Personal Finance

A Common Pleas judge signed an order on August 17, 2026, requiring Allegheny County to replace its 2012 base-year property values through a countywide reassessment starting by July 2027 and completed before June 30, 2032. Pennsylvania law requires taxing districts to set revenue-neutral millage rates in the first year after a reassessment, but individual tax bills can still rise or fall depending on how each property's share of the total revised assessment roll changes. The article explains the court order's timeline, the millage adjustment process under state law, and the existing appeal mechanism available to property owners.

Senator Bernie Sanders announced a draft bill on August 17, 2026, that would permanently prohibit the federal government from reducing Social Security payments to collect on defaulted student loans, with formal introduction planned for September 14. The proposal arrives while the Department of Education has already paused such offsets administratively, though no restart date has been set. Federal Student Aid data shows approximately 7.7 million borrowers hold $180 billion in defaulted federal student loans, and a 2015 GAO analysis found that over half of affected older borrowers were receiving disability benefits when offsets were applied.

The August 13 Freddie Mac Primary Mortgage Market Survey placed the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage average at 6.67%, down slightly from 6.69% the prior week, while the 15-year average fell to 5.96% from 6.01%. Both rates remain above their year-ago levels of 6.58% and 5.71% respectively, meaning borrowers are paying modestly more than they were twelve months ago. The August 20 survey results, covering applications from August 13 through 19, were not yet published at the time of this report.