Main Street Dollars

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For years, a small but powerful Social Security strategy let certain married retirees collect a check from their spouse’s record while their own benefit quietly grew larger in the background. A 2015 law shut that door for almost everyone. Today it survives for only one narrow group: people born before January 2, 1954. Anyone born…

Medicaid can put a claim on your home after paying for nursing-home care

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in Government Programs

For many families, the family home is the single most valuable thing a parent leaves behind. What often goes unmentioned is that if that parent spent years in a nursing home on Medicaid, the state may come looking to be repaid out of the home’s value after death. It is called estate recovery, it is…

Social Security still taxes up to 85% of benefits for higher-income retirees

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in Social Security

Plenty of retirees are surprised to learn that the Social Security check they spent a career paying into can be taxed a second time when it lands in their bank account. Up to 85 percent of a benefit can be counted as taxable income, and the thresholds that decide how much have not moved in…

Ford has recalled 11.2 million vehicles this year, its biggest a 4.4 million-truck brake fix

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in Recalls

Ford owners have gotten more recall mail than drivers of any other brand this year, and the numbers behind it are striking. The automaker has recalled about 11.2 million vehicles in 2026, more than Honda, Hyundai, Toyota and Nissan combined, and more than half of every vehicle recall issued in the United States so far…

Medicare drug-plan premiums are set to rise for nearly half of enrollees next year as federal help ends

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in Medicare

A temporary federal cushion that has quietly held down Medicare drug-plan premiums for two years is being pulled away, and the effect will show up in millions of monthly bills. Federal officials announced on July 28, 2026 that the program shielding stand-alone drug plans from premium swings will end after December 31, 2026. For 2027,…

New SNAP work rules put more than 5 million people, including 800,000 children, at risk of losing food aid

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in Government Programs

A wave of paperwork is about to decide whether millions of American households keep help buying groceries. A 2025 law rewrote the work rules for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, and one of the most detailed analyses of the change estimates that more than 5 million people now live in households at risk of losing…

Kroger is closing about 60 supermarkets, thinning grocery and pharmacy access in some towns

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in Groceries & Gas

Kroger, the country’s largest traditional supermarket operator, is working through a plan to close about 60 of its stores — and for the towns losing one, the hit lands on both the grocery aisle and the in-store pharmacy at once. The retailer laid out the plan in mid-2025 and has been carrying it out on…

Freeze your credit for free at all three bureaus to block new-account fraud

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in Consumer Rights

One of the strongest defenses against identity theft is also completely free, and most people never turn it on. A credit freeze locks down your credit reports at the three nationwide bureaus so that no new lender can pull them — which means a thief who has your name, birth date, and Social Security number…

Toyota is recalling more than 500,000 Camry Hybrids over a display fault, with free repairs

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in Recalls

Toyota has issued one of its largest U.S. recalls of the year, covering more than half a million of its newest hybrid Camry sedans over a defect that can leave the dashboard blank when the car starts. For the households who own these cars — many of them retirees and long-haul commuters who picked the…

Marketplace health premiums doubled for 2026, and the Senate is stalled on an extension before open enrollment

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