SENIOR DAILY BENEFITS - September 13, 2026

Good morning, and happy Grandparents Day. This week a House committee chairman, the likely next Budget chairman and a senator from Ohio said something Republicans have not said about Social Security in forty years: the fix will include more revenue. Here is what each version would cost, who writes the check, and the tax increase on retirees nobody in the debate mentions. After that, the $1,000 account most eligible grandchildren still do not have, and the January premium increase for anyone still on a work health plan.

ON THE MONEY TODAY:
* Three Republicans said out loud that Social Security's fix will include higher taxes. The proposal is the $184,500 wage cap. What it raises, who pays, and why it does not reach solvency alone [link removed]
* It is Grandparents Day, and 6 in 10 eligible babies still do not have the $1,000 Trump Account. A grandparent can open it. Here is how, and the one mistake to avoid [link removed]
* Three employer surveys agree work health plans rise 9% to 11% in January. Still working at 60 or 65? The eight-month Medicare window and the HSA trap [link removed]

BEHIND THE HEADLINE
The first half of a sentence
For forty years the Republican answer on Social Security's finances was one word. This month Lloyd Smucker, Tom Cole and Bernie Moreno said a different one, and Moreno wrote a bill with Elizabeth Warren. We think that is the most honest thing said in Washington since June, and that every version deserves the same costing as a benefit cut. The table, and the tax retirees are already paying, are in the article.
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WASHINGTON
Some Republicans now say raise Social Security taxes. What each fix costs, and who pays
Lift the cap, add a donut hole above $250,000, or raise the 12.4% rate: three versions, three different people writing the check, and none of them reaches solvency alone. The article costs each one, explains why 1983 is the model, and names the tax on retirees that has risen every year since 1984 without a single vote.
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GRANDPARENTS DAY
6 in 10 eligible babies still don't have their $1,000. A grandparent can open the account
Bill Ackman says skipping a Trump Account over the name is "stupid," and the numbers say most families are doing exactly that. The account is money returned to a family that earned it. The article has who qualifies, how a grandparent opens it in an afternoon, what the $1,000 becomes by 18, and the one contribution mistake that costs the tax break.
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HEALTH COSTS
Work health plans rise 9% to 11% in January. The number to run before Medicare starts
Aon, the Business Group on Health and WTW all land in the same place: the largest increase on record, and 85% of employers plan to pass it on. For a worker at 60 the bridge to Medicare just got pricier; for one past 65 it is the year to compare the paycheck deduction with Part B. The article has both columns, the two rules that decide timing, and the HSA trap.
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MONEY IQ: Social Security benefits become taxable above $25,000 of "combined income" for a single filer and $32,000 for a married couple. Those thresholds were set in 1983. How many times have they been adjusted for inflation since?
A) Never
B) Once, in 1993
C) Every year, with the COLA
D) Every ten years

ALSO MAKING THE ROUNDS TODAY:
SOCIAL SECURITY: Five Social Security numbers reset on October 14: the raise, the wage cap, the two earnings-test limits, and the Medicare deduction that follows. The retirement age is not one of them. [link removed]
DEBT AFTER 60: Up to 15% of a Social Security check can be taken for a defaulted federal student loan, even one from 1994. It is paused right now. The three ways out of default before it restarts. [link removed]
SOCIAL SECURITY: File after full retirement age and Social Security offers six months of back pay in one deposit. It costs $88 a month for life, and your widow's check too. The one age where the catch disappears. [link removed]
WASHINGTON: Trump's $5,000 "dividend" would be 3.5 times the largest pandemic check, and tariffs to date cover 13% of it. The three gates before a check exists, and the tax catch on the other side. [link removed]

WORTH REMEMBERING: A solvency deal is coming, probably late, and it will have revenue in it. The honest version is not "tax the rich" against "cut benefits"; it is a table with every lever and a cost next to each one, including the thresholds that have been quietly taxing retirees since 1984. Three Republicans put one lever on the table this week. Ask your representative to put the rest.

MONEY IQ ANSWER: A) Never - The 1993 law added a second, higher tier ($34,000 and $44,000) at which up to 85% of benefits become taxable, but it did not index either tier, and no law since has. In 1984 the tax reached about one retiree in ten; today roughly half of Social Security households pay some income tax on their benefits, and every COLA pushes more of them over the line. It is the one Social Security tax increase that has never needed a vote.

>> Did you pay federal income tax on your Social Security benefits last year? Reply yes or no, and if you know it, roughly what share of your check it took. We'll print the tally, no names.
(Just hit reply. A person reads every one.)

Thanks for reading. Take care of your money, your family and your neighbors, and we'll see you tomorrow morning.

Today's newsletter was written and edited by the Senior Daily Benefits team.

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