Main Street Dollars

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Kroger set out a store-closure program more than a year ago and put a number on it in a quarterly earnings release. What the company has never published is a list. That gap is why the count of stores actually closed has been assembled by reporters rather than announced, and it is worth separating the…

Washington cuts its share of SNAP administration in half on October 1, leaving states to cover 75 percent

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in Government Programs

Nothing about who qualifies for food assistance changes this fall. What changes is who pays for the staff that processes the applications. Beginning with the federal fiscal year that starts October 1, Washington’s share of the cost of administering the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program drops from half to a quarter, and states absorb the rest.…

Medicaid’s retroactive coverage window drops to two months for people 65 and older on January 1

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in Government Programs

Medicaid has long carried a provision that assumes people do not apply for it at the moment they need it. Since 1972, coverage could reach back three months before the month a person applied, paying bills already incurred as long as the applicant would have qualified then. That backward-looking window is being cut, and the…

Medicare’s 2027 base drug-plan premium rises the full 6 percent the law allows

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in Medicare

Medicare’s Part D program has a number that almost nobody pays and everybody’s premium is built from. For 2027 it is $41.33, and the way CMS arrived at it says more about the state of drug coverage than the figure itself does. The agency did not choose that number. It is the highest number the…

Utility rate increases now reach 116 million electric customers across 49 states

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in Utilities & Energy

Rate increases at electric and gas utilities have stopped being a local story. A running tally kept by the Center for American Progress and the Natural Resources Defense Council now counts 275 utilities that have raised rates, won approval to raise them, or asked to raise them since the start of 2025. Together those cases…

Providence Health Plan is shutting down, and more than 64,000 Medicare Advantage members must find new coverage

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in Medicare

For most of this year, Providence Health Plan’s Medicare Advantage members had reason to think they would be spared. When the Oregon nonprofit said in May that it was leaving most of the insurance business, it carved out its Medicare Advantage book and said it was negotiating to hand those members to a national carrier…

More than 41,000 Taleco baby swings and jumpers are recalled for a full refund

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in Recalls

Parents and grandparents who bought a baby swing or jumper from Taleco Gear in the past few years should stop using it now. Federal regulators have announced a recall of more than 41,000 of the units over fall, impact, and strangulation hazards, following dozens of reports of the products failing. The remedy is a full…

Home insurance premiums have climbed 46 percent since 2021, outpacing inflation threefold

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in Insurance

The homeowners insurance bill is one of the fastest-rising costs many households face, and it has quietly reshaped the math of owning a home. Premiums are up about 46 percent since 2021 — roughly three times the pace of overall inflation over that stretch — and 2026 is on track to be the fifth straight…

Medicare’s yearly cap on out-of-pocket drug costs rises to $2,100 in 2026

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in Medicare

For anyone on expensive prescriptions, Medicare now has a firm ceiling on what a year of covered drugs can cost. The Part D out-of-pocket maximum rises to $2,100 in 2026, up from $2,000 in 2025. Reach it, and your plan pays 100 percent of your covered drugs for the rest of the year. It is…

Divorced after at least 10 years, you can claim up to half an ex-spouse’s Social Security

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