There are few things more dangerous to financial peace of mind than out-of-control debt. While that axiom might be true for most of us, it’s especially true for U.S. seniors, the majority of whom enter retirement in precarious financial shape to begin with. Between mortgage payments, car payments, consumer credit, and even student loans, older … Read more

(EDITOR’S NOTE: This is a breaking news story that was announced as this week’s Blog articles were being prepared. We’ll watch for further developments in the coming days.)  In yet another high-profile policy reversal, the Social Security Administration has announced an abrupt change in their so-called “clawback policy.”  We first brought you this story on … Read more

Social Security is an indispensable part of the economic security of tens of millions of beneficiaries. Politicians of every stripe seem to outdo themselves promising to protect and defend Social Security benefits. For decades the program was referred to as “the third rail of American politics” – touch Social Security and you die.  So, if … Read more

If the headlines and news articles are telling an accurate tale, many U.S. seniors are entering their so-called golden years in precarious financial shape. One example: we’ve recently come across a seeming barrage of articles about retirees and debt. It’s an important subject that we’ve written about often, including this article we posted here on … Read more

As seniors do their estate planning, one key question that arises involves how to bequeath individual retirement accounts, or IRAs. While some assets can be passed along to heirs seamlessly, many IRAs are in a much different category in the eyes of Uncle Sam. To make matters more confusing, rules governing IRA inheritance seem to … Read more

Just a few weeks back, in this article on the Blog, we shared the unwelcome news that the Social Security Administration was changing their rules about verifying personal identification over the phone. The upshot of the new rules was that tens of thousands of people applying for benefits or making changes would henceforth be required … Read more

There’s an old joke that says, “When the going gets tough, the tough go shopping.” Our observation: not these days. Surveys of so-called consumer confidence seem to suggest that many Americans are taking a cautious approach to spending in these turbulent times, and that seems to go double for retirees.  Inflation remains stubbornly high. The … Read more

It seems as though the phrase “unprecedented volatility” has been used a lot in recent years to describe the behavior of the stock market. But few periods have seen the kind of stomach-churning swings like those of the recent days since President Donald Trump announced – then delayed – the imposition of his sweeping tariff … Read more