The vast majority of Americans do not meet commonly held definitions of what it means to be rich in the U.S. Respondents to Schwab's 2021 Modern Wealth Survey said a net worth of $1.9 million qualifies a person as wealthy....
The coronavirus pandemic is breathing new life into the argument for a four-day workweek. As employees report burnout and many are refusing to return to the office post-pandemic, employers are rethinking workplace flexibility. For New York-based crowdfunding platform Kickstarter, one...
Knowing the ins and outs of Social Security retirement benefits rules can help you claim a bigger check. Yet some facts about the program continue to trip up pre-retirees. Here’s where respondents to a recent quiz tended to stumble. Take...
In 2016, Wake Forest graduate James Bacon made the decision to pursue a graduate degree. After paying his way through his four-year degree program and taking out student loans to cover the rest, he figured he would do the same...
When you're trying to buy a home, it's best to make a 20% down payment. Doing so allows you to avoid having to buy private mortgage insurance (PMI). PMI ensures lenders don't end up with out-of-pocket losses if they have...
The housing market saw a brief reprieve last month — thanks to lower mortgage rates and an uptick in sales listings More Americans signed on the dotted line to buy a home last month, but the factors that have tested...
Decisions, decisions. Many of the key questions you will face over your lifetime deal with money issues. Good choices can pay off handsomely over time, lifting you up the wealth ladder. Bad judgment calls can condemn you to years of...
When Daniel Penzing’s real estate agent suggested a $345,000 price tag for his Chicago condo, he balked at the number. “We told our realtor that we wanted to list our condo 5% above his suggested listing price,” Penzing says. “I...
Mortgage forbearance offered much-needed relief to millions of homeowners during the coronavirus pandemic, but now many borrowers are leaving the programs. The CARES Act established forbearance programs last year for federally backed mortgages, but private lenders and servicers often provided...
When the American Rescue Plan was signed into law in mid-March, it did a lot more than just send stimulus checks to people's bank accounts. It also boosted an essential tax credit, setting the stage for millions of families to...
For millions of Americans, there’s an unwelcome side of the return to business-as-usual after the pandemic: They’ll have to start repaying their student loans again. More than 40 million holders of federal loans are due to start making monthly instalments...
The tax levied on estates of wealthier Americans upon death brings in a relatively small amount of money — about $13.2 billion in 2019, less than one one-hundredth of what was raised through individual income taxes ($1.7 trillion). But the...
Student debt relief has helped millions of Americans during the pandemic. Since March 27, 2020, federal student loan interest rates have been set to 0% and payments have been paused. But the policy is currently set to expire on Oct....
Unclear IRS guidance regarding how long beneficiaries are required to take payouts from inherited IRAs continues to bedevil estate and retirement planning. At the heart of the matter is the IRS’s new guidance, Publication 590-B, which seems to indicate that...
Thanks to the pandemic, it's been another oddball tax season. The original deadline for filing 2020 federal income tax returns would have been April 15 but the ongoing disruptions, including a backlog at the Internal Revenue Service from last year,...
