Money, in brief

Five million fewer Americans have marketplace health insurance than at the 2025 record of 24.2 million, government data published on 26 June shows. [1]

The extra premium tax credits were created in 2021 and extended in 2022. They ended on 1 January 2026 because Congress did not vote to keep them. [7][5]

On average, what an enrollee pays to keep the same plan rose 114%. A family of four earning $75,000 went from $2,498 a year to $5,865 for the benchmark plan. [6][7]

Enrollment fell from 21.8 million in February 2025 to 19.2 million in February 2026, the steepest one-year drop since the marketplaces opened in 2014. [2]

More than a million fewer people picked a plan, and another four million stopped paying or left during the year. Only 83% of people who picked a plan paid the first bill, down from 91%. [1][2]

States that run their own marketplace lost 6.3% of enrollees. States that use HealthCare.gov, the federal website, lost 18.7%. [2]

Many people moved to cheaper plans with bigger deductibles. The average deductible rose 37%, more than $1,000 a person, and silver-plan enrollment fell by almost four million to its lowest ever. [4]

For Amy Jackson, a 56-year-old medical biller in Missouri diagnosed with breast cancer in October, the monthly premium went from $275 to $1,250, half her wage. [8]

The Trump administration says brokers had signed people up improperly, and the marketplace agency cancelled 250,000 unauthorised enrollments in 2025. Researchers at KFF and Georgetown say the price rise explains most of the drop. [2][1]

Insurers set 2026 premiums 26% higher, partly expecting healthier people to leave. [8] They are now asking for a typical 14% more for 2027, and Cigna will not sell marketplace plans next year. [2][1]

More than three in four enrollees live in states Trump won in 2024, and enrollment more than tripled in five years in Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, Georgia and West Virginia. [14]

The US Senate voted on 11 December 2025 on an extension and on a Republican alternative built around health savings accounts. Neither reached the 60 votes needed. [16]

Why it matters. Watch whether state regulators approve the double-digit rate requests for 2027 and whether more insurers follow Cigna out; KFF expects enrollment to fall to between 16.5 and 17.5 million by the end of 2026. [2][1]

On the night of 9 January President Trump posted that credit card interest rates would be capped at 10% from 20 January, the first anniversary of his second inauguration. [20] He gave no detail on how the cap would be enforced, and it is unclear whether a president can set one without Congress passing a law. [20][21] When 20 January arrived no bank had cut its rates. [22] A White House list of the year's achievements said Trump had 'directed' card companies to cap rates, which reads as voluntary. [22]

Why it matters. The average card rate was 22.3% in November 2025, so a real cap would halve what people carrying a balance pay. [21] Without a law, nothing changed for them.

The Bank Policy Institute speaks for large US banks. It said two-thirds of cardholders who carry a balance from month to month could lose their credit lines, or have them cut, under a 10% cap. [21] Brian Shearer of Vanderbilt University studied the proposal. He says banks make six times the profit on cards that they make on everything else, and a cap would save Americans about $100bn. [22] Sara Rathner of NerdWallet says lower credit limits could hurt people's credit scores. [22]

Why it matters. A cap would cut the rate for everyone who keeps a card. It would also decide who keeps one, and the people with the most debt would be dropped first. [22]

Bankrate's weekly average credit card rate was 19.56% on 9 September 2026, down from a record 20.79% set on 14 August 2024. [23] The usual formula is the prime rate plus a profit margin the issuer sets, typically 12 to 13 percentage points; the prime rate is 6.75%. [23] Cards carry a higher markup than mortgages or car loans because there is no house or car to seize if the borrower stops paying. [23] Most cards tie their rate to prime, so a Federal Reserve move passes through within a month or two. [23]

Why it matters. A 10% cap sits below prime plus the margin banks say they need. [23] So the fight is over which customers would still be offered a card at all. [21]

Two agencies supervise most US banks: the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. Their final rule removed 'reputational risk' from bank supervision on 9 June. [24] The next day the US Attorney's Office in Washington DC subpoenaed JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Wells Fargo. [24] The question is whether their account closures broke federal law. [24] The Federal Reserve proposed on 23 February 2026 to write the same removal into its own rules. [25] Its vice chair for supervision, Michelle Bowman, said supervisors had used reputation risk to pressure banks to drop customers over political views, religious beliefs or lawful but disfavoured businesses. [25]

Why it matters. The rule does not just end a practice; it leaves five years of board-level closure decisions open to lawsuits, which is why the subpoenas followed within a day. [24]

A Somali community leader in Birmingham collected about 4,000 pounds from friends between July and September to pay for a weekend trip to a farm in Wales. [26] They froze money she sent her sister for plane tickets, and froze a savings club where friends each paid in 200 pounds a month. [26] Any sum over 250 pounds is held until she explains where it came from. [26] A 2022 US poll found more than a quarter of Muslims had been refused an account or had one suspended, three times the rate for white evangelicals. [26]

Why it matters. The checks come from rules written after the 11 September 2001 attacks. [26] In 2002 the Financial Action Task Force told banks to watch charities 'targeted at a particular community', and the cost lands on people moving small sums. [26]

Steve Happ is an elder at the Servants of Christ Church in Memphis. In 2023, as he packed for a mission trip to Uganda, Bank of America told him it was cancelling the church's account and his credit cards. [28] He had more than $270,000 in three accounts there, including one for a charity that funds orphanages in Uganda. [28] The letters said the bank had decided not to serve 'a business type we have chosen not to service'. [28] Banks are now racing to show they have not dropped conservative customers, and say closures were about financial risk and regulatory pressure. [28]

Why it matters. His story helped drive the Trump administration's campaign against what it calls debanking, and the consumer bureau now runs a task force on it with the Justice Department. [28][27]

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is the US agency that polices banks and lenders. It says it no longer uses 'disparate impact' in fair lending, the idea that a rule discriminates if its results fall on one group. [27] Instead it checks banks against an executive order that no American be denied services for political or religious beliefs. [27] The page describing this was last changed on 28 May 2026. [27]

Why it matters. What counts as discrimination has been narrowed to intent with named victims, so a pattern that falls on one group without anyone meaning it to is no longer a case. [27]

The terms of most US bank accounts include the right to close the account at any time, for any reason. [29] When that happens, the remaining balance is usually mailed as a cheque, as long as no fees are owed. [29] A closure for suspected fraud or unpaid fees can be reported to ChexSystems, the agency that records banking history, which makes opening an account elsewhere harder. [29] Automatic payments and deposits then fail. [29]

Why it matters. The contract makes the bank's decision final. The fights above, over politics, religion and terror rules, are all fights over how that clause gets used. [29]

RealPage, a Texas company whose software gives landlords daily suggestions for what to charge, settled a federal antitrust case on 24 November without paying damages or admitting wrongdoing. [30] Landlords fed the company confidential data on their rents and occupancy, and US prosecutors said the algorithm suggested rents above what a competitive market would set. [31] Under the settlement, which needs a judge's approval, the software may no longer use current lease data, and any non-public data must be at least a year old. [30][31] Greystar, the largest US landlord, paid $50m and $7m in two settlements over its use of the software. [30]

Why it matters. Ten states that joined the original suit were not part of the settlement, and New York and California have passed their own bans on rent-setting software. [30][31]

A viral claim says BlackRock is buying all the houses. BlackRock is an asset manager that owns very little property; the firm people mean is Blackstone, which bought thousands of foreclosed homes after 2008. [32] A 2022 Urban Institute study found institutional investors held about 574,000 single-family rentals, 3.8% of the 15.1 million in the United States. [32] In Atlanta, though, large institutional owners controlled about 25% of single-family rentals that year. [32]

Why it matters. The national share is small. Where a few firms hold many similar homes in one area and share pricing data, as in the RealPage case, tenants have fewer real choices. [32]

The UK state pension age started rising from 66 to 67 in April 2026, and the change will take about two years. [34][33] The first people affected were born between 6 April and 5 May 1960 and wait one extra month. [34] Official figures show men in Wokingham can expect good health until nearly 70, against nearly 52 for men in Blackpool and 53 for women in Barnsley. [33]

Why it matters. The Institute for Fiscal Studies says the people most affected are those least able to keep working or draw on savings. [33] Past rises lifted employment among the affected ages by 10 percentage points. [33]

The UK state pension rose 4.8% in April 2026, more than 500 pounds a year, because average earnings grew faster than the September 2025 inflation figure of 3.8%. [34] Under the triple lock, introduced by the coalition government in 2010, the pension rises each April by the highest of inflation, earnings growth or 2.5%. [34] The Office for Budget Responsibility said in July 2025 the guarantee will cost three times what was expected, reaching 15.5bn pounds a year by 2030. [34] The state pension now costs 138bn pounds, about half of all benefit spending. [34]

Why it matters. More than 12 million people receive the pension, and the chancellor has promised to keep the lock until the end of this parliament. [34]

Tracey Morris is a single mother of five from Huddersfield who works full-time for the council. [35] Since the two-child benefit limit ended she receives just under 300 pounds more a month for each of three children. [35] The child element of universal credit rises automatically from May, and 59% of the families gaining are in work. [35] But the health element, paid to claimants whose disability limits work, is halved for new claimants, while 2.8 million existing ones are protected. [35]

Why it matters. Income tax thresholds stay frozen until 2031, so more people pay tax or move into higher bands as wages rise, which economists call a stealth tax. [35]

From 6 April 2027 the amount an adult under 65 can put into a cash ISA, a tax-free savings account, falls from 20,000 pounds to 12,000 pounds. [36] Some providers already report a spike of money into cash accounts ahead of the cut. [36] From April 2027 the basic rate of tax on dividends rises from 8.75% to 10.75% and the higher rate from 33.75% to 35.75%. [36] From the 2027-28 tax year, tax on savings interest outside an ISA rises by two percentage points at every rate, to 22%, 42% and 47%. [36]

Why it matters. The UK government's stated aim is to push savers from cash into shares and pensions. [36] Every one of these changes carries a date that is already fixed.

Making Tax Digital, the UK's move to quarterly tax reporting, started in April 2026 for sole traders and landlords earning more than 50,000 pounds from that work. [36] They must now send income and expenses to HMRC every quarter instead of one annual return. [36] The 31 January deadline stays, as the date for a final declaration of the year's affairs. [36] The same April brought the National Living Wage to 12.71 pounds an hour for those aged 21 and over, and cut venture capital trust tax relief from 30% to 20%. [36]

Why it matters. A self-employed cleaner or a landlord with one flat now has four filing dates a year where there was one. [36]

More than 72.5 million Americans on Social Security get a 2.8% cost-of-living rise in 2026, taking the average retired worker's monthly payment from $2,015 to $2,071. [37] The maximum for a worker retiring at full retirement age is $4,152 a month. [37] A 1983 law raised that age from 65 to 67 in stages, and the phase-in ended with people born in 1960 or later, whose full retirement age is 67. [37] Wages up to $184,500 now carry the 6.2% Social Security tax, up from $176,100. [37]

Why it matters. The trustees project the combined trust fund can pay full benefits until 2034; after that, incoming tax would cover 81% of what is promised. [37]

The monthly premium for Medicare Part B, the part of the US health programme for over-65s that covers doctor visits, is projected to rise from $185 to $206.50 in 2026. [19] Its annual deductible goes from $257 to $288, and the Part D drug deductible from $590 to $615. [19] The cap on out-of-pocket drug costs, set by the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, rises from $2,000 to $2,100. [19] Premiums for private Medicare Advantage plans and standalone drug plans are expected to fall on average. [19]

Why it matters. George Huntley of the Diabetes Patient Advocacy Coalition says the lower and more fixed a person's income, the more they feel these rises. [19]

About 34% of marketplace plans chosen for 2025 had a net premium of zero after the credit, roughly eight million people, Brookings economist Matthew Fiedler estimates. [17] Studies in Massachusetts found enrollment 12% lower among people asked to pay $1 a month instead of nothing, mainly because paying adds a step that some people never complete. [17] A minimum premium would have pushed about 960,000 people out of coverage in 2025 and saved the US government about $7bn. [17] A Trump administration rule now re-enrols people with $0 plans at $5 a month, waived if they re-verify their income; it is tied up in court. [11]

Why it matters. The people who drop out over a dollar tend to be younger and healthier, which raises everyone else's premium and eats into the saving. [17]

About 85% of people buying their own cover get a subsidy, and for them a rise in the sticker price changes nothing, because the credit rises with it. [9] When the subsidy formula shrinks, the enrollee's share jumps instead, which Brookings' Matthew Fiedler says has never happened on this scale in the marketplaces. [9] Insurers raised 2026 sticker prices partly because they expected the people left behind to be sicker than today's average. [9] Chloe Chalakani, a 31-year-old pasta maker in Maine paying $460 a month for the highest-deductible plan, said she would go without cover in 2026. [15]

Why it matters. KFF's Cynthia Cox describes the danger: the least sick person drops out, prices rise, and the next least sick person drops out the following year. [15] She says the markets are not there yet. [1]

The credit is paid in advance to the insurer based on the income a household expects to earn. [18] It is then reconciled on the tax return with Form 8962. [12] For tax years before 2026 a cap limited how much of any overpayment had to be returned. [12] The 2025 budget law removed that cap, so for 2026 onwards the whole excess is subtracted from the refund or added to the bill. [12][7] Enrollment specialists said this year it mattered more than ever to report income changes to the marketplace as they happen. [7]

Why it matters. A freelancer whose income comes in higher than guessed in January now owes the full difference the following April. [12]

EU member states have just passed the deadline to write the bloc's pay transparency directive into national law. [39] From June 2027 every organisation with more than 250 employees must publish annual data on what it pays men and women, overall and in similar roles. [38] An unexplained gap above 5% must be assessed and a plan made to narrow it. [38] An FT analysis found the median country with mandatory reporting cut its gap 25% since 2014, against 17% for those without. [38]

Why it matters. UK research found firms just above the 250-employee line closed their gap faster than firms just below it. [38] But in the UK and Denmark the gap narrowed partly because men's pay grew more slowly, not because women's grew faster. [38]

Australia's Workplace Gender Equality Agency has published the pay gaps of large employers since 2024. [40] Across more than 7,000 organisations the average gap in total pay fell from 13.1% to 12.7% between 2023-24 and 2024-25. [40] It still widened at about 45% of them. [40] Qantas and Virgin report gaps of 40.1% and 45.1%. [40] The average gap in the federal public sector is 7.5%, about half the private sector's 12.3%. [40] Around two in three employers now analyse their own gap, and a quarter have a target to reduce it. [40]

Why it matters. Bonuses, overtime and shift loadings drive much of the gap; on base salary alone it is 10% in the private sector. [40] Employees can look up their own employer's number on the agency's website. [40]

Women in the UK will not be paid the same as men until 2056 at the current rate of progress, the Trades Union Congress said in February. [41] The gap stands at 12.8%, or 2,548 pounds a year, which the union says means women have in effect worked for nothing so far this year. [41] It is 27.2% in finance and insurance and 17% in education. [41] Research published in August 2025 found the Office for National Statistics had understated the gap for 20 years. [41]

Why it matters. The Employment Rights Act will make employers publish action plans on their gaps; the TUC says weak plans will change nothing. [41]

Staff of colour working for MPs and peers earn about 2,000 pounds a year less than white colleagues, a GMB union report based on 174 cases found in October 2025. [42] Women earn about 1,000 pounds less than men in similar jobs and disabled staff 646 pounds less; women of colour earn almost 6,000 pounds less than white men. [42] These workers are employed by individual MPs, not by Parliament, and only employers with more than 250 staff must publish pay-gap data. [42]

Why it matters. The UK government plans to require ethnicity and disability pay-gap reporting; today there is no legal duty to publish either. [42]

Women in Canada earn about 84 cents for every dollar men make; racialised men earn 78 cents for every dollar non-racialised men earn, and racialised women 59 cents. [43] The 1977 Canadian Human Rights Act defined wage discrimination only between men and women, and the 2018 Pay Equity Act makes federal employers correct gender gaps but not racial ones. [43] Even with the same education, Black male graduates earn 11 to 13% less than non-racialised peers. [43] Employers must count the representation of visible minorities but need not fix their pay. [43]

Why it matters. The 'visible minority' label covers more than 450 origins with very different outcomes, which makes a single campaign harder to run. [43]

Over 40% of working-age Bangladeshi adults and 35% of Pakistani adults in the UK are in poverty despite paid work, against 11% of white workers, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation reports. [51] Workers from these groups and Black workers are more likely to be on zero-hours contracts and in part-time jobs that do not give enough hours. [51] Almost a quarter of ethnic minorities in gig work say it is their main income, against 19% of white workers. [51] An estimated two-thirds of Black and minority ethnic people report racial harassment or bullying at work. [51]

Why it matters. The foundation says visa rules that tie a worker's right to stay to one employer raise the risk of exploitation, including debt bondage. [51]