When the stock market gets volatile, retirement investors are naturally inclined to want to do something about it. 

(Corrects 2022 wage cap to $147,000 instead of $142,800 in paragraph 8)

The Great Retirement is morphing into the Great Return, with the U.S. employment report for March, released earlier this month, showing a jump back into the labor force among older workers. That reflects the plentiful number of available jobs - and reduced concerns about the health risks associated with COVID-19.

If you need help filing for Social Security, Medicare or disability benefits, I have good news and bad news.

As a journalist covering retirement, I have written dozens of stories over the years about the ins and outs of Medicare enrollment. But when the time came recently for yours truly to sign up I discovered there was still plenty left to learn. And let me just say this: the whole thing was quite a project.

The Social Security Administration has announced plans to begin reopening its vast national network of field offices to the public in January following a 20-month COVID-19 shutdown. The reopening will give the agency a needed opportunity to improve public service, but also presents some thorny challenges.

(The opinions expressed here are those of the author, a columnist for Reuters)

The U.S. government recently released its annual report on the health of Social Security. Not surprisingly, that was met with a slew of doomsday forecasts from pundits and media.

Almost half of Americans enrolled in Medicare did not visit a dentist in 2018. That is a problem that goes far beyond having white teeth or a beautiful smile - poor dental care can exacerbate serious chronic medical conditions, such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

The decision by U.S. drug regulators last month to approve a controversial treatment for Alzheimer’s disease could fuel an unusually large increase in Medicare premiums next year, but the outlook is clouded by a number of factors that will play out later this year.