In his State of the Union address, President Donald Trump proudly proclaimed to members of Congress and the public that the United States is “bigger, better, richer and stronger than ever before,” touting the benefits of his signature tax policy in particular, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA). He also claimed that his administration is working to make it easier for Americans to save for retirement. “Under this administration,” he said, “we will always protect Social Security and Medicare … We will always protect Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid.”
But both things cannot be true.
Despite Trump’s ongoing pledges to protect the nation’s vital social safety nets, recent economic projections reveal a starkly different reality. Sweeping legislative changes spearheaded by his administration have drastically shortened the financial lifespans of both Medicare and Social Security, accelerating their paths toward insolvency.
For decades, surplus payroll tax revenue was socked away in trust funds, which were designed to be tapped when revenue was no longer sufficient to cover benefits.
According to a newly updated report from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), recent policy shifts have erased 12 years of projected solvency from the Hospital Insurance (HI) Trust Fund, which pays for Medicare Part A. The fund is now expected to be entirely exhausted by 2040, rather than 2052, as projected in March 2025. The primary culprit behind this rapid financial deterioration is the OBBBA into law, lowering tax rates and creating a temporary deduction for taxpayers aged 65 and older. While politically popular, these tax cuts significantly starved the trust fund of the revenues it normally receives from taxing Social Security benefits.
The HI Trust Fund serves as the financial backbone for essential health services, including inpatient hospital care, skilled nursing facility stays, home health care, and hospice care. If that fund is exhausted in 2040, Medicare would be legally restricted to paying out only what it collects in revenue, triggering automatic benefit cuts. The CBO estimates these reductions would begin at an 8% cut in 2040 and steadily climb to a 10% cut by 2056.
Meanwhile, Social Security faces a similarly accelerated timeline toward crisis. The CBO estimates that the Social Security trust fund will run out of money even sooner, by fiscal year 2032, which begins in October 2031. If Congress fails to intervene before this insolvency date, benefits would be strictly limited to incoming revenue. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimates that a typical couple turning 60 today would face a devastating $18,400 annual cut to their retirement benefits when the fund runs dry.
Trump laid into Democrats for voting against OBBBA, which he called “these really important and very necessary massive tax cuts. They wanted large-scale tax increases to hurt the people instead. But we held strong and with the great Big Beautiful Bill we gave you no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, and no tax on Social Security for our great country.”
Reducing tax revenue for these programs, though, is hastening their looming fiscal crisis. Alongside lower projected payroll tax revenues, this policy shift enacted during the Trump administration has starved the safety net of critical future funding.
Cuts to come in the future?
Once the trust funds are exhausted, additional money must be found somewhere or else benefits must be slashed. Another source is discretionary money.
But Bernard Yaros, lead U.S. economist at Oxford Economics, has warned that funding Social Security and Medicare with general revenue could trigger a negative reaction in the bond market, sparking a sustained increase in interest rates, ultimately forcing lawmakers to make painful, drastic cuts to nondiscretionary programs to head off a full-blown fiscal crisis.
Faced with these looming cliffs, lawmakers may be tempted to simply finance the shortfalls with more national debt rather than making tough political choices to hike taxes or reduce benefits. However, economists warn this could spark a severe financial crisis. Veronique de Rugy, a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center, cautioned in a Creators Syndicate op-ed that financial markets will quickly account for the additional borrowing.
“Inflation may not wait for debt to pile up,” de Rugy warned, noting it could “arrive the moment Congress commits to that debt-ridden path”.
Addressing this looming shortfall will require significant legislative action. To restore the 12 years of lost Medicare solvency alone, lawmakers will be forced to increase taxes, slash health care payments, or implement a politically fraught combination of these approaches—eventually. That flies directly in the face of the politically popular tax cuts that Trump hailed as so significant, on the year of the United States’ 250th birthday.
Most U.S. data breach disclosures explain what information was leaked and any protective steps available to consumers.
At the federal level, the Federal Trade Commission advises that after a breach involving sensitive personal information, consumers may consider placing a credit freeze to help prevent new credit accounts from being opened in their name.
Many people place that credit freeze and assume they’re protected. But a credit freeze is not a comprehensive block against identity theft. It stops most new credit applications, but it doesn’t prevent the misuse of your Social Security number or account takeovers.
A credit freeze limits access to your credit report, which can stop most new credit accounts from being opened in your name. (Felix Zahn/Photothek via Getty Images)
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What a credit freeze actually does
A credit freeze, also called a security freeze, limits access to your credit report at Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion. Under federal law, placing a freeze is free. When a freeze is in place, most lenders can’t access your credit file to evaluate applications for new credit cards or lines of credit. If a creditor can’t see your credit report, the application will usually be denied.
You can manage your credit freeze with each bureau individually. With Experian, for example, you sign in to your free online account at Experian’s credit freeze page and then place, lift, or schedule a thaw; you can also call Experian’s toll-free number (888-397-3742). If you plan to apply for credit, you must lift the freeze beforehand.
A credit freeze blocks most new accounts that require a credit check. It does not extend beyond your credit file.
Some identity protection services offer a credit lock feature that allows you to restrict access to your credit file through a mobile app. Like a freeze, it can limit new credit checks. The main difference is convenience, as you can typically turn it on or off quickly without logging into a bureau’s website or calling by phone.
Credit freezes can’t stop every form of identity theft
A credit freeze blocks new credit accounts, but it does not stop many common forms of identity theft that do not require a credit check.
Account takeovers: If someone has access to an existing credit card or bank account, they don’t need to open a new line of credit. They can change the email address, phone number, or mailing address tied to the account and begin making charges.
Tax identity theft: A fraudulent federal tax return does not need a credit check. If someone files a return using your SSN before you do, the IRS may reject your legitimate filing.
Employment fraud: If your SSN is used for employment, it will not appear as a credit inquiry. Instead, the earnings may be recorded under your Social Security record.
Government benefits fraud: Unemployment insurance and other state-administered benefits do not require a traditional credit check.
Medical identity theft: A stolen identity can be used to get medical treatment. Bills may not appear until the provider sends the account to collections.
Identity theft like tax fraud, account takeovers and government benefits abuse does not require a credit check.(iStock)
What happens when the fraud doesn’t involve a credit inquiry?
When identity theft happens outside the credit approval process, there is no automatic reversal. Each category of fraud is handled by a different agency or company.
If a fraudulent tax return is filed, you must work directly with the IRS and submit Form 14039, Identity Theft Affidavit. The IRS may require identity verification before releasing a refund.
If your SSN is used for employment, you must contact the Social Security Administration to correct your earnings record.
If government benefits are fraudulently claimed in your name, the state agency is involved. There is no federal clearinghouse.
If medical debt appears in collections, you must dispute it with both the provider and the collection agency, often in writing.
There is no single agency coordinating these corrections. You’re responsible for identifying the fraud, filing the appropriate reports, and tracking responses across agencies.
If a freeze isn’t the end, what is?
A credit freeze addresses risks tied to new credit applications. Identity theft often goes beyond that. Comprehensive identity protection typically includes credit monitoring across all three major bureaus, alerts for new inquiries or accounts, and monitoring for exposed personal information such as Social Security numbers, driver’s license numbers, passport details, email addresses, and passwords.
Some services also monitor public records, address changes, identity verification activity, and even suspicious financial transactions when accounts are linked. Early alerts can help you spot fraud before it spreads.
If identity theft does occur, recovery can be complicated. Some identity protection plans provide access to fraud resolution specialists who help contact creditors, place fraud alerts, dispute unauthorized accounts, and prepare required documentation. Many also include identity theft insurance to help cover eligible recovery expenses, such as lost wages or legal fees.
No service can prevent every form of identity theft. But layered monitoring, fast alerts, and guided recovery support can make the damage easier to contain and resolve.
See my tips and best picks on Best Identity Theft Protection at Cyberguy.com.
Kurt’s key takeaways
When fraud happens outside your credit file, you must work directly with each agency to correct the damage.(Leonie Asendorpf/picture alliance via Getty Images)
A credit freeze is a smart move after a data breach, but it is only one layer of protection. Many forms of identity theft do not involve a credit check, which means they can happen quietly and take time to fix. Real protection comes from understanding the gaps, monitoring your accounts, and acting quickly if something looks wrong. The more proactive you are, the easier recovery becomes.
Have you placed a credit freeze, and did you know it does not protect against every type of identity theft? Let us know your thoughts by writing to us at Cyberguy.com.
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Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson is an award-winning tech journalist who has a deep love of technology, gear and gadgets that make life better with his contributions for Fox News & FOX Business beginning mornings on “FOX & Friends.” Got a tech question? Get Kurt’s free CyberGuy Newsletter, share your voice, a story idea or comment at CyberGuy.com.
For the first time in modern history, the United States is on the brink of losing its most basic engine of growth: more births than deaths.
According to the Congressional Budget Office’s (CBO) Demographic Outlook, released Tuesday, the year 2030 marks a tipping point that will fundamentally reshape the economy and social fabric. That’s the year the “natural” U.S. population—the balance of births over deaths—is projected to vanish.
“Net immigration (the number of people who migrate to the United States minus the number who leave) is projected to become an increasingly important source of population growth in the coming years, as declining fertility rates cause the annual number of deaths to exceed the annual number of births starting in 2030,” the CBO writes. “Without immigration, the population would begin to shrink in 2030.”
From that point on, every additional person added to the U.S. population will come from immigration, a demographic milestone once associated with aging countries like Italy and Japan.
The shift is striking not only for what it says about America’s rapidly aging society, but also for how soon it is expected to arrive. Just a year ago, many demographic forecasts—including the CBO’s own forecast—placed this crossover well into the late 2030s or even the 2040s. The updated outlook from CBO moves the timeline forward by nearly a decade.
This rapid acceleration, the CBO said, is driven by the “double squeeze” of declining fertility and an aging populace, combined with recent policy shifts on immigration. CBO analysts have drastically lowered their expectations for the total fertiility rate, now projecting it to settle at just 1.53 births per woman — well below the 2.1 “replacement rate” needed for a stable population. At the same time, the massive “Baby Boomer” generation is reaching ages with higher mortality rates, causing annual deaths to climb.
The timeline further compressed following the passage of the 2025 Reconciliation Act, which increased funding for more ICE agents and immigration judges to process cases faster, resulting in approximately 50,000 immigrants in detention daily through 2029, CBO said. The office calculated that these provisions will result in roughly 320,000 fewer people in the U.S. population by 2035 than previously estimated.
The new projections show that U.S. population growth will steadily decelerate over the next three decades until it finally hits zero in 2056. For most of the 20th century, the population grew at close to 1% a year: a flat population would represent a historic break from that norm.
The economic consequences of this shift are hard to overstate. While the number of retirees swells, the pool of workers funding the social safety net — and caring for the aging population — is narrowing. Americans aged 65 and older are the fastest-growing segment of the population, pushing the “old-age dependency ratio” sharply higher. In 1960, there were about five workers for every retiree. Today, that ratio is closer to three-to-one. By the mid-2050s, the CBO projects it will fall to roughly two workers per retiree. The contraction will have “significant implications” on the federal budget, including outsized effects on Social Security and Medicare, placing pressure on those trust funds which rely on a robust base of payroll taxes that a stagnant population cannot easily provide.
Further, because national GDP is essentially the product of the number of workers multiplied by their individual productivity, the loss of labor force growth means the American economy will have to rely almost entirely on technological breakthroughs and AI to drive future gains. This may be happening ahead of schedule, as continued weak employment growth in December showed a “jobless expansion,” in the words of KPMG chief economist Diane Swonk, as Fortune previously reported.
Social Security has been in the news a lot in the past year.
In October, there was a lot of buzz around the program’s upcoming cost-of-living adjustment (COLA). Then, once that COLA was announced, there was speculation as to whether Medicare cost increases would eat into that raise substantially (spoiler alert: they will).
Image source: Getty Images.
But earlier in the year, the Social Security Trustees released their latest report on the state of the program’s finances. And the news wasn’t exactly wonderful.
At this point, you may be wondering whether Social Security is on the verge of bankruptcy. And you’ve probably heard things along those lines, albeit from unreliable sources.
The fact of the matter is that Social Security can’t go bankrupt because it has an ongoing revenue stream — payroll taxes. As people work, the program gets funded. So there’s no need to worry that Social Security is going away.
But you may want to tell yourself that Social Security is not going to pay you retirement benefits — even though that isn’t the case.
Social Security is facing a financial shortfall in the coming years. As baby boomers exit the workforce and start claiming benefits, Social Security won’t have enough revenue to keep up with its payment obligations.
The program’s Old-Age and Survivors Insurance (OASI) Trust Fund, which pays retirement benefits, will be able to meet its financial obligations until 2033. Beyond that point, benefits could face a 23% reduction.
If lawmakers allow Social Security to combine its OASI Trust Fund with its Disability Insurance fund, benefits will be payable in full until 2034. Beyond that point, benefits could face a 19% reduction.
These projections could wiggle in the coming years as the Social Security Trustees continue to assess the program’s projected revenue. The takeaway, however, is that Social Security is not at risk of going away completely. But convincing yourself it is may not be such a bad thing.
The reason you may want to tell yourself Social Security won’t pay you benefits in retirement is simple. If you won’t be getting income from Social Security, you’ll perhaps be more inspired to work on building your own retirement nest egg.
Part of the reason some people may skimp on retirement savings is that they figure they can fall back on Social Security for income. Of course, this isn’t the only reason people end up lacking savings. Sometimes, life gets in the way. But if you tell yourself you can’t rely on Social Security for retirement income, it may be the push you need to boost contributions to your IRA or 401(k).
If that doesn’t convince you, here’s something else you should know. Even without benefit cuts, Social Security will only replace about 40% of your pre-retirement wages. Most retirees need about twice that much money to maintain a comfortable lifestyle.
So even if nothing bad happens to Social Security at all, and the program is able to pay 100% of benefits, it still makes sense to do your best to build retirement savings. Here are some ways to get a boost:
Snag your full workplace match each year in your 401(k) plan
Bank your raise every January (or whenever it arrives)
Get into the habit of budgeting and prioritize your IRA or 401(k)
You don’t have to worry that Social Security is going away. You don’t even have to pretend that it is. Just be mindful of how much money those benefits will pay you, and do your best to save well so they’re not your only retirement income source.
If you’re like most Americans, you’re a few years (or more) behind on your retirement savings. But a handful of little-known “Social Security secrets” could help ensure a boost in your retirement income. For example: one easy trick could pay you as much as $23,760 more… each year! Once you learn how to maximize your Social Security benefits, we think you could retire confidently with the peace of mind we’re all after.
Many Americans leave money on the table in retirement. Learn more about these retirement strategies and more, available when you join Stock Advisor.
If 2026 is the year you’re planning to retire, you may have started the official countdown to that milestone already. But before you retire, it’s important to take a close look at your financial picture and make sure you’re truly ready.
You may also want to reconsider a 2026 retirement if your only expected source of income once you stop working is Social Security. Let’s review what the average monthly benefit looks like today, and why you might need to supplement it.
Image source: Getty Images.
In November 2025, the average monthly Social Security benefit among retired workers was $2,013.32. Now that average benefit should increase once 2026 arrives, since Social Security is getting a 2.8% cost-of-living adjustment, or COLA.
But the cost of Medicare Part B is also increasing. Seniors who are enrolled in Medicare and Social Security at the same time pay their Part B premiums out of their monthly benefits.
If you’re new to Medicare, you’ll have to account for a monthly premium of $202.90 in 2026, which is what you’ll pay if you don’t have any non-Social Security income. If you’re not used to paying as much for healthcare now, that’s yet another cost you’ll have to factor in, and it could leave you with less Social Security than expected.
So all told, you may not get much more out of Social Security in 2026 than $2,013.32 a month, or a little over $24,000 per year. That’s not a particularly generous income. So if you don’t have any savings, you may want to come up with another plan.
If you’re looking at just Social Security for income once you stop working, one potential solution could be to delay retirement. Building up even a small IRA or 401(k) balance could give you more financial breathing room in retirement.
Let’s say you manage to work an extra two years, during which time you’re able to put $12,000 into an IRA. That’s not going to leave you with a ton of extra money for retirement. But it’s still money you can dip into to deal with emergency or one-off expenses that your monthly Social Security checks may not be able to cover.
For example, let’s say you own your home but it’s on the older side. You might have a year with a $3,000 repair. That small IRA could come to your rescue by covering the cost of that bill so you don’t have to worry about finding the room in your regular retirement budget.
If you’re no longer able to keep working full-time, consider retiring in 2026 but shifting into part-time or gig work for extra income. The good news is that you’re allowed to work while collecting Social Security. And as long as you’ve reached full retirement age, you can earn any amount of wages without being subject to Social Security’s earnings test.
If you haven’t reached full retirement age, you may have some benefits withheld if you earn too much. Those withheld benefits will then be paid to you later.
In 2026, you can earn $24,480, or $65,160 if you’ll be reaching full retirement age within the year, without having any portion of your Social Security checks held back. So if you’ll only be working part-time, chances are, you’ll be able to stay below the threshold that applies to you.
Retiring on just Social Security could mean setting yourself up to struggle financially for many years. If you’re able to delay retirement to build a small nest egg, it’s worth doing. If not, plan to keep working in some capacity to supplement those monthly checks.
If you’re like most Americans, you’re a few years (or more) behind on your retirement savings. But a handful of little-known “Social Security secrets” could help ensure a boost in your retirement income.
One easy trick could pay you as much as $23,760 more… each year! Once you learn how to maximize your Social Security benefits, we think you could retire confidently with the peace of mind we’re all after. Join Stock Advisor to learn more about these strategies.
Whether by choice or necessity, a growing number of American seniors are working well into their golden years. As of 2024, 23.4% of men and 16.2% of women over the age of 65 were still employed, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) (1).
Many of these seniors are also collecting Social Security benefits while at work. According to the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, roughly 40% of individuals work after claiming benefits, often for several years (2).
The system allows beneficiaries to earn some employment income, but only up to a certain limit. Beyond these thresholds, benefits are clawed back and withheld. If you’re in this situation, understanding how the rules work and what the threshold is for income in 2026 could be a key part of your financial plans.
Here’s what you need to know.
Working while collecting benefits is permitted. However, income from your work could impact your benefits depending on your age and level of income.
If you’re below Full Retirement Age (FRA), you can earn up to $24,480 in 2026 without impacting your benefits (3). This threshold is adjusted every year and is currently 1,080 higher than the previous year. For every $2 you earn above this threshold, the Social Security Administration (SSA) will withhold $1 in benefits.
These earning restrictions are greatly relaxed in the calendar year you reach FRA. If you reach FRA in 2026, you can earn up to $65,160 — $3,000 more than the previous year — before your benefits are impacted. The withholding rate is also more generous for beneficiaries who reach FRA in 2026. The SSA will withhold only $1 for every $3 in earnings above this threshold.
Once you reach FRA and beyond, the income limit no longer applies. You can earn any amount without impacting your benefits.
Retirees probably have multiple sources of income, and fortunately, the SSA doesn’t consider all forms of income for its earnings test. Simply put, only earned income is used for the test. That means any wages, salaries or bonuses you earn from your employer. If you’re self-employed, only net income is considered for the earnings test.
Most forms of passive income, including other government benefits, investment earnings, interest, pensions, annuities and capital gains, are not included in the test.
In other words, if you’re primarily relying on passive income and only working part-time or on a casual basis, you’re unlikely to hit the thresholds that trigger benefit withholdings.
If you cross the threshold, it’s important to know that the amount withheld is not lost forever and could actually boost your benefits over the long-term.
The SSA’s earnings test is designed to withhold, not eliminate, benefits in early retirement.
Imagine you turn 62 in 2026 and start claiming benefits. You receive $1,200 a month from Social Security and earn $29,000 a year from part-time work. Because that income exceeds the annual earnings limit by $4,520, the agency withholds $2,260 — half of the amount over the threshold. In practical terms, that’s roughly two months of benefits.
If the same pattern continues and you lose about two months of payments each year until you reach full retirement age at 67, the cumulative reduction would add up to roughly 10 months. At that point, Social Security adjusts your benefit as though you had filed 50 months early rather than 60. The difference is noticeable: filing five years early normally yields about 70% of your full benefit, while filing 50 months early lifts it to roughly 74.2%.
Those additional working years can also push your benefit higher if they replace lower-earning years in your 35-year wage record. The program calculates benefits using an average of your highest years of earnings, so stronger income late in your career can lift that average — and your monthly check — for the rest of retirement.
Nevertheless, losing some of your benefits for a few years could still impact your retirement plan and budget, so make sure you account for this earnings test before you retire, claim benefits or take a new job.
An immigration judge will decide in the coming days whether to temporarily release an immigrant rights activist after a Friday bail hearing that was delayed when authorities tried to block media access to the courtroom.
Attorneys representing Jeanette Vizguerra told the judge, Brea Burgie, that government lawyers had provided no evidence that Vizguerra posed a flight risk or a danger to the community.
Vizguerra, a nationally renowned activist, has been in the Aurora detention center since her March arrest, and her attorneys reiterated their allegations Friday that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials intentionally targeted Vizguerra because of her public profile and advocacy. They asked Burgie to release Vizguerra, who was born in Mexico and does not have proper legal status, on bail while the rest of her immigration case proceeds.
“Detention is not justified,” said Laura Lichter, one of Vizguerra’s lawyers.
Shana Martin, an attorney for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, argued that Vizguerra should continue to be detained indefinitely because, Martin said, she was both dangerous and a flight risk. Martin pointed to Vizguerra’s criminal conviction for using a fake Social Security card so she could work, as well as to traffic violations, as evidence that she “shows a lack of respect for authority.”
One of Vizguerra’s daughters recently joined the Air Force, and Vizguerra applied for a form of legal status based on her daughter’s military service. Martin said that application has been denied — something Lichter said was news to Vizguerra and her lawyers.
Lichter said after the hearing that she’d never seen that type of application denied in a case like Vizguerra’s. She told Burgie that the denial was “fantastic evidence” of the government’s bias against her client.
CIting the extreme complexity of the case, Burgie said she would issue a written decision on whether to grant bail to Vizguerra at a later date. The Denver judge appeared remotely in the Aurora detention center’s hearing room.
As Vizguerra waited in a hallway outside the courtroom, she blew a kiss to family members and waved to supporters.
The hearing came two days after a U.S. District Court judge ordered federal officials to provide Vizguerra with a bail hearing before Christmas.
Proceedings were delayed Friday morning after personnel at the detention center, which is privately run by the Geo Group, told reporters and supporters that they couldn’t enter the courtroom. It’s typically open to observers, family members of detainees and journalists who provide photo ID and go through a security checkpoint.
Earlier Friday morning, a Denver Post reporter was waiting for an escort to the courtroom when a Geo Group lieutenant approached and asked what courtroom he was visiting. When the reporter said he was there to watch the Vizguerra hearing, the lieutenant told him the courtroom was full and escorted him back to the lobby.
Juan Baltazar, the facility’s warden, later told reporters that they wouldn’t be allowed into the courtroom “partially” because of space constraints, as well as because of unspecified “safety and security” concerns.
Geo personnel also closed and locked a gate leading into the facility, with an armed guard later controlling access. The gate was not closed on several earlier visits by The Post earlier this fall. Guards on Friday were dressed entirely in black, a change from their standard blue shirts.
Baltazar said ICE officials had called and verbally ordered Geo personnel to allow in only lawyers, family and witnesses. He said the limitations were put into place “because of the attention (this case) is getting.”
When Lichter pressed him about what safety or security risk was posed by reporters, Baltazar said questions would have to be directed to ICE.
“Everybody has a boss,” he said.
After continued prodding by Lichter, facility personnel eventually relented and allowed in several reporters, along with a handful of Vizguerra’s supporters.
Messages sent to Steve Kotecki, Denver’s ICE spokesman, and to a regional ICE representative were not immediately returned.
A higher Medicare premium set to go into effect in 2026 will push the monthly charge above $200 for the first time, with the increase likely to erode next year’s cost-of-living increase for millions of Social Security recipients.
The premium for Medicare’s Part B, which covers doctor visits and other outpatient services, will rise 9.7% to $202.90, an increase of $17.90 from the current $185 monthly cost, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services said earlier this month. It’s the largest increase since 2022, when the Part B premium jumped 15%.
The Part B deductible — the amount seniors must pay out of pocket before their coverage kicks in— is also rising about 10%, jumping to $283 next year from this year’s $257.
The Part B premium, which is deducted automatically from seniors’ monthly Social Security checks, is rising at a rate that’s three times that of inflation, partly due to a rise in underlying health care costs, Anne Montgomery, senior health policy expert at the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare (NCPSSM), said in a blog post. The Medicare premium increase means that seniors may not have much room to keep up with inflation, Max Richtman, the president and CEO of the same group, told CBS News.
“So many rely on [Social Security] for all or most of their income,” he said. “This is gonna hurt.”
The Social Security Administration set next year’s cost-of-living increase at 2.8%, which will boost the average Social Security paycheck by $56 to about $2,071 per month.
The Medicare Part B premium hike will consume about a third of next year’s COLA, effectively lowering the rate to 1.9% — far below the current inflation rate of 3%, according to NCPSSM’s analysis. People with lower monthly benefits could even see an effective COLA of zero, the group said.
Rising health care costs
Health care costs have been rising for all Americans, contributing to the sticker shock that seniors and other groups are experiencing. In 2023, Americans spent an average of $1,514 on out-of-pocket health care costs, an increase of 9% from 2020 on an inflation-adjusted basis, according to KFF.
Aside from underlying health care inflation, Medicare’s costs are also increasing because of increased demand for medical services, CMS said this month.
Working adults will also face higher health care premiums in 2026. Roughly 22 million Americans who get their health insurance through the Affordable Care Act (ACA) marketplaces will also be faced with steep rate hikes if Congress fails to extend premium tax credits, which help lower the cost for the majority of people on ACA plans.
Those credits are set to expire at the end of 2025, which became the main sticking point in the recent government shutdown. Without an extension, Americans who rely on the tax credit could see their costs more than double in 2026, KFF estimates.
Workers with employee-sponsored coverage are also likely to see their costs climb next year, with most expected to pay 6% to 7% more for their 2026 plans, according to an analysis from consultant Mercer.
Social Security’s so-called “full retirement age” — the age when people can start collecting all of their earned benefits — is about to hit a new threshold, a change that will affect Americans born in 1960 or later.
The full retirement age (FRA) for Social Security is calculated using a worker’s birth year, while their monthly benefits are based on the number of years they’ve worked and their income over that period. People may claim Social Security as early as age 62, but doing so permanently reduces their monthly benefit by about 30% compared with waiting until hitting their FRA.
Starting in 2026, Social Security’s full retirement age is set to make its final scheduled increase, marking the last step-up in age enacted unswe a 1983 congressional reform designed to shore up the program’s finances. Before that overhaul, people could claim their FRA benefits at 65, but the law gradually pushed that age higher, culminating in the change that takes effect in 2026.
Since 2021, the FRA has been rising by two months each year. It now stands at 66 years and 10 months for people born in 1959. Next year brings the final step in that schedule, when the FRA will reach 67 for everyone born in 1960 or later.
With the FRA hitting 67, people born in 1960 won’t qualify for their full benefits until 2027, rather than 2026. (You can check your own full-benefit age by entering your birthdate into this Social Security calculator.)
The increase in the FRA will first impact the youngest baby boomers, or those born between 1960-1964, followed by Generation X, which spans 1965 to 1980. The change comes as many workers report feeling financially unprepared for retirement, with only about four in 10 Americans saying they’re on track to maintain their current lifestyle in retirement, according to recent research from Vanguard.
“Raising the retirement age is an effective cut in lifetime benefits for younger baby boomers, members of Gen X and all the generations after,” said Max Richtman, CEO of the advocacy group National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, in an email to CBS News.
While the increase in the full retirement age shouldn’t come as a surprise given it was enacted 43 years ago, it doesn’t guarantee older workers will be any more prepared financially for retirement, he added.
“Having time to plan, however, does not mean they have been able to put aside more for retirement, considering the stagnation of real wages and the rising cost of college tuition, home prices and other key living expenses,” Richtman said.
Retirement expectations versus reality
There’s also a longstanding gap between the age at which people expect to stop working and their real-world experiences, which can add to the financial strain of funding retirement. Many Americans believe they’ll retire at age 65, but the median retirement age in the U.S. is in fact 62.
Nearly six in 10 retirees say they stepped back from the workforce earlier than they had planned, according to research published last year by the Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies. An October survey from the same group found that most middle-class retirees — people with annual household incomes between $50,000 and $199,999 — stopped working earlier than they envisioned because of employment issues, such as losing their jobs, or poor health.
That gap between expectations and reality may explain recent research that found 44% of Americans said they plan to claim Social Security before they reach their full retirement age, which would result in lower monthly benefits.
Some Americans also flle for Social Security before reaching their FRA out of a belief it makes more sense to bank more years of guaranteed retirement income, even if it’s at a lower monthly amount.
Transamerica also found that nine in 10 working Americans say they plan to ignore the conventional financial advice of waiting until age 70 to claim Social Security benefits, which locks in a 24% boost to a retiree’s FRA payments.
In the meantime, younger boomers and Gen Xers will have to hold off a little longer to claim their full Social Security benefits.
“These younger cohorts will have to try their best to plan for retirement, knowing that they cannot collect full benefits until 67,” Richtman added.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Some seniors say the Social Security Administration’s cost-of-living adjustment won’t help much in their ability to pay for their daily expenses.
The agency announced Friday the annual cost-of-living adjustment will go up by 2.8% in 2026, translating to an average increase of more than $56 for retirees every month.
Eighty-year-old Florence, South Carolina, resident Linda Deas says it does not match the current “affordability crisis.”
The benefits increase will go into effect for Social Security recipients beginning in January.
Friday’s announcement was meant to be made last week but was delayed because of the federal government shutdown.
Recipients got a 2.5% COLA boost in 2025 and a 3.2% increase in 2024.
The Social Security Administration on Friday announced a 2.8% cost-of-living adjustment for 2026, an increase that will automatically boost monthly payments for the program’s roughly 71 million beneficiaries starting early next year.
The increase represents an uptick from the last year’s cost-of-living adjustment, or COLA, which set the 2025 increase at 2.5%. Inflation has edged higher this year. The Labor Department said Friday that the Consumer Price Index, a closely watched gauge of U.S. inflation, rose at an annual rate of 3% in September.
Next year’s COLA increase will boost the average Social Security payment by about $56 to an average monthly benefit of $2,071, starting in January, the Social Security Administration said. People who receive Supplemental Security Income, a program for low-income and disabled people, will see their first COLA increase with their Dec. 31, 2025 check, the agency said.
The annual COLA is designed to ensure that seniors, disabled Americans and other Social Security beneficiaries don’t lose purchasing power to inflation. Even so, a recent poll by the AARP, an advocacy group for older Americans, found that many seniors think the retirement program’s inflation adjustments are falling short and that they need an annual COLA of about 5% to keep up with their daily expenses.
“The cost-of-living adjustment for Social Security is one of the few inflation-adjusted programs for retirees,” Jenn Jones, AARP’s vice president of government affairs, told CBS News. “It is incredibly important to millions of Americans, and so although it may not feel like it’s quite enough, especially after the last few years, it’s critically helpful for keeping pace with rising costs.”
In a statement, Social Security Administration Commissioner Frank Bisignano said the cost-of-living adjustment “is one way we are working to make sure benefits reflect today’s economic realities and continue to provide a foundation of security.”
How SSA calculates its annual COLA
The Social Security Administration announces the COLA each fall based on a metric known as the “Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers,” or CPI-W, which tracks the average change in prices paid by workers for a basket of commonly bought goods and services.
The COLA is based on that inflation data from July through September.
Some advocates for older Americans say the CPI-W fails to accurately reflect seniors’ financial needs because it tracks younger workers, while retirees tend to face higher costs for health care, housing and some other items. Seniors on Medicare, the health insurance program for those over 65, spend 13.6% of their income on health-related expenses, more than double that of younger people, according to KFF.
Meanwhile, poverty is on the rise among America’s seniors, with the poverty rate among seniors rising to 15% last year, up from 14% in 2023, the highest among all age groups, according to recent Census data. The AARP said more older adults are struggling with the rising cost of housing and utility costs.
“Most Social Security beneficiaries aren’t working — you are on a fixed income, so any inflation increase you feel,” Jones said. “If the increases continue, it becomes difficult to figure out how you’re going to pay for all of your monthly expenses.”
How Medicare costs could impact benefits
Advocates for senior citizens say the COLA is likely to fall short, especially given forecasts for increases in Medicare’s premiums and deductibles for 2026. The Medicare premium is taken directly from seniors’ Social Security checks.
While Medicare hasn’t yet announced its 2026 premiums, its trustees report issued earlier this year projected that the standard monthly premium for Part B — which covers doctors visits and outpatient care — would likely rise to $206.50, or a 12% boost from its current rate. Deductibles are also projected to rise about 12% next year, the report said.
The result: Seniors could see most of their 2026 COLA eaten up by higher Medicare costs, the National Council on Aging said in a statement.
“COLA might reflect the inflation rate, but it is woefully insufficient for older Americans who already have high health care costs and are facing even greater increases in their Medicare costs in 2026,” Ramsey Alwin, CEO of the NCA, said in the statement.
Seniors are likely to be disappointed by the 2026 COLA, which represents the second-smallest bump since 2021. Many are at risk of falling behind, according to the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, an advocacy group.
The Consumer Price Index for September, also released on Friday, showed that medical and elderly care costs are surpassing the 3% annualized pace of inflation. Costs for caring for the elderly at home jumped 11.6% last month on an annual basis, while medical services rose 3.9%.
“Seniors on fixed incomes are rightly concerned that the Social Security COLA is not keeping pace with the true impact of inflation on their living costs, especially in areas where prices are soaring. Medical, housing and grocery costs are outstripping the COLA,” Max Richtman, the group’s CEO, said in a statement.
A delayed inflation report on Friday is expected to deliver sobering data about the direction of U.S. prices, with economists forecasting that the Consumer Price Index in September rose at its fastest pace in 16 months.
CPI last month is projected to have risen 3.1% on an annual basis, which would be the highest since the inflation gauge hit 3.3% in May of 2024, according to economists polled by FactSet. The CPI measures price changes in a basket of goods and services typically bought by consumers.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics is scheduled to release the September CPI report on Friday at 8:30 a.m. Eastern time, or nine days later than it had originally been scheduled to issue the report before the U.S. government shutdown.
Most federal economic data releases have been suspended during the stalemate. The Department of Labor is making an exception for the September CPI data because the inflation rate is needed to determine the Social Security Administration’s annual cost-of-living adjustment for beneficiaries, which is also scheduled to be announced on Friday.
Inflation has crept higher this year, edging farther away from the Federal Reserve’s annual 2% target, partly due to the Trump administration’s wide-ranging tariffs, according to economists. U.S. companies that import goods from other nations are on the hook for paying the tariffs, and they are passing on as much as 55% of those import taxes to consumers in the form of higher prices, according to a Goldman Sachs analysis.
“The forthcoming September CPI data will confirm a renewed acceleration in inflation, with price momentum evident across both goods and services,” EY-Parthenon Chief Economist Gregory Daco predicted Thursday a research note. “The tariff impact is increasingly visible, though pass-through remains gradual and uneven.”
Prices today are rising far more slowly than during their peak growth in June of 2022, when the CPI hit a 40-year high of 9.1% and spurred the Federal Reserve to ratchet up interest rates in a bid to quash inflation. When borrowing becomes more expensive, consumers and businesses tend to cut back on spending, which helps temper inflation.
But the recent uptick in inflation is souring some Americans on the economy, with 59% of those polled by CBS News earlier this month saying they feel the economy is getting worse. About two-thirds said they had noticed prices going up in recent weeks.
How will inflation impact the Social Security COLA?
The Social Security Administration on Friday is also expected to release its annual cost-of-living adjustment, basing its calculation on the inflation rate from July through September.
That yearly financial bump, which ensures that 75 million Social Security recipients don’t lose purchasing power as prices rise, is expected to come in at around 2.7%, slightly higher than the 2.5% increase beneficiaries received in 2025, according to the Senior Citizens League, an advocacy group.
A 2.7% boost in benefits would lift the average monthly Social Security payment for retired workers by $54, from $2,008 to $2,062. Yet some advocates for senior citizens are concerned that retirees could face a financial pinch if prices continue to climb beyond their 2026 Social Security adjustment.
What’s the inflation outlook?
Despite the recent rise in consumer prices, the Federal Reserve and most private economists expect inflation to ease next year. In September, the Fed forecast that the Personal Consumption Expenditures — a measure of consumer spending and the central bank’s preferred barometer of inflation — would show prices rising at a 3% annual rate in 2025, but then drop to 2.6% next year.
The impact of U.S. tariffs on inflation has been more muted than what many economists were forecasting earlier this year, Seema Shah, chief global strategist at Principal Asset Management, said in an email. Companies have helped blunt the impact by expanding their inventories before the tariffs took effect, as well as absorbing some of the costs in the form of lower profits, she said.
But there’s a risk those strategies might not work for long, she added.
“As inventories deplete, trade routes narrow and margins continue to shrink, firms may be forced to pass on higher costs to consumers,” she wrote. “As such, upside risks remain. If pricing pressures spill over into services, it could signal a broader and more persistent inflationary trend.”
Nine in 10 working Americans say they plan to ignore one of the most common pieces of financial advice about Social Security: waiting until age 70 to claim benefits, which ensures higher monthly payments, according to a new study from investment firm Schroders.
Social Security allows employees to claim their benefits as soon as they turn 62, years before the so-called “full retirement age,” which now stands at 67. But claiming Social Security early has a tradeoff — it lowers your monthly payment by about 30%, with those lower benefits locked in for the rest of your life.
By contrast, delaying Social Security until age 70 results in a roughly 24% higher monthly payment than if you claimed benefits at age 67 — also locked in as long you’re collecting benefits. As a result, financial experts often recommend that seniors hold off as long as they can, with one study finding that filing early for benefits can cost $182,000 in foregone payments.
The Schroders survey suggests that many Americans who haven’t yet retired aren’t buying that advice. In the survey of 1,500 adults, most respondents said they understand the trade-offs of claiming early, but only 10% plan to wait until age 70, while 44% expect to file for benefits before they reach full retirement age.
Social Security provides an online calculator that lets users plug in their birthdate, then calculate the percentage difference in their monthly payment based on the age at which they plan to claim the retirement benefit.
Another new study, released Tuesday by the Allianz Center for the Future of Retirement, finds that a majority of Americans say they don’t know much about Social Security or how it will fit into their retirement plan. And about 1 in 5 believe Social Security will provide all the retirement income they need, even though it generally replaces only 40% of a worker’s wages when they retire, the study found.
“Not an oversight”
The disconnect illustrates the financial reality facing most workers, Deb Boyden, head of U.S. defined contribution at Schroders, told CBS News.
“The decision to sacrifice extra Social Security income is not an oversight for most Americans,” she said. “According to our research, 70% of Americans are aware that waiting longer to claim Social Security leads to higher payments, and yet so few are willing to hold off.”
Many retirees are facing a shortfall in their own retirement savings, a financial gap that’s been well documented as a growing share of Americans live paycheck to paycheck. Many workers “need the income generated by Social Security to meet their expenses immediately upon retiring,” Boyden noted.
Why many seniors start Social Security early
While the advice to wait as long as possible to claim Social Security makes financial sense, it also doesn’t fully account for people’s individual needs and circumstances. Many older adults claim benefits early out of financial necessity, while others may do so because health issues or chronic conditions lead them to expect a shorter-than-average lifespan.
Some seniors also weigh the so-called break-even point — the age at which the total money you’ve collected from starting benefits early equals what you would have collected if you had delayed claiming Social Security in oder to get a higher monthly check. In other words, someone who starts collecting at 62 will have banked eight years of benefits, as opposed to claiming at age 70.
Based on today’s average monthly Social Security benefit of $2,000, that early claimer would receive a reduced benefit of about $1,400 a month. Over the following eight years, that would amount to $134,400 in total benefits received by the time the person started collecting Social Security at age 70.
By filing for benefits at 70, that individual would receive a monthly payment $2,480, but it would take 10.4 years for the extra amount in their monthly payment to surpass the $134,400 that an early filer collected in the prior eight years. That makes the break-even age about 80.4 years old.
The upshot: Some seniors, especially those with health issues, might decide they’re unlikely to reach that break-even age and opt to have money in their pockets earlier rather than waiting to start collecting Social Security.
The average life expectancy for a 62-year-old man today is an additional 22 years, or about age 83.6, while a woman the same age is expected to live to around 86.5, according to the Social Security Administration.
Concerns about Social Security’s future
There’s another reason why many Americans plan on claiming their Social Security benefits before reaching full retirement age, she added. That’s due to concerns about the future of Social Security, which is fueling concerns that “the money may not be there if they wait,” Boyden said.
Social Security is indeed facing a financial crunch, with an aging U.S. population resulting in its payments now outpacing contributions from workers. Without changes to the program, that will result in its trust funds becoming insolvent by 2034, according to the most recent calculation from the Social Security Board of Trustees.
Yet many people wrongly believe that means Social Security will halt payments if the trust funds become insolvent. Payments would continue in such an event, but benefits would be reduced by about 20% — a potentially major financial hit to the program’s more than 70 million beneficiaries.
Still, there are ways lawmakers can shore up the program, such as by raising the income cap on Social Security taxes, which stands at $176,100, according to experts. Earnings over that amount are exempt from the payroll tax, which funds Social Security.
In the meantime, non-retired Americans told Schroders they believe they need $5,032 in monthly income to retire comfortably. But today’s retirees on average generate about $3,250 in monthly retirement income, Boyden said, adding that the gap signals the need to help workers plan better for retirement.
A recent analysis from Goldman Sachs found three-quarters of younger working Americans say they’re struggling to save for retirement because basic expenses such as housing are eating up a bigger share of their income compared with prior generations.
Imagine how stressful this situation would be: Natalie’s boss called her into the office recently and gave her some bad news. Thankfully, it was not a layoff, but it was something almost as stressful — and potentially financially devastating.
Her boss said the payroll department had made errors over the past several months, and in total, they’d overpaid by about $7,000 over the course of a year.
Natalie was shocked. Since she works two jobs, she hadn’t noticed the incremental overpayments, and she admitted she hadn’t been reviewing her bank statements every month.
Her boss then gave her even more disconcerting news: He said Natalie can either pay all the money back, or work for free until she makes up the hours. Natalie was shocked. She lives paycheck to paycheck, and she can’t afford a lump-sum payment of $7,000. Her boss didn’t seem to think a repayment plan would be possible.
Natalie didn’t know what to do. She wasn’t sure if her boss could legally compel her to work for free, or even to pay the money back at all.
Federal and state laws allow employers to garnish (automatically reduce) workers’ wages if there has been an overpayment. However, there are also rules about how much an employer can take.
Under the U.S. Consumer Credit Protection Act (CCPA), there are restrictions on the weekly amount that can be deducted from your pay. If the amount of weekly “disposable earnings” (the amount after legally required deductions like taxes and Social Security) are more than $290, a maximum of 25% can be deducted. If your disposable earnings are less than $217.50 (or 30 hours of work at the federal minimum wage of $7.25), nothing can be deducted. For disposable earnings more than $217.50 but less than $290 (40 hours at $7.25), your employer can garnish the amount above $217.50 (1).
State laws will also impact how and when an employer can garnish wages after overpayment. In most states, an overpayment is classified as a wage advance, and employers do not need permission from the employee to make deductions.
If state law differs from federal law on wage garnishment, the CCPA states that whichever law results in less money being garnished will be applied (2).
Luckily for Natalie, she lives in New York, where there are additional provisions that protect workers when employers make garnishments for overpayment.
The law in New York states that the employer must give the employee a notice of intent to make garnishments for overpayment. The notice must also:
Be given at least three weeks before the deductions start (unless the amount can be recouped in one wage payment, and other procedures are followed).
State the amount overpaid in total and per pay period
State the total amount to be deducted and the date of each deduction
Include information about when and how the employee can contest the overpayment
Read more: Robert Kiyosaki warns of a ‘Greater Depression’ coming to the US — with millions of Americans going poor. But he says these 2 ‘easy-money’ assets will bring in ‘great wealth’. How to get in now
Perhaps most importantly, in New York, deductions for overpayments can only be made for the eight weeks of overpayment prior to the delivery of the notice of intent to the employee.
In New York state, if the overpayment is less than or equal to your next paycheck, the entire amount can be deducted from that check. However, if it’s more than the next paycheck, the maximum amount that can be deducted is no more than 12.5% of your gross earnings, and the amount cannot make your effective hourly wage less than the state minimum wage (3).
Natalie’s boss’s suggestion that she work for free to pay off the wage overpayment is illegal. Because she lives in New York state, her employer can only deduct the overpayments in the eight weeks prior to her receiving notice. The meeting with her boss also doesn’t count as official notice; her employer needs to provide her with a document that meets the above parameters.
Natalie should let her employer know that asking her to work without pay is a violation of labor laws. It is her employer’s responsibility to serve her proper notice about the overpayment and upcoming garnishment.
Since her state offers more protection around this issue, Natalie most likely won’t face a wage deduction that would leave her unable to pay her bills. Still, her wages will be impacted, and she needs to budget accordingly. She may need to cut back on discretionary spending until her paychecks are back to the normal amount.
In the future, checking both her pay stubs and her bank statements will go a long way in preventing this kind of unexpected loss of income — which will also help you catch if your employer is underpaying you. An Ernst & Young report from 2022 found that the average company’s payroll accuracy is only 80.15%, which means you could be missing out on wages you’re owed if you’re not watching your bank balance (4).
If you believe your employer has made deductions from your pay illegally, you can file an administrative claim with your state’s department of labor, and depending on your state, you may be able to file a lawsuit (2).
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It looks official — a letter stamped with the U.S. Supreme Court seal, signed by Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, warning that you’re under investigation. But it’s a scam — one designed to steal money from Social Security recipients, according to the agency’s watchdog division.
The fake SCOTUS letter prompted an Oct. 8 warning from the Social Security Administration’s Office of the Inspector General, cautioning the program’s 75 million beneficiaries to be on alert if they receive a purported letter from the nation’s highest court.
While the warning didn’t disclose how many Social Security recipients have been targeted by the fraud, the watchdog group said the hoax marks the evolution of government imposter scams, such as the decade-old scheme in which criminals pretend to be IRS officials informing their target victims that they’re under investigation for tax fraud. The threat of an IRS probe has long been used by scammers to scare individuals into providing money or private data such as Social Security numbers.
In this latest version of the same scheme, fraudsters are impersonating Supreme Court justices, rather than IRS officials. The new scam relies on multiple points of contact, with a fake letter followed by a text or call from the fraudsters, making it appear more authentic, said John Haraburda, Transaction Network Services (TNS) robocall data expert and director of product management.
“The fraudsters get very, very smart,” Haraburda said. “They do the mailing, then they’ll send you a text from the number they’re going to use for the phone call saying, ‘This is the Social Security Administration — we’re going to be calling you from this number in a few seconds.’”
He added, “Then you’ve got this text message in a way authenticating the call that’s coming in. That lets you break down your hesitation, to basically drop your guard.”
According to the Social Security Inspector General, the scam letter is personally addressed to the would-be victim, warning that they’re a suspect in connection with legal proceedings and criminal charges. It also falsely claims their Social Security number has been compromised.
The fake letter goes on to say that the Supreme Court has requested financial institutions to freeze the recipient’s assets, and urges them to cooperate with “the U.S. Treasury Department,” the watchdog agency said.
“The letter ominously closes by stating, should the recipient encounter any difficulties in safeguarding assets, the recipient will bear full liability for any losses incurred following the suspension of their SSN,” the SSA’s inspector general said. “Scammers most likely will follow up with text messages or telephone calls.”
Scammers may follow up with a text that includes a link to a fake Social Security site, which will capture the victim’s login and password as they attempt to gain access to their accounts, or might ask for credit card info, Haraburda said.
Never click on a link in an email or text that purports to be from an official, he noted. Instead, go directly to the Social Security site — https://www.ssa.gov — to log in.
“On every level, this letter is completely false,” Michelle L. Anderson, acting inspector general at the Social Security Administration’s Office of the Inspector General said in a statement. “These criminals are falsely accusing an individual of a crime and using federal agencies and federal officials to try to scare and legitimize their scam — if you get this type of letter, rip it up and report it.”
The Social Security Administration’s annual announcement setting next year’s cost-of-living adjustment, or COLA, will be delayed because of the government shutdown, the agency said.
Each year, the Social Security Administration adjusts benefits for its 75 million recipients based on recent inflation data, which ensures that seniors, disabled Americans and other beneficiaries don’t lose purchasing power as prices rise.
Social Security had planned to announce the new COLA on Oct. 15, the same day the Labor Department was scheduled to release September Consumer Price Index data, a key measure of inflation. The COLA is determined by inflation figures for the third quarter, which covers July through September.
With much of the government’s economic data on hold until Congress approves federal funding, the Bureau of Labor Statistics now plans to release its latest CPI figures on Oct. 24, about nine days later than planned. The Social Security Administration told CBS News it plans to issue its COLA announcement that same day.
“The Bureau of Labor Statistics has announced they will issue the September 2025 Consumer Price Index on October 24,” the Social Security Administration said in an Oct. 14 email. “The Social Security Administration will use this release to generate and announce the 2026 cost-of-living adjustment on October 24 as well.”
The new COLA will take effect starting Jan. 1, 2026, without any delays due to the ongoing shutdown, the agency added.
How much of a living adjustment?
According to an estimate published last month by the Senior Citizens League, the annual COLA for 2026 could be around 2.7%, slightly higher than the 2.5% increase beneficiaries received in 2025.
The League, an advocacy group for older Americans, based its most recent projection on August inflation data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Because the SSA will also include September inflation data in its COLA rate, that number could change when it’s announced later this month.
AARP, another advocacy group for older people, expects the 2026 COLA to range from 2.6% to 2.9%. A 2.7% boost in benefits would lift the average monthly payment for retired workers by $54, from $2,008 to $2,062.
Where is inflation now?
The September CPI is forecast to rise to an annual rate of 3.1% up from 2.9% in August, according to economists polled by FactSet.
According to economists, inflation is edging higher due partly to the impact of the Trump administration’s tariffs, which have hit imports from across the globe, such as clothing, food, steel and toys. While some businesses stockpiled imported goods earlier this year to avoid raising rising prices, some are now passing the import taxes on to their customers.
“Core goods pressures have started to heat up, marking the beginning of a delayed tariff passthrough,” RBC economists Michael Reid and Carrie Freestone said in an Oct. 14 report. “Concerningly, the breadth of inflationary pressures has widened — 45% of CPI basket items are now reporting price growth at or above 3%, compared to roughly two-thirds pre-pandemic.”
Some retirees could face a financial pinch if prices continues to climb and their 2026 Social Security adjustment fails to keep pace with inflation. The Federal Reserve forecasts that the Personal Consumption Expenditures price index, its favored measure of inflation, will rise to 3.1% this year before receding to 2.6% in 2026.
Kurt ‘The CyberGuy’ Knutsson shares practical ways to avoid falling victim to AI-generated phishing scams and discusses a report that North Korean agents are posing as I.T. workers to funnel money into the country’s nuclear program.
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Sometimes, data breaches result in more than just free credit monitoring. Recently, Facebook began paying out its $725 million settlement, and AT&T is preparing to distribute $177 million. Those payouts caught scammers’ attention.
Now, fake settlement claim emails and websites are flooding inboxes. They look convincing, but behind the plain design and official-sounding language is a trap for your Social Security number, banking info and more. So how can you make sure you get your money without losing even more in the process?
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Settlement claim websites rarely look polished. Most have generic layouts, long URLs and simple forms asking for a claim ID from your email or postcard. That makes it easy for scammers to mimic them. To test how simple it is, we created a fake settlement site (below) in minutes using AI tools like ChatGPT.
To steal your data, scammers build fake settlement sites that mimic real sites(Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)
If we can do it, you can bet criminals are already exploiting the same shortcuts. Facebook has been the target. A fake site once popped up around the Equifax settlement, tricking thousands before it was shut down. The lesson? If the site appears unusual, it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s fake, but it should prompt you to double-check before entering your details or clicking on any links.
Red flags that expose fake settlement sites
Spotting a scam often comes down to noticing the little details. Watch for these common warning signs before you hand over your information.
Requests for too much personal data
If a site asks for your full Social Security number or the names of your children, stop. For example, the official Equifax settlement only requested the last six digits of SSNs. Genuine claim sites may ask for limited info (like the last four digits of your SSN), but they rarely demand complete Social Security or bank details.
Promises of payout estimates upfront
Real administrators calculate payments only after the claim period closes.
Texts or social media messages
Settlements are announced by mail or email, not through random DMs or SMS.
Fraud can be found with red flags like odd URLs, urgent countdowns, or fee requests(Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)
Odd or misspelled URLs
Even one extra letter in the web address is a sign of a spoof site. Legitimate settlements use official or clearly named administrator domains. Be wary of addresses with unusual add-ons, such as “secure-pay” or “claims-pay.”
Urgent language or countdowns
Scammers rely on urgency to pressure you into acting fast. Real settlement sites don’t demand 24-hour turnarounds.
Processing fee checkboxes
A sure giveaway of a fake. Real settlement administrators never require money to file or to receive your payout.
Cheap trust badges
Scam sites often throw in fake “secure” seals. Look for recognized security seals and make sure they’re clickable and verifiable.
Generic contact info tied to the suspicious domain
Official sites list multiple, verifiable contacts. If the email or phone number matches the weird domain, that’s a red flag.
Grammar or spelling mistakes in the fine print
Sloppy errors in legal-sounding text are a classic sign you’re looking at a scam.
Start with official FTC links or mailed notices to file claims safely(Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)
How to safely handle settlement claim notices
Before filing any claim, follow these steps to ensure you’re dealing with a legitimate settlement site and protecting your information.
1) Start at the FTC
The Federal Trade Commission keeps updated lists of approved class action settlements at ftc.gov/enforcement/refunds. The legitimate links always point to a .gov website. If your email sends you elsewhere, treat it with caution.
2) Cross-check with other resources
Trusted outlets often cover large settlements and include safe links. ClassAction.org is another resource for checking legitimate URLs.
3) Skip the links, use the mail
Your claim notice may include a mailing address. Sending a paper form avoids the digital phishing minefield altogether.
4) Use strong antivirus software
Strong antivirus software can block malicious links, warn you about dangerous websites and prevent malware from taking over your device.
The best way to safeguard yourself from malicious links that install malware and potentially access your private information is to have strong antivirus software installed on all your devices. This protection can also alert you to phishing emails and ransomware scams, keeping your personal information and digital assets safe.
Get my picks for the best 2025 antivirus protection winners for your Windows, Mac, Android and iOS devices at CyberGuy.com.
Data removal services work to scrub your personal information from broker lists, making it more difficult for criminals to target you.
While no service can guarantee the complete removal of your data from the internet, a data removal service is really a smart choice. They aren’t cheap, and neither is your privacy. These services do all the work for you by actively monitoring and systematically erasing your personal information from hundreds of websites. It’s what gives me peace of mind and has proven to be the most effective way to erase your personal data from the internet. By limiting the information available, you reduce the risk of scammers cross-referencing data from breaches with information they might find on the dark web, making it harder for them to target you.
Check out my top picks for data removal services and get a free scan to find out if your personal information is already out on the web by visiting CyberGuy.com.
Get a free scan to find out if your personal information is already out on the web: Cyberguy.com.
6) Never pay to file
If a site asks for “administrative fees” or a “processing charge,” close it immediately. Real settlement administrators will never ask for money.
7) Report suspicious sites
Spot a fake? Protect others by reporting it to:
The FTC Complaint Assistant at reportfraud.ftc.gov/
The Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) at ic3.gov/
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) at consumerfinance.gov/about-us/the-bureau/
Quick reporting helps authorities shut down scams before more people fall victim.
Can you tell a real email from a fake?
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Kurt’s key takeaways
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Rep. Chip Roy (R–Texas), who recently announced that he is running to replace Ken Paxton as Texas attorney general, has carved out a reputation as one of Washington’s most unflinching fiscal hawks. His political career began as an aide to then–Texas Attorney General John Cornyn on his Senate campaign; he subsequently served as chief of staff to Republican Sen. Ted Cruz. First elected to Congress in 2018, Roy distinguished himself as a lawmaker willing to buck party leadership, most notably by opposing spending bills favored by both Republicans and Democrats.
Today, Roy is a critic of runaway federal spending and at times a thorn in the side of political leadership, which has led President Donald Trump to call for primary challenges against him. He has taken high-profile stands on the debt ceiling, entitlement reform, and what he calls the “tyranny” of a government that funds itself by mortgaging future generations.
He also voted for the president’s budget-busting One Big Beautiful Bill Act, arguing that its reductions to Medicaid were better than nothing. In August, at a 90th birthday celebration for former Rep. Ron Paul (R–Texas), Roy sat down with Reason‘s Nick Gillespie to explain that vote, as well as to discuss Social Security, health care reform, immigration, whether his state’s controversial redistricting plan is legitimate, and why he believes Texas still embodies the American dream.
Reason: You are a rare voice of fiscal shrinking in Washington, D.C. That has put you in the crosshairs with Donald Trump in particular. You don’t want to raise the debt ceiling unless there’s a reduction in spending. You pushed back against the Big Beautiful Bill, although you did cave and support it.
Chip Roy: We’ll come back to the word cave, but OK.
Well, you voted for it. Talk a little bit about your general philosophy. Why is it so important that government spending be either held constant or reduced?
My view is that the power of the purse is the central power of Congress, and we’ve abdicated it for as long as I can remember. If you don’t constrain that power of the purse, then you’re funding the very bureaucracy that was predicted by the Founders—and has proven to be true—to be at odds with our liberty.
To say Congress is asleep at the switch is an understatement. You came into office in 2019, but this has been going on for at least 20 years before. Why?
My observation is that we’re actually at a moment where more members of Congress get it than I’ve ever seen in the past. That’s the good news. But the bad news is, it’s still a woefully inadequate group of people to change it.
I think members of Congress believe that they get more popularity in votes by spending money. I actually disagree with that. I’m a cancer survivor. I have cancer groups who come in and ask me for money. I say, “God bless you. I know what you’re trying to do. Research is great. But do you have a pay-for [for] that?” No. Well, then I can’t support it. Farm Bureau comes in. I love the farmers. I want to protect small farmers against corporate [agriculture]. But they come in and they want their money on the farm bill. I’m like, “Well, are we fixing the food stamps?” No. Well, then I can’t support it. They get that.
It’s important to not fund the tyranny that’s turned on us. I think more people are seeing that now in ways that they didn’t in the past.
Going to the heart of the Big Beautiful Bill debate: We were told in January, “You’re not going to touch anything in Medicaid or any kind of health care.” Well, we got a trillion dollars of Medicaid. We were told we weren’t going to be able to do much on the Green New Scam subsidies. We were able to get 3, or 4, or $500 billion worth of cutbacks to those. Did we get everything we need? No.
There’s no question that the Big Beautiful Bill is going to increase the debt, right? There’s no realistic scenario where it doesn’t.
I think that is likely the case based on the following facts: Medicare was not touched. Social Security was not touched. Interest payments are going up.
But understand that part of the agreement, and we got to deliver the agreement, was holding discretionary [spending] flat or lower. That was a part of the deal, which by the way, will pay dividends if we do it.
That’s a part of the deal, which I’m going to fight for. And also, remember that tax cuts. I had libertarian friends who were like, “Hey, I love the no tax on tips.” Well, OK, but what about no tax on the guys in the back of the restaurant? We all want lower taxes. You, I, every person who wants a limited government.
I want lower spending.
But you want lower spending to go along with that. What I would argue is, we fought to get lower spending on things that people never thought we could get, Medicaid being huge among those. Is it enough? No. Is it likely going to create front-loaded deficits? Yes.
You took a lot of heat from Trump on the debt ceiling bill. He was calling you out by name. And you also got leaned on in the Big Beautiful Bill debates. What is it like when Donald Trump, the president of the United States—a guy who, whatever else you can say about him, has the power to destroy the political careers of politicians who are very popular in their districts—says, “What the hell are you doing? You’d better get in line!”
I view it slightly differently because I don’t worry about whether I’m in office or not. Come after me, it’s fine.
What I do care about is what can we do in this window of time when we have some people in the administration willing—clunkily, not always what you and I and others who are fiscal stewards would do. What are you going to do when you’ve got that opportunity?
Whatever he’s doing—scaling back some of the spending at the Pentagon, or getting the $9 billion of the rescissions package—there are things that are in process. Are they peanuts and crumbs? Kind of. But are they trending in the right direction? So far. Did we get material changes on spending? Yes.
The political pressures don’t matter much to me. What matters to me is, how can you assemble people to build a coalition to deliver? I’m proud of what we delivered on Medicaid reforms. I’m proud of what we delivered on the subsidies, which are horrid.
Medicare and Social Security are things that Trump has taken off the table for as long as he’s president. Interest on the debt, Medicare, and Social Security are the biggest chunks of the federal budget. How do you get to a smaller budget without addressing those?
We’re legally prohibited from touching Social Security. You got to come up with some sort of bipartisan way to address Social Security, or you can’t really get to it.
I fundamentally believe for Medicare and Medicaid, and frankly, [Veterans Health Administration], [Children’s Health Insurance Program], and these other health programs, you have to have fundamental health care reforms from top to bottom that starts with the individuals, doctors, and liberty. I’m not saying liberty because I’m talking to you; that’s what I mean.
One of the first bills I introduced was the Healthcare Freedom Act, which would do that. By the way, we did force into the Big Beautiful Bill DPC—direct primary care—being able to be used within your health savings accounts.
Look, fighting the health care swamp is brutal because the insurance companies, pharma, big hospitals, they’re all colluding to make it where you and I can’t go to the doctors of our choice.
I’m a member of Congress and I’m on Obamacare. If my cancer comes back, which I had 13 years ago, I can’t go to MD Anderson [Cancer Center], which is an hour up the road right here in Texas, because Obamacare won’t let me go to MD Anderson. That’s asinine. And yet, millions of Americans are on that system. We’ve got to blow that up to get people control.
Why didn’t the Republicans—and this is before your time in Congress, but when you were chief of staff for Sen. Ted Cruz—do any of this during the first Trump administration? We heard, “When we take over, we’re going to repeal and replace Obamacare.” Then they were like, “Yeah, we didn’t really mean that.”
Republicans in Congress suck on this and are running afraid to touch and deal with health care. To the credit of the administration, we were told that we weren’t going to touch health care at all, and we did touch Medicaid in a very big way. I think that’s a baseline to now give us some offense.
Is there anybody in Congress doing anything about Social Security? Or are they all just going to wait and then blow out the cap on earnings that are taxed to pay for Social Security?
I think [Sen.] Rand [Paul (R–Ky.)] has been right for a long time: this penny plan, which now probably has to be the nickel plan for all I know. You have to have something where, across the board, you’re shrinking everything, and then force everybody to deliver.
This is actually really important. For what everyone thinks about the Big Beautiful Bill, we broke the orthodoxy in Washington that we can just have all the tax cuts we want without spending restraint. We forced that in the budget committee. Myself, [Reps.] Ralph Norman [R–S.C.], Josh Brecheen [R–Okla.], Andrew Clyde [R–Ga.]. The four of us took down the bill in the Budget Committee; we killed it. That brought everybody back in. I can tell you, those were some intense meetings where we said, “We’re not doing this if we don’t get this level of spending restraint at least as a model to guide what we do on the floor.” That was before we sent it to the Senate.
That’s actually a big shift. The fights we’ve had to have inside the Republican Party to say, “I know we’re products of the ’80s, and we believe in the Laffer Curve, and we believe in lower taxes, of course we do. I do. But you also have to do math. You can’t just keep cutting taxes and then not do the spending side, because the inflation/turning over of all our freedom to government is eating up any of the value you get.”
How do you define the American dream?
The ability to live free. The right to live your life, work, produce for your family, own a home, get a doctor. Right now, if I look at my staff in their 20s or 30s, can they buy a house? They don’t know. Can they go get a doctor and get health care? Increasingly limitedly. Can they buy a car? Can they send their kids to a school of their choice? Those things are at the center of existence.
I think we’ve got to reclaim that ground. I think we’re too corporatist. Free trade, I believe in, but you’ve got to be smart about what we’re doing here in this country, in making sure that we’ve got workers here who have jobs in the United States. You don’t have corporatists that are buying up every farm in the state of Texas, and I’m unable to actually go have the small farm that my parents passed down to me.
It gets complicated, but what’s wrong with corporate farms? Especially if they can run more acreage cheaply and produce more crops on it.
I’m all for the freedom to move capital around and make it efficient. But there is still something about your home and your community. There is still something about being able to say, “I own this dirt, this farm. I’m building and growing for the people here.” The overcorporatization, frankly it’s not pure free enterprise. The federal government is subsidizing big ag at the expense of local farmers. The big government that’s subsidizing massive hospitals at the expense of local doctor-owned facilities. We put all these bans in place, and we funnel all this money, and now it’s no longer the balance of a market. I think that’s where we’ve gone awry.
I’m not asking for restrictions. I’m just believing that community and the American dream are tied together. You want to be able to have an investment in your local area. And the free flow of capital is important. But you also have to have the non-government-interfered-with free flow of capital.
Should those small farmers be able to hire who they want, or should they need to go through the federal government? What is your view about legal immigration and about letting people come here who want to and who can get jobs here?
In a gathering of my libertarian friends, I’m a little more “protect our sovereignty as our country.” It’s important that we know who’s here and why they’re here. And making sure that Americans have jobs.
In a perfect utopian libertarian world, where free flow of capital is unfettered by government regulation, government interference, or crony capital, then things would work out much better with respect to that flow. But you still have to have borders. You still have to know the bad guys are coming.
Sure. Nobody’s questioning that.
Well, some do. I’ve had some pretty good fiery responses from some of my Cato [Institute] brothers when they’ve been at hearings. It’s fine, and I get it. Should you be able to go get labor if you can’t get it? Sure. But there still has to be a component that is factoring in things like anchor babies and birthright citizenship. Again, erase all the public programs. I think it was Milton Friedman who said very famously in the ’70s, “I’m all for open borders if you get rid of the social welfare state.”
Actually, he basically just said, “I’m all for open borders.” He said to build the wall around the welfare state, not around the United States.
But the component being with a welfare state, which we massively have, which then completely alters the culture of our country. We in Texas are the ones that are sitting here with elementary schools where we have to do English as a second language, we have to do all of the things that cost with that, the hospitals, the health care locally. It’s a real issue.
But at the end of the day, we have a problem right now where there are American workers who are not working because we’re subsidizing them not to work, while we’re then complaining about needing labor. We’ve turned it all upside down is my main point.
Is there a libertarian flavor to the MAGA movement? With Ron Paul in 2008 and 2012, the rise of the Tea Party in 2010, which included Rand Paul, Thomas Massie, [former Rep.] Justin Amash [L–Mich.], it really seemed like a libertarian version of the Republican Party: anti-war, end the Fed, limit the government. Gears shifted heavily with the rise of Donald Trump and MAGA.
Well, that’s an interesting question and I haven’t really thought about it. I’ll give you my gut response, and then I’ll think about it a little bit. I think where we are right now is in a blend of different factors. We’ve had this evolution from 2008 onward. Now we’re 17 years into the post–Tea Party, where all of those factors are a part of where we are. Obviously, the overriding dominant force is the president and MAGA, but all of that is a piece of the fabric.
I do think the part about immigration right now is just recognizing we’re at a point right now where we have, depending on which reports you look at, 51.5 million people who were foreign-born. People will say, “Well, who cares? We often have that.” That’s the highest percentage as an overall population we’ve had in at least the modern era, if you go back to the early 20th century.
When America became great, yeah.
But we also had a culture at that time that was assimilating, and saying learn English, and join in the American dream. Now, we’ve had this counterculture saying, “No, you don’t have to do that.” How does that produce a unified nation with an overall environment for success?
Is it immigrants’ fault that we don’t have a robust conception of what it means to be American? Because when I grew up, America was a nation of immigrants. That was our whole thing—that what is great about us is we can take people from shithole countries and turn them into great Americans.
Trump got in trouble for saying that.
Because he meant it, whereas I’m ironic about it.
Of course, we’re a nation of immigrants historically speaking, but understand that we’re still a nation. And that has to matter. I actually don’t care where people are from. What I care about is whether they’re proudly putting the American flag up instead of another nation’s flag, whether they’re proudly joining in with our cause.
But bringing this back to the point, there are a lot of hard-working American families that are hurting right now. They need to be able to have access to jobs. They need to be able to have access to their schools, and to their hospitals, and to their police.
I’d love to have the free flow of trade, people moving about being able to work. But you’ve got to have barriers, in the sense of restrictions and processes that work. At the end of the day, what you really need to do is have a smaller federal government focused on its core responsibilities. Because if it was actually doing the basic job of defending the country and defending the borders, instead of meddling with all aspects of our lives, then I think they would do a better job of that.
Let me ask you about foreign policy. At various points you have said that we should not be intervening, we shouldn’t be giving any countries a blank check. But you also say we should be supporting some countries. Can you explain your foreign policy? And do you think you’re reflecting a new Republican consensus that may not be a Ron Paul anti-interventionist but is certainly not a George Bush neoconservative?
Funny you say it that way. When I was Sen. Cruz’s chief of staff, we talked about it in terms of a third way of thinking about foreign policy and national security.
I grew up a child of the ’80s. I was a proud American. It was like, beat the commies, let’s tear down the wall, all that stuff. Then fast-forward, and you have these wars that are ongoing, and I’m studying the Middle East, and then 9/11. Then you’re backing the president. He’s standing on the rubble. You’re all there, patriotic, wanting to say, “Yeah. What the hell? Get the bad guys.” Then somewhere in that timeframe, I started to go, “What are we doing? We’re in endless conflict with no clear mission.” That reset my thinking.
I took a rule-of-law trip to Baghdad in the middle of the war. I was getting a tour from a three-star general. He’s taking me up and showing me soccer fields they’re building. I’m going, “This is all well-intended, but what the hell are we doing?” It just became very clear to me that there was this whole industry built around this.
Where I am today, I just generally believe we should be highly skeptical of—I’ll use “endless wars” as the moniker. Our driving policy should be, what do we need to do to defend our interests as a nation? If you’re going to intervene, what is the mission? When can it be done? Can it be done quickly with the least amount of cost, loss of life, etc.? Defend our position, and then get out. But we shouldn’t be out meddling in nation building.
We can’t own every skirmish or conflict around the world. I think when we do, we sometimes make them worse: notoriously, Afghanistan, the Soviet Union.
But that all being said, where I break from some of my libertarian brothers and sisters is, I do think there are things where we have very specific national security interests where we should be engaged. I think that they [pay] long-term benefits. I do think the work with Israel and Iron Dome is beneficial for us. But obviously, there’s some different tensions going on now after the October 7 issue. I hope that’ll get drawn down and get to peace, and that they can get busy rebuilding and dealing with what they’re going to do.
By and large, the United States needs to focus on its own house. We have not done that. We’re $37 trillion in debt. We’ve spent, what, $10 trillion-plus, at least, on whatever we’ve done in the Middle East in all of our engagements over the last 20 years. That doesn’t even count the burn pits, by the way [the PACT Act, which pays for health claims related to personnel exposed to trash pits on military bases]. Which I didn’t vote for because it was a $600 [billion] or $700 billion entitlement. That’s what we do though. That’s a perfect example. Overextend, endless wars, our guys and gals get hurt, then we create a massive entitlement that we can’t afford. Then our kids and grandkids are paying high interest rates and inflation.
Let’s talk about Texas. As we’re speaking in August, the Texas Legislature is doing a novel mid-decade redistricting. How do you feel about that? Is this legitimate, or is this the worst kind of politicking?
Gerrymandering goes all the way back to the founding. Texas is not as gerrymandered as some of our blue states. I think representation matters to match the culture and the community that you represent. Those are my driving principles, but politics are part of it.
Is it OK to redistrict anytime, rather than every decade, based on the Census?
There’s nothing that says we can’t. It’s very clearly political. Not saying anything anybody doesn’t know. Gerrymandering is political. I think there are seats to be gained there. In full disclosure, we were probably a little soft in how far we could have gone in 2020. I say “we”; we have no vote in that in Congress. It’s the Legislature in Texas. They’re taking it up. I think in light of the very close divisions and wanting to make sure that they’ve got a majority in the House, and also in light of, without reopening the immigration debate, a Census issue about noncitizens represented…I think when we factor all that in, I do think that there’s room here for the Legislature to redistrict. My personal philosophical bent is cleaner lines, less gerrymandered districts. But you can’t unilaterally disarm, so I get the political desire of the Legislature to act. But I don’t get a say.
Texas is becoming the destination. Florida can say whatever it wants, but Texas is going to become the most populous state in the country by 2050, if not before. It is also increasingly the cultural heart of America. It has an identity in a way that California and New York do. Why do you think people are coming to Texas? Is it the weather? Is it the fire ants? Is it the floods?
You picked the three things not to come here.
When my great-great-great-grandparents moved out to Dripping Springs, Texas, it was 1853-ish. They came from Georgia. Then my Roy side of the family came via Tennessee, Arkansas, in the 1870s. The reason I bring that historic perspective up is, it was tough living. You had to want it. It was tough, so you had tough people. I think that bred a culture that was mixed with a great historic culture that was the Tex-Mex mix. Then the Germanic mix that came in—somewhat illegally too at the time.
Texas has been under six flags. Different countries. It’s one of the great mixing pits of America.
I think all of that has combined to create a culture that people are proud of. They want to adopt that.
Importantly, I worry about preserving that culture. That culture of independence, of personal responsibility, where government isn’t providing for you. I’m very worried. The Texas government is bigger than it should be. We spend more than we should. Texas isn’t as free as it should [be]. It is highly regulated. Cato has done some big studies on that.
I don’t think we’re safe enough. I don’t think we’re free enough. There are things that we need to do to improve. But the reason people come to Texas is because of what it represents.
I think we’re at a crossroads. I think in order to maintain that Texas spirit and that Texas culture, we’re going to have to double down on the things that made us great. That means, in my opinion, a hard move to freedom; a hard move to a truly limited government. You can’t go around saying that Texas is the best thing since sliced bread and the federal government’s the problem when our state government is bureaucratic. We’ve got work that we need to do there, but it’s a great state with a great mix of people, and people who respect what it means to work hard and to make their own lives.
I think from a free enterprise standpoint, Texas is pretty free. I think from a regulatory, compliance standpoint, property taxes, there are things that we need to do to improve freedom in Texas and be the beacon of hope for the next century.
This interview has been condensed and edited for style and clarity.
In the flurry of federal government action since January, you may have missed one noteworthy thing that didn’t happen.
Presidents George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Donald Trump 1.0 and Joe Biden had vastly different visions for the United States. But they all agreed to codify their ideas in comprehensive budget proposals that laid out revenues and outlays in great detail during their first year in office.
Bush submitted his first in April 2001. Obama produced his in May 2009. Trump 1.0 submitted an early version in March 2017, then a broader budget in May of that year. Biden’s first landed in May 2021. You can get a little budget history here.
But fiscal year 2026 dawned on Oct. 1 with just a Trump 2.0 “skinny budget” – a preliminary document with broad top lines but without program-by-program specifics of a full budget. A brief “Mid-Session Review to the 2026 Budget” added little nuance. There’s no sign of a more comprehensive assessment. (The White House did not acknowledge an email asking when the more detailed document might be landing.)
It’s a bit of a cliché to say that a budget is a statement of values, or that it turns the poetry of campaign rhetoric into the prose of governing. But it certainly is a statement of a president’s priorities for the nation as well as a detailed look at how they view federal power.
In 2017, Trump delivered a speech laying out his economic plans to a joint meeting of Congress in February. That was followed shortly by an overview and then more detailed budget documents.
So what does the lack of a spending blueprint this time around tell us?
Trump is the Alpha and the Omega
In that sense, the second Trump presidency looks impervious to budgeting of the conventional variety.
The administration is swallowing tens of billions of dollars every month via his tariffs – a significant source of revenues that is expected to shrink the annual deficit. (Reminder: These are taxes paid by importers, not the country of origin, with some portion being passed on to consumers.)
But the on-again-off-again-on-again nature of the tariffs, as well as shifting exemptions for specific sectors or even individual companies, make it impossible to draw up a firm prediction of their revenue effects with any confidence.
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It’s not just tariffs, of course, where Trump has broken with tradition and even his past decisions:
Trump set aside the law that banned TikTok from the U.S. unless it were sold to non-Chinese investors, delaying it repeatedly until a deal he favored materialized.
He has broken sharply with precedent (and Republican orthodoxy) by having the government take equity stakes in private companies or demanding a share of their sales.
And Trump, who signed a 2019 law designed to ensure that federal employees furloughed in a partial government shutdown would get back pay, flirted this week with the idea that they might not all be made whole.
Why It Matters to You
Why should you care about a document that doesn’t become law? Because every federal agency, every state and every city looks to the budget for guidance on what amount of money from Washington they can count on.
Law enforcement assistance? Disaster aid? Infrastructure spending? Federal food programs? The clues are in the budget. It’s hard to plan in the absence of information.
But perhaps the biggest unknown without a budget is the nation’s social insurance programs, where Trump again has past promises to reckon with.
Running for office in 2016, Trump broke with the GOP orthodoxy by promising not to cut Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid.
Why is this relevant to the question of where his budget is?
Because detailed budgets are supposed to include 10-year projections. The trust fund from which Social Security benefits are paid is due to become insolvent in 2034. Medicare’s hospital insurance fund is expected to reach that same unhappy milestone a year earlier.
A budget might tell us – promise us, really – how he plans to address those challenges, with ramifications for tens of millions of Americans dependent on those programs.
This collection of Star-Telegram stories explores the impact of the federal government shutdown on Texas through various sectors like education, nutrition programs, Social Security, and airport operations.
NO. 1: TEXAS SCHOOLS COULD FACE CHALLENGES DUE TO GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN. HERE’S WHY
Schools in Texas and nationwide could see dire consequences if the shutdown of the federal government stretches beyond a few days, education policy experts warn. | Published September 30, 2025 | Read Full Story by Silas Allen
An American Airlines airplane taxis to a runway at Dallas Fort Worth International Airport on Tuesday, Nov. 19, 2024. By Amanda McCoy
NO. 2: WILL GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN IMPACT DFW AIRPORT OR DALLAS LOVE FIELD? WHAT TO KNOW
North Texas’ two largest airports do not expect any impacts on flight operations amid the government shutdown. | Published October 1, 2025 | Read Full Story by Brayden Garcia
Volunteers are critical to Tarrant Area Food Bank’s mission of fighting hunger across North Texas. Here, Patti Callahan, right, fills a grocery bag for a food giveaway at 4Saints Episcopal Food Pantry on May 29, 2020, at St. Luke’s in the Meadow Episcopal Church in Fort Worth. By Yffy Yossifor
NO. 3: WILL TEXANS STILL GET SNAP BENEFITS DURING THE GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN? WHAT TO KNOW
Another federal government shutdown has begun after lawmakers in Washington failed to reach a deal on funding. | Published October 1, 2025 | Read Full Story by Tiffani Jackson
The Federal Bank Reserve declares that banks close during certain national holidays.
NO. 4: WILL TEXANS GET SOCIAL SECURITY CHECKS DURING GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN? WHAT TO KNOW
For millions of Texans, Social Security is more than just a monthly benefit — it’s the money that keeps the lights on, covers prescriptions and helps pay for groceries. | Published October 1, 2025 | Read Full Story by Tiffani Jackson
The summary above was drafted with the help of AI tools and edited by journalists in our News division. All stories listed were reported, written and edited by McClatchy journalists.
