You won’t owe state or local income taxes on the interest earned, but you will owe federal income tax — although you can wait until you redeem the bonds to pay it. (If you use the money for higher education, you may be able to avoid part or all of the federal taxes.)

Inflation bonds pay interest for 30 years unless you redeem them earlier. You can redeem digital I bonds online and have the money deposited in your bank account. If you still hold paper bonds, you can redeem them at local banks, according to Treasury Direct.

Savers who bought I bonds years ago, when the fixed-rate component was higher, may be earning double-digit composite rates now. Holders of bonds issued from May to October 2000, for instance, will earn 10.85 percent because the latest variable inflation rate is added to the bonds’ fixed rate of 3.6 percent, said Ken Tumin, founder of DepositAccounts.com.

To see what rate your bond is currently paying, check on TreasuryDirect, the website operated by the Bureau of the Fiscal Service, part of the Treasury Department.

So how do you buy I bonds? There are two ways. The first is to purchase them at TreasuryDirect.com. To do this, you’ll first need to establish an online account with a minimum deposit of $25 and link it to your bank account. You won’t receive a paper bond; most new savings bonds are electronic and remain in your digital account.

You can buy up to $10,000 in digital I bonds per person, per year.

The second way is to buy I bonds at tax time with your federal income tax refund. You can buy up to $5,000 in bonds this way — the only way left to get paper savings bonds.

A couple filing a joint tax return can buy up to $25,000 a year — $10,000 each, plus an extra $5,000 at tax time. It’s possible to buy more, by purchasing I bonds as gifts.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/03/your-money/series-i-bonds-inflation-rate.html

“I can finally breathe a sigh of relief that these benefits are now finally secure,” Mr. Ely said in a statement, “not only for me but for everyone else who found themselves in the same boat.”

The protections provided by these cases may also help people like Jim Obergefell, who was married for only three months. In 2015, he was at the center of the monumental Supreme Court ruling — Obergefell v. Hodges — that declared that the Constitution guaranteed a right to same-sex marriage, enabling couples across the country to marry even if their states had banned it. That followed a 2013 ruling, in United States v. Windsor, in which the court found that same-sex couples were entitled to federal benefits.

Mr. Obergefell, 55, said he would consider applying for survivor’s benefits when he reaches the eligible filing age, because his spouse, John Arthur — who died of A.L.S. in 2013 — may have earned slightly more than him. “I still remember the sting of being denied the minimal death benefit payout when John died,” he said, referring to the one-time lump-sum death payment of $255 from Social Security. “Not because I needed the money, but because it was a slap in the face to be told I wasn’t a valid surviving spouse.”

Surviving spouses or partners in these situations will have to illustrate to the Social Security Administration that they would have been married if the laws would have permitted it, legal experts said. The agency will also generally have to conclude that the marriage would have lasted at least nine months at the time of the partner’s death.

“It is sort of a necessary consequence of having wiped out the unconstitutional marriage restrictions that existed for so long,” said Mary L. Bonauto, civil rights director at advocacy group GLAD. “This is actually consistent with the kind of tasks that federal agencies have to do sometimes to get it right — they have to look into the individual circumstances sometimes, and this is one that really cries out for it.”

Legal experts said the agency might ask the survivor about a variety of issues. That could include whether they would have married if the laws didn’t bar same-sex unions, their living arrangements and whether they relied on each other for financial support. The agency may also ask whether they were named in one another’s wills, shared insurance policies or if they were registered as domestic partners.

As long as a deceased person worked long enough, widows and widowers generally may receive survivor benefits as early as age 60. (Disabled survivors may be eligible at age 50.) Survivors can collect on their partner’s earnings record if it is higher than their own retirement or disability benefit — or they can collect the benefits as a way to delay their own benefits, which they can collect later when they are worth more.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/02/business/social-security-same-sex-survivor-benefits.html

Ms. Korsah, 74, and her son had already compiled a list of her eight medications — for blood pressure, cholesterol, acid reflux and glaucoma — and their doses. Using the online Medicare Plan Finder, Dr. Hoadley narrowed the field to three suitable selections.

With the cheapest plan, from Wellcare, Ms. Korsah’s estimated total yearly drug and premium costs (“the magic number,” he said) would be $301 a year if she used a CVS or Giant pharmacy — but $1,125 if she took the same prescriptions to a Walmart. Conversely, a Humana plan would cost $525 a year through a Walmart pharmacy, but more than twice that at CVS. With a Cigna plan, the best deal involved a mail-order pharmacy.

In theory, all beneficiaries who have traditional Medicare with Part D coverage, or who are interested in or enrolled in Medicare Advantage programs (an “all-in-one” alternative offered through private insurers), should be making similar calculations during this annual open enrollment period, from Oct. 15 until Dec. 7. It’s the reason that insurers’ pitches for plans are showing up in their mailboxes and inboxes, and on TV ads featuring Joe Namath and Jimmie “Dyn-o-mite” Walker.

“The idea is that consumers can re-evaluate what coverage is best for them,” said Tricia Neuman, the executive director of the Program on Medicare Policy at the Kaiser Family Foundation. Since each year brings changes to Part D and Medicare Advantage — in premiums, benefits, co-payments and provider networks — shopping around makes sense.

But that’s not what happens.

For 2019, 71 percent of beneficiaries said they didn’t compare plans during the open enrollment period, according to a Kaiser study published last month. The rate was even higher among Black and Hispanic beneficiaries, people over 85 and those with lower income and fewer years of education — precisely the groups most likely to require more medical services and drugs, and least able to pay high costs.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/30/health/open-enrollment-health-insurance.html

Why do men trade too much? Professors Barber and Odean chalked it up to overconfidence. And where does overconfidence come from? William J. Bernstein, a neurologist who turned his attention to investing years ago, points to testosterone.

The hormone causes three problems for investors: It decreases fear, increases greed and very much contributes to overconfidence. “It does wonderful things for muscle mass and reflex time but doesn’t do much for judgment,” he said.

If you fear too little, you’re more likely to get hit hard when markets fall, since you’ll have too much money in the wrong kinds of investments. Similarly, too much greed can lead to too much risk. As for overconfidence, Mr. Bernstein, who is the author of books, including “The Investor’s Manifesto,” suggests a self-administered test question: How certain am I of what I’m doing? “In finance, if you’re certain of anything, you’re out of your mind,” he said.

Women, meanwhile, probably aren’t as confident as they should be. Fidelity’s evidence on this topic is downright depressing: In 2017, one of its surveys showed that just 9 percent of women thought that they would outperform men as investors. This year, only 14 percent of women said they knew a lot about saving and investing and 33 percent felt confident making investment decisions.

How did we get here? Some of the answers are obvious, for women who are married to men at least: For a long time, many husbands simply seized control of everything to do with investing, whether because the men felt entitled to have control as they were the sole or primary earners or because they had an undeserved conviction that they were better suited for the task. It’s hard to gain confidence with no experience.

To even attempt to invest is to make choices in the absence of complete information. But this can be hard for women, said Manisha Thakor, a financial planner and founder of MoneyZen, a consultant in Portland, Ore. “Women are socialized to be perfect, to know everything before we take a step,” she said, pointing to a TED Talk that Reshma Saujani, founder of Girls Who Code, gave on the topic. “Men are more comfortable making decisions without knowing everything,” she added.

Ms. Kapusta of Fidelity also places some of the blame for underconfidence on the way that the financial services industry has talked about itself. “It’s jargon,” she said. “Alpha. Beta. Even the way new solutions are named. Roboadviser. What’s a roboadviser?”

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/29/your-money/women-investing-stocks.html

Yet while card balances remained $140 billion lower in the middle of this year than at the end of 2019, they began ticking upward in the second quarter of this year, rising $17 billion above the first quarter, according to the New York Federal Reserve.

Some indicators suggest household debt is becoming a concern for some consumers. The share of people rating their debt-to-income ratio “very unhealthy” doubled in the third quarter, to 16 percent from 8 percent, according to the American Consumer Credit Counseling Financial Health Index.

And an online survey by Bankrate.com found that more than a third of people who had card debt before March 2020 saw their balances grow during the pandemic.

Here are some questions and answers about managing credit card debt:

What is the best way to pay down credit card balances?

Because credit cards typically charge double-digit interest rates, most financial advisers agree that you’ll save the most money if you focus on paying down the card with the highest interest rate first. “I prefer the avalanche method,” said Benjamin Jacobs, a fee-only financial planner in Athens, Ga., using a common name for this approach.

Here’s how it works: Make the minimum payment on all of your cards to avoid late fees, but put any extra money you have toward the highest-interest balance. When that balance is paid off, move on to the next card, and so on.

But some people may be more motivated by paying off the card with the smallest balance, regardless of its interest rate. The mechanics of this approach, sometimes called the “snowball” method, are the same: Pay the minimum on all cards, but put extra cash to the smallest balance until it’s gone, then move to the next card. “I like the snowball, because you have instant success,” said Melinda Opperman, president of Credit.org, a nonprofit financial counseling agency in Riverside, Calif.

If you feel overwhelmed and are falling behind on payments, you may consider seeking help from a nonprofit credit counseling agency. Those agencies can help assess your situation and negotiate a plan with your card companies to allow you to pay off balances over time — typically, two to five years. The National Foundation for Credit Counseling can help get you started.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/29/your-money/credit-card-debt-stress-health.html

The service is used by more than 10,000 merchants and has “tens of millions” of cardholder participants, said Sukhmani Dev, senior vice president of digital products, North America, at Mastercard.

Here are some questions and answers about safe practices when shopping online:

How else can I protect myself?

The Federal Trade Commission offers these tips: Shop with a credit card online, and never buy anything from online sellers that accept payment only by gift cards, money transfers or cryptocurrency. Such payments are nearly impossible to trace and reverse, and criminals often tell people to use those methods so they can get cash quickly, the commission says.

Vet unfamiliar websites before shopping by searching online for the merchant’s name and the word “complaint” or “scam,” the agency advises, and read the seller’s description of the goods carefully. If the seller offers brand-name goods at steep discounts, the agency said, “they might be fakes.”

The Privacy Rights Clearinghouse also recommends making sure the website shows a tiny lock icon, or https, in the checkout browser, indicating transactions are secure. You can also sign up for alerts from your bank or credit card so you are notified when purchases are made.

“The U.S. consumer really needs to be smart,” said David Mattei, a strategic adviser specializing in payments fraud at Aite-Novarica Group. If major retailers are out of an item, he said, there’s a good chance an online seller you have never heard of doesn’t have it, either. And if a website asks for details like your Social Security number, he said, “that should be a red flag” that the site is not legitimate.

Can I use a debit card to shop online?

You can, but experts like the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse generally caution against it. That’s because if the card is compromised, funds are taken directly from your bank account. There are consumer protections in place, but it may take time to resolve the issue and in the meantime you may be out the cash.

“It’s a different feeling, to see money gone from your bank account,” said Odysseas Papadimitriou, chief executive of financial website WalletHub.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/22/your-money/credit-card-fraud-protection.html

With annual open enrollment underway at many employers, workers should log on to their accounts or check with their employer to see how much money is available and decide whether to tweak their paycheck deductions for next year, Ms. Myers said.

“Employees need to know their balances,” she said.

Employers have generally said they are seeking to hold the line on increases in health insurance costs for employees next year, given a challenging job market because of the pandemic.

The average employee contribution to an F.S.A. was just under $1,200 in 2019, according to the Employee Benefit Research Institute, which also found that nearly half of participants have forfeited all or part of their contributions. The median amount lost was $157. But because paycheck deductions are made pretax, employees shouldn’t fret too much about leaving behind relatively small balances, said Paul Fronstin, director of health research at the institute.

“It’s OK to lose a bit of money,” he said, “if you’re getting a tax break.”

To see how much you can save in taxes with an F.S.A., you can try using online calculators, like the one at FSAstore.com, which sells F.S.A.-eligible products.

There’s a caveat with all of the temporary changes, however. Any expansion of carry-over amounts or deadlines is at an employer’s discretion — and not all of them have made changes. About two-thirds of Willis Towers Watson’s clients made changes in carry-over rules for this year (for amounts retained from 2020), but fewer than half are doing so for next year, Ms. Myers said.

A survey of 2,200 shoppers in early September suggested that many workers were unsure if their employer had adopted any of the changes, said Rida Wong, president of Health-E Commerce, which operates FSAstore.com. About a quarter said they had higher balances in their accounts than at this time last year.

So pay close attention to benefits information sent by your employer, Ms. Wong said. And if you are still unsure whether rules for your F.S.A. have changed, contact your human resources office, she said.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/15/your-money/fsa-limits-2022.html

The proposed change indicates that plan managers are allowed to consider E.S.G. factors in their initial analysis of investments instead of only at the very end — a change that Labor Department officials argued still maintains that principle, because managers still are not permitted to sacrifice returns for those kinds of ancillary benefits.

For example, the proposed rule said that accounting for climate change, “such as by assessing the financial risks of investments for which government climate policies will affect performance,” can benefit retirement portfolios by mitigating longer-term risks.

“If an E.S.G. factor is material to the risk-return analysis, that is something we think fiduciaries should be taking into account,” Ali Khawar, an acting assistant secretary in the department, said in an interview. “That carries different weight than five or 10 or 15 years ago,” he said, given the increase in data quantifying the risks of ignoring E.S.G. and the benefits of taking it into account.

The investment category has grown significantly in recent years. Total assets in E.S.G. funds rose to $17.1 trillion at the start of 2020, up 42 percent from the start of 2018, according to the U.S. SIF, a nonprofit focused on sustainable investing. That investment total represents one in three dollars under professional management.

Just a small fraction of those investments are held by retirement plan investors, a U.S. SIF report said, even as interest is rising, particularly among younger investors.

The growing interest has prompted the Securities and Exchange Commission to seek public comment on requiring companies to disclose climate risks.

Other E.S.G. factors are harder to analyze, some experts said. Phillip Braun, clinical professor of finance and associate chair of the finance department at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management, said societal and environmental benefits were more difficult to uniformly measure.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/13/your-money/biden-esg-retirement-investing.html

Feeling unprepared after high school, Ms. Tiller struggled in community college and ultimately dropped out. “I know life is hard,” she said, “and I don’t want to see them struggle like I have to.”

Child savings accounts were conceived 30 years ago by Michael Sherraden, founder of the Center for Social Development at Washington University in St. Louis, who proposed creating accounts for all children at birth. Since 2007, he has been the lead investigator in an experiment tracking 2,700 newborns in Oklahoma randomly assigned to two groups: Half received $1,000 accounts at birth; the other received nothing. Many programs draw on the center’s research, which has found that the accounts raise both the parents’ and child’s expectations about the child’s future.

Thus far, the biggest beneficiaries of 529 accounts have been more-affluent families who open them on their own. There were 14.3 million 529 accounts totaling $437 billion in assets at the end of June, according to ISS Market Intelligence, a financial research and analytics firm.

But proponents believe that automatically starting accounts will help change that, and can ultimately contribute to narrowing the wealth gap; New York’s so-called baby bonds program is just one part of a broader economic justice initiative. In the pilot school district, certain Astoria students living in public housing already have more than $1,500 in their accounts, thanks in part to scholarships raised through the tenant association.

A similar effort helped Ms. Hudson-Figueroa’s daughter, now in fourth grade, raise her balance to more than $500. The Woodside Houses Resident Association helped raise $35,800 — roughly $218 each — for first through fourth graders at P.S. 151.

As the school’s P.T.A. president, Ms. Hudson-Figueroa is now helping other parents, answering questions and guiding them through the steps they need to take to maximize the savings they’re eligible for.

“The main question I get most of the time is, ‘What do I have to do?’” she said. “And the best part of it is, I can tell them, ‘Your child is already enrolled.’”

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/11/your-money/529-savings-plans-baby-bonds.html

People are now more open to talking about wealth, he said, asking questions like: “How did you make that trade-off? How much did it cost?”

And investors realized that they needed a plan to protect what they’d earned, whether they were a tech billionaire or a tech worker.

“When times were good, it can seem like they’re always going to be good,” said Sharon Klein, president of family wealth for the Eastern United States at Wilmington Trust. “Sometimes you don’t understand that until you have a really disruptive event like we had in 2008. A lot of people learned that you need to be really coordinated and have a team so you can pivot and change on a dime.”

She added that more of her clients today “are poised to take advantage of opportunity but also be defensively positioned if something happens.”

The perceptions of wealth as it relates to taxes and investing have also changed. Now, many more people believe that the wealthy have advantages over everyone else, and even the accountants and lawyers who service the wealthy accept some of that criticism. Take, for example, the report in ProPublica in June that Peter Thiel, the tech entrepreneur, has $5 billion in a Roth I.R.A., on which he will pay no taxes when he withdraws the money. Individual retirement accounts were created by Congress to help the middle class save for retirement.

“I’m convinced that changes to planning tools are in the cards,” said John Dadakis, a partner at the law firm Fox Rothschild. “Look at the Roth I.R.A. and what happened there. It’s great for some people, but the concept of creating a $1 billion Roth I.R.A. or even a $100 million Roth I.R.A. where you don’t have to pay any taxes is clearly the wrong result.”

Richard A. Behrendt, a former inspector for the Internal Revenue Service who then worked for a decade helping people hold down their tax bills, said that when he was at the I.R.S., “one of the biggest takeaways for me was the mechanizations that very well-meaning people in the law and accounting world would undergo for their clients.”

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/08/your-money/wealth-matters-lessons-learned.html