The people who do the most good in the world, spending their careers helping others in exchange for modest paychecks, often get the worst retirement plans. In fact, millions of people who save in 403(b) plans may be losing nearly $10 billion each year in excessive investment fees. “It’s a wealth transfer from those who don’t know any better — Main Street — to those who do: Wall Street,” said financial planner Scott Dauenhauer.   read more

The portion of Americans who do not have a bank account, known in industry jargon as the "unbanked," declined to 7% in 2015 from 7.7% in 2013. The improvements came mostly from households making less than $15,000 a year and among minority populations. Another way of looking at it: For every 10 households that were unbanked in 2013, one of those households is now banked. "The improving economy no doubt impacted these numbers in a positive way," FDIC Chairman Martin Gruenberg said.   read more

The lag in pay for female partners could stem from several factors. One is that the “old boys network” still has an outsize influence because of connections made in law school or earlier that affect who is hired to handle their corporate legal matters. Female partners earned an average of $659,000 annually compared with an average of $949,000 for male partners. Female partners take home thinner paychecks because, it appears, men are better at receiving credit for landing big cases.   read more

Illinois is billions in debt, has billions in overdue bills and can't seem to remove itself from a budget morass, yet it's the nation's worst in reclaiming hundreds of millions of dollars in overpaid unemployment benefits. The abysmal performance is one reason the U.S. Labor Dept said that it would step in to help Illinois meet standards for management, record-keeping and timeliness. Illinois' 37% recovery rate is the worst among all U.S. states and territories.   read more

"Alaska has some of the highest rates of sexual assault and domestic violence in the nation. We must end this terrible epidemic, and that starts by addressing the thousands of sexual assault kits in the possession of law enforcement," Walker said. "We did not know about this problem before we ordered the audit. It is now a top priority. We owe it to victims and their families to deliver justice to perpetrators and bring closure to these tragic experiences."   read more

The company misled customers about the quality and price of its merchandise, the terms of loan contracts, and its warranty and debt cancellation. One Army private bought a laptop shortly before shipping out for Iraq. For a model that typically retailed for $650, he agreed to pay almost $3,000. After he fell behind on his payments, he was sued in Virginia while stationed in Germany. The company later sought to seize his military pay and froze his credit union account.   read more

A number of health services for transgender people will begin to be covered by military insurance beginning Monday. The Pentagon announced in June an end to the military’s ban on transgender service members. The ripple effect of the new health benefits extends beyond active-duty military to include roughly 7 million retirees and children of service members.   read more

While the Department of Veterans Affairs claims its recent move to lease more of its facilities gives it added flexibility, a government accountability officer told Congress on Wednesday her agency would like to see evidence of that. Rebecca Shea, of the Government Accountability Office, told members of Congress that while VA has improved its decision-making process for determining when to lease rather than own a building, it has not proven the benefits it claims to receive from the decision.   read more

Airline pilots and air traffic controllers are on schedule to switch to text communications at most of the nation’s busiest airports by the end of the year, a milestone that holds the potential to reduce delays, prevent errors and save billions of dollars in fuel cost, says the Federal Aviation Administration. The FAA estimates Data Comm will save airlines more than $10 billion over the next 30 years and the government another $1 billion.   read more

The Justice Department announced Monday it’s awarding more than $20 million for law enforcement agencies around the country to establish or enhance their use of body cameras, a move that comes after several fatal shootings of black men by police that have prompted widespread protests. Attorney General Loretta Lynch announced the grant at the opening of a Justice Department summit in Little Rock focused on reducing violent crime.   read more

Ten properites located across the United States, assessed altogether at more than $50 million, still belong to the Islamic Republic of Iran. But for nearly 40 years, the task of maintaining and putting the properties out for rent has fallen to an unlikely management company — the State Department. The State Department’s Office of Foreign Missions acts as a real estate service for the Iranian properties.   read more

Gay affluence may be largely a Hollywood myth, with tired cliches of gays and lesbians living handsomely in chic American cities. But men in same-sex marriages tend to make a good deal more money than households with heterosexual spouses, according to data released by the U.S. Treasury Dept. The findings are as much a portrait of the community as they are a look at societal gender norms and biases, experts said, with wrinkles that are both well-understood and still being explored.   read more

Albuquerque hauls in more than $1 million a year by seizing cars, sometimes from innocent people, in defiance of state law and public outrage, claims a mother who wants the city’s program declared unconstitutional. The city even writes into its budget ahead of time the money it expects to make from selling seized cars.   read more

It is a growing national problem. The number of homes on the market in the U.S. has fallen for the last 14 months. The inventory of homes for sale is the lowest it has been since modern records started being kept in 1982. Mark Zuckerberg, the billionaire Facebook CEO, found a place he liked near San Francisco’s Mission District in 2012 and paid the owner at least twice what it was worth. People of much more modest means are now echoing his tactics, even if they cannot extend his lavish terms.   read more

Online sales make up only 7% of all U.S. retail transactions. But players such as Amazon are only getting bigger while traditional department stores and big-box chains are getting smaller. So real estate developers are looking for new tenants not directly competitive with Amazon. They're filling shopping plazas with urgent care centers and dentist offices, hair salons, gyms and restaurants. "What's in high demand is Internet proof," said Wheeler. "It's all experiences you can't get online."   read more

"States have strong interests in ensuring that charities do not serve as fronts for fraud or crime," the judge said. Requiring charities to disclose their source of funds directly promotes New York's interest in fighting fraud and does not substantially burden a charity's 1st Amendment rights, the opinion states. Stein said Citizens United presented "no factual background or support for their conclusory assertions" that their donors would face harassment if their contributions were disclosed.   read more