US mortgage rates, 401(k) contributions, retailers: Wealth
Wealth host Brad Smith watches the morning market moves while speaking to a variety of Wall Street and personal finance experts.
Walton Global EVP Katie Hubbard comes on Wealth to discuss fresh data pertaining to homebuilder confidence and the strength of the US housing market.
Oakland Consulting Group Inc. CEO Cedric Nash also joins the program to talk about the best methods to maximize your 401(k) contributions.
Daiwa Capital Markets chief US economist Lawrence Werther explains what US retailers and consumer prices are indicating about the health of the US economy as inflation shows signs of easing, according to April data.
To watch more expert insights and analysis on the latest market action, check out more Wealth here.
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11 hours ago
- Yahoo
Student loan debt: The different repayment options at your disposal
As student loan payments resume, here's what Americans should prioritize to manage their debt and create a financial plan to pay it off. Miller Student Loan Consulting President and student loan consultant Jan Miller comes on Wealth to speak more about payment plans and strategies Americans can adopt. To watch more expert insights and analysis on the latest market action, check out more Wealth here. All week, we're giving you everything that you need to know about paying back your student loans. There are so many options out there, but income-based repayment, standard fixed monthly installments, and even potential loan forgiveness are some of the main ones. So, how do you know which payment plan is best for you? Here to break it all down, we've got Jan Miller, the president of Miller Student Loan Counseling and Consulting. Great to have you here with us, Jan. So, what are the first things that you should do before you even start looking at potential payment plans? Immediately, you want to start and create your accounts for both the loan servicer and for federal student aid, which is going to be your, your, uh, FAFSA student Uh, and that's because you may have to use both of them. So, your loan servicer handles, uh, deferments, forbearance, payments. Uh, federal student aid is going to handle applications for income-driven plans and forgiveness programs. So, let's lay out a few key scenarios here, many borrowers may find themselves in. The first one, perhaps, if you have federal loans, and you work for a non-profit or government agency, what payment plan might be best for you? Yeah. So right now, of course, a lot of change with payment plans, uh, due to the new, uh, the recent court injunction on the save program, and, uh, of course, the new Republican bill coming. However, the income-based repayment plan, uh, is likely going to be the best option for public service loan forgiveness. And whenever you hear the term income-driven repayment, that refers to all plans, SAVE, PAYE, REPAYE, ICR, IBR. The one that you want is income-based repayment because that one you will, uh, certainly qualify for if your income is low enough. Now, what if you have federal loans, and you owe way more than your annual income? Right. So if you don't work for a nonprofit, you still want to pursue income-driven plans because your total out-of-pocket costs, even if you're considering potential tax consequences of the forgiveness at the end, is still going to be less if you make payments, lower payments based on your income, until the loan is forgiven. Which forgiveness is still a real thing under that program. Uh, additionally, uh, it's going to increase your cash flow in the real time. So your payment's going to be lower. So you get to have your cake and eat it too, a lower payment, and lower total cost on the loan, um, if your, your debt is that much more than what you make yearly. Now, what about someone with federal loans, but their income makes payments pretty affordable? Well, you know, again, if your credit's good, and you're in a good position financially, uh, and you can afford your monthly payments, you can afford, you know, a payment of around 1% of what your balance is, then you want to consider a refinance, uh, and paying the loan in a more traditional sense at that point, because you hopefully can get a better interest rate, especially as, uh, inflation cools. So, there is this scenario as well, if a borrower has just private loans. What are the options there? Just private loans, first of all, it's going to depend on your lender, right? So if you have Sallie Mae, they're going to be more flexible. Uh, they have, uh, a greater amount of forbearance. They have rate reduction and term extension programs that you can apply for. Um, and they'll usually, um, have, uh, additional options for you. And of course, one of the tricks is, if you, if you can't get any help from customer service, let the account go a few days past due, and the collections representatives will have a greater amount of authority to give you options if you have to do that. They don't report to credit until you're 45 days. You can avoid that. Um, if you have other, uh, you know, like, um, other lenders such as Citibank, or, uh, Citizens Bank, those type, you have less options. It's more like a traditional loan that you're going to owe a bank. And, uh, if you can refinance it, that's fine, but, um, we often say in the office here that if you qualify for refinance, you probably don't need it, or have a student loan problem. If you have a problem, then you probably don't qualify for it because it'll show up in your financials. But if you can refinance, do it. If not, you're going to be stuck with that payment, um, unless in severe, or, you know, last resort situations you can't afford your payment. At which point, then, you can try and negotiate settlements, or, uh, try and work out, uh, temporary payment arrangements, uh, with the lender themselves, but your options are more limited. Sign in to access your portfolio
Yahoo
12 hours ago
- Yahoo
How LGBTQ+ job seekers can find more inclusive work cultures
Jobs keep growing as the US added 139,000 non-farm payroll positions in May, with the unemployment rate holding steady at 4.2% from last month. LinkedIn's latest Belonging Blueprint survey found that just over a third of LGBTQ+ workers feel comfortable being their full selves at their place of employment. LinkedIn Career Expert Andrew McCaskill joins Wealth to share his tips for LGBTQ+ job seekers to navigate the interview process and resources to research company cultures. To watch more expert insights and analysis on the latest market action, check out more Wealth here. I also want to talk about a report that LinkedIn recently released, its belonging report and the belonging blueprint, finding that only 35% of LGBTQ+ professionals feel comfortable being their full selves at work. What were some of the findings here that really stuck out to you? So, a lot of the findings that stuck out were that LGBTQ+ professionals, they have a higher rate of turnover once they get into organizations, largely because the organization was not what they thought it was. So you may see a job description that looks very inclusive, the company looks really inclusive on paper. What we did with this belonging blueprint was saying, it's really important for you to know before you go. So here are the questions that you should ask, here are the culture cues that will help you identify safer spaces. Many people have felt like they've had to code switch, going into a safer space using some of these tools and tactics on the front end, like looking at our using the values-based matching filter on LinkedIn or looking at these company pages to see if they have employee resource groups. Also, phone a friend. Your network will tell you whether or not this is a safer place for someone from your community. Friends won't let their friends go and work at companies that are anti-LGBTQ+. The other piece of it is that the interview process and the offer letter process are also key opportunities for you to jump in and see what that process looks like. That's a great point. Yeah. You have tips, and you were starting to hit on some of these. For every step of the job seeking process, starting with the job search, how can we leverage and the community leverage some of these tools to make sure that they're going into an organization, which was, you were starting to touch on, that actually is supporting not just because it's the du jour. Yeah. Not just as Pride month, right? But because it's more in their long-term just value system that they have. Yeah. On the front end, looking at some of the indexes like the Human Rights Campaign, like trusted sources for members of the LGBTQ+ community to better understand what a company's culture is. The other thing is during the interview process, ask really smart questions. Even if you're not comfortable saying, "What's it like for an LGBTQ+ person here?" Look and see if like are the hiring managers or recruiters using pronouns. Maybe say, "Hey, I saw you have employee resource groups. Talk to me a little bit about what those look like and how you feel about them." Even just their reactions to you asking about that can give you some real clues. The other thing for LGBTQ+ people that I think is really important too is like, you may not always be able to say, "Oh, well, are there other queer people in leadership?" Because you can't look at people and tell. Is take a look at, are there members of other marginalized groups in leadership? A company that has women and people of color, or people who have disabilities in leadership probably also is a company that may have real commitments to inclusion, equitable hiring, and being able to places where people can thrive. The offer letter is a big deal. Yeah. We oftentimes look at the number and we're like, yay, we do the math. It's the off the offer letter benefits that are so important, because if a company on their off the order offer letter benefits, if the company has benefits for things like, um, family planning or family building support, or you may have only one stop on your gender journey, but if the company has gender affirming care, it's a good sign that they have other policies in place that will be highly inclusive. I'll add one more. Take a look at the companies that have had shareholder votes where those shareholders have voted down anti-DEI, which this also includes anti-DEI activist pushes where shareholders have actually pushed back against those to make sure that there are more opportunities to uphold these values as well. Yeah. Andrew, thanks so much for taking the time. Thanks, man. Appreciate it. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
13 hours ago
- Yahoo
Student loan debt: The different repayment options at your disposal
As student loan payments resume, here's what Americans should prioritize to manage their debt and create a financial plan to pay it off. Miller Student Loan Consulting President and student loan consultant Jan Miller comes on Wealth to speak more about payment plans and strategies Americans can adopt. To watch more expert insights and analysis on the latest market action, check out more Wealth here. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
