While Americans, as a whole, have seen their ability to cover monthly expenses and bills improve since 2009, the 2018 data show that younger Americans, those without a college degree, African-Americans and those with lower incomes are struggling financially, calling into question the improved economy’s ability to work as needed for all.

Last week, the NBA All-Star announced his retirement from an 18- year career spent mostly at the San Antonio Spurs, where, as point guard, he drove the team to four championships. This week, he joined the Minneapolis- based financial planning firm NorthRock Partners as president of its sports, artists and entertainment division.

The U.S. Federal Reserve may not have cut interest rates at its June policy meeting, but it signaled the possibility for interest rate cuts sometime this year, and that was all traders needed to get excited. All three major U.S. benchmarks closed higher on Wednesday, and the sentiment spread into Thursday’s trading session.

The Federal Reserve left benchmark interest rates unchanged Wednesday despite recent pressure from President Donald Trump to cut rates. Fed Chairman Jerome Powell and the Federal Open Market Committee chose to keep the federal funds rate between 2.25 percent and 2.5 percent after their two-day policy meeting.

According to the study, roughly, 85 million Americans use social media to learn more about financial advisors. Six in 10 of these consumers say they use social media sites to find information on financial services products and services or were looking for reviews on financial professionals.

In opening arguments of Chacey Poynter’s capital murder trial Tuesday, prosecutors told jurors that the Texas woman only married Robert Poynter for his money, then carried on multiple affairs behind his back. Chacey Poynter was the beneficiary of a $680,000 life insurance policy, prosecutors say.

The Federal Reserve seems poised to pivot from keeping interest rates steady to holding out the option of cutting rates if it were to decide that the economic expansion needs support. When it ends its latest policy meeting Wednesday, the central bank is expected to at least signal an inclination to ease credit sometime within the next several months.

The Federal Reserve is expected to wrap up Wednesday’s meeting by leaving interest rates alone. But will the governors signal a coming rate cut? Behind the Fed’s thinking is concern about possible economic harm resulting from the Trump administration’s trade war with China and signs that the global economy is weakening.

The ESR Group had previously forecast growth of 2.3 percent in 2019 and 1.8 percent in 2020. The ESR Group now projects that the Federal Reserve will cut the federal funds rate by 25 basis points at the September meeting of its Federal Open Market Committee to fend off greater deceleration in domestic growth.

The rule proposed by the New Jersey Bureau of Securities would require all financial advisors registered in the state to act as fiduciaries, making New Jersey one of the first states to propose a uniform fiduciary standard for all financial services professionals.

Small business owners, their eye on the economy, are playing it safe when it comes to hiring. A U.S. Chamber of Commerce-MetLife survey released last week found 28% of small businesses plan to increase staffing in the next year, down from 29% in the first quarter. The survey found hiring was likely to be weaker in some industries.

When a cyber attack hits a company, the biggest issue facing that company is how to respond to multiple lawsuits that may arise from customers or employees who claim that their identity was stolen or that they incurred some type of financial loss from the breach.

By wisely leveraging one of the oldest financial products in existence — the trusty life insurance policy — retirees may be able to generate cash flow to help improve their retirement security.

Overall annuity sales fell 3.6% in the first quarter of 2019, with combined sales of fixed and variable annuities of $57.8 billion as compared to sales of $59.9 billion in the fourth quarter of 2018, according to the Insured Retirement Institute, based on data reported by Beacon Research and Morningstar.

The Trump administration is expanding options for employers to use special accounts to help workers buy their own health insurance, upgrade job-based coverage, or choose low-cost plans with limited benefits, officials said.

Why carriers need to see the agent as a customer and provide them tools, resources and methods to represent their products in the way the agent’s consumer wants to buy those products.

A new report find that retail investors are poised to allocate a larger portion of their assets to impact investments, if both products and offerings, and sales and advisory channels can evolve to accommodate their needs. More than half (55%) also expect to increase their impact investments over the next two years

Four of the five sitting Fed board governors were Trump picks, including Fed Chairman Jerome H. Powell, who was first appointed to the board by President Barack Obama and then elevated to chairman by Trump.

You’re busy taking care of your clients’ financial needs, but are you neglecting your own financial plan? One of the biggest challenges is managing cash flow. Most financial advisors are tied in some way to the performance of the market. Generally, as the markets drop, so does the income.

Commissioner Doug Ommen hopes to retain suitability ideas even as the word is scrubbed from his annuity sales proposal. The driving force is to harmonize state insurance regulations with the new Securities and Exchange Commission’s Regulation Best Interest, Ommen explained.

The 2019 Planning & Progress Study found that 46% of Americans expect to work past the traditional retirement age of 65. Nearly one out of five Baby Boomers (18%) and an equal percentage of Generation X (18%) expect to work even longer — past the age of 74.

Jack Bogle, the founder of Vanguard, the Malvern-based mutual fund giant, who died in January at age 89, was a man of many varied tastes. Five years before his death, he offered some tips for life, including some surprising advice on mixing business with life and family interests.

Men will need assistance for an average of 2.2 years, while women will need it for 3.7 years, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Administration on Aging. More than one-third will spend time in a nursing home, where the median annual cost of a private room is now more than $100,000, according to insurer Genworth’s 2018 Cost of Care Survey.

The House recently approved the Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement Act on a 417-3 vote. The lopsided approval reflected recognition of the fact that nearly half of U.S. households in which the primary wage earner is 55 or older had no retirement savings, according to a 2016 government report. But will the bill become law?

President Donald Trump is complaining that President Xi Jinping enjoys a major advantage in the U.S.-China trade war in that he controls China’s central bank while Trump must deal with a Federal Reserve that is “very destructive to us.”

A new survey uncovers a variety of topics, including financial habits and behaviors, and how consumers grade themselves on their knowledge of personal finance. The results show adults 18-24 rate their knowledge of personal finance much lower than adults in general, and only 1 in 10 give themselves an A.

I’ve been shouting from the rooftops for six months that the Federal Reserve is too tight on money, and that this lack of dollar liquidity has cut into growth. So it is somewhat vindicating that Fed Chairman Jerome Powell seems to finally coming around to that idea. The betting markets are now predicting at least one rate cut this year and perhaps two.

Life insurance could help alleviate financial disaster for many families who are caring for parents and loved ones.

The Great Recession officially ended – and the current recovery officially began – exactly a decade ago, in June 2009. That means we’ve now tied the record for the longest economic expansion on record, matching the 10-year business cycle upswing that ended in March 2001. Now what?

The National Association of Insurance Commissioners’ working group is studying a proposal to double the time indexes must be in existence to be used in annuity illustrations from 10 to 20 years. Regulators are concerned that consumers are being misled by unrealistic indexed annuity illustrations.

Just one year after the Department of Labor fiduciary rule was vacated, the financial services industry is again reeling and rejoicing (depending on where you are in the industry) after the Securities and Exchange Commission’s approval of Regulation Best Interest and its subsequent rulings.

Employees at small businesses are less likely to have disability insurance than those who work for larger employers, a Guardian Life study showed. The vast majority (92%) of Americans who have DI acquired it through their employer, Guardian said. And fewer Americans own DI, with an 11% drop in the percentage of those who have the product – from 65% in 2017 to 54% in 2018.

The three-fold rulemaking package, which debuted last April went up for a vote this morning as Chairman Jay Clayton and Commissioners Elad Roisman, Robert Jackson, Jr. and Hester Peirce gave their final thoughts on the matter before the vote.

It’s graduation season and, along with finding their first real-world jobs, new grads need help managing their finances. Managing money remains the most daunting challenge for college students, with nearly half of college students (47%) saying they do not feel prepared to manage their money.

The 10th annual Northwestern Mutual Planning and Progress study shows that Americans learned some lessons from the recession and used those lessons to work on improving their financial security – in particular, carrying less debt.

The Securities and Exchange Commission is voting tomorrow on a three-part rulemaking package containing regulation best interest.

Total first-quarter, non-variable deferred annuity sales were $33.4 billion — up 2.6% when compared to the previous quarter and up 44.8% when compared to the same period last year. Non-variable deferred annuities include the indexed annuity, traditional fixed annuity, and MYGA product lines.

The U.S. dollar fell to a five-month low against the yen on Tuesday, pressured by lingering concerns over a global economic slowdown and increased expectations for an interest rate hike by the Federal Reserve. On Tuesday the Reserve Bank of Australia, the country’s central bank, cut its main cash rate a quarter of a percentage point to a record low of 1.25 percent.

Senior citizens who need some form of additional healthcare can find it difficult to make financial ends meet, trying to find a way to turn a lower- to middle income (Social Security plus pension) of between $1,200 and $1,700 a month — plus any savings — into assisted living housing costs that can soar to $5,000.

As wedding season ramps up, you can help couples send the ultimate love letter – financial protection in sickness and in health – to their future selves. Protection-first planning should be the foundation of any couple’s financial plans – it’s the key that unlocks the door to future financial stability.

The surprise announcement by U.S. President Donald Trump to impose new tariffs on Mexico– an effort to stem illegal migration– shook world financial markets Friday, as all three major Wall Street indexes posted significant losses. Trump said Thursday the United States will impose a 5 percent tariff on all imports from Mexico.

The U.S. life/annuity industry’ s net income in the first quarter of 2019 rose sharply over the prior-year period, to $14.9 billion from $3.2 billion, due mainly to a significant decline in total expenses. According to the report, the L/A industry’ s total income for the first three months of 2019 declined slightly by 1.3% from the prior-year period.

Commissions are not the reason health care costs are so high, representatives of two health insurance agents groups told InsuranceNewsNet.

The total number of individual life insurance policies sold in the first quarter 2019 decreased 3%, compared with the same quarter of the prior year. New annualized premium increased just 1% in first quarter. The data comes from LIMRA’s U.S. Individual Life Insurance Sales Survey.

Created with Raymond James, the new annuity will be offered through financial institutions, banks and independent broker dealers. It is the only annuity on the market to offer crediting strategies with both upside and downside participation rates, Great American Life said in a news release.

Pacific Life is partnering with Salesforce on a new initiative it calls the NextGen CRM Program, designed to bridge the gap between Pacific Life’s sales, service and marketing teams and reimagine how they engage with financial professionals, Pacific Life said in a news release.

You might think that HENRYs (High Earners, Not Rich Yet) would be doing just fine after college, but they’re in serious debt just like most other new grads. In fact, in some ways, they face a few added challenges. Student loan debt sits at $1.4 trillion, and nearly 40% of borrowers are expected to be in default by 2023, according The Brookings Institution.

Often the best way to make some money decisions is to choose an option that’s good enough, then get on with your life. Target-date retirement funds, flat-rate cash-back credit cards and 529 college savings plans are just some of the products you can use to make a decision that starts building your assets now, rather than waiting to compare every possibility.

Health benefits brokers would be subject to disclosure requirements as part of a sweeping health care bill introduced in the U.S. Senate.

A National Association of Insurance Commissioners’ subgroup held an at-times contentious conference call Tuesday to discuss AG 49. Regulators and industry representatives sparred over whether insurers are trying to ‘game the system’ with IUL illustrations, or just being ‘innovative.’

Non-variable universal life sales for the first quarter were over $768.2 million, down 20.4% compared to the previous quarter and down nearly 13% from the first quarter 2018, according to Wink’s Sales & Market Report. New CSO requirements and less time devoted to sales are likely causes of the poor numbers, said Sheryl Moore of Wink.

Some are making the argument that the Federal Reserve Board could use a fresh perspective — one less rooted in academia and more in the real world. Traditionally run by stodgy economist types, the Fed still relies on many economic indicators that other experts have long ignored.

After a contentious comment period and a listening tour, the commissioners have set June 5 to vote on its Regulation Best Interest rule.

A court has scheduled a July 9 hearing on a Texas-based judge’s ruling that the Affordable Care Act is unconstitutional.

Under a unanimous consent maneuver, the Setting Every Community Up for Retirement (SECURE) Act could be voted on quickly. That means that the Senate could pass the bill Friday, as long as no senator objects The bill would expand access for annuities inside plans, and allow small employers to band together to offer plans.

The Setting Every Community Up for Retirement (SECURE) Act is designed to expand access to workplace retirement plans, particularly for small businesses, and will improve the ability for employers to extend greater access to lifetime income options in those plans.

Although the government shutdown is a well-known example of a disruption in income, it’s more likely that Americans will see their income grind to a halt as a result of an illness or disability. So why aren’t they lining up to buy disability insurance?

A group annuity risk transfer product, such as a pension buy-out product, allows an employer to transfer all or a portion of its pension liability to an insurer. These product sales surpassed $4.7 billion in the first quarter 2019, an increase of 240% year-over-year.

Insurance-quote websites designed to resemble the government-run marketplaces spend millions of dollars for top billing on Google when people search keywords like “Obamacare plans,” “ACA insurance,” and even “healthcare.gov.” Rather than selling insurance directly, they hand off consumers to agents.