Author: Brian Lund
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Eighteen states will block SNAP cards from buying soda and candy under new waivers
For millions of families who buy groceries with a SNAP card, the list of what the benefit can pay for is about to get shorter. A wave of state waivers approved by the U.S. Department of Agriculture will bar SNAP from covering soda and candy, and after a court trimmed the list, roughly eighteen states…
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Tipped workers must still reach the full minimum wage, or the employer owes the difference
The paycheck says $2.13 an hour, and to a lot of new servers that number looks like the whole story. It is not. Under federal law, a tipped worker is still guaranteed the full minimum wage of $7.25 for every hour worked, and when tips do not get them there, the employer has to make…
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The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act requires employers to offer accommodations like light duty
A pregnant worker asked her manager for a stool so she could sit during long shifts, and instead of a stool she was told to go home on unpaid leave until the baby came. Under federal law, that response is now backwards. Since 2023, employers of a certain size have been required to work with…
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Retirees who turn 73 must start required IRA withdrawals or face a steep tax penalty
Money in a traditional retirement account cannot stay there untouched forever. Once an account owner reaches 73, the government requires withdrawals to begin, and the penalty for ignoring the rule is one of the harshest in the tax code. These mandatory withdrawals, known as required minimum distributions, catch retirees off guard every year, both those…
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Extended 2025 tax returns are due October 15, with interest already running since April
Roughly one in ten taxpayers asks for extra time to file, and for those who requested a 2025 extension, the real deadline is now close: October 15, 2026. What trips people up is a detail the extension paperwork does not shout about. An extension buys more time to file the return, but it never bought…
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A certificate of deposit locks your rate, but cashing out early usually costs months of interest
A certificate of deposit is one of the most predictable products a bank offers, and that predictability is exactly what trips people up. The deal is simple on the surface: lock the money away for a set time and the bank guarantees a fixed interest rate. What many savers underestimate is the cost of breaking…
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High-yield savings accounts still pay near 4% while many big banks pay almost nothing
Two savers can keep the exact same $10,000 in a savings account at two different banks and end the year hundreds of dollars apart. The difference is not luck or risk. It is entirely the interest rate on the account, and right now the gap between the best-paying banks and the biggest-name banks is enormous.…
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U.S. savings bonds stop earning after 30 years, so cash the ones you forgot
Somewhere in millions of American households, a savings bond bought decades ago for a birth, a graduation, or a retirement is sitting in a drawer doing absolutely nothing. That is not a figure of speech. A U.S. savings bond earns interest for exactly 30 years and then stops cold, and every month it sits past…
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Americans who worked abroad may still earn Social Security through totalization agreements
A career that crosses borders can leave a worker looking like they came up short on Social Security, with too few U.S. credits to draw a benefit and a stack of foreign work history that seems to count for nothing. For roughly 30 countries, that is not the end of the story. The United States…
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Medicare covers a free yearly wellness visit that many enrollees never schedule
There is a doctor’s appointment that Medicare covers at no charge, once every year, and a large share of enrollees never book it. It is not a physical, and that is exactly why it gets overlooked. The yearly “Wellness” visit is a planning session for staying healthy, and skipping it means passing up a free…
