Retirement

The one consistency in the US labor market has become burnout. Between long hours, uncertain financial futures and a general lack of resources, workers of all ilk show signs that they’re tired. In self-employment, the threat can become even greater since you’re managing both the business and often creating the income flow through the work

There are people who change your life because of their proximity to you and yours—and then there are those who change your life without you even knowing they exist. Regardless of which of those categories Daniel Kahneman fits into for you, he’s changed your life, just as surely as he has demonstrably changed mine. Kahneman,

One of the most important and difficult questions to answer in retirement is how much you can spend each year without going broke. The most popular answer to this question is what is known as the 4% rule. From a 1994 paper written by Certified Financial Planner Bill Bengan, here’s how it works. In the

Recently I wrote about the new Robinhood Gold Card. It pays 3% cash back on all purchases, making it one of the most valuable rewards credit cards available today. As I noted in the article, however, to qualify you must be a Robinhood Gold member, which costs $50 a year if paid annually. So what’s

In recent weeks, a series of sensational headlines have captured the public’s attention, casting doubt on the future of 401(k) retirement plans. Headlines like “Your 401(k) Might Retire Before You Do” and “To Save Social Security, They May Come For Your 401(k)” have contributed to a sense of unease among investors and future retirees. The

JP Morgan Asset Management recently released its 2024 Guide to Retirement. The guide attempts, among other things, to answer two important questions for those saving for retirement. First, it looks at how much one should have already saved for retirement based on their age and income. Second, it examined what percentage of income one should

Talk about denial. Someone made up a ridiculous story about aging, that it’s merely a number, implying that it means nothing. This myth appears frequently in the media, in ads, in stories and sometimes in fake conversations. What is ridiculous about it is that aging is a process. Whatever one’s age, including the elders in

Time to Get to Know the Saver’s Credit The Saver’s Credit (aka the Retirement Savings Contributions Credit) helps lower to middle income taxpayers to reduce their taxes when they contribute to an employer retirement plan or a traditional or Roth individual retirement account. The vehicle is a nonrefundable tax credit, the amount being based on

Most Americans realize that inflation in the U.S. recently spiked to its highest level since the early 1980s. Moreover, what we pay for food is an important part of total inflation. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, food prices account for 13.5% of the relative importance of the total index. We see the high

As retirement looms, individuals must transition from an accumulation and asset-centric mindset to one focused on income and reliable cash flow. This shift from savings to decumulation is often discussed mostly in terms of 401(k)s and IRAs, but it really applies across asset classes and account types – including one’s primary residence. For many Americans,

As politicians and partisans debate how to make sure Social Security — an historically amazing and important program for the aging — has a secure financial future, one topic regularly brought up is the idea of delaying the retirement age. It sounds reasonable. Just have everyone wait an extra year or two. How could that

America’s retirement and elder poverty crisis is painful, frightful, and undeniable—yet some experts are denying there is a retirement income security crisis and trying to persuade us there’s nothing to worry about. We wish that were so, but the numbers tell us there is a quite serious retirement crisis. Numbers Show Retirement Crisis Nearly half

The labor market has been booming for years, but the speedy recovery from the depth of the pandemic-induced recession has been uneven. Even as aggressive fiscal policy interventions helped state and local government employment recover much more quickly than after the Great Recession, it still took state and local government employment longer than private sector

As he has often done in the past, Blackrock Chair/CEO Larry Fink offers a provocative new iteration of stakeholder capitalism in his annual letter to investors. This time, it’s about rethinking the retirement age. In a subtle shift away from his multi-year focus on environmental, social and governance (ESG) themes, Fink seeks to draw broad-based

A friend, new to Medicare, asked me whether Medicare covered annual physicals. I told him, “No, it doesn’t.” The Social Security act clearly prohibits Medicare from paying for annual physical examinations. A week later, he told me I was wrong. He found proof that Medicare does indeed cover these examinations. “Physical exams, right there, on

I was stuck a few months ago. After the unexpected but welcome blessing of the birth of our healthy newborn (the two older kids are 20 and 18 😊), my wife and I had just come home from the hospital following emergency surgery resulting from latent labor complications. We had a plan worked out for

Any estate planning lawyer who drafts wills, trusts, powers of attorney and healthcare directives would tell you something frustrating: some clients won’t sign anything the lawyer prepared. This issue is not limited to adult children of aging parents. It affects solo agers and married couples as well. In a recent conversation at AgingParents.com with an

If you keep an eye on the news, you might have read or heard scary headlines that the Social Security Trust Funds are projected to be exhausted in the year 2034, with the conclusion that Social Security will soon be bankrupt. While the first part of this sentence is true, the conclusion in the second

A recent study into expat happiness around the world saw Old World great Spain dominate the rankings. Valencia was crowned the number one city for quality of life for expats while Malaga, Madrid, Alicante, and Barcelona all earned a place in the top ten. In addition, Spain was first runner up when it came to

It is election season. This is a time when the question of whether people are materially better off than they were four years ago comes up. Comparing March 2024 to March 2020, when a once-in-a-century pandemic broke out, the answer is obviously a resounding yes. But, even considering the winter of 2024 relative to the