Before getting to the Roundup, a public service announcement: Daylight Time returns this Sunday. Don’t forget to set your clocks ahead (unless you live in Hawaii or Arizona)!
Now on to our weekly collection of interesting articles on investing, personal finance, and stewardship.
U.S. budget deficit hits $1 trillion with more massive stimulus set to hike up spending (Forbes). If you’d like to see all the zeros, that’s $1,000,000,000,000 in deficit spending thus far this fiscal year.
F.A.Q. on stimulus, unemployment and tax rebates (The New York Times). An overview of the money flowing your way from your friendly Uncle Sam.
Biden aide calls child tax credit expansion a ’basic benefit’ as Democrats begin push to make it permanent (Yahoo Finance). The $1.9-trillion-dollar bill that just became law includes a 50% increase in the 2021 child tax credit (an 80% increase for children under age 6).
Government will fully cover laid-off workers’ COBRA premiums through September (CNBC). The new law will help laid-off workers keep their employer-sponsored health insurance for a while longer.
The simplest asset to hedge against inflation (Ben Carlson, A Wealth of Common Sense). Sometimes the best solution is the simplest one.
The Fed isn’t printing as much money as you think (Morgan Housel, Collaborative Fund blog). Housel notes that most of the ramp-up in the M1 money supply is due to an accounting rule change.
Americans paid off a record $83 billion in credit card debt in 2020 (CNBC). That’s encouraging.
U.S. households ended 2020 with record $130.2 trillion in wealth, Fed says (Reuters via Fidelity). It was the worst of times, it was the best of times.
The first question you should ask about in-retirement withdrawal rates (Christine Benz, Morningstar). "Homing in on a specific percentage skips a key step in the process of crafting a durable withdrawal system."
A generosity philosophy (Jeremy Walter, Calibrate). Be strategic, be consistent.
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