The wealthiest US citizens have vast assets but little income, so income taxes struggle to reach … [+] them. A wealth tax could ensure these very richest Americans pay their fair share along with the rest of us. But would it? Getty As the first primaries for the 2020 presidential election approach, some Democratic candidates,
Retirement
©Tim – stock.adobe.com The most popular index is the best performer, just like before the Dot-Com Bubble When you talk about the “stock market” or your “stock portfolio,” what do you really mean? For many investors, the S&P 500 is “the market.” After all, the majority of the total value of all stocks on U.S.
You think you’re going to earn a lot investing a lump sum? You’re thinking wrong. Future value Getty I’ll grab the money now and invest it, you tell yourself. Get Social Security early, or take the lump-sum buyout of a corporate pension. I can put the cash in the stock market and earn way more
null Getty On Saturday, I recounted the ways in which the Chicago Teachers’ Pension Fund was set up for failure, with most teachers never seeing any of the money they paid in but the lucky few hitting the jackpot with comfortable benefit payouts at young ages, and, for those in the early years of the
You saved up all your life for retirement, squirreling money into individual retirement accounts or 401(K)s and the like. And that reduced your taxes because the retirement contributions were deducted from your income. But once retired, you can’t just sit on this tax-sheltered money. By law, at 70½, you must take some of it out, based
Sixteen years ago, when John first left Mumbai, India to immigrate to the U.S., he only had $1,000 to his name. He also didn’t have a credit score – credit wasn’t something his family had access to – which left him unable to approach a traditional apartment complex with a vacancy. Instead he had to
Chicago (undated) Getty Why are public pension plans so poorly funded? Sure, you can blame politicians’ meddling, or irresponsible benefit increases, or decisions to take contribution holidays, but, to take the Chicago Teachers’ Pension Fund as a case study, it was not designed to be funded in the first place. Here’s the story, as assembled
By Daniel Newman and Olivier Blanchard, Next Avenue Contributors Getty (There have been many scary stories lately about how robots and artificial intelligence will increasingly replace human jobs in the coming years. So, you may be nervous about what the future holds for you and your career. In this excerpt from their new book Human/Machine:
Businessman holding tablet and showing a growing virtual hologram of statistics, graph and chart … [+] with arrow up on dark background. Stock market. Business growth, planing and strategy concept. Getty Over 25 years after William P. Bengen published what he referred to as the SAFEMAX rate in the October 1994 issue of the Journal of
A reliable recession indicator is shifting into high gear ©bht2000 – stock.adobe.com Comedian Bill Maher has a line he uses from time to time: “I don’t know it for a fact, I just know it’s true.” Here is an example of that, which will be of interest to anyone who is at all concerned about
Baby Boomers are facing large scale homelessness, Congress was warned today. “Without serious attention and planning, we will have elderly paupers on our streets and in our parks in large numbers,” Dr. Joanne Lynn, policy analyst for the Program to Improve Elder Care at the Medicare and Medicaid consulting firm Altarum asserted. Her warning came
Getty It’s the rage of Europe. Some say it gives them an advantage over America. It may, however, shock you to know the truth behind negative interest rates and the damage they can wreak on “safe” investments. It was the tale of two luncheons. On Tuesday, November 12, 2019, the Economic Club of New York
Share to facebook Share to twitter Share to linkedin Getty Many Americans aren’t prepared for retirement in general, but the issue is compounded now that people are living longer than ever. There are 76 million baby boomers in the US today and one-third of 65-year-olds will likely live past 90, but many are underfunded for
Getty I was born in 1979. If my parents had invested $1,000 in a no-fee S&P 500 index fund, and had re-invested all dividends, the stake would have grown to be worth $80,601 on my 40th birthday. That’s a gain of 81 for 1. Meanwhile, a $1 million investment by the endowment at a college
Why would a 25-year-old medical student attend a summit on Alzheimer’s disease in the nation’s capital? And why is he thinking about dementia at all? Nihal Satyadev said he wants to change everyone’s perception of Alzheimer’s disease, and that includes young people. Members of his national endeavor—the Youth Movement Against Alzheimer’s (YMAA)—can be found in
Share to facebook Share to twitter Share to linkedin Confused About the 4 percent retirement income rule? Bruce Mars (Pexels.com) If you are nearing retirement or are already retired, chances are you’ve heard of the 4% rule for determining how much money you can withdraw from your portfolio in retirement. But what does the 4%
By Fred Riccardi, Medicare Rights Center President and Next Avenue Contributor Getty Beginning this year and continuing into 2020, Medicare Advantage plans (ones from private insurers) have increased flexibility to provide coverage for what the government calls supplemental benefits. These are services otherwise excluded by law from what’s known as Original Medicare coverage. And Medicare
Getty Financial exploitation of older Americans seems to be getting worse. The Treasury Department reported a 17% increase in the number of cases in 2017 vs. 2016, the latest figures available. And the Center for Financial Services Innovation says at least 20% of older adults have been victims of elder financial fraud. But there’s one
It’s time to give credit where credit is due: millennials understand retirement in a way that no … [+] other generation has. Getty It’s time to give credit where credit is due: millennials understand retirement in a way that no other generation has. Retirement isn’t what it used to be. In previous generations, people punched
Getty One problem with those often depressing online calculators telling you how much you need to save for retirement is that they assume the traditional definition of retirement. You know, the one that figures you’ll stop working at 65 or so, full-stop. As the new episode of the Friends Talk Money podcast on personal finances