Earner

The royal couple may have opted to go without one, but many couples who wed this season ought to consider a prenuptial agreement. Despite the common misperception that prenuptial agreements are only for aging tycoons aiming to cut their younger spouses out of the family fortune, they can be a valuable tool to get into the nitty-gritty of a couple's financial goals, says Vivian Groman, a certified public accountant with Starmont Asset Management in...

Newport Beach oncologist Minh Nguyen woke up Wednesday wearing a dubious distinction: Medicare's highest-paid doctor in California and one of the top physicians nationwide. Some of his patients and fellow physicians immediately called him wanting an explanation of why newly released federal data show he got paid $11.3 million for treating Medicare patients in 2012. Like dozens of other doctors across the country, Nguyen was unwittingly thrust into the spotlight as federal officials listed for the first time what the government pays individual doctors to treat elderly Americans.

Like many demagogues, David Blankenhorn ("The Fallacy of the Marriage 'Penalty,' " Commentary, Feb. 3) is so eager to push his agenda that he ignores the facts. The facts are that a one-earner married couple, with or without children, already pay less income tax than they would if the people were just living together. If both parties work and have similar incomes, however, they pay more tax than they would if single. How can trying to do something about the very real penalty in the latter case be called "special tax breaks for two-earner couples"?

What do Taylor Swift, Kenny Chesney and Luke Bryan have in common? Well, they're all country artists. And they all made more money in the U.S. than Justin Bieber did in 2013, according to Billboard magazine. We point that out because, well, in the wake of Bieber's spoiled-brat deposition behavior revealed Monday, it's fun to see some grown-ups taking him to school professionally. Even if one of those grown-ups is only 24. And yes, that was just some gratuitous Bieber-bashing there.

Once again the government has socked it to the middle class, while pretending this is not the case. This time, they've done it with semantics. Suddenly, the middle-income wage earner has been classified as "affluent." Who are the folks in Washington kidding? An income of $50,000 to $60,000 may have qualified you for an affluent label back when you could purchase a nice home for that amount. But today? When it costs two to three times that amount to buy a house? If my two wage-earner family is affluent, I wonder what that makes Ronald Reagan?

Low-wage earners in Southern California are increasingly struggling to afford rents for decent apartments, according to the latest annual report by the National Low Income Housing Coalition. The Washington-based advocacy group for the poor found that a worker in Los Angeles County must earn $21.98 an hour -- more than three times the state minimum wage of $6.75 -- to afford a standard two-bedroom apartment. That means a minimum-wage earner in L.A.

Re "Options Given to Save Social Security," Nov. 30: Social Security can be saved by simply making it fair. The current Social Security tax is outrageously regressive. Each worker is taxed 6.2% on up to $80,400 of annual income. After that, big earners pay nothing. That means those who earn $250,000 a year pay only 2% of their income in Social Security tax. Those who earn $500,000 pay less than 1%. But the low-income earner still pays 6.2%. This makes no sense. Income tax rates are progressive--the rich pay a higher percentage of their incomes than do the poor.

I found the letter "Blessed Are Today's Recipients of a Teetering Social Security" (Jan. 8) by baby boomer Dennis Robman to be infuriatingly full of false figures and conveniently myopic thinking. Take his hypothetical case of an earner contributing the maximum to the Social Security Fund. (I should have been so lucky in 1941 when the minimum wage was 40 cents an hour.) Mr. Robman comes up with a contribution of $34,000 over 47 years, with his pensioner receiving a payoff of nearly $500,000.

Re "Banking on Fantasies," Sept. 17: Social Security is in good shape today and will be so in the future! The surpluses that will be gone by 2037 are based on the assumption that the economy will grow at only 1.5% per year for the next 75 years. This compares to the historical growth rate of at least 2.7% over the past 75 years. It is true that the ratio of workers to retirees will continue its historic decline. However, this is offset by the continuing increase in labor productivity averaging about 2% per year.

Re "Debunking the Two-Earner Family Myth," Commentary, Jan. 24: What is Robert J. Samuelson's agenda? Someone who "knows" about economic issues rather than one who just "writes" about them would not leave out the real reason for the two-earner family. The real reason is taxes. Look up the percent of income paid in taxes by a family earning the median income in the '50s, compared with now. I'm sure that the data will be far too inconvenient to Samuelson's agenda. WARREN H. RAABE Long Beach

The highest-paid pensioner in California's largest retirement system continues to receive more than $500,000 annually, even though officials promised almost two years ago his retirement pay would be dramatically cut. After an angry state senator confronted them Thursday, pension officials said they would cut the payments to former Vernon administrator Bruce Malkenhorst to almost $116,000 a year starting in April. "I told them very directly that I'm livid beyond belief," said state Sen. Kevin de Leon (D-Los Angeles)

The more money you make before retirement, the more you may have to cut back when you do retire, a new study has found. Because of Social Security benefits, some low-wage earners receive more income when they retire than they did when they were working. By contrast, many high-wage earners see their incomes reduced significantly in retirement, according to a report by the Employee Benefit Research Institute. "Social Security replaces a higher proportion of low-wage earners' income," the Washington group said Thursday in a news release.

The man who boasted California's biggest public pension isn't giving it up without a fight. The California Public Employees' Retirement System cut former Vernon city administrator Bruce Malkenhorst's annual pension from more than $500,000 to $115,000 after he was convicted of misappropriating public funds, and now Malkenhorst is demanding Vernon make up the difference. Join us at 9 a.m. when we talk with Times reporter Ruben Vives about the 78-year-old Malkenhorst's novel argument to try and recapture some of the money CalPers said he received improperly.

The man who was granted California's biggest public pension isn't giving it up without a fight. Bruce Malkenhorst took home more than $911,000 a year as city manager of the tiny city of Vernon. His reign ended shortly before he was convicted of misappropriating public funds, and he walked away with an annual pension that eventually topped $500,000, the largest in the California Public Employees' Retirement System. But CalPERS last year decided to cut his pension to $115,000, concluding he'd derived some of his hefty salary improperly.

MOSCOW -- The Russian government has no idea how about 44% of the country's registered workers are making a living, a top official said Wednesday. Deputy Prime Minister Olga Golodets said the government is unaware of what's happening with about 38 million of the 86 million Russians registered as workers. About 48 million people are working in sectors of the economy that officials “can see and understand,” she said. “It is unclear what everybody else is involved in and to what extent,” Golodets said at an international economic conference at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow.

It's amazing, and depressing, when political compromise functions only to throw obstacles in the way of ideas that bring the greatest good to the greatest number of people. Today's example: the long, tortuous road to bringing more retirement security to working-class Californians. In September, the state launched a plan to enable these workers to put aside about 3% of their wages a year for retirement. As enacted by the Legislature and signed by Gov. Jerry Brown, the program's goals would be modest indeed.

Gisele Bundchen tops Forbes.com's list of the world's richest models, earning $33 million in the last 12 months. The Brazilian supermodel strutted past the likes of Kate Moss, who came in at No. 2 with $9 million, and Heidi Klum, who placed third on the list with $8 million. Bundchen, 26, parted ways with Victoria's Secret in May and will see her lucrative contract with the lingerie brand expire at the end of the year.

MEXICO CITY - You might be hard-pressed to find the word "Mexico" in some of the advertising for tourist resorts in Mexico. Brands like "Riviera Maya" often eclipse the name of the country where those lush beaches are located. As deadly violence that has haunted Mexico for years threatens tourist zones, government officials and trade executives are scrambling for ways to minimize damage to an industry that is a top income-earner and employer. The rapes last week of six Spanish women vacationing in Acapulco have heightened fear and called into question the government's ability to control crime and attract foreign visitors.

WASHINGTON - Seeking to leverage the momentum of his reelection victory for a partisan budget battle, President Obama called on Americans to use social media to pressure Congress in his efforts to keep tax breaks for most Americans while raising taxes on the wealthiest 2%. The president's attempt to rally public support Wednesday via Twitter, Facebook and email marks a new strategy for the Obama White House - a dramatic shift from the grinding legislative...