Category: Benefits & Retirement
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Supplemental Security Income adds a monthly federal check for low-income seniors and disabled adults
A lot of older Americans on a tight income assume there is nothing beyond their Social Security check, and they are often wrong. Supplemental Security Income is a separate federal benefit that pays a monthly amount to people who are 65 or older, blind, or disabled and who have very little income and few assets.…
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Social Security must be paid back for the month a person dies, even if the check already arrived
It is one of the most jarring surprises a grieving family runs into: Social Security asks for a payment back. A person who dies is not entitled to a benefit for the month of death, so if a check or direct deposit for that month has already landed, it has to be returned. The rule…
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Eighteen states will block SNAP cards from buying soda and candy under new waivers
For millions of families who buy groceries with a SNAP card, the list of what the benefit can pay for is about to get shorter. A wave of state waivers approved by the U.S. Department of Agriculture will bar SNAP from covering soda and candy, and after a court trimmed the list, roughly eighteen states…
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Humana’s Medicare Advantage non-renewal letters reach about 600,000 members this September
If you have a Humana Medicare Advantage plan, watch your mailbox this month. Humana is not renewing a batch of plans for 2027 that together cover roughly 600,000 members, and the notices telling people their coverage is ending go out in September. For an affected household, the letter is not junk mail to toss; it…
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Retirees who turn 73 must start required IRA withdrawals or face a steep tax penalty
Money in a traditional retirement account cannot stay there untouched forever. Once an account owner reaches 73, the government requires withdrawals to begin, and the penalty for ignoring the rule is one of the harshest in the tax code. These mandatory withdrawals, known as required minimum distributions, catch retirees off guard every year, both those…
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Americans who worked abroad may still earn Social Security through totalization agreements
A career that crosses borders can leave a worker looking like they came up short on Social Security, with too few U.S. credits to draw a benefit and a stack of foreign work history that seems to count for nothing. For roughly 30 countries, that is not the end of the story. The United States…
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Original Medicare caps nothing out of pocket, which is why many retirees add Medigap
Most people assume that once they are on Medicare, there is a ceiling on what a bad year of health can cost them. There is not. Original Medicare has no annual limit on out-of-pocket spending, which means a single serious illness can generate bills with no upper bound. That gap is the reason so many…
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Medicare covers a free yearly wellness visit that many enrollees never schedule
There is a doctor’s appointment that Medicare covers at no charge, once every year, and a large share of enrollees never book it. It is not a physical, and that is exactly why it gets overlooked. The yearly “Wellness” visit is a planning session for staying healthy, and skipping it means passing up a free…
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The QMB program can stop Medicare providers from billing you for copays and deductibles
Millions of older Americans on limited incomes pay Medicare bills they were never legally required to pay. A federal program built for exactly that situation quietly wipes out those charges, yet many people who qualify have never heard its name. It is called the Qualified Medicare Beneficiary program, and for a household counting every dollar…
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A one-time $255 death benefit goes to a surviving spouse when a worker dies
Social Security’s lump-sum death payment is one of the smallest checks the agency writes and one of the most frequently forgotten. It is a flat $255, paid a single time after a covered worker dies, and it goes to a surviving spouse who qualifies. The dollar figure has not changed in generations, and because it…
