A disturbing study released by the nonpartisan National Bureau of Economic Research finds that almost half of Americans die with less than $10,000 in assets. Not surprisingly the study has gone largely overlooked given the penchant of Americans to ignore bad news and that which might suggest the need for positive behavioral changes. The study's authors (James [...]
The year-end battle between President Obama and Congress yielded a two month extension of the rate reduction for the employee portion of Social Security taxes. For January and February the rate remains at 4.2% instead of returning as scheduled to the traditional 6.2% rate. Under the terms negotiated by Congress, however, some employees won't fully [...]
Often labeled a bunch of slackers the members of Generation Y are more conscientious about saving for retirement than Gen X and Boomers. A recent TD Ameritrade survey found that 25% of Gen Y respondents fund both their 401(k)/403(b) plans and IRAs. Only 23% of Gen X respondents and 9% of Boomer respondents claimed to [...]
For all the talk of class warfare dominating Beltway politics and the popular press an equally important issue seemingly gets little to no mention - war between the generations. No, we're not talking about the old man yelling at the kids to stay off his lawn nor do we mean the teenager who knows everything [...]
Millionaire's Surcharge Although Obama's jobs bill was killed in Congress some components may resurface in future proposed legislation. Initial proposals included a series of tax increases on individuals making more than $200,000 and families making more than $250,000. Among them was a 28% cap on the tax exemption for muni bond purchases. Senate Democrats replaced these [...]
Today the Social Security Administration announced that the 55,000,000 recipients of OASDI ("old age, survivor and disability insurance") will receive a 3.6% cost-of-living adjustment. The average transfer payment will increase by $43/mo. bringing average benefits to $1,229/mo. Similarly 10,000,000 of the 161,000,000 workers paying into the program will find their taxes increased as the cap [...]
For 2011 the time of year when seniors do their annual Medicare shopping is moved up. Previously the enrollment period was from Oct 15th through Dec 31st. The end date is now Dec 7th. Changes become effective Jan 1st. Enrollment provides seniors an annual opportunity to amend their Medicare coverage by choosing one of two basic [...]
Prior to adjourning for its August recess Congress approved a bill raising the debt ceiling and potentially eliminating $1,000,000,000+ from the budget over the next 10 years. That's the good news. The bad news is a measure was proposed shortly thereafter to curtail the so-called ‘super committee' entrusted to tackle deficit-reduction from considering cuts to Medicare and [...]
Tom Friedman has teamed with Michael Mandelbaum on a provocative new book. They argue America is failing at what it's always done best: educating its citizens to or above the current level of technology attracting (and retaining) the best and brightest immigrants investing in top notch infrastructure maintaining an atmosphere encouraging capital formation and investment They hypothesize that the [...]
With the unnecessarily painful rhetoric surrounding the U.S. "debt ceiling" subdued we can turn our attention to the revenue increases and spending cuts needed to lower annual fiscal deficits. Spending cuts are a matter of debate (will a government-funded midnight basketball league keep youths off the streets and, thus, lower petty crimes such as vandalism?) [...]