Finance
Social Security: Readers weigh in with questions
However, if someone is younger than full retirement age and still working while receiving Social Security benefits, it could push them above the yearly earnings limit and their monthly benefits would be temporarily reduced. This is not permanent.
Here’s how the Social Security Administration runs the math: If you are receiving a Social Security benefit and are under full retirement age for the entire year, $1 is deducted from your benefit payments for every $2 you earn above the annual earnings limit. For 2024, that limit is $22,320.
In the year you reach full retirement age, $1 in benefits is deducted from your monthly benefit for every $3 you earn, but only earnings before the month you reach your full retirement age are counted. If you reach full retirement age in 2024, the limit on your earnings for the months before your birthday is $59,520.
What counts as earnings are the wages you make from your job or your net earnings if you’re self-employed. The calculation also includes bonuses, commissions, and vacation pay. What’s not counted: pensions, annuities, investment income, interest, veterans benefits, or other government or military retirement benefits.
But you will get any deductions back. Once you reach FRA, your monthly benefit will be increased permanently to account for the months in which benefits were withheld.
One additional caveat to keep in mind: Premiums for Medicare Part B, which covers doctors’ visits and outpatient services, and Part D, which covers prescription drugs, could increase if you earn significantly more money. If you earn more than $103,000 as an individual or more than $206,000 if you’re a joint filer, you’ll pay an extra amount. Those premiums are typically pulled from your monthly Social Security check.
Dear Kerry, I am 62, working and receiving a spouse’s survival benefits. If I retire and file for Social Security benefits, do I have to choose one or can I get two? — Silvia V.
Thanks for this great question, Silvia.
You can only choose one benefit; the larger of the two will typically become your sole benefit.
As a surviving spouse, you can receive 100% of a deceased spouse’s benefit if you had waited until your own FRA, 67, when you claimed the survivors benefit. The benefit amount, however, is reduced for ages less than FRA. The closer you are to your FRA, the greater the benefit.
The upside for you, though, is that it’s possible to claim a widow’s benefit, as you have, while letting your own retirement benefit grow. For example, you may claim a widow’s benefit at 60, and then shift to your own retirement benefit at age 70, if it’s a larger amount.
Meantime, while this doesn’t apply in your case, it’s important to mention for other surviving spouses that if you and your late spouse were both claiming Social Security benefits at the time of their death, then the larger of the two benefits becomes your survivors benefit.
Then too, for a surviving spouse, if you applied for your own Social Security benefit less than 12 months prior to the death of your spouse, you have the option to withdraw this application and apply for survivors benefits if it is a larger amount.
Bottom line: A surviving spouse, surviving divorced spouse, unmarried child, or dependent parent may be eligible for monthly survivor benefits based on the deceased worker’s earnings. There are myriad variables to consider, so I advise reaching out to Social Security directly.
Have a question about about retirement? Personal finances? Anything career-related? Drop Kerry Hannon a note.
Is it possible to will my Social Security balance to my children? — Edwin S
No. Once you start Social Security retirement benefits, you’re generally guaranteed to receive monthly checks for the rest of your life. But, Edwin, that comes to a hard stop when you die.
There are exceptions for family members who may be eligible to receive survivor benefits based on the deceased beneficiary’s earnings record starting as soon as the month they died.
When a parent, for example, receives Social Security retirement or disability benefits and dies, their child may also receive benefits. Under certain circumstances, a stepchild, adopted child, or dependent grandchild or step-grandchild may also qualify.
To receive benefits, the child must be unmarried and younger than age 18, or between ages 18 and 19 and a full-time student at an elementary or secondary school (grade 12 or below), or age 18 or older with a disability that began before age 22.
Thanks to my Yahoo Finance readers who felt comfortable sending along your questions. My advice for all of you trying to make sense of your Social Security benefits: Create a My Social Security account. This is a customized portal that lets you check the status of a benefits application, estimate future benefits, or manage the benefits you already receive. You can set up an account even if you don’t currently receive benefits. Do it.
Kerry Hannon is a Senior Columnist at Yahoo Finance. She is a career and retirement strategist, and the author of 14 books, including “In Control at 50+: How to Succeed in The New World of Work” and “Never Too Old To Get Rich.” Follow her on X @kerryhannon.
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Finance
Blackstone backs Neysa in up to $1.2B financing as India pushes to build domestic AI infrastructure | TechCrunch
Neysa, an Indian AI infrastructure startup, has secured backing from U.S. private equity firm Blackstone as it scales domestic compute capacity amid India’s push to build homegrown AI capabilities.
Blackstone and co-investors, including Teachers’ Venture Growth, TVS Capital, 360 ONE Assets, and Nexus Venture Partners, have agreed to invest up to $600 million of primary equity in Neysa, giving Blackstone a majority stake, Blackstone and Neysa told TechCrunch. The Mumbai-headquartered startup also plans to raise an additional $600 million in debt financing as it expands GPU capacity, a sharp increase from the $50 million it had raised previously.
The deal comes as demand for AI computing surges globally, creating supply constraints for specialized chips and data center capacity needed to train and run large models. Newer AI-focused infrastructure providers — often referred to as “neo-clouds” — have emerged to bridge that gap by offering dedicated GPU capacity and faster deployment than traditional hyperscalers, particularly for enterprises and AI labs with specific regulatory, latency, or customisation requirements.
Neysa operates in this emerging segment, positioning itself as a provider of customized, GPU-first infrastructure for enterprises, government agencies, and AI developers in India, where demand for local compute is still at an early but rapidly expanding stage.
“A lot of customers want hand-holding, and a lot of them want round-the-clock support with a 15-minute response and a couple of our resolutions. And so those are the kinds of things that we provide that some of the hyperscalers don’t,” said Neysa co-founder and CEO Sharad Sanghi.
Ganesh Mani, a senior managing director at Blackstone Private Equity, said his firm estimates that India currently has fewer than 60,000 GPUs deployed — and it expects the figure to scale up nearly 30 times to more than two million in the coming years.
That expansion is being driven by a combination of government demand, enterprises in regulated sectors such as financial services and healthcare that need to keep data local, and AI developers building models within India, Mani told TechCrunch. Global AI labs, many of which count India among their largest user bases, are also increasingly looking to deploy computing capacity closer to users to reduce latency and meet data requirements.
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The investment also builds on Blackstone’s broader push into data center and AI infrastructure globally. The firm has previously backed large-scale data centre platforms such as QTS and AirTrunk, as well as specialized AI infrastructure providers including CoreWeave in the U.S. and Firmus in Australia.
Neysa develops and operates GPU-based AI infrastructure that enables enterprises, researchers, and public sector clients to train, fine-tune, and deploy AI models locally. The startup currently has about 1,200 GPUs live and plans to sharply scale that capacity, targeting deployments of more than 20,000 GPUs over time as customer demand accelerates.
“We are seeing a demand that we are going to more than triple our capacity next year,” Sanghi said. “Some of the conversations we are having are at a fairly advanced stage; if they go through, then we could see it sooner rather than later. We could see in the next nine months.”
Sanghi told TechCrunch that the bulk of the new capital will be used to deploy large-scale GPU clusters, including compute, networking and storage, while a smaller portion will go toward research and development and building out Neysa’s software platforms for orchestration, observability, and security.
Neysa aims to more than triple its revenue next year as demand for AI workloads accelerates, with ambitions to expand beyond India over time, Sanghi said. Founded in 2023, the startup employs 110 people across offices in Mumbai, Bengaluru, and Chennai.
It’s 2026, and most Canadian households aren’t asking how to get ahead — they’re asking how to avoid falling further behind. Fuelled by a quiet frustration and the common refrain behind this anxiety: If I’m doing everything right, why does it still feel like I’m losing ground?
For Stacy Yanchuk Oleksy, CEO of Money Mentors, that sentiment shows up daily in conversations she and her colleagues have with Canadians. These aren’t people who spend wildly; these are Canadians who have already cut spending, already tightened their budget and already done all the tasks required for responsible money management.
As Yanchuk Oleksy pointed out during an interview with Money.ca, the anxiety illustrates a subtle shift in how Canadians are handling the ongoing pressure of higher living costs, where families once talked about budgeting, now the discussion is brinkmanship — deciding what can’t be paid this month, not what should be paid.
These are the households already living lean — and still slipping.
For years, personal finance advice centred on discipline: Track your spending, pay down debt, avoid lifestyle creep.
But many families have reached a point where discipline alone no longer moves the needle.
“For households already stretched, stability just means the pressure isn’t getting worse — not that it’s getting better,” explains Yanchuk Oleksy.
With interest rates staying elevated longer than expected and everyday costs still stubbornly high, the margin for error has disappeared. Even small disruptions — a car repair, dental bill or temporary loss of overtime — can tip a household from “managing” to “making trade-offs.”
That’s when budgeting turns into triage.
Read more: Canadians spent $183B on dining and clothes in 2024. Prioritize these 4 critical investments instead and watch your net worth skyrocket
In practice, financial triage means deciding which obligations get paid first — and which get deferred.
“Families cut out anything non-essential — less food in the grocery cart, no dining out, pulling kids from activities, postponing travel — while still relying on credit to cover basics like utilities, school costs, or transportation,” says Yanchuk Oleksy. “Further down the line,” she said, “it looks like parents deciding which credit card or line of credit gets paid — and which one doesn’t.”
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