Squared Away Blog

Here’s the back story to your barbecued chicken and grilled hamburgers. On July 4, 1777, Philadelphians marked the first anniversary of independence from the British with a spontaneous celebration. Future president John Adams described the ships parading on the Delaware River that day as “beautifully dressed in the colours of all nations.” In the aftermath of the Civil War, freed slaves turned the Fourth into a celebration of their emancipation. If you have the day off from work, thank Congress for declaring the Fourth a federal holiday in 1870. Enjoy! ……

Home health aides, nurses, teacher assistants and servers do a lot of lifting or standing for long periods, which takes a toll on their bodies. For a middle-aged waitress, it might be a bad knee. For a baby boomer caring for an elderly person, it might be the strain of lifting a patient out of a chair. In a new study, researchers calculated the percentage of workers who cite health-related obstacles to performing their jobs for nearly 200 occupations. A ranking of these percentages proved a fairly reliable indicator of what one would expect workers to do. Workers in the occupations with the largest share of people having difficulty performing their jobs were more likely to quit work and f…

Kathleen Rehl’s husband died in February 2007, two months after his cancer diagnosis. She has taken on the mission of helping other widows process their grief, while they slowly assume the new financial responsibilities of widowhood. Rehl, who is 72, is a former financial planner, speaker, and author of “Moving Forward on Your Own: A Financial Guidebook for Widows.” She explains the three stages of widowhood – and advises women to take each stage at their own pace. Question: Why focus on widows? Rehl: After a husband dies, and whether it’s unexpected or a long-lingering death, there is a numb period. Some widows refer to it as “my jello brain” or “my widow’s brain.” It’s a result of how t…

“Families often serve as the first line of defense against adverse events,” a RAND study starts out. In this case, the researchers are talking about a mother who protects her unemployed adult child by providing financial assistance, a request that’s not easy for a mother to resist. RAND researchers Kathryn Edwards and Jeffrey Wenger find that women of all ages are very likely to help out and “significantly alter their behavior” when a son or daughter loses a job. How much mothers’ sacrifices affect their standard of living are beyond the scope of this study. But although unemployment is at historic lows today, when a child does lose a job, a mother who provides assistance is potentially exposing herself and…

Employee lawsuits against their 401(k) retirement plans are grinding through the legal system, with mixed success. Many employers are beating them back, but there have also been some big-money settlements. This year, health insurer Anthem settled a complaint filed by its employees for $24 million, Franklin Templeton Investments settled for $14 million, and Brown University for $3.5 million. More 401(k) lawsuits were filed in 2016 and 2017 than during the 2008 financial crisis, and the steady drumbeat of litigation could be affecting how workers save and invest. For one thing, the suits have coincided with a dramatic increase in equity index funds, according to a report by the Center for Retirement Research. Last year, nearly one out of three U.S…

There’s an informal rule in journalism: put too many numbers in an article, and readers will drop like flies. A similar phenomenon might also be at work when someone looks at a Social Security statement filled with numbers. The statement, which is intended to help workers plan for retirement, shows the size of the monthly benefit check increasing incrementally as the claiming age increases. Yet many people still choose to claim their benefits soon after becoming eligible at 62, which means smaller Social Security checks, possibly for decades. In a recent experiment, a friendlier approach proved effective in helping people process this information: tell a story.  Researchers at the Center for Economic and Social Research at the University of Southern…

Nursing homes are usually at the bottom of people’s list of places for their parents. A workable and little-known alternative is available in many states: adult foster care. This PBS video about Oregon’s program features a suburban Portland woman, Carmel Durano, who provides 24-hour care in her home for five elderly people, including her mother. Durano has been a good solution for Steve Larrence’s 99-year-old mother. He feels comfortable with Durano and lives in the same neighborhood, so he can walk over anytime to talk to his mother.  “You don’t feel like you’re in an institution. You feel like you’re living with a family,” Larrence said in the video. Durano is part of a network of more than 1,500…

Self-employed and gig workers who fail to report all of their earnings to the federal government will pay a price: a smaller monthly Social Security check when they retire. Gauging the magnitude of this problem is tricky since the IRS doesn’t know how much is not being reported by a group of workers not easily identified in the available data. As a first step, new research derived estimates of the unpaid self-employment taxes that result from the under-reporting, using a combination of U.S. Census data on the workers’ incomes and past studies on the prevalence of the problem. Specifically, the researchers found that more than 3 million self-employed people – construction contractors, small business owners, and other independent contractors –…

The first and arguably most important decision a new graduate will make is how much to pay for rent. If it’s too high, the rent – on top of those annoying student loans – will push out other priorities necessary to prevent financial trouble down the road. Rick Epple, a certified financial planner in Minnesota’s Twin Cities area, counsels his daughter’s friends and clients’ children entering the labor force to keep their rent at around 20 percent of their income. “Nobody ever talks about what they should spend,” he said. He worries about young adults who pay a third of their income – the standard recommendation – for an apartment. If the rent blows a hole in the budget, paying…

The amount of money a widow receives from Social Security can mean the difference between comfort and hardship. Husbands have a lot of control over how this will turn out. Each additional year they postpone collecting their own Social Security adds another 7.3 percent to the amount a future widow will receive every month from the program’s survivor benefit. But husbands can be a stubborn lot. Previous research has shown that a large minority fail to take their wives into account when deciding to start their Social Security. A new study confirms this in an online experiment designed to raise husbands’ awareness of the financial impact their claiming age could have on a spouse. The men’s ages ranged from 45…

The evidence continues to pile up: workers are having a very hard time affording their high-deductible health plans, which have gone from rare to covering nearly a third of U.S. workers. Between 2008 and 2018, the deductibles in employer health plans more than tripled – growing much faster than earnings. Workers’ full insurance coverage doesn’t kick in until they pay the deductibles, which now exceed $3,000 for individuals and $5,000 for families in the highest-deductible plans. Add to that a 50 percent hike in premiums during that time. Some 156 million people get health insurance through work, and they’re largely grateful to have it. They blame rising medical costs on insurers and pharmaceutical companies – and not their employers and…

Florida Retired Germans spend more days outdoors than retirees in this country. But when older Americans leave the house, they stay out longer. What makes the difference? The car. Americans love their automobiles and overwhelmingly rely on them, according to a new study by MIT’s AgeLab. If they’re going grocery shopping, they might as well run their other errands. Only about half of Germans, on the other hand, say driving is their favorite way to get around. And they venture out more frequently, because they can walk – or bike – to the market, which tends to be closer to home. As people age and recognize the inevitability of their limitations, they begin to think more carefully about whether they…