Worker Pay and Benefits Grow at Record Pace, Pressuring Inflation

Compensation for American workers increased rapidly in the first quarter, as a tight labor market put more money in workers’ pockets while keeping inflation under control. Without adjusting for seasonality, business and government employers spent 4.5 percent more on worker costs in the first quarter compared to the same period a year ago, according to ...

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Amid Inflation, IRS Boosts Health Savings Account Contribution Limits In 2023 For Individuals, Family Plans

In 2023, you can save up to $3,850 with an individual health insurance plan, up from $3,650 in 2022, the IRS announced Friday. And you can soon contribute up to $7,750 with a family plan, boosted from $7,300.

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Here We Go Again: California Coronavirus Cases Rising. Is A New Wave Coming Soon?

After months of declining numbers, California has recorded a nearly 30% increase in coronavirus cases over the last week along with smaller rises in hospitalizations, causing some health officials to suspect that the state is headed into a new pandemic wave. The increase coincides with a loosening of COVID-19 restrictions such as mask mandates and ...

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California’s Population Fell Again Amid Pandemic’s 2nd Year

California’s population declined again in 2021 for the second consecutive year, state officials said Monday, the result of a slowdown in births and immigration coupled with an increase in deaths and people leaving the state.

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Medicare At 60 Would Have Harmful Unintended Consequences

In an era of rising inflation and trillion-dollar deficits, there appears to be growing bipartisan support for fiscal restraint. President Biden’s recent budget proposal featured more than $1 trillion in deficit-reducing policies. And his administration is now promising that the proposals once comprising the president’s Build Back Better agenda will be, at worst, deficit neutral. But despite ...

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California Opens Medicaid to Older Unauthorized Immigrants

Unauthorized immigrants over age 49 who fall below certain income thresholds are now eligible for full coverage by Medi-Cal, California’s version of Medicaid, the federal-state partnership that provides health insurance to low-income people.

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A Reduction In Medicare Part B Premiums Remains In Play. Here’s Where Things Stand

For Medicare beneficiaries wondering whether their Part B premiums could be reduced, the waiting continues. More than three months after Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra ordered a reassessment of this year’s $170.10 standard monthly premium — a bigger-than-expected jump from $148.50 in 2021 — it remains uncertain when a determination will come and ...

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California Senate Leaders Say Budget Surplus Soars To $68B

California’s budget surplus has more than doubled since January to a staggering $68 billion, Senate Democrats said Thursday, prompting a flurry of new spending proposals from lawmakers that include giving $8 billion back to taxpayers in a move that highlights a disagreement with Gov. Gavin Newsom. While the pandemic had prompted warnings of multibillion-dollar budget ...

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Spending on U.S. Medicines Rose 12% in 2021 Due to COVID-19 Vaccines and Therapies, Says IQVIA Institute for Human Data...

Spending on medicines in the United States, at estimated net manufacturer prices, reached $407 billion in 2021, up 12% over 2020, as COVID-19 vaccines and therapeutics became widely available and added $29 billion in related spending. That’s according to a new U.S. Medicines Trends 2022 Report, released today by the IQVIA Institute for Human Data Science. In ...

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Striking Stanford Nurses Reach Tentative Agreement In Contract Dispute

Nurses from Stanford and Lucile Packard Children’s hospitals who went on strike last week are set to return to work Tuesday after their union reached a tentative agreement on Friday with Stanford Health Care.The agreement, if ratified Sunday, will put an end to the nearly week-long strike that union members had overwhelmingly approved as they ...

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