Category: Benefits & Retirement
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The Veterans’ Compensation COLA Act has sat in a Senate committee since May 11
The Senate has done one thing with the veterans’ cost-of-living bill since it arrived: send it to a committee. Sen. Jerry Moran, a Kansas Republican, introduced the Veterans’ Compensation Cost-of-Living Adjustment Act of 2026, S. 4487, on May 11, and it was read twice and referred to the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee. No hearing, markup…
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Treasury and the IRS announced an IRA correction program on October 22
Treasury and the IRS announced a new way to fix certain IRA mistakes on October 22, 2026. The program, called the IRA Compliance Resolution System, is set out in Revenue Procedure 2026-33, and it does not take requests until May 1, 2027. The system gives custodians and owners a formal way to ask the IRS…
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Social Security showed no evidence of sending an overpayment notice at all in 8 of the 58 cases its inspector general found out of compliance in a 126-notice sample
Social Security’s inspector general pulled 126 overpayment notices and found that 58 of them did not meet the agency’s own rules. In 8 of those 58 cases, the auditors found no evidence that Social Security had issued a notice to the person who owed the money at all. What the auditors checked The review came…
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Food stamp households assigned to change reporting must report a change in income at the $150 threshold, under the USDA figures that took effect this month
A food stamp household that is assigned to change reporting has one dollar line to watch: $150. USDA lists that figure in its fiscal year 2027 SNAP cost-of-living tables, the set of figures that took effect on October 1. The tables run through September 30, 2027. The table is headed “Threshold for Required Reporting of…
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A veteran with the top disability rating and no dependents would go from $3,939 to $4,080 a month on December 1 if Congress passes the compensation COLA bill
A veteran rated 100 percent disabled, with no spouse, children or dependent parents, gets $3,938.58 a month from VA today. That rate took effect December 1, 2025. If Congress passes the Veterans’ Compensation Cost-of-Living Adjustment Act of 2026, the same veteran would go from $3,939 to $4,080 a month on December 1, 2026. The $4,080…
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Social Security estimates a disabled widow or widower will average $1,022 a month in January, $35 more than now
Widows and widowers do not all have to wait until 60 to collect Social Security survivor benefits. A surviving spouse who is disabled can start at 50, a decade earlier, and the agency’s January table gives that group its own line. Social Security estimates a disabled widow or widower will average $1,022 a month in…
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Social Security’s table puts the spouse of a retired worker at an average $1,024 a month in January, $35 more than now
Not every Social Security check is paid on the recipient’s own work. The spouse of a retired worker draws on the worker’s record, and SSA’s table of estimated average benefits puts that payment at $1,024 a month in January, up $35 from $989 now. It ties for the smallest dollar gain among the table’s main…
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Social Security can cut an SSI check by up to a third when the recipient lives in someone else’s household, though food stopped counting toward it in 2024
Moving in with a relative can shrink an SSI check by as much as a third, and since September 30, 2024 the groceries someone else buys no longer count against it. Social Security says a payment may be reduced by up to one-third of the federal benefit rate when a recipient lives in another person’s…
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Social Security’s SSI program paid 7.24 million people an average of $711 a month in January 2026 and was on track to complete at least 2.6 million eligibility reviews in fiscal 2026
Social Security’s Supplemental Security Income program paid 7.24 million people an average of $711 a month in January 2026, according to the agency’s latest SSI annual report. The same report says Social Security was on track to complete at least 2.6 million eligibility reviews, which the agency calls redeterminations, in fiscal year 2026. SSI is…
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Social Security can suspend retirement and survivors payments for six months after a first failure to report a change, twelve months after a second and twenty-four after a third
People who get Social Security retirement or survivors benefits can have their payments stopped for six months for failing to report a change on time, and the penalty grows to 12 months for a second violation and 24 months for a third. The rule appears in Social Security’s own booklet for retirement and survivors beneficiaries,…