Author: Brian Lund
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Credit Acceptance will put $60 million into a fund the attorneys general control
Most of the money in the Credit Acceptance settlement never moves. More than $630 million of it is debt that simply stops existing on the books of a subprime auto lender, which helps 55,000 borrowers but puts nothing in a mailbox. The part that does move is $60 million, and it is going into a…
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Student loan borrowers have until September 30 to lock in a one point interest cut
Federal student loan borrowers who want a full percentage point knocked off their interest rate have until September 30, 2026, to enroll in automatic payments. The discount itself already began July 1, but the U.S. Department of Education gave borrowers a window to sign up and still qualify for the larger reduction. Miss the date,…
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Six states have now set a 2027 minimum wage, and Rhode Island’s reaches $17.00
Six states have now published an official minimum wage rate for January 1, 2027, using six different inflation formulas and six different announcement dates spread between mid-August and mid-September 2026. Rhode Island’s rate, set directly in state statute rather than tied to an index, rises to $17.00 an hour. The other five range from California’s…
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SAVE plan borrowers get a 90-day deadline set by their own servicer
Federal loan servicers started mailing individual exit notices on July 1, each one giving its recipient 90 days from that letter to choose a new repayment plan. There is no single date closing this window; the deadline arrives on its own schedule for each account, set by whichever company services that loan. About 7.5 million…
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Federal wage investigators returned $259 million to 176,957 workers last year, about $1,465 each
The Department of Labor’s enforcement arm closed out its fiscal year with the largest wage-recovery total in six years. Investigators inside the Wage and Hour Division built cases against employers who shorted paychecks — some through unpaid overtime, some through flat minimum-wage violations — and by the close of the fiscal year the agency had…
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The Labor Department recovered $618,666 for 779 Tropical Grille workers denied pay and full tips
A payroll investigation that began in 2024 at a South Carolina restaurant group closed this year with a six-figure repayment order. Investigators found workers shortchanged in three separate ways at once: managers dipping into servers’ tip pools, hours split across two job sites to dodge overtime rules, and teenagers scheduled well past the hours federal…
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Federal civilian workers get no raise in January while troops get 5 to 7 percent
Two numbers landed in the same letter this year, and they move in opposite directions. Civilian federal employees will earn the same base salary in 2027 that they earn now. Service members, by contrast, are getting a raise that runs as high as 7 percent, depending on rank. Both figures came from the same three-page…
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A borrower who ignores the SAVE notice is moved automatically to a higher payment
A rule that has been running quietly since the start of July is close to producing its first visible results. Federal student loan servicers began issuing notices on July 1, 2026 to borrowers left in limbo when the SAVE repayment plan was struck down, and every notice carries its own 90-day deadline to choose a…
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Three federally insured credit unions have closed so far this year
Three federally insured credit unions have shut down since the start of the year, each one small, and each one wound down under a federal safety net that most members never think about until the day it activates. In every case, the National Credit Union Administration took control, closed the institution, and made sure verified…
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Two-thirds of large employers plan to raise what workers pay for health coverage in 2027
When the open enrollment packet lands this fall, most workers flip straight to the premium line. A new read on employer health plans for 2027, from the benefits consultancy Mercer, found that roughly two-thirds of employers with 500 or more workers expect to raise the share of that premium employees pay next year. The shift…