lisegagne | E+ | Getty Images Some 39 million American families on July 15 will get the first of six advance monthly payments of the enhanced federal child tax credit. However, some of those families should elect to not receive the monthly payments, say financial experts, and instead wait to claim the entire credit when
Personal finance
If a student invested $1,300 in Netflix stock in 2014, after three years they would have $4,527. Jill Brady | Portland Press Herald | Getty Images Teenagers haven’t had a better summer for employment since 1953. In June, the unemployment rate for teenagers aged 16 to 19 was 9.9%, the lowest it has been since
A job seeker fills out an application form during a restaurant and hospitality career fair in Torrance, California, on June 23, 2021. Eric Thayer/Bloomberg via Getty Images The number of Americans out of work for at least a year jumped by 248,000 in June, underscoring persistent challenges for some households even as the broader labor
John Lund | Getty Images You’ve probably heard that you shouldn’t let your emotions drive your financial decisions. Yet that may be harder than it sounds, especially when the market sells off. In fact, there may be a number of psychological biases holding you back from building wealth. That’s because the part of our brain
An IRS office building in the East Harlem neighborhood of New York. Timothy Fadek/Bloomberg via Getty Images Last December, two Atlanta tax professionals pled guilty to a scheme that defrauded the IRS of more than $250 million in taxes. The scam claimed more than $1.2 billion in fraudulent charitable deductions through so-called syndicated conservation easements,
Miami Herald | Tribune News Service | Getty Images There are no signs that Congress plans to send a fourth stimulus check to Americans. Still, many individuals and families are clamoring for more money. A Change.org petition calling for $2,000 per month for every adult American, as well as $1,000 per child, that was started
fotosipsak | E+ | Getty Images Student loans are double-edged sword: They help you pay for college but then leave you with a monthly bill for at least a decade after you graduate. The average student loan payment is $400 a month, according to higher education expert Mark Kantrowitz. And research has found those payments
Peter Cade | Getty Images While inheriting money is typically a good thing, newer individual retirement account rules may leave some heirs with a smaller windfall. Thanks to the Secure Act of 2019, certain heirs now have less time to take IRA withdrawals. The law stopped the so-called stretch IRA, which allowed non-spouse beneficiaries to
Yamiesha Bell, 27, started a book club focused on personal financial literacy and mindfulness one year ago. Yamiesha Bell In the last year, Raeshanna Mcanuff, 27, a cosmetic chemist, asked for a raise at her job. Adam Sherif, 24, who works at a music talent agency, paid off the first $30,000 of his $60,000 in
Dana Neely | Stone | Getty Images The Biden administration made it easier for many families to qualify for aid toward funeral costs, after loosening rules for a Covid-era program. The Federal Emergency Management Agency, which administers the program, changed its funeral-assistance policy related to deaths that occurred in the early months of the pandemic.
Getty Images There are signs that the U.S. is rebounding from the havoc wreaked by the coronavirus pandemic. In June, the country added 850,000 jobs, more than expected, and is now 7.13 million below the February 2020 level. The Congressional Budget Office said Thursday that the economy is on track to recover all jobs lost
Shoppers in San Francisco. David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images Covid-19 vaccinations are increasing, states are dropping their pandemic restrictions and Americans are feeling good about going out and spending after a year and a half spent mostly inside. “We are now coming out of a cave, basically, and there’s a lot of
Allen Weisselberg, center, chief financial officer of Trump Organization, exits from criminal court in New York on July 1, 2021. David Dee Delgado | Bloomberg | Getty Images The Trump Organization and its chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg, pleaded not guilty to tax crimes on Thursday. Experts say the illegal practices the government alleges occurred
The age at which you claim Social Security helps determine how big your monthly retirement benefit checks will be for life. If you wait until your full retirement age — generally 66 or 67 — to claim, you will get 100% of what you earned based on your contributions to the program. And if you
Jeffrey Coolidge | Getty Images Rising inflation is a concern for Kevin Linehan, 68, a retiree in Fitchburg, Massachusetts. After a heart attack at age 44, Linehan left his career with the Postal Service early, opting for reduced disability retirement income. “It wasn’t the best financial thing to do,” he said. “But at the time,
CHUYN | iStock | Getty Images Figures from the IRS show who has received money from the third stimulus checks for up to $1,400 per person — and there are some surprises. In fact, some people with adjusted gross incomes above $200,000 received a cut. The IRS reports 127,751 payments went to taxpayers in that
RealPeopleGroup | E+ | Getty Images If you’re one of the millions of Americans who have quit their job in recent months, you may be eager to move on to whatever is next for you. Yet because our work and the rest of our lives are often interwoven in a number of important ways, you’ll
Twenty/20 We may not know what stocks in the S&P 500 will do next month, or in two years, but over the decades, we have a pretty good hunch that they’ll go up. Most of us also know what a stock is, and that definition hasn’t changed in centuries. None of that is true, of
blackCAT | E+ | Getty Images If you invest through Robinhood, you may get early access to shares when the company goes public. The online brokerage is reserving 20% to 35% of shares to be sold in an initial public offering for its customers, according to its most recent regulatory filing. While it’s uncertain exactly
Three sun-and-sand spots — California, Florida and Hawaii — account for a quarter or more of all flights and car rentals this weekend. Erik Isakson | Tetra images | Getty Images As people head into the long July 4 weekend, travel bookings are at last nearing pre-pandemic levels, according to a new analysis from TripIt