Money, Wealth & Power—A Daily Look at the Financial World
For millions of retired Americans, the monthly Social Security deposit is the single largest source of income, and healthcare costs are claiming an ever-growing share of it. In 2026, the combination of rising Medicare premiums, deductibles, and supplemental out-of-pocket expenses will consume roughly one-third of the average retiree’s benefit check, a squeeze that leaves less…
Social Security was never designed to replace an upper-class retiree’s full income, and by age 83 the gap between what the program pays and what higher-income households may spend in retirement can be especially clear. The Social Security Administration publishes average monthly benefits broken down by single year of age for retired workers, which makes…
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…
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…
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…
A retiree earning just $50 more than a federal income threshold can lose hundreds of dollars in annual Social Security benefits, not because of a gradual tax but because of rigid bracket cutoffs that punish small earnings bumps with outsized financial penalties. The mechanism behind this problem sits at the intersection of Medicare premium surcharges…
Social Security faces a convergence of financial pressures heading into 2026 that could accelerate the program’s already deteriorating fiscal outlook. Three distinct forces, a rising cost-of-living adjustment, the fallout from a major benefit expansion law, and a trust fund depletion timeline that just moved closer, are combining in ways that demand attention from anyone counting…
The Social Security system just moved one year closer to an automatic benefit cut that would shrink retirement checks for tens of millions of Americans. The 2025 Trustees Report, released on June 18, 2025, projects that the combined Old-Age and Survivors Insurance and Disability Insurance trust funds will run out of reserves by 2034, at…
The Working Families Tax Cuts package, promoted by House Ways and Means Chairman Jason Smith as delivering “No Tax on Social Security,” actually creates a temporary $6,000 deduction rather than eliminating taxes on benefits. That gap between the political branding and the statute’s fine print carries a real cost: income taxes paid on Social Security…