Personal finance

With schools and parents divided on mask and vaccine requirements, many school districts are planning to be fully in person in the fall — and hoping for the best. “We are all in this together,” said Michael Lubelfeld, superintendent of North Shore School District, just north of Chicago.   Lubelfeld said he will follow Illinois

Tara Moore | Getty Images When the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic sent shock waves through the U.S. economy, its also prompted worries about how the ensuing downturn could affect Social Security. The program’s trust funds were already running low. At the same time, the Social Security Administration was faced with the unprecedented task of

The Biden administration announced Friday it will extend the payment pause for federal student loan borrowers through January 2022. Since March 2020, borrowers have been given the option to press the pause button on their monthly bills, without interest accruing on their debt. Some 90% of borrowers have been doing so. The pause was scheduled

T-Mobile Weeks after applying for public service loan forgiveness, a federal program that forgives student loan debt for eligible workers, Kathleen Young got a phone call. The woman on the other end said she could help Young forgive her student debt. Young, an elementary school teacher in Palo Alto, California, assumed it was the U.S.

Photo by Ariel Skelley via Getty Images Investors are piling into municipal bonds — also known as muni bonds or “munis” — ahead of President Joe Biden‘s proposed tax hikes. However, some retirees may be hit with a costly surprise: higher Social Security levies and Medicare premiums.  During the first six months of 2021, U.S.

It might be time, again, to protect your credit. An estimated 1 million U.S. and global credit cards were released by a Russian criminal organization on the so-called dark web, according to analysts at cybersecurity firm Q6. The group, which calls itself “All World Cards,” offers stolen credit card information to other criminals. Although there’s

FG Trade | E+ | Getty Images Sometimes, older Americans discover that retirement just isn’t a good fit. Whether due to needing more income or wanting personal fulfillment, many older Americans head back to work after calling it quits. Of workers age 65 or older, 40% had previously retired at some point, according to a

Job seekers speak with recruiters at a Job News USA career fair in Louisville, Kentucky, on June 23, 2021. Luke Sharrett/Bloomberg via Getty Images About half of U.S. states withdrew federal funds for the unemployed months early to encourage out-of-work residents to find a job. But mounting evidence shows that policy gambit hasn’t yet paid

kate_sept2004 | E+ | Getty Images Many Americans were financially squeezed even before the Covid-19 pandemic began. As of 2019, 41% of households ages 25 to 64 said they did not have enough saved to cover an unexpected $400 expense, according to Federal Reserve data. One reason they may have had trouble setting aside cash:

The pandemic has caused a lot of people to reevaluate, particularly when it comes to work. In what’s been called the “Great Resignation,” roughly 1 in 3 workers are now considering leaving their job, while almost 60% are rethinking their career, according to a report by personal finance site MagnifyMoney.   After spending more than

mphillips007 | iStock Unreleased | Getty Images When it comes to the lottery, it’s been a good year so far for Uncle Sam. Winners of Powerball and Mega Millions jackpots — worth an advertised $2.9 billion in all — have collectively paid roughly $515 million to the IRS in 2021 taxes. And that won’t be

ArtMarie | E+ | Getty Images ‘Vaccine hesitancy’ has become a popular term as public officials urge unvaccinated Americans to protect themselves against the latest Covid-19 outbreak. Now it turns out there’s also another uncertainty — ‘tax hesitancy’ — that is taking hold among some parents over the expanded monthly child tax credit payments. The

Tuesday, Aug. 3 is Black Women’s Equal Pay Day. It marks the additional 214 days that Black women must work to catch up with what white, non-Hispanic men earned last year. In essence, Black women have to work for 579 days to make what white men do in 365.  The pay disparity is stark.  On

Samuel Corum | Getty Images News | Getty Images States’ early withdrawals from federal unemployment programs in recent weeks are helping Senate lawmakers finance upgrades to the nation’s infrastructure, according to legislative text unveiled Sunday. Twenty-six states, largely Republican, have pulled out of pandemic-era programs since mid-June. The American Rescue Plan offered federal unemployment assistance

pcess609 If nothing changes, the federal government’s break from payments for student loan borrowers will come to an end next month. For the first time since March 2020, when the coronavirus pandemic hit the U.S. and crippled the economy, millions of borrowers will have to resume paying their monthly bills. The typical federal student loan

In this article AXP The South Rim in Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona. Westend61 | Westend61 | Getty Images Summer travel is back, big time. That’s according to a survey released Tuesday by American Express Travel, where consumer travel bookings have reached 95% of May 2019 levels. But while affluent Americans are itching to

Los Angeles County Regional Food Bank workers help with food distribution in Willowbrook, California on April 29, 2021. FREDERIC J. BROWN | AFP | Getty Images Millions of jobless Americans are poised to lose Covid-era income support in about a month’s time. This impending “benefits cliff” appears different from others that loomed this past year,

Alexander Spatari | Moment | Getty Images You’ll probably have to use cryptocurrency to pay off that ransomware hacker who froze your laptop, but where else might you put all your bitcoin, ethereum and other digital coins to actual use? Tesla may still be unsure about accepting bitcoin for its electric vehicles again, yet cryptocurrency

A career fair in Louisville, Kentucky, on June 23, 2021. Luke Sharrett/Bloomberg via Getty Images Unemployment benefits are still not reaching people quickly, over a year into the Covid pandemic. About 38% of workers who got their first payment of benefits in June had waited more than 21 days for the funds to arrive, according

Stefani Reynolds/Bloomberg via Getty Images The IRS began issuing another 1.5 million tax refunds this week to people who received unemployment benefits in 2020. That adds to the nearly 9 million refunds, worth about $10 billion, the agency sent since May. Funds delivered by direct deposit this week started hitting bank accounts on Wednesday, and