Personal finance

Iuliia Isaieva | Moment | Getty Images Homeowners are sitting on$17 trillion in equity as of the end of the first quarter of 2024, according to CoreLogic. The average homeowner gained $28,000 in equity compared to a year earlier. For many people, there’s no need to touch that money. Home equity is “not like bread,”

The Republican vice presidential candidate, Sen. JD Vance, speaks at a campaign rally at NMC-Wollard Inc. / Wollard International in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, Aug. 7, 2024. Adam Bettcher | Getty Images Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, former President Donald Trump‘s GOP running mate, wants to more than double the child tax credit. But the increase could be

zimmytws | iStock | Getty Images The Social Security Administration faces a “record-breaking backlog” of open cases, leading to approximately $1.1 billion in projected improper payments to beneficiaries, according to a new report from the Social Security Administration Office of the Inspector General. The SSA OIG, which provides independent oversight of the agency’s programs and

Alistair Berg | Digitalvision | Getty Images The Biden administration’s new affordable repayment plan, known as SAVE, may be on hold for months —or longer — amid a slew of legal challenges. The White House says roughly 8 million people are enrolled in SAVE, or the Saving on a Valuable Education plan. Here are a

Republican presidential nominee and former U.S. President Donald Trump holds a campaign rally in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, U.S., July 31, 2024. Elizabeth Frantz | Reuters Former President Donald Trump this week repeated his plan to eliminate taxes on Social Security benefits for seniors. But the plan could deplete Social Security and Medicare trust funds sooner, policy

A flooded street caused by the rain and storm surge from Hurricane Debby on Aug. 05, 2024, in Cedar Key, Florida. Joe Raedle | Getty Images States in the southeastern U.S. were drenched with heavy rains and flash floods from Hurricane Debby this week. Though Debby has weakened to a post-tropical storm, it threatens to

President Joe Biden visiting a library in Culver City, California, on Feb. 21, 2024. Irfan Khan | Los Angeles Times | Getty Images As the Biden administration prepares to forgive the student debt of tens of millions of borrowers — a move experts say could happen as soon as October — it has issued new

With college more expensive than ever and a new financial aid application that’s been problematic from the start, families are, understandably, having a hard time figuring out how to pay the tab. As a new academic year gets underway, more students and their parents are turning to a familiar resource: student loans. How families pay

Credit card debt is on the rise. Americans now owe a record $1.14 trillion on their credit cards, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York reported Tuesday. The average balance per consumer stands at $6,329, up 4.8% year over year, according to a separate quarterly credit industryinsights report from TransUnion. Credit card delinquency rates are also higher

Jeremy Poland | E+ | Getty Images American consumers claimed $8.4 billion of Inflation Reduction Act tax breaks tied to boosting the energy efficiency of their homes in 2023, according to Internal Revenue Service data, a sum that exceeded officials’ projections. More than 3.4 million U.S. households claimed at least one of two tax breaks

Vice presidential candidate Minnesota Governor Tim Walz looks on during a campaign rally with U.S. Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S., August 6, 2024.  Elizabeth Frantz | Reuters As many retirees struggle to afford the basics, there’s been bipartisan support to exempt Social Security from income taxes. That policy

Getty Images Nearly half — 48% — of student loan borrowers expect debt forgiveness in the future. Many of those borrowers anticipate that the government will excuse them from their education loans, according to Sallie Mae’s annual How America Pays for College report. (Between April 8 and May 14, global market research company Ipsos conducted the

Westend61 | Westend61 | Getty Images Picture this: You walk into a big grocery store and everything is deeply discounted, said Winnie Sun, co-founder and managing director of Sun Group Wealth Partners in Irvine, California. “What would you buy that you know that your household would need for the future?” she said. “That could be

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, seen in Washington, D.C., on July 3, 2024, and Vice President Kamala Harris, seen in Washington, D.C., on July 22, 2024. Jim Watson, Chris Kleponis | AFP | Getty Images Vice President Kamala Harris has picked Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate for the 2024 presidential election. That choice could

Ezra Bailey | Stone | Getty Images The unemployment rate jumped in July, and there’s a detail in the data that has alarmed some economists. So-called “marginally attached workers,” according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, are those who are available to work and want a job, but have not searched for a job in

Ironheart | Moment | Getty Images The summer travel season is in full swing, often bringing more flight delays and cancellations. But travelers may be out of luck when it comes to reimbursement for such disruptions, depending on the root cause and specific airline policy, experts said. “In general, in the U.S. airlines aren’t really

Westend61 | Getty Images Amid stock market volatility, it’s critical to avoid emotional moves that could stunt long-term portfolio growth, financial experts say. U.S. stocks on Monday plunged as part of a global sell-off fueled by U.S. recession fears. The U.S. dip followed a more than 12% drop for Japan’s Nikkei 225, its biggest one-day loss

Customer shopping for school supplies with employee restocking shelves, Target store, Queens, New York. Lindsey Nicholson | UCG | Universal Images Group | Getty Images Just when it seemed more Americans were inspired by the ideas of “underconsumptioncore” and “conscious consumerism,” which aim to put a lid on social media-related overspending, the back-to-school shopping season

Republican presidential nominee and former U.S. President Donald Trump speaks on a panel of the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) convention in Chicago, Illinois, U.S. July 31, 2024.  Vincent Alban | Reuters At the National Association of Black Journalists‘ annual convention in Chicago on Wednesday, former President Donald Trump said inflation and high interest rates are “destroying

Recently I posed this question to my teenage daughter: Aren’t we tired of influencers? “No,” she said. But despite my daughter’s opinion — she’s 16 — I know I’m not the only one fed up with the barrage of things I’m told to buy on social media. Which is why the rise of “underconsumptioncore” came