Author: Brian Lund
-
Medicaid’s new work rule lands January 1, and a letter starts a 30-day clock
Three dates now sit between a federal rulebook and a Medicaid card. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services issued its community engagement rule on June 1, 2026, and the regulations took effect on July 31, 2026. States must generally have the requirement running no later than January 1, 2027. After that, a single letter…
-
Social Security takes half your check 30 days after an overpayment notice
Recovery of a Social Security overpayment runs on a schedule rather than a negotiation. The agency sends a notice, asks for the money back in full, and waits a fixed period. If nothing arrives and nothing is filed, withholding begins on its own, at half of a Title II benefit, and continues every month until…
-
A credit union branch manager took $381,000 from four elderly customers, one with dementia, and got three years
In 2022 a credit union in Columbus, Indiana fired its branch manager after discovering she had forged customer signatures on banking documents. Shortly after the termination, a client contacted the credit union about unauthorized transactions in her father’s account. The internal investigation that followed confirmed both the forged signatures and withdrawals made without permission, and…
-
Asking rent hit $1,962 and a household now needs $78,488 a year to afford the typical rental
Comfortably affording the typical U.S. rental takes $78,488 in annual income. Affording the typical mortgage payment takes nearly $99,800. Zillow published both estimates in its July rental report on August 18, and the distance between them, more than $21,000, is the company’s own explanation for why demand for rentals has not softened even after the…
-
The bill to restore bigger ACA subsidies passed the House in January and has not moved in the Senate since February
The Senate has taken no action on H.R. 1834 since February 10, 2026, the day the bill was read a second time and placed on the legislative calendar under General Orders as Calendar No. 319. The House had passed it a month earlier, 230 to 196. More than six months later, that February entry is…
-
The subsidy holding down stand-alone Medicare drug plan premiums ends after this year, and 2027 plans are priced without it
No 2027 premium has been published for any individual Medicare drug plan, and none will be until federal officials release the plan landscape in September. What has already been settled is a subtraction. On July 28, 2026, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced that the Part D Premium Stabilization Demonstration, the voluntary program…
-
Unpaid tax still costs 7 percent, compounded daily, through the end of the year
Interest on an unpaid federal tax balance is not a fixed annual charge that sits still. The Internal Revenue Code re-derives it every three months from a market benchmark, and whatever comes out of that formula then compounds daily against the balance until the balance is gone. For the quarter that begins Oct. 1, the…
-
The average American savings account pays 0.38 percent, while a one-year CD pays 1.71
The average savings account at an American bank pays 0.38 percent a year. A one-year certificate of deposit across the same universe of institutions pays 1.71 percent, roughly four and a half times as much. Both figures come from the same federal table, published the same morning, and the distance between them is the whole…
-
Cross $20,000 and 200 payments on a selling app, and a stale tax ID number costs you 24 percent up front
Backup withholding is not a penalty and it is not a tax bill. It is a switch a payment platform flips when the taxpayer identification number it holds for a seller is missing or wrong, and once it is on, 24 percent of a payment comes off the top before the rest reaches the seller’s…
-
Anyone who paid for YouTube TV or DirecTV Stream since April 2019 can claim part of Disney’s $50 million settlement by September 8, with no receipts
Claim forms in a $50 million antitrust settlement with The Walt Disney Company must be submitted online or postmarked by September 8, 2026. The same date closes the window for anyone who would rather step out of the settlement and pursue Disney separately. Two later dates govern when money actually moves: written objections are due…
