Headlines
Labor force excludes many Americans who desperately need jobs
An unemployed man once told me that looking for work was the hardest job he’d ever had. And here’s the thing: the longer you look, the harder it gets. Bernard Stewart Prosise of West Hollywood is Exhibit A. In 2009,…
Medicare Will Settle Short-Term Care Bills
Sharply criticized by Congress and others, Medicare quietly announced on Friday that it would settle hundreds of thousands of hospital appeals over bills for short-term care, by offering deals that could add up to several hundred million dollars. The decision…
The Good News About Medicare and the Budget
The Times’ Upshot team has posted a fascinating chart, derived from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office’s data, which shows that the cost of Medicare is rising more slowly than analysts had expected. In 2006, the C.B.O. projected that annual Medicare outlays per person would rise…
Medicare: Not Such a Budget-Buster Anymore
You’re looking at the biggest story involving the federal budget and a crucial one for the future of the American economy. Every year for the last six years in a row, the Congressional Budget Office has reduced its estimate for…
Social Security Administration’s Someday Campaign
For many people, Someday is an elusive day on the far-off horizon—always seeming close enough to see, but too distant to touch. Perhaps Someday you plan to go skydiving. Or enter a hot dog-eating contest. Maybe Someday you plan to…
Why do police keep seeing a person’s disability as a provocation?
On Aug. 11, Los Angeles police killed Ezell Ford, a 25-year-old who had allegedly resisted arrest, tackled an officer and reached for his gun. And last week, police shot a 25-year-old in Saint Louis, Mo. Kajieme Powell had approached them with a knife, refusing to back…
Understanding Your Annual Social Security Estimates
When you’re looking at your estimated monthly Social Security benefit, you have to remember that it’s just that: a projected, approximated guesstimate. How close to the ballpark it is will be grounded on a handful of factors, including your age…
No other government program has done so much for so many
Almost unnoticed, earlier this month on Aug. 14, a program that has produced more good than any other government program celebrated its 79th birthday. Since the first recipient, a trolley car operator named Ernest Ackerman, Social Security has paid out…
Millennials Are Not Counting on Social Security
Once a goal people spent their lives working toward, the newest working generation doesn’t believe Social Security will be there for their golden years and are instead saving earlier. That’s according to the findings of the 15th annual retirement study by nonprofit Transamerica Center, which showed…
Retirement Advice: Getting Better, But Still Deficient
You probably just heard that 36% of Americans haven’t saved a penny for retirement, according to a new Bankrate.com survey. (And 26% of 50- to 64-year-olds haven’t put away any money for it either.) I suspect that they — and, frankly, most of…