Retirement

So many Americans run into unexpected health care situations, natural disasters, or other unforeseeable tragedies that also become financial tragedies. We’ve seen research showing that nearly half of Americans would struggle to cover an unexpected $400 expense and that 56 percent of Americans could not cover an $1,000 expense with savings. These numbers and surveys

Key Takeways The $1.7 trillion government spending bill has passed, which means they’ll be able to keep the lights on until at least September next year. With over 4,000 pages worth of legislation, it’s not the type of thing that can be summarized easily. With that said, we’ve pulled out some of the key areas

Back when the SECURE Act passed in 2019, I wrote an article for Forbes called the “Why The SECURE Act Makes 2020 The Year of Missed RMDs.” The reality then was that the two biggest and most impactful provisions of the SECURE Act 1.0 were around required minimum distributions (RMDs) from retirement accounts. With the

Key takeaways Lucid Group has raised an additional $1.5 billion to support ongoing operations, with $915 million being contributed by the Saudi Arabia Public Investment Fund. It keeps the Fund’s stake in Lucid at around 62%, continuing their status as a majority owner of the company. Despite almost $1 billion in additional investment, it’s a

Key Takeaways Disney stock has plummeted almost 45% so far this year, which is looking set to be the worst performance since 1974. The latest fall has come after the opening weekend of Avatar: The Way Of Water fell short of huge opening weekend expectations. Disney is under pressure from many fronts, with its streaming

Key takeaways There are reports that the SAFE Banking Act will be excluded from a must-pass bill, marking the third time it’s failed to get through the Senate. The Act would give cannabis companies access to banking services, which is currently a challenge to the legal status of cannabis at a Federal level. Some are

Congress is once again poised to make sweeping changes to the retirement and tax rules in the last two weeks of the year. The Secure Act 2.0 is expected to become law later this week. Some of the measures in the bill include increasing the required minimum distribution age, raising catch-up contribution limits, permitting some

The spending bill congressional leaders agreed to creates significant new incentives for retirement savings and broadly eases rules for withdrawing funds. Like earlier versions, the measure would both help low- and moderate-income workers save for retirement and create yet another tax windfall for high-income savers. The measure, called SECURE 2.0, adopts elements of bills approved

Key Takeaways Confidence from homebuilders has now fallen every month for a year, hitting levels not seen since 2012, according to the National Association for Home Builders (NAHB). An index below 50 is considered negative, and in December sentiment fell 2 points to hit 31. The NAHB believes this negative trend will continue into 2023,

You know that those credit card rewards aren’t free, but who’s really paying for them? Most of the people I know have credit cards or other payment cards with some kind of reward or point program. For every dollar charged to the card, the card carrier is credited with points or some other reward measure.

Medical professionals across the U.S. are warning us that the combination of flu season, Covid and RSV is putting everyone at risk for getting sick. Preliminary estimates from the Centers for Disease Control are that our population will have 27 million folks who get the flu this year. That is just the early estimate at

Social Security benefits for existing beneficiaries will increase 8.7% in 2023 from 2022 levels. People who haven’t claimed their retirement benefits yet shouldn’t let that change their strategies for claiming Social Security benefits. I regularly hear from people who see the boost in the Social Security cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) and say that makes them consider

If you ask pre-retirees and retirees to name the most serious financial risk they face, they often cite investment risk. That’s not surprising, given that this risk received a lot of attention in 2022 due to the volatility in the stock market and the sharp increase in interest rates. But while investment risk is certainly

Family caregivers are overwhelmed, usually untrained, and often under enormous financial stress. If they are lucky, they have a community to help support them. But unless those receiving care are on Medicaid, they get little help from government. Now, Maine has begun a program aimed at helping family members care for aging or disabled relatives

The Federal Reserve just raised interest rates again and continues to take an assertive stand against historically high inflation numbers. What’s that doing to your investment portfolio? “Interest rates are critical inputs to the valuation process—and influence the value of stocks and bonds,” says Robert R. Johnson, Professor at the Heider College of Business at

Key Takeaways A ‘Santa Rally’ is the term used to describe the gains for the markets in December, with many believing it’s generally a good month for investors. Funnily enough it’s actually true, with the probably of a positive return for US large caps at a massive 77.9% from 1926 to 2020. So far this

Key Takeaways Inflation was up just 0.1% in the month of November, bringing the headline annual rate to 7.1%, down from 7.7% last month. Today the Fed has raised interest rates again, though the 0.50 percentage point increase is a less aggressive raise than the past four 0.75 percentage point increases. The ‘dot plot’ of

The Medicare Open Enrollment Period is over. It seems as though every beneficiary I spoke with during the last two months had questions about one topic: pharmacies. So, here are answers to 10 frequently asked questions about Part D drug plans and pharmacies. What pharmacies can I use? Medicare requires Part D drug plans to

The United States is confronting a number of economic challenges – turbulent markets, rising interest rates, high inflation, and growing economic inequality. Despite these challenges, public pension plans in the U.S. have remained resilient in recent years. In fact, many plans achieved double digit investment returns during 2021. And while the markets took back some

Under both federal (ERISA) and state law pensions are supposed to be managed for the “sole or exclusive benefit” of beneficiaries—participants such as you. Yet forensic investigations reveal that our nation’s public pensions are never managed for the sole or exclusive benefit of participants. So, if your government pension is not managed for your exclusive