Author: Elizabeth Blessing
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Medicare set the 2027 Part D base premium at $41.33 and will end a subsidy for standalone drug plans
On July 28, Medicare published one number that no beneficiary will ever see on a bill: $41.33. That is the base beneficiary premium for Part D drug coverage in 2027, and it is not a price. It is the statutory floor that every basic drug-plan premium is calculated from, and the figure the late-enrollment penalty…
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Report a lost debit card within two business days and you owe at most $50, but unreported charges after 60 days carry unlimited liability
The clock that decides what a stolen debit card ends up costing does not start when the card goes missing. It starts at the moment the cardholder realizes it is gone. Federal law allows two business days from that realization, and the distance between beating that deadline and missing it is the distance between a…
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Four U.S. banks have failed in 2026, two of them in one July week
The notice a bank failure generates in the Federal Register is addressed to creditors and lawyers, not to the people who kept a checking account there. That division is the design. At every American bank placed in federal receivership this year, the cost of the failure was routed to the federal Deposit Insurance Fund rather…
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Florida’s minimum wage rises from $14 to $15 an hour on September 30
On September 30, the wage floor under Florida’s hourly workers moves up by a dollar. For someone scheduled 40 hours a week at that floor, the step is worth about $40 more per week before taxes, or roughly $2,080 across a full year of full-time hours. The increase has not taken effect yet, and the…
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Battelle Energy Alliance will pay $5 million to over 100 workers denied vaccine exemptions
More than 100 employees of an Idaho Falls engineering and research company asked to be excused from a mandatory COVID-19 vaccine policy. Some asked on the basis of a sincerely held religious belief. Others asked on the basis of a disability. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission found reasonable cause to believe those requests were unlawfully…
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More than 14 million returns hit IRS filters this year, delaying a million refunds about 5.5 weeks
The IRS processed about 139 million individual income tax returns during the 2026 filing season. More than 14 million of them did not move straight through. Those returns were suspended during processing, held inside the agency’s automated screening filters before any refund could be released. Measured against the season’s own total, that is close to…
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Who can hold $4,500 in countable assets and still get food benefits? Households with a member 60 or older
Four thousand five hundred dollars is the ceiling on countable assets a household can hold in federal fiscal year 2026 and still qualify for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, so long as at least one member is age 60 or older or has a disability. Every other household stops at $3,000. That $1,500 gap is…
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Owners of 5,918 recalled Sili Factory teething toys can request full refunds
About 5,918 Sili Factory pull-string teething toys are under recall because their silicone strings can reach the back of a child’s throat and create a deadly choking hazard. Owners should take the toy away from children immediately and can request a full refund after following the recall’s destruction-and-photo instructions. This recall covers one specific product…
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Eligible teachers can receive up to $17,500 in federal loan forgiveness after five complete school years
Federal Teacher Loan Forgiveness can cancel up to $17,500 of eligible student debt after five complete and consecutive academic years of qualifying full-time teaching. The maximum is real, but it does not apply to every teacher, every federal loan, or every school. Before counting on the benefit, teachers should check the school, service dates, loan…
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Very-low-income rural homeowners can seek 1% repair loans up to $40,000; some seniors may add a $10,000 grant
A failing furnace, unsafe wiring, or leaking roof can force a rural homeowner to choose between essential repairs and other household bills. USDA’s Section 504 Home Repair program offers qualifying very-low-income owner-occupants loans of up to $40,000 at a fixed 1% rate, while some homeowners age 62 or older may qualify for a lifetime grant…
