What college costs — and what it's worth
What college costs — and what it's worth
With tuition costs rising and student debt weighing many Americans down, how valuable is higher education in this day and age? The answer is complicated. On average, people with a college degree earn much more, and there's social benefits, too. But it doesn't pay off for everybody, and with AI encroaching on white-collar work, the decision becomes even trickier. Drew Goins, Molly Roberts and Heather Long talk about college's true value and which alternatives deserve more investment.
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Newsweek
28 minutes ago
- Newsweek
Social Security Update: Payments Of Up To $5,108 Due This Week
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. Retirees who receive social security benefits will get their monthly payment this week. Why It Matters The Social Security Administration (SSA) pays out retirement, survivor and disability benefits to more than 70 million Americans on a monthly basis. It forms a bedrock of income for millions who are retired, disabled or the survivor of a deceased worker. Payments are administered in one lump sum for most recipients, but because of the large number of recipients, not every claimant receives their payment on the same date each month. What To Know On Wednesday, June 11, benefit payments are scheduled to be made to those with a birthday between the 1st and 10th of any given month in the year. Anyone who hasn't received their payment on the expected date should allow three working days before contacting the SSA. Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays are not working days. A stock image shows a Social Security card with U.S. dollars. A stock image shows a Social Security card with U.S. dollars. GETTY How Much Social Security Can I Get? As of January 2025, the average monthly Social Security retirement benefit came in at $1,976. However, the exact amount each person receives depends on their lifetime earnings and the number of years they paid in payroll taxes over the course of their working life. Those who retire at age 62 can receive up to $2,831 per month. Waiting until full retirement age (67) increases the maximum benefit to $4,018. For those who delay claiming until age 70, the monthly benefit rises to a maximum of $5,108. If you receive Supplemental Security Income—for elderly, blind and disabled Americans with little to no income—the 2025 maximum is $967 for individuals and $1,450 for couples. However, payments may be lower than this as they are based on income, living situation and other eligibility factors. Further Payment Dates For June In June, benefits will be paid on the following dates: Wednesday, June 18 : Benefits for those born between the 11th and 20th. : Benefits for those born between the 11th and 20th. Wednesday, June 25: Benefits for those with birthdays between the 21st and 30th. Social Security Fairness Act More than a million Americans who were impacted by the passage of the Social Security Fairness Act earlier this year have already begun receiving updated benefits. But the SSA recently updated beneficiaries expecting higher and retroactive payments, saying there are delays to some claims. Updated benefit amounts, as well as retroactive payments back to December 2023, began in April. While 91 percent of the those impacted are now receiving full benefits, there are still some "complex cases" that are taking longer to update. "For the many complex cases that cannot be processed automatically, additional time is required to manually update the records and pay both retroactive benefits and the new benefits amount," the SSA said in an update on its website. "We are expediting these cases now."
Business Insider
an hour ago
- Business Insider
The rise of layoff culture
Shaffan Mustafa was laid off for the first time in 2020. Four years later, in January 2024, the software engineer in Ohio was laid off again. Then, in September, he was let go from a contract job. "I wish I could say I didn't have experience with layoffs, but unfortunately, I have a bit too much," he tells me. The first time, he found it depressing. It took him 10 months of scouring job boards and hundreds of unanswered applications before he landed his next role at a local consulting company. The second time, says the 29-year-old, "I was still sad about it, but at that point it wasn't as unexpected." His third layoff in five years has been different. In the middle of yet another job search a few months ago, he came across a Substack called Laid Off. "I probably typed something like 'being laid off sucks' and found it that way," he says. After reading several people's layoff stories on the Substack, he felt less alone. He became a paid subscriber and joined the dedicated Discord group where members went into more detail about their layoffs, shared job updates, and ranted about the state of the economy. Mustafa checks the group daily, sometimes every few hours. The Substack is the brainchild of Melanie Ehrenkranz. After being laid off herself from her role as a newsletter editor at a financial technology startup in 2023, she wanted a way to process the experience. "I felt like there wasn't really a lot of spotlight on the individual experience of a layoff outside of a LinkedIn post or a tweet or a group chat with a couple of your friends," she says. Ehrenkranz, 35, found a job nine months after being laid off, but she decided to launch the newsletter anyway. In August 2024, she shared her first post, an interview with a social media producer laid off from Condé Nast, asking her questions such as, "Where were you when you found out?" and "What was your greatest financial concern with the sudden loss of income?" and "Has being laid off changed how you view your relationship to work?" She has since been inundated with people willing to share their stories. Within two months, Laid Off grew to 5,000 subscribers. Recently, it surpassed 10,000. The number of Americans facing long-term unemployment has crept up from 1.05 million in February 2023 to over 1.67 million as of last month. Since 2022, more than half a million tech workers have been laid off — one analysis found there had been about 90,000 tech layoffs in the first five months of 2025. Amid the job losses, a new culture around layoffs has sprung up. Workers are livestreaming their layoffs to audiences of millions on TikTok. The post-layoff note on LinkedIn has become so ubiquitous that it's now a social media cliché. Many of the newly laid-off have no qualms declaring themselves #OpenToWork. There's even layoff merch now. To welcome the legions of freshly unemployed, a network of layoff support groups has emerged. On Reddit, r/Layoffs is in the top 2% of subreddits by size, with more than 120,000 members. On LinkedIn, there are more than 100 groups for those affected by layoffs, including company-specific groups for Meta, X, and Amazon. Across social platforms, layoff influencers are attracting thousands of followers by sharing advice and commiserating with those in the same boat. While workers can't change the fact of being laid off, they are no longer taking it lying down. In the 1990s, layoffs had become more or less standard business practice, but there was still a major taboo around them. "We've all heard those stories about a dad who was laid off," says Denise Rousseau, a professor of organizational behavior and public policy at Carnegie Mellon University. "Every day, instead of going to work, he goes to the mall and spends eight hours there before coming home. He's embarrassed to not be working." The pandemic changed layoff culture. People stuck at home on their laptops all day began broadcasting their unemployed status. Then the pandemic changed layoff culture. More than a fifth of the American workforce was laid off during the first few months of COVID-19, a decline in employment not seen since the end of World War II. Layoffs stopped being seen as an individual failing but as an unfortunate byproduct of economic instability. People stuck at home on their laptops all day began broadcasting their unemployed status. LinkedIn introduced its green #OpenToWork banner in June 2020. The post-layoff note, with its cheery tone and calls to "reach out if you're hiring," quickly became standard practice. As more layoffs have hit in the past year, the stigma has vanished even more. "It used to be if you got laid off, it's because you're a screwup — you're just a bad employee," Mustafa says. "Now it's just par for the course." For some, being laid off became not just a LinkedIn update but lucrative content. Giovanna Ventola, a commercial real estate worker, first went viral for sharing advice to other job seekers after being laid off three times in three years, Bloomberg reported. She has gained nearly 30,000 followers sharing her perspective on coping with unemployment and has launched a professional networking platform, Rhize. Others have documented their days-in-the-life navigating being newly unemployed. In her newsletter, Ehrenkranz has spotlighted stories from everyone from a design intern for the National Park Service to a creative director at Google. "I definitely think it's opening up people's eyes to the fact that a layoff is not this thing that happens to a certain type of person in a certain industry," Ehrenkranz says. "It's something that can happen to anyone." The new visibility of layoffs doesn't make it any easier when a call with HR gets added to your calendar. Research published in the International Journal of Mental Health found that losing a job increased the risk of depression, risky substance use, and suicide. For Mustafa, being laid off meant involuntarily grinding his teeth at night and having debilitating stress headaches. Christine Reichenbach was laid off from her chief of staff role at the cloud computing company VMware in January 2024 while she was 34 weeks pregnant. It quickly sent her into a downward spiral. She ended up on postpartum anxiety medication and, despite having ample savings, put her baby in day care at seven weeks to frantically hunt for a new job. "It was very illogical," she says. "It's just what it did to my brain." At the time, Reichenbach was introduced to a Discord group called The Labor Club, a referral-only application-based group of 500 women who have experienced being laid off while pregnant or postpartum. "It's a specific niche that was just awful to experience," Reichenbach says. Her husband, though supportive, couldn't relate to what she was going through. "He has no idea what it's like to be laid off pregnant." Instead, she had a pool of women to turn to for both practical resources and, importantly, emotional support. After some soul-searching, Reichenbach decided to leave Big Tech altogether and founded her own company, The Phoenix Formula, at the start of this year with the goal of empowering other job seekers. She is also building her own support group, Beyond the Layoffs, on LinkedIn and Slack. "People need a space for this to actually be constructive," she says. If members need a space to yell in all caps, there's a channel for that. "I hope it's a place people can vent on a bad day and it's not on social media for hiring managers to see," she says. As the stigma around layoffs disappears, the boundaries of professionalism on social media have become increasingly blurred. Ask any recruiter, and they'll say bad-mouthing a previous employer on social media is tantamount to career cyanide. "It gives me alarm bells," says Brad Thomas, a business manager at Orange Quarter, a tech recruitment company in New York. "It's the same as when a candidate interviews somewhere — talking bad in an unprofessional manner about a previous employer is just not a good look." His advice when it comes to posting on social media is to keep it professional. In the new culture of layoffs, however, there is an important caveat. "The size of the company makes a difference," Thomas explains. "If someone has a pop at Meta or Google, it's less personal and less damaging to the brand versus a startup of 30 people." As the stigma around layoffs disappears, the boundaries of professionalism on social media have become increasingly blurred. Earlier this year, when Meta let go of some 4,000 workers, branding them as " low performers" on the way out, the departing employees refused to leave quietly, pushing back on the label on LinkedIn. As Business Insider's Aki Ito wrote, "This is something we haven't seen before in the professional world: Employees sticking up for themselves in public, and calling out their former employer for misrepresenting their work." Both the social media posts and the private communities offer a kind of testimony that shifts blame from the employee back onto the employer. Ehrenkranz has had many people tell her that being interviewed for Laid Off or filling out her surveys is a cathartic experience. "A layoff these days is a 10-minute Zoom call, shut your computer, and then you're thrown into this new chapter," she says. Having a dedicated space to talk about being laid off with those who get it is a relief for Mustafa. "I don't really feel like I'm being pushy or shoving my layoff experiences down someone's throat," he says. While there is power in numbers, for some, those numbers can be overwhelming. A friend of Mustafa's left the Discord group shortly after joining. "She was getting emotionally burned out from hearing about layoffs," he explains. "She's fortunately a freelance writer, so she's making some money. She can just tune out that stuff if she wants to. For me, I'm still desperately tuned in." Ehrenkranz focuses on making sure the Laid Off community is a toxic-positivity-free zone. "I would say the vibe is just real," she says. "There's no 'Everything happens for a reason' or 'You'll get the next one.' People don't want to hear that." Rather than just a place to wallow, many of these support groups are designed as both a safety net and a springboard for when members are ready to begin the hunt for their next role. Fana Yohannes, a social media consultant and former Meta employee, founded the group Here2Help to give job seekers a leg up. In the wake of the 2020 layoffs, she posted on Instagram that she was open to reviewing and providing feedback on five people's résumés. "One person replied and was like, actually, I'd be down to help too," she says. From there, Yohannes says, Here2Help grew to 200 mentors who helped about 2,000 people find new opportunities during COVID. "We've come to an era where layoffs are part of the job," Yohannes says. "We have to kind of be strategic." After four months of sending out applications, Mustafa has a second interview lined up for another tech role. Even if he gets the job, he plans on staying in the Laid Off community for a while — just in case. "I can't trust these people anymore," he says about employers.
CNN
an hour ago
- CNN
Hedge funds could make billions from a Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac spin-off
A long-held stake by a handful of hedge funds may finally yield returns under the Trump administration, but it risks sending shockwaves through America's $12 trillion mortgage market. Last month, President Donald Trump said he had plans to take mortgage financing giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac public. Such a move would end 17 years of federal government conservatorship over the two companies, which have played a central role in America's housing finance system by providing liquidity to the mortgage market. Some experts warn that severing Fannie and Freddie from government control could raise mortgage rates and restrict access to popular mortgage products — like the 30-year fixed loan — at a time when housing affordability remains out of reach for many Americans. Last week, Senate Democrats sent a letter to William Pulte, who leads the Federal Housing Finance Agency, asking him to pause efforts to take the two public, citing the risk that it could increase costs for homebuyers. A group of investors has been anxiously awaiting the day Fannie and Freddie return to the public markets. None has been more vocal than billionaire investor Bill Ackman, whose hedge fund, Pershing Square Capital, is one of the largest holders of common shares in Fannie and Freddie. 'We have been leading the charge on behalf of all (Fannie and Freddie) shareholders to help them to exit from conservatorship,' Ackman posted on social media on Tuesday. A representative for Ackman pointed to his commentary on social media when asked about Pershing Square's current stake. Ackman isn't the only hedge fund investor who bet on Fannie and Freddie after the government seized them during the 2008 financial crisis, when both were on the brink of collapse. Other investors, including billionaire hedge fund managers Carl Icahn and John Paulson, have previously disclosed stakes in Fannie and Freddie, though neither responded to CNN's request for information about the current size of their stakes. Taking the two mortgage giants public may be challenging, said Lori Goodman, a fellow at the Urban Institute, who has studied the history of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Together, Fannie and Freddie's total net worth is more than $150 billion. Goodman estimates any public offering of Fannie and Freddie shares would likely eclipse the largest IPO in history: state-owned oil company Saudi Aramco, which raised $26 billion when it went public in 2019. 'This is an enormously complicated undertaking,' she said. Fannie and Freddie were never meant to permanently remain in a conservatorship arrangement, but Trump failed in an initial attempt to spin them off during his first administration. Investors are wagering that his next try will be successful. Shares of Fannie (FNMA) and Freddie (FMCC), which trade over the counter, surged after Trump was elected in November. In the last year, shares of Fannie's stock are up nearly 500% and Freddie's gained nearly 400%. Fannie and Freddie essentially grease the wheels of America's home lending market, one of the world's largest, by buying mortgages from lenders and repackaging them for investors. This helps enable a reliable flow of money to mortgage lenders, allowing them to offer more affordable rates to would-be homebuyers. Today, the mortgage giants guarantee more than half of America's mortgages, according to the FHFA. Goodman said she expects that any plan to take the companies public would lead to higher borrowing costs for homebuyers. The risk is that spinning off Fannie and Freddie could unsettle investors without the assurance of a government backstop, like the one provided during the 2008 crisis. In response, lenders might demand higher rates, especially from lower-income borrowers. 'You've got a trillion-dollar mortgage-backed securities market, both single-family and multi-family, that they're a critical part of,' Goodman said of Fannie and Freddie. 'You can't tamper with the government guarantee without upsetting that huge market.' Last month, Trump addressed the issue of the government's guarantee, writing on social media: 'I am working on TAKING THESE AMAZING COMPANIES PUBLIC, but I want to be clear, the U.S. Government will keep its implicit GUARANTEES, and I will stay strong in my position on overseeing them as President.' But a social media post might not be enough to assure investors in the multitrillion-dollar mortgage-backed securities market, Goodman said. It is possible that Fannie and Freddie could pay a fee to assure the government's guarantee long-term, but that cost would also likely be passed on to homebuyers, she added. Any rise in mortgage rates would likely be unwelcome news to prospective homebuyers, who have been grappling with elevated borrowing costs since the Federal Reserve hiked its benchmark interest rate in 2022 to combat inflation. Mortgage rates, which track the 10-year Treasury yield, have recently been climbing again as growing concerns about the national debt and Trump's tariff policy have fueled fears of an economic slowdown. Democrats have criticized the Trump administration's plans to overhaul Fannie and Freddie. Last week's letter to Pulte, the Federal Housing Finance Agency director, accused the Trump administration of being primarily motivated by 'rewarding President Trump's billionaire campaign contributors.' 'We have serious concerns that you plan to make significant changes to the Enterprises in a way that would put investor profits over the homes of millions of Americans,' Senate Democrats wrote in the letter. There is also the question of whether it makes sense to release Fannie and Freddie into the public market in their current form, said Norbert Michel, a director at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank. 'This system of privatized profit and socialized loss is what led to the 2008 crisis in the first place,' Michel said. 'Under no circumstances should they be released as they were prior.' 'That was a bad system. We should not have that system,' he added. It remains unclear what exactly the Trump administration plans to do with Fannie and Freddie, which means it's also unclear whether hedge fund stakes, such as Ackman's, are worth anything at all. That's because, as part of the conservatorship agreement, the US Treasury owns a preferential stake in Fannie and Freddie that takes priority over all other shareholders: Fannie and Freddie must pay back a $190 billion debt to the government for its bailout assistance before it can exit its conservatorship, which would prevent other shareholders from making a profit. Ackman has advocated for the removal of the government's preferred shares, arguing that Fannie and Freddie have already paid back more money than it cost to bail them out. Since entering conservatorship, the two companies have paid $301 billion in dividends to the Treasury. '(Fannie and Freddie) shareholders don't have their hands out. The opposite is the case,' Ackman wrote last week on social media. '(Fannie and Freddie) shareholders are simply seeking credit for payments that have already been made to the government so that a release from conservatorship can occur.' But financial analysts say investing in Fannie and Freddie is risky. 'At the moment, on an economic basis, the private shareholders' equity is about negative $200 billion, because that is what Fannie and Freddie owe the government,' said Bose George, a managing director at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, a boutique investment banking company. 'Owning the shares is speculative because you're making an assumption that the government is going to forgive this debt.'
