Main Street Dollars

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A Medicare claim denial has to clear a specific dollar threshold before it can reach an administrative law judge instead of a lower-level reviewer. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) confirmed in a Federal Register notice that the threshold stays at $200 for 2027, unchanged from the year before. A separate, higher threshold…

Medicare’s base drug-plan premium can rise no more than 6% a year through 2029

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in Medicare

Congress built a speed limit into one of Medicare’s most closely watched annual numbers. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services says the Part D base beneficiary premium, the reference figure insurers use in pricing stand-alone drug plans, cannot grow by more than 6% in any year from 2024 through 2029. For 2027, that base…

An eight-person household can earn up to $6,037 a month before taxes and pass SNAP’s federal gross income test from October 1

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in Government Programs

Starting October 1, 2026, an eight-person household can bring in up to $6,037 a month before taxes and still pass the federal gross income test that determines basic SNAP eligibility. The figure comes from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s annual cost-of-living adjustment, which resets every SNAP income threshold, deduction and maximum benefit for the new…

The inflation gauge behind Social Security’s raise ran 3.5% above a year earlier in August

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August’s inflation numbers arrived with one figure Social Security watchers track more closely than any other: the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers, or CPI-W, up 3.5% from a year earlier. That is the specific index the Social Security Administration uses to calculate its annual cost-of-living adjustment, and August’s reading is…

An ex-spouse’s Social Security payments don’t count toward the family maximum that can shrink a current family’s checks

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A household collecting Social Security benefits from one worker’s record can hit a ceiling called the family maximum, and that ceiling can lower everyone’s check to fit under it. Social Security’s family benefits amount page draws one clear line around that limit: payments to an ex-spouse do not count toward it. A current spouse and…

Filing for Social Security at 62 automatically counts as filing for a spousal benefit too, under SSA’s deemed filing rule

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One application at age 62 can start two Social Security claims at once, whether or not the person filing realizes a second benefit is attached to it. Under what the agency calls deemed filing, a claim for a worker’s own retirement benefit at 62 automatically counts as a claim for any spousal benefit that person…

Stepchildren and grandchildren can qualify for Social Security survivor benefits in some cases

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Social Security’s survivor benefit for children was not written for biological sons and daughters alone. A June 2026 notice from the Social Security Administration confirms that stepchildren, adopted children, grandchildren and step-grandchildren can also qualify for a child’s survivor benefit under certain circumstances. The extension follows much of the same age and disability framework used…

A current spouse generally must be married at least a year to collect a Social Security spousal benefit

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Marrying into eligibility for a Social Security spousal benefit takes exactly one thing: time. Social Security’s family eligibility page requires a current spouse to have been married at least one year before that spouse can collect a benefit on a still-living worker’s record. The rule applies while both spouses are alive, a different test than…

An adult child disabled before 22 can collect Social Security survivor benefits at any age after a parent dies

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Most child survivor benefits end at 18, or at 19 for a student still finishing high school. Social Security keeps that door open indefinitely for one group. The agency’s survivor eligibility page lets an adult whose disability began at or before age 22 collect a child’s survivor benefit at 30, 50 or later, long after…

Social Security grows 8% a year for each year a retiree waits past full retirement age, up to 70

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