Headlines
Media Coverage Of Social Security Ignores Proposals That Assist Beneficiaries
Cable and television news outlets have overwhelmingly presented Social Security as a program that should be cut, giving little to no airtime for proposals that would instead strengthen the program for beneficiaries. Media Matters research revealed significant media selection bias…
Retiring soon? Don’t forget tax implications
If your retirement is not far off, you’ve probably already started to estimate what your living expenses will be after the regular paychecks stop. Most would-be retirees remember to include routine expenses like housing (rent or mortgage), medical bills and…
House Republicans Draft Their Debt-Ceiling Playbook
With an anxious eye toward the coming debt-ceiling negotiations, House Republicans are drafting what members call a “menu” of mandatory spending cuts to offer the White House in exchange for raising the country’s borrowing limit. This menu is more a…
Editorial: A consumer price index in chains? Not the best idea for Social Security
A president elected on a platform of “change” is finding that some supporters reject his proposed changes. So it is with the way cost-of-living adjustments would be figured for veterans and Social Security recipients in President Barack Obama’s 2014 budget.…
Should the government make you save for your retirement?
When pensions started giving way to 401(k) plans in the 1980s, baby boomers started saving for their own retirement. But younger workers aren’t following through with the same verve. In the past decade, their participation in 401(k)s and other retirement…
Rally decries Social Security benefit cuts
It was a spirited demonstration over an arcane issue that drew a small audience to an incongruous place, but it had a certain Vermont-style gravitas about it: Both of the state’s U.S. senators showed up to voice their support. The…
5 misconceptions about Social Security
Social Security gradually is becoming a regular part of financial advisers’ arsenals, but misconceptions abound as they try to wrap their arms around how the benefits work. With the help of Seth B. Stewart, president of Plan My Benefit, a…
REFILE-Stern Advice - A grain of salt for those retirement projections
Only cave dwellers have missed the boom in retirement-planning studies: what seems like a daily barrage of industry-funded surveys and white papers pointing to an aging population so woefully unprepared they will have work until they are 90, brown-bagging cat-food…
Winning your financial independence
Time to break out the sunscreen and fire up the barbecue because July 4 is just around the corner. Celebrating our nation’s achieving its independence got me to thinking that it might also be a good time to assess your…
It Is Not Just Retirees Who Should Be Worried about the Chained CPI for the Social Security COLA
Chances are if you are under 50, you probably don’t even know what the chained CPI is, but you really need to know all about it and be afraid, be very afraid! Read more… Notice: The “Read more…” link…