Author: News Room
Today’s Social Security column addresses questions about how earning less money before filing can affect benefit rates, how survivor benefits are calculated if the record holder had not yet filed and whether or not to suspend a benefit at FRA. Larry Kotlikoff is a Professor of Economics at Boston University and the founder and president of Economic Security Planning, Inc. See more Ask Larry answers here. Have Social Security questions of your own you’d like answered? Ask Larry about Social Security here. How Will Lower Income Affect My Social Security Benefit Amount? Hi Larry, I am 52 and have full…
Roth IRAs Are Special Roth IRAs are not subject to income taxation (as long as the account has been open for at least five years). There are no during-your-life forced withdrawals for the owner of the Roth IRA – that is, there are no lifetime required minimum distributions, in contrast to RMDs for traditional, tax-deferred IRAs. The owner can withdraw funds from the Roth anytime after age 59 1/2 without triggering income-tax obligations. Again, at no time is the Roth IRA owner forced to take withdrawals. And, it’s income-tax free during the lifetime of the owner, even when the owner…
Yet another legal dispute over student loan forgiveness may be headed to the Supreme Court, leaving thousands of borrowers unsure of what’s to come. The Supreme Court is already considering two legal challenges over President Joe Biden’s signature one-time debt relief plan. That massive initiative would allow up to 40 million borrowers to receive $10,000 or more in federal student loan forgiveness. The Court held a historic hearing in February where the justices hammered attorneys on both sides of the dispute, and it’s expected to issue a ruling in June. In the meantime, no borrowers have received loan forgiveness under…
The Bureau of Labor Statistics has just released its Employment Situation Report for March 2023. The numbers are mostly in line with what economists expected, and show a labor market that is softening but still exhibits substantial growth. The household survey shows that the unemployment rate dropped to 3.5%, still close to a record low. Labor force participation, which has been inching up for each of the past three months, rose once again to 62.6%. This is good news for employers who still struggle to regain workers. The payroll survey shows an increase of 236,000 jobs — very close to…
Key takeaways Gold prices are nearing all-time highs amid economic uncertainty, a weaker dollar and inflation Gold mining companies and ETFs are also up so far in 2023 The precious metal is sensitive to macroeconomic factors, so it could dip in the future – but so far, so good for gold this year Gold: the oldest valuable commodity in the world, the subject of many songs and a solid investment option during a recession. The price of gold has rallied in recent months, breaking the $2,000 per ounce barrier this week for the first time since 2020. The ‘safe haven’…
42. Is that the number of banking relationships you need to maintain to weather this financial turmoil? Not exactly. Recent bank failures can be anxiety-inducing as people try to understand how to insulate themselves against the devastating consequences of bank failures. The numbers paint a sobering picture: since 2000, there have been a staggering 565 bank failures in the United States alone, according to the FDIC Failed Bank List. While we’ve seen a steady decrease in bank failures over the past decade, the 140 failures in 2009 – in the wake of the financial crisis – are a stark reminder…
Something curious happened during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic: people across the country began hoarding toilet paper. From February to March of 2020, toilet paper sales jumped 700 percent. Crazy, right? Why would anyone need hundreds of rolls of toilet paper? And why hoard toilet paper rather than, say, more things useful to survival like cans of beans or jugs of water? Who knows what triggered the massive surge in toilet paper purchases, but once people started buying it in quantity, that led to a panic. Why? Because if you see lots of people buying lots of toilet…
(Reuters) – Bank loans to companies in Italy declined sharply between November and February as demand weakened and interest rates rose, the Bank of Italy said on Friday. In the three months to February loans to the non-financial sector fell overall by 3.2% year-on-year, driven down by 7.5% drop in credit to companies, the Bank of Italy said in its quarterly bulletin. The contraction in lending to firms “reflects a broad weakening in all sectors, and in particular the service sector,” the bulletin said, citing higher funding costs for banks and more stringent lending criteria. Between November and February the…
By Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss NEW YORK (Reuters) – The dollar advanced on Wednesday, recovering from two-month lows hit the previous session, as investors lightened their short positions to book profits ahead of the all-important U.S. non-farm payrolls report on Friday. The underlying trend though for the dollar remained tilted to the downside and Wednesday’s U.S. private sector jobs numbers affirmed that. The jobs data supported the view that the Federal Reserve may not need to raise rates much further. Investors are looking to Friday’s non-farm payrolls report for March, with economists polled by Reuters expecting new jobs of about 240,000. In…
By Mohi Narayan and Matthew Chye NEW DELHI (Reuters) – Singapore’s imports of Russian naphtha nearly tripled in the first quarter of 2023, government data showed, after the European Union banned oil products imports from Russia. The Asia oil hub imported 741,000 tonnes of Russian naphtha in the period, accounting for about 23% of Singapore’s total imports of the refined product, a Reuters calculation based on Enterprise Singapore data showed. This jumped from about 261,000 tonnes imported in the fourth quarter last year, the data showed. The EU banned imports of Russian oil products from Feb. 5 and the Group…
