Category: Paychecks & Work
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A minister who revokes a Social Security exemption can never claim it again
A new federal law lets members of the clergy who opted out of Social Security opt back in, but the choice only goes one way. Under the enrolled text of H.R. 227, the Clergy Act, a minister who revokes the exemption cannot elect it again. The revocation then applies to all later taxable years. The…
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Veterans in VA job training with two dependents now draw $1,223.79 a month
Raising a family while retraining for work pays more under the VA’s Chapter 31 program than training alone does. A veteran in full-time classroom training with two dependents now receives $1,223.79 a month in subsistence allowance, after a 3 percent cost-of-living adjustment that took effect October 1, 2026. The figure comes from the VA’s fiscal…
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Trump’s 2025 law has Louisiana telling 297,441 Medicaid expansion adults to prove 80 hours of work from January 1, and 210,877 have no state-verified earnings on file
Louisiana will start asking Medicaid expansion adults to show they work, study or volunteer on January 1, 2027, and the state has now put numbers on who is affected. The Louisiana Department of Health expects 297,441 adults in the expansion group to fall under the new rule, and 210,877 of them have no state-verified earnings…
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Veterans, homeless people and former foster youth no longer have an exemption from the food stamp work clock, which now runs to age 64
The federal food stamp program, SNAP, limits some adults to three months of benefits in three years unless they work. The 2025 law known as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act ended three exemptions from that work clock: for veterans, for people experiencing homelessness, and for people 24 or younger who were in foster care…
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A back-wage claim needs one ID document, such as a Social Security card or pay stub, and pays only electronically
A worker with back wages recovered by the Labor Department has to send in one identity document and will be paid only by electronic transfer. The Wage and Hour Division’s Workers Owed Wages page lists the accepted documents, and it says: “Starting October 1, 2025, all payments will be made electronically.” The page sets out…
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Claiming recovered back wages needs a login.gov account and about six weeks
Workers who are owed back wages recovered by the U.S. Department of Labor can claim them online, and the claim takes a Login.gov account and about six weeks. The department’s Wage and Hour Division, known as WHD, runs the process through its Workers Owed Wages tool. All payments have been electronic since October 1, 2025.…
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Social Security gives back the months it withheld from a working retiree once that person reaches full retirement age, recalculating the benefit rather than keeping it
Benefits that Social Security holds back from a working retiree are not gone for good. When that person reaches full retirement age, the agency recalculates the monthly benefit to credit the months that were reduced or withheld. Social Security describes the process on its page on working while receiving benefits, and it matters to anyone…
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A law-firm analysis of the CMS rule projects 2.3 million fewer people on Medicaid in fiscal year 2027, once the new work-reporting rule reaches the expansion group
A law firm’s analysis of a new federal work-reporting rule says about 2.3 million fewer people will be on Medicaid in fiscal year 2027. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services issued the rule on June 1, 2026, and it applies to adults in the group of states that expanded Medicaid. The estimate appears in…
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SSI subtracts what a disabled worker spends on the things needed to hold the job down before it counts any of the wages
Social Security treats some of what a disabled worker spends to do the job as money that never counts against a Supplemental Security Income check. Before the agency measures a worker’s wages against the SSI rules, it subtracts the cost of items and services the worker needs in order to work. The rule is easy…
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A law signed October 15 writes into federal retirement law how a closely held company’s stock must be valued for the employees who own it through an ESOP
Employees who own part of their company through an Employee Stock Ownership Plan, or ESOP, now have a federal definition behind the price put on that stock. The Retire through Ownership Act was signed into law on October 15, 2026, and it writes into the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, known as ERISA,…