and receive predictable benefits in retirement. That guarantee is now colliding with math that no longer works, and a growing chorus of experts is warning that keeping every pledge on the books could mean far deeper pain later. The emerging consensus…
For decades, retirees have watched cost-of-living increases lift their Social Security checks, only to see a chunk clawed back at tax time. A new proposal in Congress would upend that pattern by scrapping federal income taxes on benefits altogether and reshaping how the program is funded. The stakes are enormous for the roughly 75 m…
For many baby boomers, the hardest part of retirement is not what to buy, but what to finally let go of. I see the same pattern again and again: clinging to big-ticket assets out of habit or emotion, even when the numbers and the lifestyle trade-offs clearly argue for selling. Here are five things boomers…
Maxing out a workplace retirement plan in 2026 is not just a nice-to-have goal, it is one of the few levers that can realistically turn a middle-class paycheck into a seven‑figure nest egg over a working lifetime. Over a 10‑year window, the combination of higher contribution limits, tax advantages and historically strong stock market returns…
Millions of retirees are discovering that the benefits they spent decades earning are quietly being taxed more heavily every year, even though Congress has not voted to raise their tax rate. The mechanism is a stealth tax built into the structure of Social Security itself, one that helps shore up the program’s finances while gradually…
Private insurers have turned the Medicare Advantage program into a data gold mine, using detailed medical records to inflate how sick their members look on paper and, in turn, how much the government pays them. The result is a system where corporate profits swell while taxpayers shoulder billions in questionable costs. At the center of…
Spouses in their seventies and eighties are quietly holding up a large share of America’s long-term care system, often with little pay, minimal training, and their own health problems. As care needs stretch from months into years, the combination of unpaid labor, medical bills, and lost work can hollow out even carefully built nest eggs….
Moving idle cash into a Roth IRA can turn a low-yield bank balance into tax-free retirement growth, but the path you choose determines whether the IRS treats that move as a simple contribution or a taxable event. The key is to distinguish between adding new after-tax money, shifting funds from other retirement accounts, and correcting…
Five former employees are accusing Dell of mishandling its massive retirement plan in ways they say quietly drained workers’ nest eggs. In a new class action, they claim the company’s 401(k) lineup was riddled with conflicts of interest and lagging investments that together cost participants about $318 million in lost growth. The case turns a…
President Donald Trump has repeatedly vowed to protect Social Security benefits, and his own Social Security Administration chief now says he has delivered on that pledge. Yet as the system absorbs policy shifts, staffing strains, and looming trust fund pressures, specialists in retirement policy are warning retirees not to confuse short term stability with long…