You’ve probably seen the number by now. Retirees could get an extra $97 a month once Social Security’s 2027 raise kicks in. That figure is real, and it came from a widely followed independent forecaster who crunches inflation data for a living. It’s also the high end of what’s realistically on the table, and the specific estimate that produced it has already been revised down once since it started making headlines.
Social Security’s 2027 cost-of-living adjustment won’t be finalized until October, but the early signals point to a bigger raise than retirees got this year. The 2026 COLA landed at 2.8%, on the low side by recent standards. Whatever 2027 brings will likely beat that. The real question is by how much.
Right now, the realistic range runs from about $75 to $97 more a month, and the gap between those numbers comes down almost entirely to what happens with gas and energy prices between now and September.
Every January, Social Security checks get adjusted for inflation through the cost-of-living adjustment, or COLA. The 2026 COLA raised the average retired worker’s check by $56 a month, from $2,015 to $2,071. That’s a modest bump by recent standards.
2027 is shaping up differently. Inflation picked up through the spring and summer of 2026, driven partly by tariffs and partly by a spike in energy prices tied to the conflict in Iran. Since the COLA formula tracks how fast prices rise, a hotter inflation stretch usually means a bigger raise the following January. Forecasters who track this closely pushed their 2027 estimates well above the 2.8% retirees got this year, with early predictions climbing past 4%.
Where the $97 figure came from, and why it already changed
The $97 figure came from one widely followed independent forecaster who tracks inflation data every month and publishes an updated COLA prediction. Back in June, as energy prices spiked, that forecast put the 2027 COLA as high as 4.7%. Applied to the average retired worker’s benefit of $2,071 a month, that works out to an extra $97.34 a month, or just over $1,168 for the year. That’s the calculation behind every headline you’ve seen about a $97 raise.
Then the picture shifted. June’s inflation report came in cooler than expected, with prices up 3.5% over the previous year instead of accelerating further. That same forecaster revised the estimate down to 3.7% in mid-July, a full percentage point lower than the estimate from just one month earlier, calling the drop in June inflation data one of the sharpest seen in five years. The revision came with a warning too: renewed tension over the Strait of Hormuz could push energy prices back up before the final number is set.
None of this means $97 is off the table. It means $97 was always the high end of a range, and the range has narrowed toward its lower half for now.
What the most current estimates say now
As of mid-July, forecasts have narrowed to within about a percentage point of each other. A nonpartisan group that advocates for older Americans is projecting a 3.6% COLA for 2027, which would add about $75 a month to the average retired worker’s check. A separate group that has tracked Social Security’s COLA for years has held steady at 3.8%, which works out closer to $79 a month based on the current average benefit. The independent forecaster behind the original $97 estimate now sits in between, at roughly 3.7%, or about $77 a month more.
Put together, that’s a realistic range of $75 to $80 a month more starting in January, not the $97 that made headlines back in June. The gap between the low and high end mostly comes down to gas prices. Energy costs move fast in the inflation index Social Security uses, and forecasters expect renewed volatility tied to conflict in the Middle East to keep pulling the estimate around between now and September.
Nobody has a final answer yet, including the Social Security Administration itself. The formula depends on inflation data that hasn’t happened yet.
How the number actually gets decided
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Social Security’s COLA isn’t a guess or a political decision. It’s set by law, using a specific slice of government inflation data called the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers, or CPI-W. Every year, the Social Security Administration compares average CPI-W readings from July, August and September to the same three months the year before. Whatever percentage prices rose by becomes the COLA, announced in mid-October and applied to checks starting the following January.
That means the 2027 COLA cannot be finalized until the September inflation report comes out. Every estimate right now, including the $97 figure and the newer $75 to $80 range, is an educated guess based on partial data.
Whatever the 2027 COLA turns out to be, retirees rarely feel the full amount in their bank account. Medicare Part B premiums are deducted automatically from most Social Security checks, and they’re set through a completely separate process tied to projected healthcare spending, not inflation.
CMS won’t confirm the actual 2027 Part B premium until November, a month after the Social Security Administration announces the COLA. Retirees usually end up figuring out the real net effect themselves once both numbers are in.
What to actually do before October
There’s not much retirees can do to influence the COLA itself, but there’s plenty worth doing before the official number arrives. Start by checking your own current benefit amount through your online Social Security account rather than relying on the national average, since your actual raise will be a percentage of what you personally receive, not a flat dollar figure.
Budget conservatively. Planning around $75 to $80 a month more is the safer assumption right now, with anything closer to $97 landing as a pleasant surprise rather than a promise. If your income sits anywhere near the Medicare IRMAA thresholds, keep an eye on year-end withdrawals or Roth conversions, since those can push you into a higher premium bracket for the following year based on income reported two years earlier.
There’s no way to know the real number until the fall, and no real reason to spend it before then. Plan around the lower estimate, and let October surprise you if it doesn’t have to.
School supply lists tend to look manageable until you start multiplying everything by several classes, several children, or the replacements that will be needed by October. The basics are where the bill grows fastest, especially notebooks, writing tools, folders, and art supplies.
Dollar Tree has several useful supplies priced between $1 and $1.50 right now. These are practical items that students are likely to use, lose, wear out, or be asked to bring in more than once.
Prices are accurate at the time of publishing but may vary by store or sell out quickly.
A standard composition book is useful for classes where teachers want pages that cannot be easily pulled out. This black marble version has 100 sheets and a compact 9.5-by-7.5-inch size, so it fits easily into backpacks without the wire binding catching on folders or clothing.
At $1, it is worth buying a few while the back-to-school pricing lasts. Students may need separate books for science labs, writing journals, vocabulary, or math work. Extras also solve the inevitable midyear problem when a notebook fills up or disappears into the mysterious part of the house where school supplies go to retire.
Top Flight wide-ruled spiral notebooks
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Spiral notebooks work well for classes where students need to tear out assignments or keep one subject separate from everything else. The Top Flight notebook contains 70 wide-ruled sheets, with assorted cover colors that make it easier to tell math from English without opening every notebook in the backpack.
The current $1 price is low enough to buy one for each subject and keep a spare at home. Wide ruling is especially useful for elementary and middle school students who need more writing space. Check the teacher’s list first, since older students are sometimes asked to use college-ruled paper instead.
Unison ruled filler paper
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Loose-leaf paper vanishes quickly once homework, quizzes, rough drafts, and notebook refills begin. This Unison pack contains 200 sheets, which is enough to fill a binder at the start of the year while leaving a useful stack at home for replacements.
At $1.25, the cost works out to well under a penny per sheet. That makes it one of the better supplies to buy in multiples, provided you have somewhere dry to store it. Paper bought now can also cover unexpected requests later, when the cheap back-to-school displays have been replaced by pumpkins and nobody remembers where the filler paper went.
Jot poly ring binders
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A 1.5-inch binder gives students enough room for several weeks of handouts without becoming too heavy to carry. The flexible poly cover is also better suited to a crowded backpack than thin cardboard, which tends to split at the corners after a few rough trips to school.
The Jot binder is $1.50, a sensible price for classes that require separate binders. It is also useful for building a homework station at home, where old worksheets, school forms, and study guides can be kept instead of spreading across the kitchen counter. Check that the rings close evenly before buying, since a misaligned binder will spend the year catching and tearing paper.
Jot two-pocket folders
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Folders are often treated as disposable because, in practice, they are. Corners bend, pockets rip, and at least one folder will come home carrying a leaking water bottle. Two pockets give students a simple way to separate papers that stay home from papers that need to go back to school.
These Jot folders are $1.25 and come in assorted designs. Buying a few extras makes sense for elementary students, busy middle schoolers, or anyone whose organizational system relies heavily on stuffing papers somewhere five seconds before the bell. They are also handy for keeping permission slips, medical forms, and activity paperwork together at home.
Jot binder pencil pouches
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A pencil pouch that attaches inside a binder is harder to leave behind than a separate plastic box. This Jot pouch has reinforced holes and enough room for everyday items such as pencils, pens, erasers, highlighters, and a small pair of scissors.
At $1.50, it is a cheap fix for students who regularly dig through the bottom of a backpack during class. Assorted colors also make it possible to match pouches to different binders or children. The pouch is not meant for a huge art supply collection, but for the basic tools a student needs several times a day, the compact size is an advantage.
Jot wooden number two pencils
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Pencils are one of the easiest school supplies to underestimate. They are handed out, borrowed, broken, sharpened down to an inch, and occasionally used as drumsticks. This Jot pack contains 24 real-wood number two pencils with attached erasers.
The pack costs $1.50, or a little more than six cents per pencil. That is low enough to divide a box between a backpack, homework area, and kitchen junk drawer without guarding every pencil like family silver. Number two lead also works for most classroom assignments and standardized test forms. Teachers buying shared supplies may find the large count especially useful.
Jot black ballpoint pens
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Older students often need black ink for classwork, forms, lab notes, and assignments that cannot be completed in pencil. This Jot package includes 12 medium-point black ballpoint pens, enough to cover the start of the year and the classmates who appear with an urgent borrowing request.
At $1.50, each pen costs about 13 cents. Keep part of the pack at home instead of sending all 12 to school on the first day, unless you enjoy buying the same supplies twice. These are basic everyday pens rather than premium writing tools, but that is exactly what makes them practical for school bags, lockers, and backup supplies.
Jot chisel-tip highlighters
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Highlighters become more useful once students start reading longer chapters, reviewing notes, and preparing study guides. The chisel tip can make a broad line across text or a thinner mark for underlining, and the four colors help separate definitions, dates, examples, and other information.
This Jot pack is $1.50. That is a reasonable stock-up price because highlighters tend to dry out faster than pens, particularly when the cap spends an entire class period on the floor. One package can go into the backpack while another stays with homework supplies. College students and adults taking certification courses can get just as much use from them as younger students.
Crayola crayons
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Many elementary school lists request a basic box of 24 crayons, and this is one area where buying the familiar brand can save frustration. Crayola crayons generally have stronger color than bargain-bin alternatives, and the paper wrappers help protect them from snapping during normal classroom use.
A 24-count box is $1.25. That makes it affordable to buy the required classroom box plus a replacement for home. Crayons are routinely lost, peeled, mixed into communal bins, or reduced to small pieces by winter break. An unopened spare means you will not be hunting for a specific shade at 8 p.m. before a project is due.
Jot double-ended colored pencils
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This six-pencil set has a different color on each end, providing 12 colors without taking up the space of a full-size box. That compact design is useful for pencil pouches, small desks, travel homework kits, and art classes where students need basic shades rather than dozens of nearly identical blues.
The set costs $1.50. It is a practical backup, though students who use colored pencils heavily may prefer a traditional larger pack because each color has less usable pencil length. For occasional maps, graphs, posters, and classroom illustrations, the small set should cover the job without adding much bulk or cost.
Jot washable mini markers
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Mini markers are easier for younger children to grip and take up less room in a supply box. This Jot pack includes 12 washable markers in common colors, with broad tips suited to posters, coloring pages, signs, and elementary classroom projects.
At $1.50, the set is inexpensive enough to keep at home for homework rather than carrying school markers back and forth. The smaller barrels may run out sooner than full-size markers, so they make the most sense as an extra set or for lighter use. The washable formula is also worth paying attention to when the intended user considers a dining table to be a perfectly reasonable art surface.
Jot white ruled index cards
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Index cards are useful for far more than vocabulary words. Students can use them for formulas, presentation notes, reading questions, timelines, spelling practice, and portable study sets. The ruled side keeps handwriting organized, while the blank reverse can hold diagrams or answers.
This Jot package contains 225 cards for $1.25. That amount should last through several subjects, and the cost per card is tiny. They are also helpful for parents working on sight words or multiplication facts with younger children. Store the extras in a zip-top bag or small box, because loose index cards have a remarkable ability to distribute themselves across every room.
Jot glue sticks
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Glue sticks are requested frequently in elementary classrooms because they are less messy than bottles of liquid glue and easier for children to control. This Jot package contains four sticks that dry quickly and can be used on paper, photos, and lightweight craft materials.
The four-pack is $1.25, making it a better stock-up choice than buying single sticks as projects appear. Glue sticks can dry out once opened, so leave the spare packages sealed and send only what the teacher requests. Keeping one pack at home also prevents a late-night search when a poster, diorama, or book report suddenly requires glue that nobody mentioned earlier.
Jot printed scissors
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A basic pair of scissors is useful from elementary school through college, even when it is not listed as a required supply. These Jot scissors measure about seven inches and have printed handles, making them suitable for paper, worksheets, labels, and ordinary classroom projects.
They are $1.50, which is a fair price for a pair that may spend most of the year in a pencil case or desk drawer. The printed handles can also make them easier to identify in a shared classroom. Younger children may need blunt-tip safety scissors instead, so check the age recommendation and the school list before buying these for early elementary grades.
Jot flexible rulers
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Rigid plastic rulers often crack when they are bent inside an overloaded backpack. This 12-inch Jot ruler is flexible, so it can handle more movement while still providing clear markings for measurements, graphs, underlining, and geometry assignments.
At $1.50, it costs little enough to keep one at school and another near the home printer or homework table. The assorted colors are a minor bonus, but durability is the real reason to consider it. Students who need very precise measurements for advanced drafting or technical classes will want a sturdier specialty ruler. For ordinary schoolwork, flexible plastic is usually more practical.
Jot sharpener and eraser sets
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A manual sharpener with a built-in container keeps pencil shavings inside the tool instead of scattered through a backpack. This Jot set combines sharpeners and erasers, covering two supplies that tend to disappear quickly during the first few months of school.
The two-piece pack is $1.50. One can stay in the student’s pencil pouch while the other remains at home or goes into a backup supply bin. Small sharpeners are not glamorous, but they prevent a dull pencil from turning into a ten-minute classroom disruption. Check the lid before buying to make sure it fits tightly enough to contain the shavings.
Jot dry-erase markers
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Dry-erase markers now appear on many school lists because classrooms use individual whiteboards for math practice, spelling, group work, and quick assessments. This Jot pack includes four assorted colors, giving students more options than a single black marker.
The pack is $1.50. Since dry-erase markers can run out quickly or become unusable when the cap is misplaced, buying an extra package before school starts is reasonable. They are also useful at home with reusable worksheets, chore boards, calendars, and study boards. Store them capped and horizontally when possible, since an uncapped marker has an impressively short career.
A flashy job title doesn’t help much when the work is unstable, the competition is brutal, or your paycheck barely covers the basics. Sometimes the smartest career move is toward work that most people overlook.
These jobs involve routine inspections, maintenance schedules, safety rules, test results, checklists, and equipment that must keep working. They may not give you exciting stories for a dinner party, but they can offer steady demand and a solid income.
Many are difficult to fill because they require unusual certifications, night shifts, physical work, or the patience to do the same careful task over and over. That lack of glamour can work in your favor.
Railroad signal maintainers inspect and repair crossing gates, track switches, warning lights, wiring, and the systems that tell trains when it’s safe to move. Much of the job involves following a route, opening equipment cabinets, running the same tests, recording the results, and replacing worn parts. When everything is working, your day may be quiet and repetitive. When something fails, the railroad needs it fixed immediately.
Median pay is about $82,710 per year. Railroads, public transit agencies, and rail contractors hire for this work, and the odd hours help keep applicant numbers down. You may work outside in poor weather or be called after a storm. Many employers train experienced electrical, electronics, or rail workers, while technical-school programs can provide a useful starting point. Remote monitoring can identify a faulty signal, but someone still has to travel to the track, test the equipment, and make a safe repair before trains can resume normal service.
2. Stationary engineer and boiler operator
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This job is built around gauges, valves, pumps, temperatures, pressure readings, and maintenance logs. Stationary engineers keep boilers and mechanical systems running inside hospitals, universities, factories, large office buildings, and other facilities. A normal shift may involve walking the same inspection route several times, listening for strange noises, checking water chemistry, and recording numbers that barely change from one hour to the next.
The median salary is $75,190 per year. Employment growth is modest, but facilities cannot simply turn off their heating, cooling, steam, and power systems because hiring is difficult. Many plants operate around the clock, which creates openings for people willing to work nights, weekends, or rotating shifts. Entry paths vary. Some workers complete a technical program, while others start in building maintenance and receive lengthy on-the-job training. Licensing may be required, especially for higher-pressure equipment. Controls can automate routine adjustments, but trained operators are still needed to inspect machinery and respond when readings stop looking routine.
3. Calibration technologist or technician
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Calibration technicians make sure measuring equipment is telling the truth. They compare gauges, scales, meters, temperature sensors, torque tools, and laboratory instruments with known standards. Then they adjust the equipment, test it again, apply a label, and document every step. If checking the same type of pressure gauge 40 times sounds dull, you understand why employers can have trouble finding people who stay.
Median pay is $65,040 per year, and employment is projected to grow faster than the overall average. Calibration workers are needed in manufacturing plants, testing laboratories, hospitals, aerospace companies, pharmaceutical facilities, and repair businesses. An associate degree in electronics, engineering technology, or a scientific field is common, although some employers train workers with mechanical or military experience. The job is especially secure in regulated workplaces where an inaccurate instrument could ruin a production batch or create a safety problem. Self-checking equipment can handle simple adjustments, but companies still need someone qualified to verify the results and maintain traceable records.
4. Cathodic protection technician II
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Cathodic protection technicians help stop buried or submerged metal from rusting away. They take voltage readings along pipelines, storage tanks, docks, water systems, and other structures. The work can mean driving between test stations, connecting meters to the same types of wires, recording small changes, and walking long stretches of pipeline right-of-way. It is technical, repetitive, and almost invisible to the public.
A technician at the second level averages about $80,300 per year. Reaching that level usually requires field experience and industry certifications, so beginners should expect lower pay while they build their qualifications. Utilities, pipeline operators, engineering firms, ports, fuel terminals, and local water systems employ these technicians. Corrosion monitoring cannot be skipped for long without increasing the risk of leaks, failures, and expensive repairs. Software may organize readings and highlight suspicious changes, but a person still has to visit the structure, place the equipment correctly, inspect physical conditions, and decide whether the protection system is doing its job.
5. Nondestructive testing technician III
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Nondestructive testing technicians examine welds and metal parts without cutting them open or destroying them. Depending on their certification, they may use ultrasound, magnetic particles, liquid dye, or radiographic equipment to find cracks and hidden defects. The process often involves cleaning a surface, setting up the equipment, running a test, marking an indication, and completing a detailed inspection report. Then you repeat it on the next weld.
A level III technician earns an average of about $74,600 per year. This is an experienced position, not an entry-level title. Workers normally start with classroom training and supervised inspection hours before earning certifications in individual testing methods. Jobs are found in aerospace, shipyards, manufacturing, power generation, construction, rail, and pipeline operations. Employers need qualified inspectors because a poorly made component can become a serious safety and liability problem. Automated scanners can collect readings, but certified technicians must choose the proper method, recognize false indications, and accept or reject work under strict standards. That responsibility keeps experienced people valuable.
6. Fire sprinkler inspector
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Fire sprinkler inspectors spend their days looking at valves, gauges, pipes, alarms, pumps, and inspection tags. They perform flow tests, verify that control valves are open, check for corrosion or blocked sprinkler heads, and document anything that does not meet the required standard. Much of the job follows the same checklist from one apartment building, warehouse, school, or office complex to the next.
Average pay is around $73,635 per year. Inspection companies, fire-protection contractors, property managers, industrial facilities, and local agencies all need people who understand these systems. Demand is supported by recurring inspection rules and by growth in the wider fire-inspection field. Many workers begin as sprinkler fitters, alarm technicians, or helpers and work toward industry credentials. You must be willing to enter mechanical rooms, climb ladders, test noisy equipment, and explain failed inspections to building owners. Digital reporting makes the paperwork faster, but it cannot physically test a fire pump or spot a painted-over sprinkler head hidden above a ceiling tile.
7. Food safety specialist
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A food safety specialist checks whether a plant is cleaning equipment correctly, controlling temperatures, separating allergens, storing ingredients properly, and following its written procedures. Expect sanitation records, production logs, surface swabs, corrective-action forms, and many conversations about hairnets and handwashing. The work is important, but much of the daily routine is methodical rather than exciting.
Average salary is about $79,448 per year. Food manufacturers, restaurant groups, distribution centers, laboratories, inspection companies, and large institutions hire these specialists. A degree in food science, biology, microbiology, or public health is often preferred, although experienced production and quality workers can move up through certifications. Food companies cannot afford contamination, recalls, or failed inspections, so they continue hiring people who can walk the floor and catch problems early. Sensors can record temperatures and software can organize documents, but neither can smell spoiled ingredients, question a rushed cleaning crew, or decide whether a messy production line is safe to restart.
8. Sleep technician
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Sleep technicians are paid to watch other people sleep, although the job is less relaxing than it sounds. They attach sensors to a patient’s scalp, face, chest, and legs, check the signals, monitor breathing and movement, and correct loose wires during the night. Between patient checks, you spend hours watching waveforms and recording events in a quiet, darkened lab.
Average pay is about $65,901 per year. Registered technicians and those with respiratory-care backgrounds may qualify for higher-paying hospital and specialty-lab roles. Training routes include accredited sleep-technology programs, respiratory therapy education, and supervised clinical experience followed by a credentialing exam. The aging population and the need to diagnose breathing disorders support demand for sleep testing and related respiratory services. Software can help score sections of a study, but a technician still has to prepare the patient, recognize poor signals, respond to breathing problems, and keep the test usable through an entire night. The overnight schedule also discourages plenty of otherwise qualified applicants.
9. Fleet maintenance supervisor
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A fleet maintenance supervisor keeps trucks, buses, vans, or heavy equipment moving through a repair shop. The day revolves around work orders, preventive-maintenance schedules, tire replacements, inspection deadlines, parts shortages, and vehicles waiting for service. You assign jobs to technicians, review completed repairs, handle breakdowns, and explain why a vehicle is not ready when another department wants it back.
Average pay is roughly $83,145 per year. Employers include transit systems, delivery companies, utilities, rental fleets, waste haulers, school transportation departments, and local governments. Most supervisors work their way up after several years as diesel or heavy-equipment technicians. Technical training, repair certifications, and experience managing safety inspections can help. The job is difficult to fill because employers want someone who understands both the shop floor and scheduling. Predictive software can warn that a truck may need service, but it cannot inspect worn steering parts, manage a backlog after several breakdowns, or decide which vehicle is safe to return to the road first.
10. Elevator inspector
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Elevator inspectors ride elevators, open equipment rooms, examine doors and cables, test emergency systems, and verify that repairs meet safety codes. They may inspect escalators, wheelchair lifts, and other lifting equipment as well. The work follows detailed procedures, and many days involve repeating the same brake, alarm, door, and leveling tests in building after building.
Average pay is about $75,969 per year. Municipal departments, inspection contractors, insurance companies, consulting firms, and large property owners hire these workers. Many inspectors begin as elevator mechanics or technicians and move into inspection after gaining substantial field experience. Certification or a local license may be required. Buildings depend on scheduled inspections to keep equipment operating legally and safely, and older elevators need continuing attention even when construction slows. Remote monitoring may reveal that an elevator has generated an error code, but an inspector must still test its physical safety devices and decide whether it can remain in service. The limited number of people with deep elevator experience can make qualified inspectors hard to replace.
11. Funeral home manager
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Funeral home managers coordinate staff, schedules, permits, vehicles, preparation rooms, merchandise, and services. They may meet with families, but a large share of the work happens behind the scenes. There are forms to check, rooms to prepare, supplies to order, employees to schedule, and timelines that cannot slip. The environment is quiet, formal, and highly structured.
Median pay is $76,830 per year. Employment is projected to grow at about the overall average, with thousands of openings expected as experienced workers retire or leave the field. Most managers need funeral-service education, supervised experience, and a professional license. Some begin as funeral arrangers or licensed directors before taking responsibility for an entire location. The hours can be irregular because deaths do not follow a business schedule, and the emotional setting is not for everyone. Those factors shrink the applicant pool. Technology can help with scheduling and forms, but families still expect a calm person to answer difficult questions and make sure every physical detail is handled correctly.
12. Surveyor
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Surveyors measure land, confirm boundaries, locate construction points, and prepare legally defensible records. Fieldwork often means setting up instruments, checking the same point from more than one location, walking property lines, and searching for old markers buried under dirt or brush. Office time involves reviewing measurements and comparing them with plats, deeds, and previous surveys.
Median pay is $72,740 per year. Employment is expected to grow about as fast as the overall average, with roughly 3,900 openings projected each year. Surveying firms, engineering companies, builders, utilities, mining operations, and government agencies employ these workers. A bachelor’s degree is common for licensed surveyors, although surveying technicians can enter with shorter training and build experience. Drones and digital instruments collect points more quickly than older equipment, but they do not settle a disputed boundary or take legal responsibility for a certified survey. Construction, utility upgrades, land sales, and infrastructure projects all continue to create work that must be checked by a qualified person.
13. Aircraft mechanic
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Aircraft mechanics spend a lot of time doing scheduled work that passengers never notice. They remove panels, inspect components, check fluid levels, follow maintenance cards, tighten hardware to exact specifications, and document each completed task. The job demands constant attention because even a familiar inspection cannot be rushed or guessed.
Median pay for aircraft mechanics and service technicians is $78,680 per year. Employment is projected to grow about as fast as the overall average, with continued demand from airlines, repair stations, manufacturers, cargo carriers, and government fleets. Most mechanics complete an approved aviation-maintenance program or qualify through military and work experience before passing certification tests. Nights, weekends, hangar noise, weather, and strict drug-testing rules narrow the hiring pool. Diagnostic systems can point to a possible fault, but a licensed mechanic must inspect the aircraft, make the repair, sign the record, and accept responsibility for returning it to service.
14. Pulmonary function technologist
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Pulmonary function technologists test how well a patient’s lungs move air and transfer oxygen. They explain the procedure, coach the patient through repeated breathing efforts, clean equipment, check calibration, and decide whether the results are technically usable. A large part of the day involves saying, “Deep breath, keep going, keep going,” while watching the same curves appear on a screen.
Average pay is around $70,595 per year. Hospitals, pulmonary clinics, medical practices, research centers, and testing laboratories employ these technologists. Many enter after completing respiratory-therapy education and then earn an advanced pulmonary-function credential. Demand is supported by strong projected growth in respiratory care as more patients need testing for asthma, chronic lung disease, surgical clearance, and ongoing treatment. Software calculates the measurements, but the quality of the test still depends heavily on the technologist. A machine cannot reliably coach a frightened or confused patient, notice a poor seal around the mouthpiece, or decide when a result needs to be repeated.
15. Occupational therapy assistant
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Occupational therapy assistants guide patients through exercises and everyday tasks prescribed by an occupational therapist. The work may involve practicing how to button a shirt, transfer safely from a chair, grip utensils, or complete the same hand exercise several times. Progress can be slow, and documentation follows every treatment session.
Median pay is $68,340 per year. Employment for assistants is projected to grow 19 percent over the coming decade, driven partly by the needs of older adults and people recovering from injuries or strokes. Jobs are available in rehabilitation clinics, nursing facilities, hospitals, schools, and home health. You typically need an accredited associate degree, fieldwork experience, an exam, and a professional license. Scheduling software and digital exercise programs may support treatment, but a patient still needs a person nearby to adjust the activity, prevent a fall, and notice small changes in movement or behavior. The physical demands and constant patient contact also contribute to turnover, leaving regular openings for licensed assistants.
16. Occupational health and safety specialist
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Safety specialists inspect workplaces, collect samples, review accident reports, test noise or air levels, and check whether employees are following required procedures. There are training records to review, storage areas to inspect, protective-equipment rules to enforce, and meetings about incidents everyone would prefer had never happened. Much of the work is careful prevention rather than visible action.
Median pay is $83,910 per year. Employment for specialists is projected to grow 13 percent, with demand across hospitals, manufacturing plants, construction companies, government agencies, utilities, and consulting firms. A bachelor’s degree in safety, environmental health, science, or a related subject is common. Industry credentials and hands-on experience can improve your options. Employers need real people who can enter a work area, interview employees, recognize unsafe shortcuts, and judge whether written procedures match what is actually happening. Software can track incidents and overdue training, but it cannot walk through a noisy plant and notice that workers have quietly stopped using a required guard.
17. Pile driver operator
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Pile driver operators run heavy equipment that pounds long steel, concrete, or wooden supports into the ground. Those supports become foundations for bridges, docks, buildings, retaining walls, and other structures. The work can involve hours of positioning equipment, watching alignment, responding to hand signals, and repeating the same controlled movement until a pile reaches the required depth.
Median pay is $70,510 per year. Construction-equipment employment is projected to grow about as fast as the overall average, supported by repairs and upgrades to roads, bridges, ports, water systems, and other infrastructure. Operators often learn through a paid apprenticeship or extensive on-the-job training. Employers value people who understand rigging, soil conditions, equipment maintenance, and job-site safety. The work can be noisy, muddy, weather-dependent, and physically tiring even though you operate from a cab. Automated controls can help maintain alignment, but an experienced operator still has to respond to changing ground conditions, nearby workers, unstable loads, and equipment problems in real time.
18. Environmental compliance specialist
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Environmental compliance specialists make sure businesses and public agencies follow rules involving air emissions, wastewater, hazardous materials, spills, and waste disposal. The work includes permit reviews, sampling schedules, inspection notes, monitoring reports, and long checklists. You may spend the morning beside an industrial drain and the afternoon checking whether several months of records have been completed correctly.
The broader occupation has a median salary of $80,060 per year. Employment is expected to grow about as fast as the overall average, with roughly 8,500 openings projected annually. Consulting firms, manufacturers, utilities, waste companies, engineering businesses, and government agencies hire these specialists. A bachelor’s degree in environmental science, chemistry, biology, or a related field is typical. The job remains difficult to eliminate because permits and physical sites require continuing oversight. Monitoring equipment can collect readings, but someone must investigate unusual results, inspect the facility, speak with operators, and decide what corrective action is necessary before a small violation becomes an expensive problem.
You got the raise. HR sent the email, the new number showed up on your first paycheck of the year, and for about a week it felt like real progress. Then the lease renewal landed, and whatever breathing room the raise bought you was gone before you’d spent a dollar of it.
That timing isn’t bad luck. It’s been the story of renting almost everywhere for the last five years. The good news is that nationally, it’s finally starting to turn around. The typical household is now spending 26.4% of its income on rent, the smallest share since August 2021, and pay has pulled ahead of rent for the first time in years, leaving the typical renter about $2,300 better off than they were a year ago.
That national number is an average, and averages hide a lot. In a handful of states, rent is still climbing faster than paychecks, and in some of them the gap is getting wider, not narrower. Here’s where renters are still losing ground, and why.
State lawmakers passed a package of zoning reforms in 2023, nicknamed the Montana Miracle, meant to make it easier to build duplexes and small apartment buildings statewide. It’s a start, but zoning changes take years to turn into finished buildings. In the meantime, the people who grew up in Montana are increasingly the ones being priced out of it.
Idaho built more housing than any other state and rent still jumped 20 percent
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Idaho added more new housing relative to its population than any other state in the country, for the second year running. It still wasn’t enough. Rent rose 20.3% over the past year, essentially tied with Montana for the steepest increase in America, even though Idaho wages grew faster than any other state’s, up 6.7%. Even with the best wage growth in the country, Idaho couldn’t out-earn its own rent.
The problem is who’s moving in. A minimum-wage worker in Idaho would need to work roughly 126 hours a week, more than three full-time jobs, to afford a typical one-bedroom apartment at fair market rent. Meanwhile, the households moving into the state earn about $30,000 a year more, on average, than the households leaving it. Boise, Meridian, and Nampa alone absorbed nearly 10,000 new residents in a single year, and most of them weren’t checking studio apartment prices before they decided to move.
Fast population growth plus a widening income gap between newcomers and locals is what turns a housing shortage into a wage problem. Idaho is proof that building more homes doesn’t fix affordability on its own if the people filling them can already afford twice the rent.
Tennessee is one of the only states where paychecks are shrinking
Tennessee has no state income tax, which has made it a magnet for remote workers and retirees relocating from higher-cost states. That’s good for the state’s population numbers. It’s much less good for a nurse, a teacher, or a retail worker whose paycheck hasn’t moved in a year while rent keeps climbing.
New Hampshire has a housing problem hiding inside a demographics problem
Part of the pressure comes from demographics. More than a third of New Hampshire’s population is now over 55, up from about a quarter in 2010, and older households tend to hold onto housing longer and need different kinds of units than young renters do. That squeezes supply for everyone else in a state that was already tight on housing before the pandemic.
Virginia’s data center boom is pushing rent past what paychecks can cover
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Virginia’s rent climbed 11.6% over the past year, more than four times the 2.7% wage growth workers saw over the same period. Northern Virginia is the reason. It’s now the largest data center market in the world, with tech companies racing to build the server farms that power artificial intelligence, and that boom has turned Loudoun and Prince William counties into some of the most competitive land markets in the country.
Data centers don’t just take up land, they take up the construction crews, electricians, and buildable lots that would otherwise go toward housing. Home prices in Virginia have jumped 46% since 2020, and rent has followed, even as workers who could be building apartments are booked out building server farms instead.
Teachers, nurses, and retail workers in Northern Virginia are now competing for housing against a tech-driven economy with an entirely different pay scale. Richmond and Hampton Roads are seeing smaller versions of the same squeeze as companies push development south along the interstate, looking for cheaper land and available power. Wherever the data centers go next, rent tends to follow.
Hawaii renters need six figures just to keep up
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Hawaii already had the highest average rent of any state, and it grew another 9.2% over the past year while wages barely moved, up just 0.5%. To afford a typical rental without spending more than 30% of income on housing, a Hawaii household now needs to earn nearly $102,700 a year. Median household income in the state falls well short of that.
Hawaii’s housing crisis isn’t new, but it hasn’t eased. Land is limited, nearly everything has to be shipped in, and the state’s median single-family home price sat at $950,000 in 2025. Vacation rentals compound the shortage: Hawaii had roughly 34,500 active short-term rental listings that year, units that could otherwise house full-time residents.
Some relief may be coming. Maui County passed a law phasing out thousands of short-term rentals in buildings zoned for apartments, and condo prices there have already started falling as those units convert back to long-term housing. For renters on Oahu and the other islands still waiting on similar changes, wages would need to jump dramatically just to catch up to where rent already sits.
Utah’s reputation for affordability is quietly falling apart
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Utah still gets talked about as one of the more affordable places to live in the West, but the numbers don’t back that up anymore. Rent rose 8.3% over the past year while wages grew less than 1%, a gap that’s been quietly widening since 2020.
The state’s population keeps growing, from Logan in the north to St. George in the south, and every part of that growth has translated into more competition for the same limited housing stock. Utah still compares favorably to California or Hawaii, and that comparison is exactly what’s masking the problem. A household earning what used to be a comfortable income in Utah has less room than it did five years ago, because rent has grown roughly nine times faster than pay.
Remote workers and buyers with flexibility on where they live can absorb rising costs more easily than someone tied to a local paycheck. For renters without that flexibility, especially along the fast-growing Wasatch Front, affordability in Utah increasingly depends on how recently you moved there, not how much you earn.
Maryland’s rent kept climbing even as federal layoffs shrank paychecks
Normally, a wave of job losses that size would cool a housing market fast. In parts of Maryland, it hasn’t. Rents in Bethesda jumped more than 11% in a single year even as federal layoffs rattled the D.C. suburbs, because construction slowed at the same time demand held steady. Fewer new buildings came online just as the region needed more flexibility, not less.
The result is a state where a shrinking paycheck and a rising rent bill are hitting the same households at once. Federal workers who kept their jobs are competing for a tighter supply of apartments, while the ones who lost their jobs are trying to make rent on savings or a smaller salary elsewhere. Neither group is catching a break.
Bottom line
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Rent doesn’t have to be rising nationally for it to be crushing you personally. If you live in one of the states above, the reassuring headlines about renters finally catching up mean very little. Nationally, the income needed to afford a typical two-bedroom rental without being cost-burdened is now approaching $70,000 a year, and in the states where the gap is still widening, that number only gets harder to reach.
Homebuyers usually compare banks, brokers, and online lenders first, but credit unions also merit close review. Their ownership model changes how mortgage programs are priced, explained, and supported over time. Members hold an ownership stake, so lending decisions often reflect household stability rather than quarterly pressure. That difference can shape rates, fees, communication, and follow-through in ways that matter long after closing papers are signed.
Many borrowers searching for the best credit union for home loans begin by looking only at rates. A comprehensive review should also weigh service approach, fee clarity, and loan guidance. Because members are owners, credit unions often treat mortgages as long-term financial commitments, not quick sales opportunities. That shift can produce calmer conversations, clearer expectations, and payment plans grounded in daily budget reality.
Lower profit pressure
Banks answer to stockholders who expect strong returns. Credit unions answer to members who want fair pricing and reliable service. That distinction can affect mortgage costs in practical ways. Reduced pressure for high margins may leave room for lower rates, lighter charges, or more accommodating terms. Even a small pricing difference can trim lifetime interest by a meaningful amount.
Competitive rate structures
Mortgage pricing still depends on credit history, down payment size, property type, and repayment term. Credit unions compete within those limits with straightforward loan options. Fixed-rate mortgages, adjustable plans, refinancing paths, and equity products are often presented with less clutter. Borrowers can compare options within a single institution, saving time and reducing confusion during an already demanding financial decision.
Fees can stay more reasonable
Interest rates attract attention, yet closing costs often decide whether a loan remains comfortable. Application charges, origination fees, discount points, and processing expenses can quickly raise the true cost. Credit unions frequently keep those items more restrained than large lenders. A lower upfront burden helps preserve cash for inspections, moving expenses, repairs, and other costs that arise right after purchase.
Local knowledge helps
Housing conditions shift by neighborhood, school district, and tax area. Local credit unions often understand those patterns because they serve nearby households every day. That familiarity can improve conversations about payment comfort, insurance expectations, and realistic price ranges. Advice rooted in the same market usually feels more useful than generic guidance pulled from a national script.
Service usually feels more personal
Large lenders can process high volumes efficiently, but borrowers may feel shuffled between departments. Credit unions often offer a steadier point of contact during underwriting and closing. Questions about documents, timelines, or conditions may be directed to someone familiar with the file. That continuity reduces stress and helps first-time buyers stay organized while deadlines, signatures, and financial reviews stack up.
Pre-approval can be smoother
Pre-approval gives buyers a workable price range before they begin home shopping. Credit unions often support that step with plain checklists and direct explanations of required paperwork. Early review of income, debt, and available funds helps identify issues before an offer is written. Buyers enter the market better prepared, with fewer surprises and a stronger sense of what they can carry comfortably.
Flexible product mix
Home financing rarely ends with the original purchase mortgage. Life changes can create demand for refinancing, renovation funds, or access to equity later on. Credit unions often keep several borrowing options under one roof. That broader menu helps members adjust as circumstances shift, without restarting the relationship elsewhere or relearning an unfamiliar lender’s process from the beginning.
Education supports better decisions
The largest approval is not always the wisest borrowing choice. Payment stability depends on rate structure, escrow costs, term length, and room for future expenses. Credit unions often explain those moving parts in plain language, which helps borrowers judge long-term affordability. Better understanding reduces the risk of payment strain and encourages decisions that remain workable as household needs change.
Long-term relationships matter
A mortgage can remain in place for fifteen to thirty years, so the lender-borrower relationship should extend beyond closing day. Credit unions often value repeat contact across savings, checking, and later borrowing needs. That long view can improve responsiveness because trust has ongoing value. Members may feel more comfortable asking questions about refinancing, changes to payments, or access to equity after major life events.
Community focus adds value
Credit unions are usually tied closely to the communities they serve. Staff may understand local employers, commuting patterns, school boundaries, and neighborhood housing trends with greater precision. That connection can shape lending conversations in practical ways. Borrowers often benefit from advice that reflects nearby market conditions, rather than assumptions built for a broad national audience.
Conclusion
Credit unions remain serious mortgage contenders because their member-owned structure supports value beyond advertising claims about rates. Borrowers often gain fair pricing, manageable fees, local insight, and steadier guidance from application through closing. Those strengths can make financing feel clearer and less pressured. For many households, a credit union offers a sensible path to homeownership, with support that continues after the loan begins.
You call the Social Security number to fix a simple mistake, maybe a wrong birthdate or a missing year of earnings, and forty minutes later you are still listening to hold music. It has become the normal experience at an agency that has lost thousands of workers over the past year.
Billionaire investor Mark Cuban has been sounding the alarm about exactly this since last year, arguing that making Social Security harder to reach amounts to a quiet benefit cut, even if nobody in Washington calls it that.
Staffing is not the only clock running here, since back in June the program’s own trustees moved up their timeline for when the retirement trust fund runs short, a separate deadline that almost never gets mentioned in the same breath as Cuban’s warning about phone support.
None of the fixes below require a lawyer, a financial advisor, or waiting on Washington to do anything. They just require doing them now, before the wait times get any longer than they already are.
Cuban’s objection started in March 2025, when the Social Security Administration floated ending phone support for beneficiaries altogether, and he posted about it publicly before the agency reversed course, writing that it’s a back door way to cut SS benefits. The backlash was loud enough that the agency backed off the phone support plan within weeks.
Backing off one specific plan did not stop the broader trend, since staff kept leaving and offices kept losing capacity long after the reversal. Cuban’s argument is that you do not have to cut a benefit check to cut a benefit, you just have to make it harder for someone to reach the person who processes it, and the result looks the same to the retiree stuck on hold.
That argument holds up because the problem is not a rule change or a smaller check amount, it is friction, and friction hits hardest the people who are least equipped to fight through it, meaning older adults without reliable internet, people in rural areas, and anyone who was counting on picking up the phone the way they always have.
The cuts behind the warning, and they are real
Between January 2025 and April 2026, the Social Security Administration lost more than 8,000 employees, a 14 percent cut that left the agency with fewer workers than at any point since 1967. Forty two states and the District of Columbia saw staff losses greater than 10 percent over that stretch, with New Mexico hit hardest at 23 percent and Washington D.C. and Hawaii each down 21 percent. More than 3,800 of the positions cut were customer facing roles, the people who answer phones and staff field office counters, and the agency was already stretched thin before any of this started, serving millions more beneficiaries than it did decades ago with a workforce that had not kept pace.
Some rural offices have closed entirely or shut their doors to walk ins because there are not enough people left to staff them, which rarely shows up as a line item labeled benefit cut. Instead it shows up as a longer hold, a canceled appointment, or a claim that sits untouched for weeks longer than it used to, exactly the kind of quiet erosion Cuban has been pointing at.
The agency says it’s fixing this, but the newest claims data says otherwise
Social Security disputes the idea that service has gotten worse, saying callers are being served faster than under the last administration and that field office wait times have dropped too, crediting technology upgrades and a reassignment of staff toward the phone lines.
On July 6, the agency shifted roughly 1,500 field office workers, 2,500 in total, onto the national phone line, and the average time to answer a call reportedly dropped from 11 minutes to 5, a real improvement that came from moving people rather than adding them. That tradeoff shows up elsewhere: as of that same week, only 64.6 percent of initial claims were being scheduled within 30 days, down from 78.1 percent a year earlier, with some regions falling below 45 percent.
Phones may be getting answered faster while the claims behind those calls take longer to actually move forward, and whichever number you focus on, both point to an agency stretched thinner than it was, the same argument Cuban has been making since last year.
Create your personal my Social Security account before you need it in a hurry
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The single most useful thing you can do right now takes about ten minutes: create a personal my Social Security account if you do not already have one. It lets you check your benefit estimate, request a replacement card, update your address, and see your cost of living notice the moment it posts instead of waiting for the mail.
Setting this up long before you actually need it matters, because if you wait until you are trying to fix a payment problem or apply for benefits under pressure, you are doing it at the exact moment phone lines are busiest and offices are thinnest. Doing it now, while nothing is urgent, means you already know your way around it if something does go wrong later.
Security is part of the reason too: scammers have gotten more aggressive about impersonating Social Security by phone and text, partly because they know real support has gotten harder to reach, and having your own account means you are not relying on whoever calls you first to tell you what is happening with your benefits. You can check it yourself.
Get your earnings record checked while you still have time to fix it
Your monthly benefit is calculated from your 35 highest earning years, which means a single missing or wrong year can quietly shrink your check for the rest of your life, and employer reporting errors happen more often than people assume and can sit there uncaught for years.
Log into your account and pull up your full earnings history, then compare it against old W-2s or tax returns if you have them, watching for a year that shows zero when you know you worked or an amount that looks off. You generally have three years, three months, and fifteen days from the end of the tax year to request a correction, though there are exceptions for clear errors on the agency’s own records, so the earlier you check, the more options you have if something is wrong.
Catching an error now, while you can still gather old pay stubs and make a phone call without a two hour wait, beats trying to sort it out later, after you have already filed for benefits and the agency’s capacity has only gotten tighter.
Know your real full retirement age and what claiming early costs you
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Full retirement age is now 67 for anyone born in 1960 or later, up from 65 for earlier generations, the point at which the decades long phase-in finally landed in 2026. That number matters because it is the age at which you get 100 percent of the benefit you earned, so claiming before it permanently reduces your check while claiming after it increases it.
For every year you wait past full retirement age, up to 70, Social Security adds roughly 8 percent to your eventual monthly benefit through delayed retirement credits, so waiting the full three years from 67 to 70 can leave you with about 24 percent more every month than if you had claimed right at full retirement age, for the rest of your life.
Waiting will not pay off for everyone: if you need the income now, or your health or family history makes waiting risky, claiming earlier can be the right call. But plenty of people claim early simply because the process feels overwhelming and they want it settled, not because it favors them financially, which is exactly why knowing your real numbers before you decide matters more with support this stretched thin.
If you’re claiming early and still working, watch the earnings limit
If you claim Social Security before full retirement age and you are still bringing in a paycheck, the earnings test can quietly take a bite out of your benefit. For 2026, if you are under full retirement age all year, you can earn up to $24,480 before Social Security starts withholding, at a rate of one dollar held back for every two dollars you earn above that line.
In the calendar year you actually reach full retirement age, the limit jumps to $65,160, and the withholding eases to one dollar for every three dollars over that amount, counting only the months before your birthday, though once you hit full retirement age the limit disappears completely and you can earn anything you want without it touching your check.
Withheld money is not lost forever, since Social Security recalculates your benefit at full retirement age to give you credit for the months it held back, but the immediate hit to your monthly cash flow catches a lot of people off guard, especially if they estimated their yearly earnings wrong and end up owing money back. If your income is going to bounce around, it is worth updating your estimate with Social Security as the year goes rather than finding out after the fact.
The bigger deadline nobody’s talking about
Social Security’s retirement trust fund is projected to run short starting in the fourth quarter of 2032, a date that moved up a quarter from the year before, and if Congress does nothing between now and then, the fund would only be able to pay about 78 percent of scheduled benefits at that point.
If the retirement fund is combined with the smaller disability fund, the shared depletion date moves out to the third quarter of 2034, with about 83 percent of benefits still payable, though either way this is not a program going bankrupt or disappearing so much as one that, without a legislative fix, would owe more than it can pay and would have to trim checks across the board.
Six years sounds distant until you realize it lands squarely inside the retirement years of everyone currently in their late fifties and early sixties, and while nobody can control whether Congress acts in time, you can control whether you understand your own numbers, your own claiming strategy, and how much cushion you have if a future check ends up smaller than the one you were promised.
Don’t let the confusion open a door for scammers
Longer wait times and closed offices create the exact conditions scammers love, since a fake caller who claims to already have the answer looks a lot more convincing when people are anxious about reaching a real person at Social Security.
Social Security will never call, text, or email demanding immediate payment, threatening arrest, or asking for gift cards or wire transfers to fix a problem with your benefits. If you suspect fraud, you can report it directly to the agency’s inspector general rather than acting on whatever the caller told you to do, and the safest move is always to hang up and call the number on your own Social Security card or account, never the number a stranger just gave you.
Having your own online account pays off here too: if someone calls claiming there is an issue with your payment, you can check your account yourself instead of taking their word for it, and since scammers count on confusion and urgency working in their favor, a calm, ten minute login is often the fastest way to shut that down.
Bottom line
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Cuban is right that Social Security has gotten harder to deal with, and he is right to be loud about it. The parts you can control, your account, your earnings record, your claiming age, and your guard against scams, are worth handling now, while you still have the time and the paperwork to do it properly.
