Main Street Dollars

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The federal government has finalized a Medicare drug pricing experiment that will cover about one in four people in Original Medicare, and the people picked will not be told. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) chose them by drawing ZIP code areas at random. The agency says there is no way to opt…

Aetna will sell Medicare Advantage drug plans in 41 states and Washington, D.C., for 2027, two fewer states than it offers this year

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in Medicare

Aetna, the insurer owned by CVS Health, says it will sell Medicare Advantage plans that include drug coverage in 41 states and Washington, D.C., for 2027. That is two fewer states than the 43 states and the District it covers this year. People on an Aetna plan in a state that drops off the list…

Amazon Prime refunds now cap at $200 instead of $51, and members who used 11 to 20 Prime benefits a year began getting them automatically October 1

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in Settlements & Claims

Amazon Prime refunds under the Federal Trade Commission’s settlement can now reach $200 per person, up from a $51 limit, and a new group of members became eligible for automatic payments on October 1, 2026. The newly covered group is anyone who used between 11 and 20 Prime benefits in a one-year period. Nobody has…

Social Security charges $74 to verify a number for a third party and $54 for each W-2 copy, on requests arriving since October 1

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in Social Security

The Social Security Administration has reset the prices for records it hands out beyond its normal benefit work. Under a new notice, the agency charges $74 to manually verify a Social Security number for a third party and $54 for each W-2 or W-3 copy it provides. Both prices apply to requests that reach the…

Food stamp purchase bans now cover 23 states on USDA’s table, 19 of them with a start date and four stopped by a federal judge

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in Government Programs

The list of states that want to stop food stamp dollars from buying soda, candy and similar items has grown to 23 on the Agriculture Department’s own table. Nineteen of those states have a target start date. Four have none, because a federal court threw out their approvals. The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s SNAP food…

Social Security survivor benefits can start at 50 for disabled widows and widowers

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in Social Security

Social Security survivor benefits can start as early as age 50 for a widow or widower who has a disability. Everyone else has to wait until 60. The earlier start comes with a time limit on when the disability began, which many people in their 50s do not know about until after the window has…

USPS bills senders for unpaid foreign duties on goods mailed abroad from October 19

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in Consumer Rights

The Postal Service will start billing people who mail goods abroad if the foreign duties and taxes on those packages go unpaid. The change takes effect Monday, October 19, 2026. For anyone sending gifts overseas, a package can now come with a bill after it leaves the post office, charged on top of the postage.…

Unemployment benefits are taxable, and recipients can have tax withheld with IRS Form W-4V

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in Refunds

Unemployment benefits count as taxable income, and the IRS lets people who collect them have federal tax taken out of each payment. The tool is Form W-4V, and it asks for a flat 10 percent. Without it, nothing is withheld, and the bill can arrive all at once the following spring. The IRS says in…

Debt collectors generally cannot call before 8 a.m. or after 9 p.m. local time

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in Consumer Rights

Debt collectors are generally barred from calling before 8 a.m. or after 9 p.m., and the clock that counts is the one where the person being called lives. Collectors are also presumed to break the law if they call about the same debt more than seven times in seven days, or within seven days after…

Credit freezes at the three big credit bureaus are free and don’t affect scores

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