Main Street Dollars

—

by

Ask around and a fair number of people will tell you that a bank cannot charge more than five dollars when an account goes negative. It is a specific, confident, widely repeated belief, and it is wrong in two directions at once. No such limit is in force today. And even the rule that people…

Third-party apps send a 1099-K only above $20,000 and 200 payments, but your side income is taxable either way

—

by

in Side Income

A household clears out a garage over the summer, lists a couple dozen things on a resale app and collects a few thousand dollars. January comes and no tax form arrives in the mail. The natural conclusion is that the amount was too small for the Internal Revenue Service to bother with, and that the…

$2.6 million will go to women an Alabama recycling plant refused to hire as laborers, federal investigators said

—

by

in Workplace Rights

Somewhere in Pell City, Alabama, and the towns around it, are women who applied for laborer work at a recycling plant and never heard back. By the federal government’s account, some of them were turned away as long ago as 2006, and the pattern ran until late 2022. The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission says…

$105,000 went to a male surgical technician after a jury found two doctors barred him from most of his duties

—

by

in Workplace Rights

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission announced on July 28 that it had won a jury verdict in the kind of case most people never picture the agency bringing. A federal jury in Fayetteville, Arkansas found that a hospital allowed two of its doctors to strip a male surgical technician of most of the work…

Your savings account probably pays 0.38%, the FDIC’s latest national average shows

—

by

in Checking & Savings

Thirty-eight hundredths of one percent. On a $10,000 balance left alone for a full year, that comes to $38 in interest, or a little over three dollars a month. That is not a figure from a rate-comparison site or a single unlucky bank. It is the national average paid on savings accounts by every insured…

Pump prices are forecast to reach about $3.40 a gallon by the fourth quarter

—

by

in Groceries & Gas

Forty gallons a month is an ordinary amount of fuel for one household with one commuting driver. At the second quarter’s pump prices, that tank-and-a-half habit cost roughly $168 a month. At the price the federal government now projects for the last three months of the year, the same 40 gallons runs about $136. The…

The VA’s claims backlog fell below 70,000 and a decision now averages 77.7 days

—

by

in Government Programs

In 2013, seven out of every ten disability compensation and pension claims sitting at the Department of Veterans Affairs had been waiting more than 125 days. That share is now 11.6 percent. The count of claims stuck past that line dropped under 70,000 in early July, the first time it has been that low since…

Identity theft victims wait nearly two years for refunds; the IRS answers 19% of calls on the line that releases them

—

by

in Refunds

One IRS telephone line exists for a single job. When a return is frozen because the agency suspects someone else filed it, the Taxpayer Protection Program line is where the real taxpayer calls to prove identity and get the held refund released. It is not a general help line. For the households routed to it,…

The Fed’s hold Wednesday keeps savings yields and card APRs flat, and three officials dissented for a hike

—

by

in CDs & Yields

A quarter of the officials voting at the Federal Open Market Committee’s July meeting declined to sign the statement their colleagues released Wednesday afternoon, and all three of them wanted rates moved in the same direction. Not down. Up. The Committee’s decision to leave its benchmark alone carried by a 9 to 3 vote, and…

Federal credit unions can now charge fees your state law used to cap

—

by