Author: Elizabeth Blessing
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NHTSA says its final mileage rollback cuts $1,290 from a new vehicle’s price and raises gasoline use 4.6 percent
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has published its final fuel-economy rollback, and the agency’s own estimate has two sides. NHTSA says the rule reduces average up-front vehicle costs by about $1,290, and that it raises national gasoline consumption by 4.6 percent through 2050. The rule takes effect November 30, 2026. A rule with a…
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USDA now forecasts egg prices falling 29.4 percent this year
Eggs cost 23.0 percent less in August 2026 than in August 2025, and that is the number that has actually been measured. The bigger figure in the headline, 29.4 percent, belongs to a different category of claim. USDA’s Economic Research Service now forecasts that egg prices will fall 29.4 percent across calendar 2026, a prediction…
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Senators are pressing HHS to release $4 billion in heating aid by November 1
November 1, 2026 is a date written into a federal funding law, and 29 senators want the Department of Health and Human Services to beat it. The law, as the senators describe it, requires HHS to distribute at least 90 percent of its total Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program allotment by that day. Their…
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Heating oil households are projected to pay 31 percent more this winter
“Heating oil costs are projected to soar by 31% this winter.” That sentence, in a September 23 press release from Minnesota Senators Amy Klobuchar and Tina Smith, is the only support for the 31 percent figure behind this headline. The release names no forecaster and links no data. The number is best read as the…
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USDA’s own 2027 grocery forecast runs from a 5 percent fall to a 9 percent rise
A household that spends $200 a week on groceries is looking at $10,400 a year, and the question for 2027 is how much more or less that figure will be. USDA’s Economic Research Service has an answer with a catch. Its 2027 forecast for food at home is a rise of 1.8 percent, inside a…
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Income above $137,000 doubles a retiree’s Medicare Part B bill because the surcharge matches the premium
One dollar of income decides which row of Social Security’s 2026 Medicare premium table applies, and the third row is where the Part B bill doubles. For a single filer with income above $137,000, or joint filers above $274,000, the surcharge is $202.90 a month, exactly the size of the standard premium. A $37.50 monthly…
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CMS has made a quarter of Original Medicare a mandatory test subject in a new drug pricing model
“Medicare Part B patients and American taxpayers have paid significantly more for prescription medications than people in comparable countries,” said Dr. Mehmet Oz, the administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, as the agency finalized a new payment model on September 30. The model is mandatory and reaches about 25 percent of beneficiaries…
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Claiming Social Security at 62 locks in a permanent 30 percent cut for anyone born after 1959
Anyone born in 1960 or later has a full retirement age of 67, which makes 62 the point where Social Security’s reduction is steepest: 60 months of early claiming and a 30 percent smaller benefit. The Social Security Administration’s own example turns a $1,000 benefit into $700. A spouse’s benefit is cut further, by 35…
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Auditors found Social Security wrongly denied child’s benefit claims and underpaid 20 people $174,477
A federal audit of child’s insurance benefit claims found that Social Security wrongly denied some of them and miscalculated others. In a sample of 100 claims, the agency underpaid 20 claimants a total of $174,477 and overpaid six others $86,887. The inspector general’s office projects that the errors reach well beyond the sample. A sample…
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Social Security’s 3.5 million surviving spouses average $1,923.91 a month
Social Security’s monthly statistical snapshot counts 3,501,000 nondisabled widows and widowers on the rolls, with an average benefit of $1,923.91. The snapshot reflects January 2026 data. Behind that average sits a reduction schedule that starts a survivor’s check at 71.5 percent of the late spouse’s benefit at age 60 and reaches the full amount only…