Squared Away Blog

Just one in four of the low-income workers eligible for the federal tax credit for retirement saving are even aware that it exists. The IRS, as I said in a previous blog, practically “gives money away” through its Saver’s Tax Credit, which returns as much as half of the amount saved to the tax filer. The credit was designed to encourage the nation’s lowest-paid workers, who largely don’t save. Yet a survey last year by the Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies found that people who are not eligible for the credit know more about it than people who are eligible. There was a pervasive lack of awareness in three groups in particular: workers earning under $50,000, women, and people wit…

There’s new evidence to remind us that nothing much changes: we are still baffled by our DIY retirement system. And no wonder! First, saving must start at a young age, when retirement is an abstraction. Saving is further stymied by two big questions: how much to save and how to invest it?  It’s also smart to anticipate how one’s compensation arc might affect Social Security – taking into account, for example, that women withdraw temporarily from the labor force to have children and that earnings can decline when workers hit their 50s.  As we fly past middle age and retirement appears on the horizon, it’s a little late to figure this retirement thing out.  And there’s no plan for long-term…

Stark differences are emerging in the ways that workers, depending on how much they earn, are using the medical services covered by their employer health plans. While higher-income workers gravitate toward preventive and maintenance care, lower-wage workers visit emergency rooms far more often, according to a study published last month in Health Affairs.  The researchers pointed to one major culprit: a 67 percent increase in average deductibles for employer health plans since 2010. Employers usually offer the same health plans to all their employees. But the growing prevalence of high-deductible plans could be making making some low-wage workers think twice before seeing a doctor if they’ll have to pay the entire bill because they haven’t hit their yearly deductibles yet…

Most retirees didn’t notice the $5 cost-of-living increase in the average Social Security check. That’s because the Part B Medicare premium deducted from their checks went up nearly as much (from $104.90 in 2016 to an average $109 this year). Beyond premium hikes, the bigger issue for retirees are the additional out-of-pocket costs they must pay as part of their Part B coverage for doctor visits and outpatient care. When rapidly rising copayments are added to the basic premium, they together consumed more than 15 percent of the average Social Security benefit last year. That is more than double the percentage in 1980, and it’s expected to exceed 17 percent by 2030, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS). T…

A 2014 report from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) said that the largest category of financial complaints by seniors was debt collection, with nearly half of their complaints involving “continued attempts to collect debt not owed.” The CFPB just followed up with a missive directed at some 7 million older Americans enrolled in the Qualified Medicare Beneficiary Program (QMB). People who qualify for this Medicare designation receive such small Social Security checks – less than $1,010 per month for individuals and $1,355 for couples – that doctors, hospitals and other medical providers are barred from billing them directly for services rendered. The CFPB said that it, as well as the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, continue to hear…

Nearly half of the low-income residents in some sections of Louisville are delinquent on their city water bills. In Newark, water customers’ unpaid balances have been known to reach $4,000. The shutoff and reactivation fees that some cities charge when they stop a customer’s water service create another problem in places like Houston: they add to the unpaid balances of customers who are already struggling financially. Cities are also becoming more aggressive about collecting on their debts, hiring third-party collection firms. Researchers and the National League of Cities tried an alternative in the form of an ambitious pilot program involving five city water departments: Houston; Louisville, Kentucky; Newark, New Jersey; Savannah, Georgia; and St. Petersburg, Florida. Driving the program was…

Some of the workers and retirees around the country who count on having a government pension surely get nervous when they see headlines about the most troubled state and local plans – in places like Illinois, New Jersey, Connecticut, Chicago, and Detroit. A broader perspective on retirement benefits, however, shows that the results are more mixed.  A study by the Center for Retirement Research, which sponsors this blog, estimated long-term costs for pensions, retiree health benefits, and general debt service as a share of revenues for the 50 states, 178 counties, and 173 cities. The findings are summarized below: States: Many states’ combined costs – pensions, other post-employment benefits (OPEBS) such as health insurance, and payments on all government bonds…

Most of the 1,000 people who took the financial well-being quiz posted here last year felt content with their situations. Their well-being score averaged 16.4 out of 20 points possible on the quiz. This happy response completely conflicts with a statistically more reliable survey showing that three out of four Americans report feeling “financially stressed.” Our quiz makes no claim of representing the adult U.S. population and was taken by a hodgepodge of regular readers, Twitter followers and Facebook friends. So why are Squared Away loyalists so content with their finances? The blog is “attracting people who are in the action phase. I’m guessing they’re motivated and ready to move,” said Brad Klontz, a financial psychologist in Hawaii – …

Despite the normal cognitive challenges that people in their 70s and 80s inevitably face, most are sharp enough to be in charge of their financial affairs or oversee them. But the significant minority of seniors who do have trouble is explored in a new summary of the research by Anek Belbase and Geoffrey Sanzenbacher at the Center for Retirement Research, which supports this blog. One such group is people learning for the first time how to carry out financial tasks. Widows, not surprisingly, are often required to negotiate this financial learning curve, which gets steeper as a senior’s ability to process new information erodes. With guidance from a family member or professional, however, the novices can usually figure things out…

Having health insurance is no guarantee that medical care is affordable. Some families, despite being covered by the Affordable Care Act (ACA) or employer policies, say that high premiums and deductibles mean they can’t afford to see a doctor. This distinction – between having insurance and receiving care – will be crucial as Congress considers proposals for ACA’s replacement. One comprehensive 2003 study demonstrates how individual medical decisions change when they receive one longstanding, and what the researchers called “generous,” type of insurance: Medicare. Their study focused on changes in the use of the health care system – more so than improved health – by comparing people who’ve recently gone on Medicare with people a couple years away from turning…

It’s old news that the many baby boomers who did not get married and stay married are worse off financially than those who did. Unfortunately, the financial damage to one segment of this generation has broken new ground. Only 44 percent of “middle boomers” – those born in the late 1950s – have remained married to their original spouses, down from 52 percent of their parents’ generation. Middle boomers are also far more likely to have lived with partners without marrying, remained single all their lives, or even to have divorced twice. The heart of a study is determining which of middle boomers’ choices were most likely to have led to financial distress when they reached their pre-retirement years. About 11…

Maintaining a network of family, friends, or even golfing buddies is critical to cognitive and physical health in old age, research has shown. What wasn’t known is how work affects the social lives of older people. Does work foster social ties or limit the time one has to socialize? A new study by Eleonora Patacchini at Cornell University and Gary Engelhardt at Syracuse University finds that those who continue to work have larger social networks. They analyzed responses to the following question by more than 1,300 survey participants in the National Social Life, Health and Aging Project. The participants were ages 57 to 85 in 2005 and answered the following question then and again in 2010: “Most people discuss things…