How we check our figures
The method behind every guide on this site.
Primary sources only
Every figure in a guide traces to a primary source: the agency's own page, the statute, the regulation or the court decision. The sources section at the end of each guide names them, links to them, and gives the date each one was retrieved. Reporting by other publications can point us to a topic, but it is never the source of a number.
Reviewed when the figures change
Guides are reviewed when the figures they cite are republished, which for most of these topics is each autumn, when Social Security announces the cost-of-living adjustment and Medicare publishes the next year's premiums and deductibles. The update history on each guide records what changed and when, with the old figure and the new one. Every guide shows the date of its last review.
Where a rule varies by state
Where a rule varies by state, the guide says so rather than giving the federal answer alone. Where a figure belongs to your state rather than to the guide, the guide tells you where your state publishes it.
Read in full before publication
Every guide is read in full by a person before it is published, and again after any substantial change. The arithmetic inside a guide is checked separately from its sources, and the two checks are recorded.
What the guides are not
The guides are educational information, not legal, tax or financial advice. They explain how a rule works so that you can make your own decision or ask a professional a sharper question.
Reporting an error
Email [email protected] with the guide, the sentence, and the source you believe is right. We answer every email within one business day. Confirmed errors are corrected in the guide, noted in its update history, and logged on the corrections page.
Independence
Heavenly Finance takes no commissions or referral fees from any company named in a guide. Advertising on the site is supplied by a network, labelled, and has no part in deciding what a guide says. See the advertising disclosure.