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You’ll make many decisions when preparing for retirement. Choosing when to file for Social Security benefits is one of the most important of those choices.

You have a long period when you could file for benefits, as you can claim as early as 62, but can also wait and increase the amount of your benefits until age 70. Picking the right moment within that eight-year timespan helps you maximize your income and build a more secure retirement.

For many people, an early claim seems like the obvious answer since you can start collecting right away and enjoying the benefits you’ve worked hard to earn all your life. In reality, though, claiming at a young age — and especially before your designated full retirement age — could be something you end up really regretting.

Here’s why.

Image source: Getty Images.

An early claim limits your ability to work

If you start receiving Social Security before your designated full retirement age (FRA), your decision could impact your ability to work because when you earn too much before FRA, your benefit checks are reduced or even eliminated.

For example, in 2025, if you won’t reach FRA during the entire year, then once you earn more than $23,400, you’ll lose $1 in benefits for every $2 earned above that limit. This could quickly lead to your Social Security checks disappearing entirely, since the Social Security Administration withholds full checks when you go above the limit.

This rule prevents double-dipping of benefits and a paycheck in the years before you reach FRA, and it can lead to a lot of hassle if you’re trying to track earnings to avoid losing benefits.

Eventually, you do get credit if checks are withheld, as your benefit is recalculated at your full retirement age to account for the missed money — but the process of slowly recovering the benefits you missed out on due to exceeding the work limits can be very frustrating.

You’ll take a big benefits cut that is permanent

Since you have an eight-year window to claim Social Security, there are rules in place to try to equalize out lifetime benefits so you get the same amount of money no matter when you claim.

One of those rules is that if you claim Social Security benefits before FRA, benefits are reduced by early filing penalties. But if you wait until after FRA, benefits are increased due to delayed retirement credits.

The penalties and credits apply monthly, as you’ll lose 5/9 of 1% of your standard benefit for each of the first 36 months you receive a check ahead of your FRA. If you claim even sooner, you lose an additional 5/12 of 1% for any of the prior months.

The monthly penalties add up to an annual 6.7% reduction from your standard benefit for years one, two, and three. For years four and five when you were collecting early Social Security benefits, the reduction in benefits is 5% annually. This means that a claim at 62 instead of at an FRA of 67 results in a 30% cut to benefits overall. That cut is permanent, and benefits will always be 30% smaller than they would have been had you waited to claim.

If you delayed beyond FRA until 70 instead, though, you’d have increased your benefits by 2/3 of 1% or 8% per year and received more benefits instead of smaller checks.

You’ll shrink your survivor benefits

You are not the only one who could regret your early Social Security claim. Your spouse could as well. When you die, your spouse either gets to keep receiving their own benefit or keep receiving yours. If you were the higher earner in your family and your Social Security benefit is a lot bigger, then keeping your benefit would be better for your surviving spouse.

The problem is, if you claimed Social Security ahead of schedule, you’d have shrunk your benefit — so your surviving spouse would be left with a smaller survivor benefit than they could have had. Since living on a single Social Security check instead of two is hard, your spouse could end up really wishing you hadn’t claimed early.

You stand a good chance of missing out on lifetime income

Finally, research has shown that around 7 in 10 retirees would find themselves with more lifetime income if they delay benefits until 70 instead of claiming at a younger age. If your goal is to maximize the lifetime income Social Security offers so you don’t have to rely as much on your 401(k) or other retirement plans, then you’ll want to avoid shrinking your lifetime income.

That’s especially true as Social Security is a reliable source of funds since there are cost-of-living adjustments built in that help you avoid losing buying power due to inflation.

Ultimately, an early claim is simply not the right option for many. When you are making your retirement plans, think seriously about whether you should prepare to try to put off your Social Security claim. If so, have a plan to do that, such as living on retirement savings until the day comes when you can claim a large benefit and set yourself and your spouse up for a more secure future.

There are certain benefits to being married in retirement. For one thing, it’s nice to have somebody’s company at a time when you’re not working and may find yourself getting lonely and bored.

Retirement is also a time when a lot of people try to ramp up on travel. And it can be more enjoyable to have a travel partner than to take your dream trips on your own.

Image source: Getty Images.

When it comes to the financial side of retirement, being married also has its advantages. If you and your spouse each have some savings, you can pool your resources for a larger income.

Plus, if you’re married, it could mean that you’re eligible to receive spousal benefits from Social Security. And that extra money could come in very handy. But if you’re looking to claim spousal benefits from Social Security, it’s important to understand the ins and outs. Here are three misunderstandings you must get to the bottom of if you think spousal benefits are something you’ll end up filing for.

1. You can only claim spousal benefits if you’re married

You may start off retirement as a married couple only to decide to dissolve your relationship a few years down the line. Sometimes, too much togetherness can unveil differences that are just too difficult to overcome.

You might assume that if you get divorced, you won’t be eligible for Social Security spousal benefits. But if you were married for at least 10 years before that divorce, and you’re not remarried, then those spousal benefits should still be on the table.

2. You can only claim spousal benefits if you didn’t work

The nice thing about Social Security is that it will pay spousal benefits to people who didn’t work. But even if you did work, you may still be eligible for spousal benefits.

Let’s say you worked enough to qualify for Social Security, but your wages were much lower than your spouse’s. If the spousal benefit you’re entitled to is greater than the benefit you’re entitled to based on your own earnings record, then you’ll get that spousal benefit.

However, if your personal benefit is the larger number, that’s what Social Security will pay you. This system is more than fair, as it basically allows you to collect whichever benefit puts the most money in your pocket each month. The only thing you can’t do is double dip by collecting a spousal benefit plus your own benefit at the same time.

3. You can grow your spousal benefits by delaying your Social Security claim

If you’re claiming Social Security on your own wage history, there’s an upside to delaying your claim past full retirement age, which is 67 for anyone born in 1970 or later. For each year you do, until you turn 70, your monthly benefit gets a permanent 8% boost.

But when you’re claiming spousal benefits, there’s no sense in delaying past full retirement age. That’s because you can’t grow a spousal benefit the same way you can grow a benefit based on your own earnings record.

Social Security spousal benefits max out at 50% of what your spouse is eligible for at their full retirement age. If you claim them before reaching your full retirement age, they’ll be reduced. But they also can’t grow beyond 50% of what your spouse gets at their full retirement age.

You may end up relying on Social Security to provide quite a bit of your retirement income. So it’s important to understand how the program’s spousal benefits work, especially since they can differ from how regular retirement benefits work. Knowing the rules inside and out could prevent you from making a big mistake you regret later on.

The big day for Social Security’s more than 70 million traditional beneficiaries is right around the corner. Assuming the government shutdown doesn’t delay a key data release, on Oct. 15, the Social Security Administration will unveil a multitude of changes for the upcoming year, with the highlight being the 2026 cost-of-living adjustment (COLA).

For retired-worker beneficiaries, who accounted for more than 76% of all traditional Social Security recipients in August, the income they receive from this all-important program is often vital to their financial well-being. Almost a quarter-century of annual surveys from Gallup shows that 80% to 90% of retirees lean on their monthly Social Security check to cover some aspect of their expenses.

Though retired-worker beneficiaries are less than two weeks away from knowing precisely how much they’ll receive each month in 2026, the dreaded lose-lose scenario looks to be very much on the table.

Image source: The Motley Fool

Social Security’s cost-of-living adjustment plays an important role for beneficiaries

Before digging into the nitty-gritty of what’s to come for program recipients, it’s imperative to understand why Social Security’s COLA exists.

The best way to view Social Security’s cost-of-living adjustment is as a near-annual “raise” that accounts for the effects of inflation that beneficiaries are contending with. Hypothetically, if a large basket of goods and services regularly purchased by Social Security beneficiaries increased in cost by 3% from one year to the next, Social Security payouts would also need to climb by the same percentage to avoid a loss of buying power. Social Security’s COLA is the raise that attempts to mirror the effects of rising prices (inflation).

Prior to 1975, there was no formula for calculating COLAs on an annual basis. From the very first payout in January 1940 through the end of 1974, only 11 cost-of-living adjustments were enacted by special sessions of Congress.

The near-annual COLAs we’re used to today began in 1975, which is when the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (CPI-W) was adopted as Social Security’s inflationary measure. The CPI-W is reported as a single figure on a monthly basis, which allows for quick year-over-year comparisons to determine if prices are, collectively, rising (inflation) or declining (deflation).

The quirk with Social Security’s COLA is that only three months of readings factor into the calculation: July, August, and September (i.e., the third quarter). If the average third-quarter CPI-W reading in the current year is higher than the comparable period of the previous year, inflation has taken place and beneficiaries are set for a higher payout. Payouts can stay the same year to year; they are not decreased, even if prices in the measured period drop.

A historic expansion of U.S. money supply sent the prevailing inflation rate and Social Security COLAs soaring. US Inflation Rate data by YCharts.

Independent Social Security COLA estimates for 2026 have been narrowed

Based on independent estimates, retired workers, workers with disabilities, and survivors of deceased workers are all in line for a boost to their monthly benefit in the new year.

Following a decade of anemic cost-of-living adjustments during the 2010s, the last four years have featured above-average COLAs. A historic expansion of U.S. money supply during the earlier days of the COVID-19 pandemic led to the highest prevailing rate of inflation in the U.S. in four decades. The result was a 5.9% COLA in 2022, followed by 8.7% in 2023, 3.2% in 2024, and 2.5% in 2025. To add some context to these payout increases, the average COLA over the previous 16 years is 2.3%.

The encouraging news (at least on paper) for Social Security recipients is that the 2026 COLA is on track to do something that hasn’t been witnessed in 29 years. For the first time since 1988 through 1997, the program’s raise is forecast to reach at least 2.5% for a fifth consecutive year. On a nominal-dollar basis, Social Security beneficiaries have seen their payouts notably increase over the last half-decade.

According to nonpartisan senior advocacy group The Senior Citizens League (TSCL), next year’s COLA is projected to come in at 2.7%. Independent Social Security and Medicare policy analyst Mary Johnson, who retired from TSCL early last year, foresees a slightly more robust payout boost of 2.8% in 2026.

If the assumption is made that one of these two forecasts proves accurate, the average monthly benefit for retired workers would climb by approximately $54 to $56 in 2026. Meanwhile, the average worker with disabilities and average survivor beneficiary would both see their monthly Social Security income rise by $43 to $44, respectively.

Image source: Getty Images.

The dreaded lose-lose scenario is looking likely for most retirees in 2026

But even though independent estimates point to a fifth straight year where Social Security’s raise will top its 16-year average, aged beneficiaries are almost certain to discover the 2026 COLA comes up short in two ways.

The first issue relates to the inherent shortcomings of the CPI-W. While near-annual COLAs are a vast improvement compared to Congress passing along raises without rhyme or reason, the CPI-W is itself far from perfect.

As its full name makes clear, the CPI-W tracks the costs “urban wage earners and clerical workers” are facing. These are typically working-age Americans not currently receiving a Social Security benefit. More importantly, urban wage earners and clerical workers spend their money differently than seniors — and adults aged 62 and over make up 87% of Social Security’s traditional beneficiaries.

Older, retired Americans spend a larger percentage of their monthly budget on shelter and medical care services than working-age folks. Not only does the CPI-W not adequately account for the higher weighting retirees place on these two spending categories, but the trailing-12-month inflation rate for shelter and medical care services has been consistently higher than the COLA passed along to program recipients.

Based on two separate studies by TSCL, the purchasing power of a Social Security dollar dropped by 36% from 2000 to 2023, and by 20% between 2010 and 2024. This loss of buying power is likely to continue in 2026.

Retirees who are dually enrolled in Social Security and traditional Medicare are also set to lose in the upcoming year.

People who are enrolled in traditional Medicare and Social Security almost always have their Medicare Part B premium automatically deducted from their monthly Social Security payout. Part B is the portion of Medicare responsible for outpatient services.

In 2023 and 2024, the Part B premium rose by 5.9% each year. But based on estimates from the June-published Medicare Trustees Report, the Part B premium is forecast to climb 11.5% to $206.20 per month in the upcoming year. There’s little doubt that this is going to partially or fully offset the impact of next year’s Social Security COLA for most dual enrollees.

Even if the cost-of-living adjustment for 2026 surpasses TSCL’s and Johnson’s respective forecasts, it won’t be enough to pull retirees out of this lose-lose scenario in 2026.

When you see the name Social Security in the news, there’s often a negative context. For example, earlier this year, Social Security was in the news a lot when the program’s Trustees released an update about the program’s finances.

That update wasn’t great, as it looped people into the fact that Social Security may be looking at severe benefit cuts in less than a decade’s time, based on current projections.

Image source: Getty Images.

On Oct. 15, Social Security is likely to be all over the news again. Only this time, it’s not necessarily for a bad reason.

Oct. 15 is when the Social Security Administration (SSA) is expected to announce a number of key changes to the program. It pays to tune in — whether you’re receiving monthly benefits from the program or not.

A COLA will finally be revealed

For months, there’s been speculation about Social Security’s upcoming cost-of-living adjustment (COLA). Many seniors are hoping that 2026’s raise will be more generous than the 2.5% COLA they received at the start of 2025, and there’s some good news in that regard.

Initial estimates are calling for a 2.7% Social Security increase in 2026, which is clearly a notch higher than 2.5%. If inflation picks up in September, as well, Social Security recipients could see an even larger COLA in the new year.

An uptick in inflation isn’t necessarily a good thing. However, the silver lining is that it could drive 2026’s COLA higher.

Other key changes should come to light

An official 2026 COLA announcement may be the main event on Oct. 16, but the SSA will be sharing many key updates that day. For one, workers will want to stay tuned to see what 2026’s wage cap looks like.

In 2025, workers will pay Social Security taxes on up to $176,100 of income. But that number is likely to rise in the new year, a change that higher earners will need to gear up for.

The SSA should also share a new earnings-test limit. That limit applies to people who work while collecting Social Security before reaching full retirement age.

In addition, the SSA will announce how much in earnings it takes to get a single Social Security work credit. You must accumulate at least 40 work credits in your lifetime to be eligible for Social Security benefits in retirement, based on your personal earnings record. The maximum number of credits you can receive per year is four.

Right now, it takes $1,810 in earnings to get a work credit. However, just as the wage cap is expected to increase, so, too, is the value of a work credit.

Be sure to tune in

Clearly, Oct. 15 is an important day for Social Security, whether you’re getting benefits or not. It’s essential to pay attention to all of the changes happening in 2026 so you know what to expect from Social Security in 2026. That way, if any of those changes impact you negatively, such as having to pay taxes on more of your income, you’ll have time to make a game plan.

Surveys may be little more than a snapshot in time, but they can provide an interesting peek into the minds of fellow Americans. This year, as Social Security turns 90, the Bipartisan Policy Center’s (BPC) American Savings Education Council polled Americans on how they feel about the current state of the program. Here’s what they learned.

Image source: Getty Images.

The big issues

Whether they’re just beginning to plan for retirement or have been chipping away at it for years, Americans value Social Security. The following represents their concerns, anxieties, and hopes.

Value of Social Security

• 93% of Americans surveyed consider Social Security a valuable federal program. In fact, it was rated higher than any other program respondents were asked about.
• 83% of those asked believe addressing Social Security’s challenges should be a top priority for the current Congress.

According to Jonathan Burks, Executive Vice President of Economic and Health Policy for the BPC: “Americans across the political spectrum agree strongly that Social Security matters, and they want to see bipartisan work to strengthen the program for the future. Now it is up to lawmakers to build on this consensus and do the hard work of forging a path forward.”

Social Security anxiety

• 74% of the public is concerned that Social Security will run out before they retire, and they won’t have access to the program they have spent decades paying into.
• 80% of those surveyed are worried that Congress will cut their benefits, particularly because 41% of Americans expect Social Security to be their primary source of income in retirement.

Bipartisan support for a solution

• 64% of Democrats and 61% of Republicans agree that strengthening Social Security will take bipartisan cooperation.

Losing patience

• As the clock winds down on the Social Security trust fund, 67% of those polled say they want Congress to take action soon rather than wait until the situation worsens.
• 20% of respondents say they want a bipartisan commission created to come up with a comprehensive plan, and they want Congress to approve that plan

Financial realities of aging

• 71% of those surveyed claimed to be worried about whether they’ll have enough saved to retire comfortably.
• 67% are concerned about whether they’ll outlive their savings.
• 74% fear they won’t be able to cover their medical bills as they age.
• 68% of 18- to 44-year-olds worry about finding the money to care for elderly relatives.

The current reality

If Congress doesn’t take steps to shore up the Social Security program, it’s expected that the Social Security trust fund will run dry in 2033. At that time, the Social Security Administration would begin across-the-board cuts of 23%. For example, a Social Security recipient with a monthly benefit of $2,000 would see their checks reduced to $1,540.

While it’s impossible to see the future, here are some of the expected consequences of cuts to Social Security:

• Increased poverty rates: Given the number of retirees who count on Social Security to pay all or the majority of their living expenses, reductions in benefits are likely to lead to an increase in Americans living in poverty. Even for those retirees who did everything they could to maximize their benefits, cutting funds they earned and have come to count on could be devastating.
• Political consequences: No politician wants to be the one responsible for raising taxes or asking people to work longer. That’s natural. However, failure to adequately address the Social Security issue could leave anxious Americans less happy with their elected representatives.
• Economic impact: Lower benefits are likely to cause consumers to pull back on spending. This move could have a broader impact on the overall economy as retirees have historically spent their benefits on essential goods and services.
• Greater pressure on other programs: Smaller Social Security benefit checks mean more people turning to the different government programs to survive. However, recent cuts to programs like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and Meals on Wheels could make it more difficult for seniors to receive the assistance they need.

“The only way we get a fix is if the two parties hold hands and jump together,” Shai Akabas, Vice President of Economic Policy at BPC, said in the report. “These results show that the American people understand and support that outcome. It’s time for our elected leaders to follow suit.”

Seventeen days. That’s how much longer Social Security beneficiaries must wait to find out how big their “raise” will be in 2026.

The Social Security cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) countdown is about to kick into overdrive. But you don’t have to sit on pins and needles in anticipation of the official COLA announcement on Oct. 15, 2025, to have a pretty good feel for what the increase will be.

Image source: Getty Images.

The best COLA prediction right now

If you want to know how big of a Social Security benefit increase to expect, probably the best place to turn is The Senior Citizens League (TSCL). This nonprofit organization has advocated for seniors since 1992, initially as part of The Retired Enlisted Association and then as an independent entity beginning in 1994.

TSCL developed a sophisticated statistical model that projects the next Social Security COLA. This model is updated monthly. It incorporates inflation and unemployment data, as well as the interest rates set by the Federal Reserve.

Earlier this month, TSCL announced its final prediction for the 2026 Social Security COLA. The organization projects an increase of 2.7%, a little higher than the 2.5% COLA given in 2025. It’s also slightly above the average benefit adjustment over the last 20 years of 2.6%.

How much additional money will this COLA give retirees? It depends on your current benefit amount, of course. However, the average increase will be $54 per month if TSCL’s model is right.

What could change by Oct. 15?

The Social Security Administration (SSA) already has most of the data it needs to calculate next year’s COLA. It will receive the last piece on Oct. 15 when the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) releases its inflation numbers for September.

SSA doesn’t use the most widely followed inflation metric in the BLS report, the Consumer Price Index. Instead, the agency bases the annual Social Security COLA on a different statistic — the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (CPI-W). As its name indicates, this index measures how much prices have increased for blue-collar workers in urban areas.

The COLA is calculated by determining the percentage increase (if any) between the CPI-W for the third quarter of the current year and the CPI-W in the third quarter of the previous year. SSA only needs to plug in the CPI-W for September to crunch the numbers.

Could the actual 2026 COLA that will be announced on Oct. 15 differ from the 2.7% predicted by TSCL? Absolutely. Inflation could be higher in September than anticipated, perhaps due to the impact of tariffs making their way through the U.S. economy. On the other hand, the effects of tariffs could be more muted than TSCL’s model projects, resulting in a lower COLA. Either way, TSCL’s projected number will probably be close to the actual 2026 COLA.

One “gotcha”

Retirees shouldn’t count on having an additional 2.7%, give or take a couple of percentage points, reach their bank accounts, though. There’s one “gotcha” that will likely reduce how much extra money you’ll receive.

Most retirees ages 65 and older have their Medicare premiums automatically deducted from their monthly Social Security benefit payments. Unfortunately, your Medicare Part B premiums will almost certainly be much higher than the expected 2.7% Social Security increase.

The Medicare Trustees project that Part B premiums will rise by 11.6%. This translates to an extra expense of $21.50, enough to wipe out much of the average retiree COLA of $54. The annual Medicare Part B deductible will also likely jump by $31 to $288 next year.

The countdown is on for finding out the exact amounts for the 2026 Medicare Part B premiums and deductibles, too. While the numbers will probably be announced in October, retirees might not learn how their pocketbooks will be impacted as soon as they learn what their Social Security COLA will be.

The world is a confusing and scary place right now. Many of us are anxious wanderers in the wilderness, looking for answers. Is it any wonder that the wellness industry is booming? Into this strange new world comes Jade Chang’s funny and poignant novel “What a Time to Be Alive,” whose protagonist Lola is broke and aimless — until a leaked video transforms her into an instant self-help guru.

Chang, whose first novel, “The Wangs vs. The World,” was a sharp satire on class and ambition, has now turned her gaze to the promise and peril of self-actualization through social media. I sat down with Chang to discuss spiritualism for profit, tech bros and trucker hats.

(Please note: The Times may earn a commission through links to Bookshop.org, whose fees support independent bookstores.)

✍️ Author Chat

Book jacket of “What a Time to Be Alive” by Jade Chang

(Los Angeles Times illustration; book jacket from Ecco)

This book almost didn’t make it, as you physically lost it.

I started it years ago. I was writing in longhand in a notebook, entire chapters of the book. I lost the notebook and I was devastated. Then I moved on and wrote “The Wangs vs. The World.” It took a long time to get back into writing this new book. By the time I circled back to it, the world had changed so much. I think I have become more generous about things, and the story benefited from it.

Lola, your protagonist, unwittingly becomes an online self-help guru on the basis of a leaked video that is posted on social media. She becomes a sort of accidental wellness expert.

As someone who didn’t grow up with religion, I have always been really fascinated by belief. Why do we want to believe, and how are we compelled to certain beliefs? And it was just kind of fascinating and amazing that people could find so much life in religious stories. As I was developing the story of this novel, I realized that everyone in the digital world takes a page from this book as well, using stories to convert listeners into believers. I think Lola starts out sort of thinking she is in above her head, but by the end, her sincerity shines through. She wants to believe what she is telling others to believe.

Do you think the internet breeds cynicism and has turned us all into an angry mob?

I don’t. The digital world doesn’t make us any different from who we are, but it can throw a lens on certain aspects of our behavior. I think the internet allows us to be our best and worst selves. Think about all those strangers who might contribute to a GoFundMe campaign because someone has had a serious injury and needs to pay their medical bills, which can yield tens of thousands of dollars in some cases. That’s the mob functioning at its best.

But isn’t it a little too easy to pull a con job online?

Yes, it’s easy to be inauthentic online, but it’s important to remember that online performance is a tiny percentage of someone’s life. That’s why I was so interested in writing about the rise of this self-help guru, because usually when these stories are told you only see it from the acolyte’s point of view or the skeptic’s point of view. But we all have to make money, and we all are pulling a little something over on someone at some point — it’s part of surviving in the world.

Lola cauterizes the pain in her personal life by offering panaceas to pain for strangers online, but she affects a false persona to do so.

It’s easy to assume that anything we do, whether it’s on social media or elsewhere online, is performative or fraudulent in some way. RuPaul has a great quote where he says gender is drag. Everything is drag, a performance. Every choice we make is often not reflective of our essential self. You can’t codify identity in clothes or that trucker hat you’re wearing; anything you’re going to choose is going to be influenced by the times in which you live and who you surround yourself with. I can only speak from experience, but I think it’s almost impossible to suppress your true self.

You mentioned how self-help gurus and tech bros have a similar public worldview.

As research for the book, I attended one of Oprah’s Super Soul Sundays at Royce Hall. Every single person that spoke had the same arc: “I was down in the dumps, and then I looked up from that hole and I saw a glimmer in the form of CrossFit,” or drumming, or whatever it was that pulled them up from the brink. Then I went to a TED talk, and these tech gurus are saying the exact same thing. It’s the narrative of our time. I saw that crossover, and I knew I had something to say. I was interested in this internal push and pull of, how much do you give in to this tactic, and how much do you not.

📰 The Week(s) in Books

(Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times)

Hamilton Cain has mixed feelings about Patricia Lockwood’s autofictional account of the COVID-19 lockdown, “Will There Ever Be Another You,” praising Lockwood’s “rich and kinetic” prose but bemoaning her “self-indulgent and repetitious” narrative.

Steve Henson has a chat with tennis legend Björn Borg about his new memoir, “Heartbeats,” which delves into his heavy cocaine and alcohol use that began shortly after he walked away from the sport at age 26.

Karen Palmer’s harrowing memoir, “She’s Under Here,” “details forgery, a child’s kidnapping, a mental breakdown, struggles to stay afloat — and joy,” writes Bethanne Patrick.

And David A. Keeps reports on the fiscal inequities of the booming audiobook industry: “Many actors are vying for audiobook roles at a time when the talent pool is expanding and casting is becoming a growing topic of debate.”

📖 Bookstore Faves

The Book Jewel, located in the city of Westchester, is just minutes from LAX.

(The Book Jewel)

The Book Jewel is a welcome addition to the neighborhood of Westchester, an expansive bookstore with an excellent selection of fiction and nonfiction titles for locals, or those who might stop by there before catching their flight at nearby LAX. We talked with general manager Joseph Paulsen about the store.

Your store is serving a community that hasn’t had a general interest bookstore in quite some time.

The Book Jewel opened smack-dab in the middle of the global COVID-19 pandemic in August of 2020. Our Westchester community has supported us from Day 1, and we recently celebrated our fifth anniversary. We are the only bookstore in Westchester, and we are locally owned and independent. I live here in Westchester and have raised both of my sons here.

What’s selling right now?

Right now we’re selling tons of children’s literature and graphic novels (“InvestiGators,” Dav Pilkey, etc.). Of course, the ABA Independent Bestsellers. Lots of romantasy.

You are pretty close to LAX. Do you sell a lot of books to travelers?

The travelers give themselves away with their roller bags, and we catch ’em heading out of Los Angeles on the reg! They like long books for long flights. Lots of souvenirs too! We have some unique, local non-book items as well and offer a better vibe than the international terminal.

The Book Jewel is located at 6259 W. 87th St, Los Angeles, CA.

Warren Buffett has built a reputation for studying the landscape and spotting financial issues before others realize there’s a problem. Twenty years ago, at a 2005 Berkshire Hathaway meeting, Buffett was blunt: “I basically believe that anything that would take Social Security payments below their present guaranteed level is a mistake.”

Image source: Getty Images.

The problem has been brewing

Based on any retirement planning you’ve done, you’ll probably not be surprised that the Social Security trust is in serious danger of running dry. The program collects payroll taxes under the Federal Insurance Contributions Act (FICA). Both employees and employers contribute 6.2% of the employees’ wages, up to the annual wage base limit of $176,100.

The money collected today goes toward paying Social Security benefits to current beneficiaries. When the Social Security Administration (SSA) collects more than it pays out, the remaining money goes into the Old-Age and Survivors Insurance Trust Fund (OASI) and is invested in Treasury securities. When the SSA collects less in Social Security payroll taxes than it pays out, the SSA must dip into the trust fund for the money it needs to pay the benefits earned.

According to the SSA’s 2024 Trustees Report, the OASI trust fund is projected to become depleted in 2033, unless Congress intervenes to shore up the program. While several factors have played a role in draining the fund, demographics may be the most critical. In 1960, there were 5.1 workers for every Social Security recipient. Today, that number is just 2.8 and expected to continue falling.

The SSA cannot pay full Social Security benefits once the money invested in Treasury securities is gone. At that point, the Trustees say that Social Security benefits would be reduced by 23%.

Buffett’s proposals to get Social Security back on solid ground

Buffett has been consistent about recommending moderate changes to the program, including:

Remove the taxable earnings cap

As of 2025, Social Security taxes only apply to incomes up to $176,100. For example, a person who earns $400,000 annually only pays Social Security taxes on the first $176,100. No Social Security taxes are collected on the remaining $223,900.

Buffett believes that the U.S. should eliminate this cap so that higher earners can contribute more to the program. This approach would boost Social Security revenue significantly and is unlikely to affect the financial stability of wealthier taxpayers.

Slightly increase payroll taxes

No one enjoys a tax hike, which may help explain why politicians have been so hesitant to suggest them. Politicians want to be seen as the people who cut taxes. There’s only one problem with that: Cutting taxes isn’t always good for the long term. For example, President Donald Trump’s “Big, Beautiful Bill“ expanded the standard deduction for seniors and lowered how much can be collected in taxes on benefits.

Add that to the Social Security Fairness Act signed into law by President Joe Biden in early January 2025. The Social Security Fairness Act eliminated the Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP) and Government Pension Offset (GPO) rules. These two programs decreased the amount that over 3.2 million people — including teachers, police officers, firefighters, and federal employees — were eligible to receive in Social Security benefits.

While each tax break may have come as welcome news to most, the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB) found that they shaved a full year off the expected solvency timeline, meaning money is being drained from the Social Security trust fund at a faster rate than believed just last year.

Buffett suggests a slight boost in Social Security payroll taxes, saying even a modest hike would generate additional funds over time. In addition, a small tax hike would help secure the program’s financial stability without unfairly burdening workers or employers.

Raise the full retirement age (FRA)

In 1960, American men could expect to live to age 66.6 on average, and American women to age 73.1. Today, American men can expect to live to 77.2 on average, and American women to age 82.1. This increase in life expectancy means more years in retirement, and more Social Security benefits paid out. The SSA could stretch the Social Security trust fund further by raising the FRA.

Reduce Social Security benefits for wealthy retirees

Buffett, who once famously pointed out that his secretary paid a “far higher tax rate“ than Buffett himself, believes that the wealthiest retirees will do fine if their benefits are scaled back. According to Buffett, adjusting payments for high earners allows the SSA to direct more resources to those retirees who depend on their monthly benefits the most.

Given the number of Americans who collect Social Security, it’s fair to assume that many have done everything they can to maximize benefits and don’t want to see their benefits slashed. Warren Buffett has spent the past two decades offering potential fixes to the issue. Now, if Congress can get on board, a solution may be found.

STRICTLY pro Lauren Oakley has QUIT social media just a day before the first live show – saying “everyone has feelings”.

The dancer, who is partnered with football manager Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink this series, urged viewers to not troll the stars.

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Lauren, 34, shared a message with her followers before she takes a break from her X platform while the show is on.

She wrote: “Live show tomorrow. That’s me deleting X for now, have fun everyone. Enjoy the show. Don’t be mean. Everyone has feelings and everyone is trying their best. Think before you type. Love.”

Last series Lauren stepped in for Amy Dowden as her replacement after health concerns and danced with JLS singer JB Gill.

Taking to the stage for the inaugural Icons Week, the pair blew the judges away and received an incredible 39 points.

On social media, viewers praised Lauren’s talent – and called for her not to be “benched” next series.

One wrote on X: “NEVER and I mean NEVER not give Lauren a partner again! Love her.”

Another commented: “Dear strictly. never bench lauren oakley again. thank you.”

A third chimed in: “Lauren Oakley is SO SO good.

“Its an absolute crime she was never given a partner this year.”

A fourth remarked: “lauren better get a partner next year i will start a riot if not #strictly.”

In 2023, Lauren partnered newsreader Krishnan Guru-Murthy, with the pair placing 8th overall.

Strictly Come Dance 2025 lineup

Strictly Come Dancing news and the latest line up

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Jimmy Kimmel’s emotional Tuesday return to his late-night hosting perch at ABC gave his program its largest audience ever in its regular 11:35 p.m. time period, despite not airing for nearly a quarter of U.S. households.

An average of 6.26 million viewers tuned in to watch “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” as the comedian addressed his suspension that became a free speech cause celebre, according to Nielsen. ABC had pulled the show “indefinitely” starting Sept. 17 following blowback over Kimmel’s remarks about the shooting death of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk.

The only times “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” has scored higher ratings were when it aired special episodes after the Oscars and the Super Bowl. Preliminary numbers for Tuesday’s show didn’t include streaming.

The program delivered strong numbers despite not airing on 60 network affiliates covering 23% of U.S. television households. Television station ownership groups Nexstar and Sinclair kept the program off their ABC-affiliated outlets even as Walt Disney Co.-owned ABC resumed production.

By late Wednesday, 15 million people had watched Kimmel’s monologue and a comedy bit with actor Robert De Niro on YouTube, where ABC made it available shortly after it aired on TV. ABC said a total of 26 million people watched the monologue across YouTube and social media platforms.

Kimmel clearly grasped that his return would be a historic moment in the annals of late-night TV, as his network-imposed hiatus became a global news story and sparked a widespread debate about free speech and the role of government regulators.

He opened with the line, “Before I was interrupted” — the same words “Tonight” show host Jack Paar used in 1960 when he returned from a monthlong walkout. Paar left his program after NBC censors cut a water closet joke from his monologue, which became one of the biggest TV industry controversies of that era.

Kimmel was pulled off the air the same day Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr took aim at the host’s Sept. 15 monologue, in which Kimmel said MAGA Republicans were using Kirk’s death to “score political points” and were trying to categorize suspected shooter Tyler Robinson as “anything other than one of them.”

Carr, who oversees regulations for broadcast stations, called Kimmel’s remarks “the sickest conduct possible” and called for ABC to act. He threatened to go after TV stations’ licenses if it failed to do so.

During his opening monologue, Kimmel got choked up when he told viewers it was “never my intention to make light of the murder of a young man” when he discussed the right wing’s response to the shooting.

But Kimmel went on to chastise Carr, showing his social media postings in recent years that gave unequivocal support to the 1st Amendment and condemning the censorship of TV hosts and commentators.

Since becoming FCC chair under the Trump administration, Carr has joined the president in denouncing his late-night critics.

While Kimmel was contrite regarding Kirk, he showed no mercy for Trump in the monologue addressing the matter that took much of the show, a clear indication that he won’t be changing his tone. He also continued to promote free speech, saying the government attempts to stifle voices such as his are “un-American” and “so dangerous.”

Kimmel also expressed gratitude to politically-right-leaning politicians and commentators who expressed dismay over his removal from the air, including Ted Cruz and Joe Rogan.

Trump reacted harshly to Kimmel’s return. In a Truth Social post, he said he may file another lawsuit against ABC. The network paid a $16-million settlement last year after “Good Morning America” co-host George Stephanopoulos mistakenly said Trump was found liable of of sexual assault instead of sexual abuse.

A letter signed by several dozen former employees of ABC, which was obtained by The Times, praised Disney Chief Executive Bob Iger’s decision to return Kimmel to the air, but warned “it must be the first step in a concerted effort to defend free speech and press freedom against political intimidation.”

“The $16 million settlement with Donald Trump, combined with the absence of a strong public defense of ABC News journalists under attack, has emboldened Administration efforts to intimidate the press,” said the letter, which included the signatures of former ABC News correspondents Sam Donaldson, Chris Bury, Ned Potter, Judy Muller and Brian Rooney.

Nexstar is still keeping “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” off its ABC affiliates. A Nexstar representative said Wednesday the company is having “productive discussions with executives at the Walt Disney Company, with a focus on ensuring the program reflects and respects the diverse interests of the communities we serve.”

A representative for Sinclair, which preempted “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” in markets such as Seattle and Washington, D.C., said in a statement that the company is also monitoring the situation before deciding to return the program to its ABC station program lineups.

Marlon Wayans is putting up a “defensive run-stopping front” after his latest film received negative reviews from critics.

The actor took to his Instagram account over the weekend to promote his latest film, “HIM,” which hit the big screen Friday, and told fans to form their own opinions on the project. The movie currently holds a 29% score with critics on Rotten Tomatoes.

“An opinion does not always mean it’s everyone’s opinion. Some movies are ahead of the curve,” Wayans said. “Innovation is not always embraced and art is to be interpreted and it’s subjective.”

The post include screen grabs from the Rotten Tomatoes pages of his other movies that have been classified “rotten” by the website but were later embraced by audiences like 2004’s “White Chicks,” the first two films in the “Scary Movie” franchise, 2013’s “A Haunted House” and 1996’s “Don’t Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood.” The post ends with a screen grab of the “HIM” Rotten Tomatoes page.

“I’ve had a career of making classic movies that weren’t critically received and those movies went on to be CLASSICS. So don’t take anyone’s opinion just go see for yourself,” Wayans added.

So far, audiences have given the film a 58% on Rotten Tomatoes.

The Times film critic, Amy Nicholson, credited the the film for its “stylishly” craftsmanship but said it was lacking plot.

Murdoch will be part of a group of US investors – including Trump allies – trying to take over TikTok’s US operations.

United States President Donald Trump has said media executive Lachlan Murdoch will join a group of American investors seeking to take control of TikTok’s operations in the United States.

In an interview on the Fox News programme Sunday Briefing, Trump said the proposed deal would transfer TikTok’s American assets from Chinese parent company ByteDance to US ownership. He described those involved as prominent people and “American patriots”.

“I think they’re going to do a really good job,” Trump said, adding that TikTok had helped him expand support among young voters during the 2024 election campaign.

One of the proposed investors – Larry Ellison, the co-founder of the tech firm Oracle – is a prominent Republican donor. Lachlan Murdoch’s father Rupert has backed right-wing causes and parties for decades, but has a complicated relationship with Trump, who is currently suing him.

The initiative would give Trump’s allies in corporate America influence over a platform with about 170 million US users, one of the most widely used apps shaping political and cultural debate.

Lachlan Murdoch, the chief executive of Fox Corp, recently consolidated control of his family’s media empire, which includes Fox News and the Wall Street Journal, after settling a long-running legal dispute with his siblings. Trump said the 94-year-old Rupert Murdoch may himself also be involved in the deal.

Murdoch’s media outlets attract right-leaning audiences, but they have occasionally clashed with Trump. The US president’s lawsuit against Rupert Murdoch and the Wall Street Journal is for defamation over a July report linking him to the late financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The newspaper has defended its reporting.

Other business figures named by Trump include Dell Technologies CEO Michael Dell, who, along with Ellison, has previously been connected to discussions on TikTok’s future.

US law passed under the administration of former US President Joe Biden requires ByteDance to divest its TikTok operations, with both Democrats and Republicans supporting the legislation due to security concerns that Beijing could have access to American users’ data.

However, the spotlight on TikTok has also been linked to growing support for Palestinians and opposition to Israel among young Americans, with many pro-Israeli politicians blaming the popular app for the shifting tide.

Trump’s Secretary of State Marco Rubio called for a ban on TikTok soon after the beginning of Israel’s war on Gaza, calling the app biased towards anti-Israel content.

Trump had proposed to ban TikTok during his first term as US president, signing two executive orders in August 2020 that were aimed at restricting the app. However, the US president did a U-turn, pledging to “save” the popular app during his 2024 re-election campaign.

The Trump administration has since tied negotiations over TikTok to wider trade talks with China.

China has consistently denied claims by US lawmakers that Beijing pressures apps like TikTok to collect personal information for the state.

If you’ve been on Social Security for a while, changes to the program may not seem all that unusual to you. Each year, the government makes updates to benefits and the formula used to calculate them. But 2025 hasn’t been an ordinary year. Several unusual changes have already taken place, and a few more are set to go into effect by the end of December.

They may not all affect you, but chances are, at least one will have a pretty significant impact on your budget as we move into 2026.

Image source: Getty Images.

1. The Social Security Fairness Act’s passage

Congress passed the Social Security Fairness Act (SSFA) in January. This law eliminated two longstanding Social Security provisions — the Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP) and the Government Pension Offset (GPO) — that had previously reduced the amount of benefits that would be paid to people who received pensions from employers that didn’t pay into Social Security on their behalf.

As a result of this change, many former teachers, firefighters, police officers, and other government workers saw their benefits jump this spring, with some getting an additional $1,000 or more each month.

The Social Security Administration finished making these benefit adjustments back in July. If you were affected, you should have been notified of the change, and you’ve likely already begun receiving your new, larger benefit checks.

2. Overpayment recovery rate increase

In March 2024, the Biden administration made a change to how Social Security dealt with overpayments: If, for some reason, an individual was found to have received more than they were due, the agency would withhold at most 10% of each of their future checks until all of the overpayment was recovered. The goal of spreading out the repayment period this way was to avoid putting unnecessary financial hardship on retirees.

Early in 2025, President Donald Trump reversed that move, reverting the Social Security overpayment recovery rate from 10% per check back to 100%. This gave the government permission to withhold the entirety of your checks until it recouped its money. However, a few weeks later, he cut the recovery rate to 50%.

Overpayments are uncommon, but if this happens to you, losing half your checks for any period could still be devastating. However, if it will be a hardship, you can file a request for a lower repayment recovery rate.

3. The end of paper check delivery

The Social Security Administration announced in July that on Sept. 30, it would stop sending paper checks to beneficiaries. This change will save the government about $0.35 per payment while also improving the speed and security with which funds are distributed.

If you’re currently receiving paper Social Security checks, you can switch to direct deposit into a bank account or request a Direct Express Card. This is a prepaid debit card that the government will automatically load your Social Security benefit onto each month. You can change the method by which you receive your payments by logging into your my Social Security account or by contacting the Social Security Administration.

4. Reduced Social Security benefit taxes for some

Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” made several major changes to the tax code, including adding a new deduction for seniors worth up to $6,000 for single adults and up to $12,000 for married couples. This is on top of the standard deductions for those filing statuses and the existing senior tax deduction.

Contrary to what some sources claimed, this change did not eliminate or modify the existing taxes on Social Security benefits. However, a tax deduction will reduce your taxable income for the year, so you could pay taxes on a little less of your Social Security benefits than you would have before.

5. Cost-of-living adjustment (COLA)

The Social Security Administration will announce the size of its next cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) on Oct. 15. This will take effect with the December 2025 payment, which will go out to beneficiaries in January 2026.

Based on current estimates for U.S. inflation during the third quarter, the COLA will come in at around 2.7%. That would increase the average monthly benefit of $2,008 (as of August) by $54. 

Once the COLA is official, you will be able to calculate how much it will add to your 2026 benefits. But you should also get a personalized COLA notice in December. You can use that information to begin planning your budgets for 2026.

In 1991, Social Security’s full retirement age (FRA) was 65, yet the average retirement age in the U.S. was 57. Today, FRA hovers around 67 with the average American retiring at 62.

According to North American Community Hub Statistics (NCHstats), a source of health data, there’s a gap between the expected age of retirement (67) and the actual age (62), often due to health issues, caregiving needs, and layoffs. In other words, despite the desire a person may have to maximize their Social Security benefits, life can get in the way.

Image source: Getty Images.

What is the perfect age to begin collecting Social Security?

Unfortunately, there is no one-size-fits-all answer. The best time for you to retire may differ significantly from the ideal time for a friend, coworker, or family member. What matters is when you’re ready to retire.

For example, suppose you’re the primary earner in your family, and you have a spouse and children who depend on you for financial support. If that’s the case, you may want to maximize the amount they’re eligible to collect in survivors benefits by waiting to retire at FRA or later. Survivors benefits entitle your dependents to continue receiving a percentage of the benefit you were collecting (or would have qualified for) at the time of your death. By retiring earlier, you reduce the amount your family will collect after your passing.

Meanwhile, someone with health complications may decide they want to file for Social Security much sooner. With a shorter life expectancy, they’re more likely to maximize what they get from the program with an early claim.

Discovering the right retirement age for you

The ideal age for you depends mainly on factors like your financial needs, health, and overall retirement goals. Here are a few more scenarios to consider.

• Early retirement: You can begin collecting benefits as early as 62, but the sooner you file, the smaller your benefit will be. However, if you need the income to actually retire, 62 may be right for you.
• Full retirement age (between 66 and 67): Waiting until this age allows you to receive your full benefit. If you retire before this point, you’ll need to rely exclusively on your retirement savings to cover your expenses for a few years. For many people, waiting until FRA may be just right.
• Delayed retirement: If you can put off claiming benefits until age 70, you’ll receive the maximum amount possible based on your work history. This could be the right move if you had a late start saving for retirement, live in a high-cost-of-living area, or want to hold onto more of your savings in order to pass it down to your heirs.

Questions to ask yourself

If you’re not quite sure when you would like to retire, here are five questions that can help you get a sense of your best move.

1. When am I eligible for Medicare coverage? Medicare eligibility begins at age 65. If you’re considering retirement before that, make sure you have another dependable source of health insurance.
2. What do I enjoy most in life? Let’s say you love to travel or treat the grandchildren to special activities. Those things cost money, so you must ensure your post-retirement income is adequate.
3. Do I have a plan for life after retirement? If your job is what you love and you don’t have a clear idea of what you would do as a retiree, it’s a good sign that you can wait.
4. Would a trial retirement work for me? If you’re still unsure of when (or if) you want to retire, find out if your employer will allow you to transition to a part-time schedule or go on sabbatical to try it out.
5. Do I simply want to leave my current job? If so, you may want to “semi-retire” by leaving your current job and taking on a new one. Depending on your age, the Social Security Administration may hold back a portion of your monthly benefits (although you’ll get them back after reaching FRA), but you’ll still have the chance to try something new.

Some people live for the day they can retire, while others can’t imagine what they would do with themselves. Whichever camp you fall into, it’s essential to have a plan and understand when retirement is a realistic option.

There’s some good news related to the Trump administration’s concerted attack on the Social Security Administration: Thus far, it doesn’t appear to have significantly affected the delivery of benefits. Checks are still going out and payments into beneficiaries’ bank accounts are still arriving on time.

Beyond that, however, the system is going to hell.

While Social Security appears to still be working well — superficially — under the surface the agency is suffering through a period of unprecedented turmoil. That’s the gist of a new report by Kathleen Romig and Devin O’Connor, Social Security experts at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

Under the Trump administration, Romig and O’Connor observe, the Social Security Administration’s regional office staff “have been mostly eliminated, robbing front-line staff of key supports.” Headquarters staffing has been cut by nearly half, including technology experts. Field office and call center staff also have been eviscerated.

Few departments within SSA have been spared — not even the office tasked with helping members of Congress assist their constituents with Social Security issues and helping to develop legislation.

The so-called Office of Legislation and Congressional Affairs was cut to three employees from 50. Constituent caseworkers in congressional offices have been receiving “bounce-back emails and no-replies from legislative liaison offices that were previously responsive to congressional inquiries,” according to a letter sent by 50 Democratic House members to the SSA in July.

Even Republicans, who generally have been willing to go along with the administration’s rampage through agency budgets, raised the alarm about customer service failures at SSA, noting in a legislative markup that “there are significant service delivery challenges at SSA that are impacting critical services that millions of Americans count on. “

The agency’s staffing problems may be simmering under the surface, but it translates into chronically poor customer service. “Inadequate staffing at SSA directly harms the retirees, people with disabilities, and bereaved families the agency is responsible for serving,” Romig and O’Connor report.

“Because there aren’t enough workers in SSA’s local offices, applicants wait over a month on average for an appointment. Because there aren’t enough people answering the agency’s 800 number, most callers wait over two hours on average for an answer, as of early August,” they write. “Because there aren’t enough disability examiners, applicants wait eight months for an initial decision on their eligibility for disability benefits, with an additional seven-month wait for those who appeal.”

Meanwhile, more information has emerged about the incursion of untrained representatives of Elon Musk’s budget-cutting DOGE service into Social Security’s most carefully guarded databases. The outcome has been the exposure of workers’ and beneficiaries’ private personal information to outsiders, all without adequate oversight.

I’ve been following Trump’s campaign against Social Security from the outset. Although Trump has promised repeatedly that “we’re not touching Social Security,” actions speak louder than words, and his unconcern about the program, if not his outright hostility, have been screaming from the rooftops.

Among the weapons Trump could use to undermine the program, as I wrote, was “starving the program of administrative resources — think money and staff.” As it happened, Sure enough, within a month of Trump’s inauguration, the program announced plans to reduce its employee base to 50,000 from 57,000.

Its press release about the reduction referred to the program’s “bloated workforce.” That sounded like a cheap gag, since the truth is that the agency has been hopelessly understaffed for years.

The DOGE team showed its ignorance and incompetence at every turn, issuing inaccurate assertions about fraud at Social Security and then instituting operational changes that had no effect on fraud but inconvenienced thousands of beneficiaries. In March, for example, a DOGE employee went on Fox News with the claim that 40% of phone calls to the agency to change direct deposit information came from fraudsters. As a result, the agency mandated that such changes had to be made in person or online.

The true statistic misinterpreted by DOGE was that 40% of direct deposit fraud is connected with phone calls, not that 40% of all calls to change bank information is fraudulent. After the dime dropped at DOGE, the restriction was rescinded.

Since then, the Trump administration has acted from time to time as if the Social Security Administration is an arm of the White House. In March, it shut down SSA services in Maine because the state’s governor had challenged Trump face-to-face over his policies. (The decision was promptly reversed, but then-Acting Commissioner Leland Dudek admitted that he had taken the step in retaliation for the governor’s conflict with Trump.)

In April, Trump tried to dragoon Social Security into his anti-immigrant campaign by declaring some 6,300 purportedly illegal immigrants to be “dead” in program records, even though they were very much alive. The administration said its goal was to deny the workers benefits, though under the law noncitizens without legal residency in the U.S. can’t collect benefits, even if they’ve made payroll contributions to the program.

The biggest threat to the public’s confidence in Social Security may be the administration’s raid on its secure databases, starting with a rampage by DOGE documented by then-Chief of Staff Tiffany Flick.

More has come out since Flick filed her account in court. Last month, Chuck Borges, formerly the program’s chief data officer, filed a whistleblower affidavit outlining his concerns about “serious data security lapses, evidently orchestrated by DOGE officials, currently employed as SSA employees, that risk the security of over 300 million Americans’ Social Security data.”

DOGE, Borges reported, created “a live copy of the country’s Social Security information” and placed it in a digital platform that could be easily accessed by those without authorization.

At issue is the so-called NUMIDENT database, which includes the “name, … place and date of birth, citizenship, race and ethnicity, parents’ names and social security numbers, phone number, address, and other personal information” of every applicant for a Social Security card.

“Should bad actors gain access to this cloud environment,” Borges asserts, “Americans may be susceptible to widespread identity theft, may lose vital healthcare and food benefits, and the government may be responsible for re-issuing every American a new Social Security Number at great cost.”

Trump has instituted the largest staffing cut in Social Security history, while the caseload per employee is higher than ever

(Center on Budget and Policy Priorities)

A federal court shut that access and activity down. But in June it was overruled by the Supreme Court, which unaccountably granted DOGE members access to the agency database “in order for those members to do their work.”

SSA didn’t respond to my request for comment on these issues or on increasing concern about the program’s functioning under its recently installed commissioner, Frank Bisignano.

Bisignano has been issuing self-congratulatory press releases boasting about improvements to customer service metrics at the agency — for example, phone answer times cut to an average of six minutes, down from 30 minutes last year. A press release issued in July attributed the improvement to “focused technology enhancements and process engineering.”

In fact, according to Romig and O’Connor, it’s more likely that the improvement happened because the agency reassigned 1,000 staffers from field offices, where they served clients face-to-face, to answering phones. The reassignments, Romig and O’Connor observed, “likely is coming at a steep cost to the rest of the agency’s work.”

At least 2,000 field office employees already had been pushed out by DOGE, so removing an additional 1,000 workers from the field only “deepens problems for people seeking in-person service — which were already considerable.”

Indeed, back in April the agency itself acknowledged that more than three dozen field offices around the country were in dire condition, suffering staff losses of 25% to 33% from DOGE’s “voluntary” resignation program that resulted in the loss of more than 7,000 workers overall, or 13% of the payroll.

Earlier this year, DOGE listed 47 Social Security offices due for closing, though it is not clear how many have actually been shuttered this year or what the schedule is for closing the rest.

Over the last decade or so, Lawmakers on Capitol Hill have been wringing their hands over what they say is Social Security’s impending fiscal crisis, caused by the exhaustion of its trust fund reserve sometime in the next decade. But that’s still the subject of conjecture.

What’s more certain is that the congressional cheeseparing and the DOGE raid that have produced the largest staffing cut in the program’s history — at a time when its caseload is at record size and is destined to grow even further — loom as a greater threat to most workers and beneficiaries.

“To raise customer service to acceptable levels, Congress must not only provide SSA with sufficient funding but also forcefully push back against the Administration’s current mismanagement of its existing resources,” Romig and O’Connor maintain.

They’re right. Isn’t it time for Capitol Hill to take firm, bipartisan action to protect America’s most important government service from its enemies?

Social Security may be the most valuable retirement asset most Americans have. The pension for retired workers accounted for 20% of families’ total wealth in 2022, according to a study by the Congressional Budget Office. That’s based on a calculation valuing all future payments at present value.

Those future payments get a boost every year, which could make them even more valuable to Americans. The annual cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) helps benefits keep up with inflation. And while we won’t have the official 2026 COLA number until mid-October, it looks like it’ll come in higher than what analysts anticipated at the start of the year.

But a bigger COLA isn’t necessarily reason for Social Security recipients to celebrate. Here’s what retirees need to know.

Image source: Getty Images.

What’s pushing the 2026 COLA higher?

The annual COLA is based on a standard measure of inflation published every month by the Bureau of Labor Statistics called the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers, or CPI-W.

The CPI-W is one of several Consumer Price Index measurements the government publishes. The BLS surveys thousands of businesses and households across the country to collect pricing data on over 200 line items. Those prices are then indexed to a standard price from when the BLS first started collecting data, and weighted according to typical spending patterns of the group the index is supposed to follow. In the case of the CPI-W, the basket of goods represents the spending of working-age adults living in cities.

The Social Security Administration calculates the COLA by taking the average year-over-year increase in the CPI-W during the third quarter, i.e. July, August, and September. The BLS just published August’s CPI numbers on Sept. 11, with the CPI-W climbing 2.8% year over year. That follows a 2.5% increase in July. The final reading to determine the 2026 COLA will come out on Oct. 15.

Based on expectations for that reading, both The Senior Citizen’s League and independent analyst Mary Johnson have published their expectations for next year’s COLA. The former expects it to come in at 2.7% while the latter expects retirees to receive a 2.8% bump. Both estimates are higher than the 2.5% initial estimate The Senior Citizen’s League published before the start of the year.

The reasons for a higher COLA are bad news for 70 million beneficiaries

A bigger-than-expected raise is usually great news for those receiving it, but in the case of Social Security’s 70 million beneficiaries, it signals a challenging economic environment.

The biggest challenge is that the CPI-W doesn’t perfectly match the spending of most seniors. Most people don’t spend their money in retirement the same way they did when they were working age. They probably commute less and spend less on new clothing. They probably have different dining habits. And it’s almost certain that their medical bills have climbed higher as they grow older.

To that end, some of the biggest expenses seniors face are climbing faster than the overall CPI-W numbers. Medical care services were notably 4.2% higher this August than the year before. While gasoline prices were down, utilities were way up. Shelter expenses climbed 3.6%. Despite a 2.7% or 2.8% raise coming in January, most seniors have seen their real cost of living climb much more over the past year.

Rising medical costs are most prominently seen in the Medicare Trustees’ estimate for next year’s Medicare Part B premium. They expect the program will have to charge a standard monthly premium of $206.20 next year, an 11.5% increase from 2025. For those keeping track, that far outpaces the expectations for Social Security’s COLA. Beneficiaries age 65 and older enrolled in Medicare will see that amount come right out of their new monthly payments.

The Senior Citizens League contends this situation isn’t unique to this year’s COLA. It ran a study that estimates the buying power of someone’s benefits who started Social Security in 2010 has decreased 20% through 2024.

The best economic environment for Social Security has historically been slow, steady, and predictable inflation. Under the current administration, which has gone back and forth on trade policies numerous times since the start of the year, prices have become anything but predictable. While many businesses have taken preemptive steps to curb and delay the impact of tariffs, the costs will eventually get passed through to consumers. That could result in even more pain for those on a fixed income next year.

While a 2.7% or 2.8% raise might be bigger than anticipated, many seniors may find that it doesn’t go far enough next year.

You’re ready for a change of pace — not just leaving the workforce, but moving to another state or country in order to start fresh. While exciting, you’re probably also prepared for some challenges, like learning your way around your new neighborhood and coming up with a new retirement budget.

Though you might not expect it, you could also face Social Security challenges that affect your benefit delivery or how far your checks go. Fortunately, you can minimize the difficulty these issues pose by planning for them well in advance.

Image source: Getty Images.

Moving to another state

Moving to another state won’t change the monthly Social Security check you’re entitled to, whether you’re receiving a retirement or spousal benefit. But it could affect how far your checks go. For example, if you move from a city with a high cost of living to a rural area where living expenses are cheaper, you might find that your checks go further than they would in your current city. On the other hand, if you move to a pricier area, you may have to pay for more of your expenses out of your own pocket.

Moving could also put you at risk of or help you avoid state Social Security benefit taxes. Only nine states still have these, and each has its own rules that determine who owes these taxes. It’s possible to live in a state with a Social Security benefit tax and not pay any state taxes on your checks. But it’s worth reaching out to your new state’s department of taxation or an accountant in that state to learn how it could affect your tax bill.

You could also find yourself owing federal Social Security benefit taxes wherever you go. These depend on your provisional income — your adjusted gross income (AGI), plus any nontaxable interest you have from municipal bonds and half your annual Social Security benefit. If you’re forced to spend more due to a higher cost of living in your new home, this could increase your AGI and your provisional income, potentially forcing you to pay more in federal income taxes.

Moving to another country

If you decide to move to another country, you sidestep the issue of state Social Security benefit taxes. Depending on where you go, you might also be able to secure a lower cost of living to help your benefits go further.

You will still be responsible for paying federal Social Security benefit taxes if your provisional income is high enough. And you could also run into an accessibility issue if you retire in certain countries.

The Social Security Administration can pay you via direct deposit or a prepaid debit card in most parts of the world. However, if you retire in the following countries, you may not be able to receive your benefit payments:

• Azerbaijan
• Belarus
• Kazakhstan
• Kyrgyzstan
• Tajikistan
• Turkmenistan
• Uzbekistan

You may be able to petition the Social Security Administration to make an exception for you if you agree to certain restricted payment terms.

This isn’t an option for those who choose to retire in Cuba or North Korea, however. There, you cannot get Social Security benefits at all.

If you retire in a country where the U.S. government won’t send Social Security checks, you may still be able to receive all your back payments if you later move from that country to a place where the Social Security Administration can send benefits again.

It’s best to contact the Social Security Administration directly if you have any questions about how your move could affect your Social Security checks. This way, you’ll be able to get a personalized answer and then you can adjust your budget accordingly.

The United States and China have reached a framework agreement to transfer TikTok’s ownership to US control.

Officials from both countries made the announcement on Monday.

The short-form video app was set to be banned in the US by Wednesday if its owner ByteDance did not agree to sell the company to a US-based operation or if the US did not extend a pause of the ban, which the White House has already done three times, most recently in June. 

US President Donald Trump applauded the deal, which will be confirmed when he discusses it with his Chinese counterpart President Xi Jinping on Friday.

“A deal was also reached on a “certain” company that young people in our Country very much wanted to save,” Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social on Monday.

“The relationship remains a very strong one!!!”

The White House declined to outline the terms of the deal, which was negotiated during trade talks between the two countries in Madrid. The two-day meeting, which wrapped up on Monday, was the latest in a slew of negotiations that began in May.

“We’re not going to talk about the commercial terms of the deal. It’s between two private parties, but the commercial terms have been agreed upon,” US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told reporters.

Bessent and US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, who was also part of the trade delegation in Madrid, said China wanted concessions on trade and technology in exchange for agreeing to divest from the popular social media app.

“Our Chinese counterparts have come with a very aggressive ask,” Bessent said, adding, “We are not willing to sacrifice national security for a social media app.”

“TikTok’s divestment agreement not only keeps the app running in the US, but is also expected to help de-escalate a tense trade standoff and lay groundwork for further trade talks between the US and China,” Maria Pechurina, director of international trade at Peacock Tariff Consulting, told Al Jazeera. “Both US and Chinese delegations explicitly linked the fate of TikTok to progress on tariff reductions and related trade concessions during their conversations in Madrid.”

The deal comes despite the US pushing other nations to impose tariffs on China over purchases of Russian oil, which Bessent said was discussed briefly with the US’s Chinese counterparts.

Experts warn to be wary of the deal being set until Xi and Trump speak on Friday.

“It’s important to note that the Chinese often see the signing of a deal as the beginning, and not the end, of any negotiations. The devil would lie in the details behind the optics. Also expect much haggling on important details that may take years,” Usha Hayley, a professor of international business at Wichita State University who specialises in Chinese industry, told Al Jazeera.

“The deal, when reached, would reflect the convergence of technology, national security, and geopolitics,” said Hayley. “TikTok sits at the centre of US concerns about data access, influence over public discourse, and Beijing’s reach into global tech. Washington is stating that the US views digital platforms as strategic assets, not private businesses.”

TikTok did not respond to Al Jazeera’s request for comment.

The looming ban

Trump proposed banning TikTok during his first term as US president, signing two executive orders in August 2020 that were aimed at restricting the app.

In April 2024, under then-President Joe Biden, the White House signed a law formally banning TikTok unless it sold its US operations. The ban was supposed to take effect on January 19, the last day of the Biden administration. Biden said he would not enforce the ban and said that he would leave that decision to the next administration.

Two days before the January deadline, on January 17, the Supreme Court stepped in to weigh in on TikTok’s challenge to the law and upheld the law. The app went dark briefly before the ban was paused during the early days of Trump’s subsequent presidency.

The pause was initially for 90 days and was later extended multiple times throughout the year.

The cultural importance to Trump

TikTok’s cultural relevance has grown significantly in recent years, serving both as a tool for organising and activism, and as a platform to reach the public, particularly young voters. In April 2024, the pro-Trump videos on TikTok were nearly double those supporting Biden, who was then the Democratic nominee, the New York Times reported, citing TikTok’s internal data.

Trump’s broader use of newer media was widely cited as a factor in his 2024 election victory. His campaign regularly engaged with right-leaning podcasts and influencers — such as Joe Rogan and Theo Von — to reach conservative audiences. It also targeted disillusioned men, who were drawn to influencers promoting traditional notions of masculinity, often conflated with conservative viewpoints.

A Pew Research Center study from November found that news influencers — defined as those who discuss “current events and civic issues” and have at least 100,000 followers across any social media platform – are more likely to lean conservative. A separate report from Pew in February found that news influencers posted more content supporting Trump than former Vice President Kamala Harris, Trump’s 2024 election opponent: 28 percent for Trump versus 24 percent for Harris.

TikTok’s role in spreading far-right narratives is not limited to US politics. The platform has reportedly influenced German state elections, contributing to the rise of far-right leaders, and has similarly affected far-right candidates in Poland, Sweden, and France.

Not to brag, but I’ve always suspected that my love of financial planning may be unrivaled. While my husband believes it’s a sickness, I’ve always enjoyed putting together a household budget (even when the money was not flowing). And, as I recently confessed to a friend, I’m really into retirement planning.

That’s probably why mySocialSecurity has become one of my most visited sites. It didn’t feel like my birthday or anything. Still, I did feel a little jolt of excitement upon learning the Social Security Administration (SSA) just added new features to its mySocialSecurity site.

Decades ago, when I first started planning for a retirement that felt a millennium away, I’d search the house for our latest Social Security statements, grab a notebook, pen, and calculator, and find a comfortable place to calculate. I probably could have learned two foreign languages and how to play the cello in the time I spent grappling with all the “what ifs.”

That was pre-internet, and I didn’t have the information needed to create a long-term retirement plan that approached reality. But then, a bunch of geniuses contributed to the invention of the internet, and by 2012, the SSA had launched mySocialSecurity. While it was helpful back then, it’s become a masterful tool for anyone serious about retirement planning.

Image source: Getty Images.

Latest additions

The mySocialSecurity site has always offered helpful tools, but the SSA is upping its game with these new additions:

Retirement calculator

The retirement calculator lets you compare month-by-month benefit estimates for ages 62 through 70. If you’re thinking about retiring at age 63 years and 6 months, it will take mere seconds for the calculator to indicate your monthly benefit at 63 years and 6 months. The best thing about the retirement calculator is how it takes the fantasy out of retirement planning by helping you decide when you can realistically afford to retire.

Age-based fact sheet

The age-based fact sheet explains the relationship between your birth year and full retirement age. It spells out when you’ll reach full retirement age (FRA), the age at which you’re entitled to 100% of your Social Security benefits. It also shows what happens if you claim benefits at age 62 instead and how much your monthly benefit will be permanently reduced. Finally, the age-based fact sheet allows you to see how much your monthly benefit amount will increase if you delay claiming benefits past your FRA, up to age 70.

Earnings-based fact sheet

This fact sheet addresses how working while receiving Social Security benefits will impact your payments. While there’s no impact if you collect Social Security after FRA, this is where you’d visit to learn how much the SSA will deduct from your benefits if you continue to work before FRA kicks in.

Benefit verification letter

The benefit verification letter spells out which benefits you currently receive. Whether you want it for your records or to provide proof of benefits to a third party, you can access the letter simply by logging into the site.

Form SSA-1099

So you’ll never lose track of how much you’ve received in Social Security benefits, the SSA provides easy access to your SSA-1099, a tax form that reports your annual benefits. This information helps determine if your benefits are taxable and how much to report on your federal tax return.

Check your claim status

Whether you’ve filed for Medicare for the first time or you’re ready to collect Social Security, your claim status provides up-to-date information regarding where your claim stands.

Request a replacement card

If you’ve ever lost your Social Security card, you may have experienced a moment of panic, wondering what to do. I’ve never actually misplaced mine, mostly because I’m afraid my parents will rise from the grave to remind me how important it is to protect it. Mom and Dad might have taken it a little easier on me if they knew how easy the SSA would make it to replace a card.

Planning for retirement

Here’s how mySocialSecurity makes retirement planning less labor-intensive for me. I suspect you’ll find even more interesting ways to use it.

• Budget coordination: The personalized retirement benefit estimate clarifies how much I expect to receive at each age. I use that information to coordinate with other savings and investments to develop a retirement plan that will fit our budget.
• Earnings history: There’s a feature showing how much income I’ve claimed since my first job. I use it to double-check that SSA got my income right after I file taxes. Given that my Social Security benefits are calculated based on that earnings history, it’s important to know they got it right.
• Connect with the SSA: I can use the site to contact the SSA and update my personal information. One day, when I’m collecting Social Security, I’ll be able to use it to view direct deposit information, check out special notices, and ensure the appointed representative payee is who I want it to be (the person who will manage my benefits if I’m incapable of doing so).

I understand that retirement planning may not be everyone’s cup of tea. However, I compare it to taking a moment to stop midway through a cross-country trip, just to see where I am and how much farther I have to go.

Many retired Americans rely heavily on Social Security checks for their income, but often, those payments don’t stretch far enough to cover all of their expenses. According to government data, in 2025, the average Social Security benefit is just $1,976 per month.

If that doesn’t sound like much, that’s because it isn’t. A recent study projected that by 2040, 32.6 million U.S. households with retirement-age individuals could have an average cash shortfall of more than $7,000 annually. That gap between retirement income and retirees’ needs is a big reason why many Americans will need to do more to build their own portfolios of investments, rather than trying to rely on Social Security benefits alone.

If you’re on the hunt for stocks that could help you build wealth over the long haul that you can eventually tap in retirement, there are a few compelling reasons to make Nvidia (NVDA 0.43%) one of your picks.

Image source: Getty Images.

Why Nvidia could continue to be a good long-term investment

Nvidia has become a common go-to investment among both tech enthusiasts and average investors over the past few years, as the company is benefiting from a steep increase in spending on artificial intelligence infrastructure. Nvidia’s graphics processing units (GPUs) dominate the artificial intelligence (AI) data center market — it sells an estimated 70% to 95% of all AI chips for infrastructure.

In Q2, the company’s data center revenue jumped 56% year over year to $41 billion, and its non-GAAP earnings per share jumped 54% to $1.05. Eventually, Nvidia’s customers could slow their spending on its hardware — particularly if AI doesn’t deliver the results those companies are hoping for — but that day hasn’t come yet. Nvidia CFO Colette Kress estimates that tech companies will invest up to $4 trillion into AI data centers over the next five years.

And it’s not just AI data centers that could fuel Nvidia’s future growth. The company’s tech is already being used in autonomous vehicles, and advances in the robotics industry could create another expanding new market for it in the coming years. Some estimates forecast that the global autonomous vehicle market will grow to more than $2 trillion over the next five years, and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said recently that robotics (including autonomous vehicles) and AI represent a “multitrillion-dollar growth opportunity” for his company.

Though Nvidia stock has already soared by more than 1,100% over the past three years, the combination of its dominance in AI data center processors and its emerging opportunities in robotics and autonomous vehicles suggests it will remain a good long-term investment.

More growth could be ahead for Nvidia, but keep this in mind

While no single stock should make up the majority of your portfolio, investing in Nvidia could give future retirees a way to benefit from the massive transition toward AI systems that’s currently underway. While the chipmaker doesn’t currently pay a meaningful dividend, investors can eventually sell their holdings in retirement to supplement their incomes.

Planning for retirement can be challenging, and as you approach retirement age, it’s generally a good idea to reduce your exposure to stocks and other higher-risk investments. While Nvidia’s share price may continue to climb in the years ahead, it’s important to remember that it’s still a tech company, and tech stocks often go through periods of unusual volatility.

This shouldn’t be too much of a concern if you’ve got a long way to go before retirement, but remember that as you age, you’ll want to shift the balance of the allocations in your well-diversified portfolio toward less risky holdings.