You may have stopped working, but Uncle Sam is still digging into your pocket. Though high-income retirees are looking forward to lower taxes once they've exited the workplace, they can still expect to pay stealth taxes in the form of...
Keeps central bank on track for gradual interest-rate hikes Central-bank chief calls recent wage increases ‘quite welcome’ Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell welcomed recent increases in Americans’ wages while expressing confidence that low unemployment won’t spur a takeoff in prices...
An individual retirement account, or IRA, can be a highly effective way to save and invest for retirement. The tax-deferred nature of these accounts can allow savers' money to grow and compound far more efficiently than in a standard taxable...
Not everyone defines being "well off" the same way. A struggling recent graduate may be comfortable with a few bucks in his wallet and food in the fridge while a working single mom may not be comfortable without a six-month...
When preparing their financial information for tax season, it's important for taxpayers to have an idea of how much they'll be paying. Even if your income didn't change, the amount you're paying in taxes may. Several factors affect your taxes...
On Sept. 24, 5,745 goods imported to the U.S. from China will be hit with a 10% tax. Unlike previous tariffs, many of these items are things that are directly sold to consumers instead of raw materials, like luggage and...
Saving toward retirement is challenging for many Americans. Given all of the competing demands on your paycheck, it can be hard to set aside money that you won't need for years, or even decades. But even though many people aren't...
Finding the right vehicle to save for college can be daunting. There are many choices, and it can be difficult to discern the differences among each type of account. Below, we've outlined a few salient features of a few of...
A slight majority of U.S. adults (52 percent) lived in middle-class households in 2016, according to a new report from Pew Research Center. That might seem like only a bare improvement from the previous reporting period in 2011, when the...
Every year, the Consumer Federation of America (CFA) and VantageScore Solutions work together to produce the Annual Credit Score Survey. This survey examines how much Americans actually know about the credit system. With the average credit score reaching a record...
An old saying holds that markets are ruled by either greed or fear. Greed once governed cryptocurrencies. The price of Bitcoin, the best-known, rose from about $900 in December 2016 to $19,000 a year later. Recently, fear has been in...
When Leigh McIlvaine first learned that her student loan debt could be forgiven, she was thrilled. In 2008, at age 27, she’d earned a master’s degree in urban and regional planning from the University of Minnesota. She’d accrued just under...
Most people who get retirement benefits from Social Security get the bulk of their income from their monthly benefits. Because they don't have many other sources of money to pay for living expenses, the annual cost-of-living adjustments (COLAs) that Social...
Pete Roberts of Nottingham, England, was one of the many risk-takers who threw their savings into cryptocurrencies when prices were going through the roof last winter. Now, eight months later, the $23,000 he invested in several digital tokens is worth...
If you’ve ever stepped into the ring with an identity thief, you are probably familiar with a credit freeze. Credit freezes are an incredibly helpful line of defense in protecting your credit, but like everything else that’s good in life,...
