Squared Away Blog

The adage that money won’t buy happiness has been proved wrong – at least up to a point. One famous study found that one’s well-being increases as income rises, though the benefits subside around $75,000 per year. But what about the reverse? Do people who are happy earn more money? Yes, say two British economists. Their study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences concluded this after following American teenagers for a more than decade through the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. In 1994 and 1996, this survey asked high school students to react to statements like “You were happy” and “You felt hopeful about the future.” In a 2008 follow-up survey, when most of them wer…

The federal government continues to work out the kinks in its reverse mortgage program. The latest change allows a non-borrower to remain in her home after her spouse, who signed the reverse mortgage, has died. The federal government established its reverse mortgage program in the 1990s to provide an alternative source of income for retirees over age 62. These Home Equity Conversion Mortgages (or HECMs) are secured by the equity in borrowers’ houses, and the loans are repaid only when they move or die. The loans are federally insured to ensure that borrowers get all the funds they’re promised, even if the lender fails, and that lenders are repaid, even if the value of the property securing the loan declines…

The job market appears in fine form. August’s unemployment rate, at 5.1 percent, is now at half of its Great Recession levels. But while the media latch on to the unemployment rate in the federal government’s monthly jobs reports, economists like Gary Burtless of the Brookings Institution are interested in a different number that’s also part of the monthly update: labor force participation among people in their prime working years, ages 25 through 54. They are the heart of the labor market, and the trend in their participation rate paints a bleaker picture of the job market, Burtless noted in a recent report. In August, the rate was just 80.7 percent – and still below the 83 percent level prior…

Longer lives, eroding Social Security benefits, and rising health care costs – these are just some of the reasons older workers need to save more in their 401(k)s. To encourage them, Congress in 2001 approved a “catch-up contribution” for workers over age 50.  The size of this additional tax-deductible contribution started at $1,000 in 2002 and jumped to $4,000 by 2005 and $5,000 in 2006.  (After 2006, it continued to increase, though only at the rate of inflation, and is currently $6,000.) But the catch-up contribution has not turned into a broad-based solution to Americans’ retirement woes that some proponents had claimed at its passage.  According to researchers at the Center for Retirement Research (which supports this blog), it helps…

With summer’s chaos subsiding and school starting, it’s time for a financial lesson wrapped in an allowance! The conventional wisdom behind a weekly allowance is that it impresses on children the limited value of a dollar.  But the benefits of financial education are not well-founded in academic research. The benefits of an allowance might have something to do with kids’ confidence in handling their money, which research shows is central to how well adults manage their finances. Kids between ages 8 and 14 who get an allowance were two times more likely to feel knowledgeable about managing their money than kids who do not – 32 percent versus 16 percent – according to a survey of 1,000 parents and 881…

Last month, Squared Away published a primer for new Medicare enrollees choosing between their two available options: an Advantage plan or traditional Medicare plus a Part D drug plan and/or supplemental Medigap policy. Millions of beneficiaries receive their Medicare benefits without any major problems. But today’s blog is about a report detailing complaints to the national telephone hotline operated by the Medicare Rights Center, a non-profit patient advocacy organization.  Two of the top issues reported by seniors were denials of coverage and rocky transitions from employer or other health insurance into Medicare. Here are some of the findings: 60 percent of calls about Advantage plans involved denials of coverage for physician care, home care, therapy, medical equipment, tests and other…

Squared Away periodically alerts readers to information online that might be useful to them.  These three crossed the transom in August: Natural disasters quickly turn into financial disasters. On Hurricane Katrina’s 10th anniversary, the National Endowment for Financial Education and other organizations have released a guide, Disasters and Financial Planning.  The guide includes tips on how to insure properly against hurricanes, floods, or forest fires and how to hire contractors to make repairs after disaster hits. The U.S. Social Security Administration posts a raft of brochures online to explain everything from how to get your newborn’s Social Security number or replace your old one (citizen or non-citizen, international students) to disability information for veterans. There’s also information on federal benefits…

It would be even tougher for Sher Polvinale to get by solely on her late husband’s Social Security check of $1,700 per month if he had not bought a life insurance policy that has paid off their house. Despite her meager financial circumstances, Polvinale’s retirement is rich in rewards. This 69-year-old former payroll administrator for a construction company said she brings in $200,000 in annual donations for her non-profit, which cares for old, unwanted dogs that need expensive medical care and attention. One can’t help thinking, while watching the National Geographic video below about the retired dog sanctuary in her home, that many elderly people would be lucky to have such a place to live out their final years. For financia…

Inequality goes beyond the wealth and income disparities that frequently make it into today’s headlines. Employer benefits also flow more freely to people at the top. The newly released survey of employers by the U.S. Bureau of Labor shows how stark the differences are. The charts below compare the share of private-sector workers in the lowest income bracket who receive benefits – their earnings are in the bottom 25 percent of all U.S. workers’ earnings – with the share in the top 25 percent. Four benefits are compared: health insurance, the percent of health premiums paid by employers, paid sick leave, and – since it’s August – paid vacations.                       For…

One-third of 18-24 year olds in a new Allstate poll said the best use of their extra funds is getting their college or other debts off their backs. For those considering making larger payments, a loan amortization table demonstrates the impact. Paying down debt is just another form of saving, and larger loan payments significantly shorten the time it takes to pay it off, while reducing the total interest paid. Start with the $5,000 loan example already loaded into a Bankrate.com student loan amortization calculator: Paying $96.66 per month on a $5,000 student loan with 6 percent interest eliminates it in five years. An extra $50 every month – a couple of nights out – knocks two years off the payment…

Gray, small, and distinctly female. This is what the director of MIT’s AgeLab, Joseph Coughlin, sees when he peers into the future of retirement. “The context and definition of retirement is changing,” Coughlin said earlier this month at the Retirement Research Consortium meeting, where nearly two dozen researchers also presented their Consortium-funded work on a range of retirement topics. Their research summaries can be found at this link to the Center for Retirement Research, which supports this blog and is a consortium member. Coughlin spooled out a list of stunning facts to impress on his audience the dramatic impact of rising longevity and graying populations in the developed world, and he urged them to think in fresh ways about retirement…

Saving for retirement is more crucial for Millennials than for any prior generation. Data are emerging that reveal how they’re doing. Vanguard’s 2014 data from its large 401(k) client base shows that 67 percent of young adults between 25 and 34 who are covered by an employer plan are saving – this is well above a decade ago. A survey recently by the Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies found evidence that this generation makes retirement a priority: a majority of working adults in their 20s and early 30s – now the largest single demographic group in the U.S. labor force – view retirement benefits as “a major factor in their decision on whether to accept a future job offer.” This…