Posts by Steve Pollock

The United States just turned 250 — and the story reads surprisingly well as a series of 50-year check-ins. Founding-era population the size of San Diego County, two presidents with impeccable dramatic timing, a telephone demo in Philadelphia, quarters you’re still finding in your change — and one compounding machine that started counting in 1926.

This Chartr line chart tracks the share of U.S. 16- to 19-year-olds who were employed from 1950 through 2025, split into summer (May to July, orange) and the rest of the year (blue). Both lines drift lower over the decades, and the familiar summer-job bump between them has narrowed. In pandemic-hit 2020 the gap nearly…

Long-term care keeps coming up in client conversations, usually when someone is helping a parent through it and starts thinking about their own plan. The good news is that the use-it-or-lose-it policy most people remember is no longer the only choice: asset-based coverage repositions an old annuity or idle cash into care benefits worth a multiple of what you put in, and a Pension Protection Act rule lets an annuity’s gains fund qualified care income-tax-free instead of coming out as ordinary income. We walk through how it works, a worked example, and who it fits (and doesn’t).

This Chartr multi-line chart plots annual U.S. births by maternal age group from 1995 to 2025 (under 20, 20-24, 25-29, 30-34, 35-39, and over 40), with CDC as the source. Younger age lines fall over time while the 30-34 line rises and finishes as the highest series. A callout marks 2007 at 4.3 million total…

If you locked in a mortgage at 7% or higher in 2023 or 2024, you’ve probably been watching rates with one eye open for a while now. Thirty-year fixed rates have settled into the low 6% range. Freddie Mac’s weekly average hit 6.23% as of April 23, 2026, down from 6.30% the prior week. That’s…

By Team Reason | Reason Financial & Tax If you’ve watched a baseball game this season you’ve noticed something new. A batter freezes on a called third strike, pauses for a beat, then reaches up and taps his helmet. The stadium screen flashes an animated pitch trajectory. The crowd holds its breath. And then: ball…