Social Security in 2014 Next years small COLA isnt the only adjustment related to the program. Here are six things you need to know about Social Security for 2014. For claritys sake, here is a rundown of what is changing next year, and what isnt. Social Security recipients are getting a raise but not much of one. Next year, the average monthly Social Security payment will increase by $19 due to a 1.5% cost-of-living adjustment, one of the smallest [...]
Entering the Yellen Years A look at the economist newly nominated to lead the Federal Reserve. Janet Yellen – currently the vice chair of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve – has been nominated to succeed Ben Bernanke at the helm of the world’s most important central bank. A former UC Berkeley and London School of Economics professor and San Francisco Fed president, Yellen is a globally admired economist with many fans on Wall Street. The way it [...]
When Technology Interrupts Trading Glitches, “flash crashes” & other disturbances are becoming too numerous. “Why is this happening?” Those words were undoubtedly spoken on Wall Street Thursday. Perhaps you uttered them, too. At 12:14pm EST, a glitch halted all trading on the NASDAQ for more than three hours. During that time, the New York Stock Exchange suspended trading in all NASDAQ securities and scratched orders; NASDAQ decided not to cancel any open [...]
Implications of Rising Mortgage Rates Are they threatening the recovery? Or is their effect overstated? Between early May and mid-July, the average interest rate on the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage rose about 1%. Rates on 30-year FRMs have basically held steady since hitting a peak of 4.51% in Freddie Mac’s July 11 Primary Mortgage Market Survey – in the August 15 edition, they averaged 4.40% – but they could rise dramatically again.1,2 When mortgages become a bit costlier, things can get [...]
How Much Health Care Reform Will We See By 2014? Can the federal government follow through on its ambitions? In 2014, we were supposed to see profound health care reform per the 2011 Affordable Care Act – but how much of that reform will roll out on time? The federal government has already conceded that it can’t enforce the employer mandate portion of the Affordable Care Act by 2014. On July 2, the Obama administration gave businesses with 50 or [...]