The Coca-Cola Co (NYSE:KO)

Even though the number of consumers buying soda products has declined for 10 straight years in the North American market, Coca-Cola is still well positioned in the beverage industry due to its numerous other offerings, including a 17 percent stake in energy drink maker Monster Beverage Corp. The company has also been focusing on consumers shift to organic products and more natural ingredients. KO stock has been growing its dividend for 52 consecutive years and the trend is predicted to continue into the future.

Chevron Corporation (NYSE:CVX)

Chevron Corporation is still one of the best dividend stocks for retirement investing more than 100 years after distributing that first quarterly paycheck in 1912 and after raising its dividend for 29 consecutive years. With oil prices now back around $60 a barrel, the company has positioned itself to take full advantage of the increase in prices. Chevron’s price-to-earnings ratio is a humble 10.7, making CVX one of the best dividend stocks to buy today.

Procter & Gamble Co (NYSE:PG)

The Procter & Gamble Co is a household name that has been paying investors dividends since 1891. The company’s portfolio of diversified products virtually ensures that it will be able to withstand any potential market downturn in the future and the company has been undergoing a restructuring to return even more money to investors. While foreign exchange fluctuations have proven to be an obstacle for the company, its relative strength in numerous markets make it one of the best dividend stocks for retirement investing.

Colgate-Palmolive Company (NYSE:CL)

The Colgate-Palmolive Company is another Consumer goods powerhouse that has been consistently paying dividends for more than 100 years. The company manufactures a wide range of products from toothpaste to cleaning supplies and distributes those products all over the world. The Colgate-Palmolive Company has been increasing its dividend for investors annually for 51 years, a feat only surpassed by Coca-Cola.

Exxon Mobil Corporation (NYSE:XOM)

The Exxon Mobil Corporation is one of the best dividend stocks for retirement investing on the stock market today. Even when oil prices are low, Exxon has both upstream and downstream operations so it can make money from refining while losing money on drilling. For more than 133 straight years, the company has paid dividends to investors, raising its payout annually for the last 32 years. For the disciplined long-term investor, XOM provides consistent returns when added to a retirement investing portfolio.

Volunteers and staff members of the group dropped off petitions in support of the rule containing more than 26,000 signatures at the U.S. Department of Labor offices. AARP volunteers will also speak to members of Congress about AARP’s opposition to any legislation that seeks to stop or slow the rule from being fully implemented.

The delivery of the petition is the beginning of several days of activities in Washington for the group. The group will also visit U.S. Representatives John Lee Ratcliffe (R-TX4); Kay Granger (R-TX12); Will Hurd (R-TX23); Michael Burgess (R-TX26); Gene Green (D-TX29); Lloyd Doggett (D-TX35); and Brian Babin (R-TX36). The conversations will include several areas of interest for the group.

One topic of conversation will be the Older Americans Act, an array of programs and services to assist and protect the nation’s seniors with the utmost independence and dignity. The group members are seeking a simple reauthorization of the core programs of this law. The group members will also be discussing the Safe Streets Act, which would ensure that planners and traffic engineers design, construct, and operate roads with the safety of all users in mind. The policy would vary by locality based on the individual communities of that location.

According to a statement by AARP Texas State Director Bob Jackson, the AARP Texas volunteers and staff are engaging with members of Congress and administration officials on issues that protect and enhance health and economic security for current and future generations of Texans. He said, “We’re delivering petitions to ensure that all financial advisers put their clients’ interests first and discussing health, safety and economic matters that impact millions of our families.”

Some of these people are due pension benefits from a job that the left years ago. Other people are due money from companies that went bankrupt or were sold to another company, but fail to collect because they don’t realize that there is money due to them. If you believe that you may be missing out on pension funds from a previous job, here are some steps that you can take.

If the company that you worked for is still in business, you should call the company’s human resources department to get into contact with the company’s pension plan administrator. The administrator should be able to tell you whether you are due pension funds, the amount of the funds due to you, and how to obtain the funds.

You may need to supply proof that you actually worked for the company, but this can be easily done with old W-2s or paycheck stubs from the employer. You can also get a copy of your earnings record from the Social Security Administration, which will show the amount you were paid each calendar year by each employer that you worked for, but going that route will cost you $136 for the information.

If the company that you worked for has been sold or has gone out of business, then the best course of action would be to contact the PBGC, which guarantees pension payouts to private-sector workers if their pension plans fail. While there are annual limits to what you can receive in pension funds from the agency, many of the people that are eligible for pension payments receive the full amount that they earned before the company went under or was bought. The PBGC provides an online pension-search directory tool to help you find information easily at search.pbgc.gov/mp/mp.aspx.

Seniors are now living longer than ever. A mixture of more people living a healthier lifestyle and improved pharmaceutical and medical knowledge has substantially extended our lifespans. According to the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, life expectancies in the United States have risen to 78.8 years on average. Since people are living longer than ever, it means more years of buying the products and services they need for a comfortable lifestyle and potentially spending considerably more than seniors in previous decades.

This make investing in stocks in the healthcare sector extremely attractive to many investors. As people become older, they need the products and services of the healthcare industry more and more, ensuring that many of these companies will enjoy considerable sales for years to come. Baby boomers are just now starting to enter the years where healthcare becomes more important to them, and the millions of boomers that will be retiring soon are sure to boost the earning results of the industry. With the Affordable Care Act transforming the healthcare landscape, it is safe to say that investing in the healthcare industry will be beneficial to your retirement investing plans.

Placing healthcare industry companies into your retirement investing plan is also a socially good thing to do, because these companies are potentially changing millions of lives with their products and services. There are a couple of relatively safe ways to incorporate these companies into your retirement investing. You can invest in healthcare conglomerates, like Johnson & Johnson, or mutual funds that mirror the performance of the healthcare industry. You can also choose to invest in individual stocks for healthcare companies after reviewing company information and their plans for the future. It is important to do your research before deciding when companies are best for retirement investing so you know the risks and the rewards that may come from your investments.

Long term care insurance is something you hope you never need, but will wish you had if you ever need more help than a regular helper can provide or you need around-the-clock medical care. According to the Genworth 2014 Cost of Care Survey, the national average for a shared room in a nursing home is $77,380 a year, but the costs can go much higher. Assisted living currently averages about $42,000 a year. Medicare covers 100 days in a nursing home for recovery from an illness or injury, if you are showing improvement, but it offers no help for assisted living or an assistant coming to your home. To receive any more help from Medicare, you will have to prove that you have exhausted your savings.

Over the past few years, many of the insurance companies offering long term care insurance have eliminated the policies from their offerings. The companies that remained in the industry hiked their prices dramatically to cope with the higher number of their policyholders who would be making claims. According to recent research from the Pinnacle Advisory Group, a typical long-term-care policy written 10 years ago has seen annual premiums rise about 70 percent in the intervening years. The American Association for Long-Term Care Insurance reports that the average policy premium rose 8.6 percent over the last year alone and many policyholders have seen their costs rise even more, up to 17 percent in some cases.

You should take your family history into consideration, but the currently accepted rule of thumb for long term care insurance is that you should buy a policy if you have between $200,000 and $2 million in assets. If you have less than $200,000, it will be difficult for you to afford the premiums and you really don’t have enough to protect for the insurance to be worthwhile. With $2 million or more in assets, you will probably be able to handle paying your own way in the event that you need long term care in the future.

Financial experts say that the number of retirees finding themselves in similar situations is rising. Most have no idea that they were overpaid for years by their pension plans and are blindsided by the fact that they are legally liable for repayment. The retirees are often restricted to two choices for returning the overpayment; submit a lump sum payment or suffer through cuts to their pension income until the overpayment has been repaid. Some plans start lowering benefits immediately after the retirees receive notification of the issue.

Retirees that find themselves in this situation quickly find that the law is not on their side. There is no federal law restricting private pension plans from recovering overpayments and IRS rules make it clear that pension plans must recover excess payments to maintain their tax-exempt status. Pension plans are also charged with the responsibility to preserve the assets of a pension trust for all members, so they must try to recoup repayments from retirees for the benefit of all of the plan’s participants.

There are not many options to protect yourself from this issue. The first thing you should do should you receive one of these notices is ask to see the calculations showing how your new benefit amount was determined. If your payments were miscalculated before, they may be wrong again. Asking to see the calculation gives you a chance to spot errors and challenge them.

Affected parties can contact the Labor Department online or call 866-444-3272 toll-free to learn more about their situation and their options in the matter. If further help is needed, you may be referred to National Pension Lawyers Network, the Pension Rights Center, or the Administration on Aging. Currently about 17 million people receive traditional pensions from the private sector, about 16 percent of workers. In the early 1990s, about 35 percent private-sector workers had traditional pensions.

Before the changes to the Hall income tax were proposed, there were only two authorized exemptions from paying the tax. Individuals who earned less than $1,250 a year from their investments, or $2,500 for a couple, were exempted from paying the tax. Individuals aged 65 and older who earned less than $33,000 a year in total income, or $59,000 in joint income, were also exempted from the tax. The bill passed by lawmakers increases those total income thresholds to $37,000 for single filers and $68,000 for joint filers, effective for tax year 2015.

The income tax changes should bring a little bit of financial relief to Tennesseans who are 65 or older. Nearly 50 percent of all Hall tax filers and roughly half the revenue the state receives from the tax comes from seniors. If those seniors have a pension and receive social security, they’ll likely be required to pay the tax on any investment income they receive.

Many in the state are prioritizing the ability of seniors to live on modest savings over the state’s need for the revenue, calling it a painless way to help some of the seniors in the state. The Hall income tax brought in nearly $240 million in tax revenue in 2014. According to the Tennessee Department of Revenue, the proposed changes would reduce the state’s tax revenue by roughly $1.5 million per year, affecting both state and local governments. Some lawmakers are fighting for a complete repeal of the tax but it is unlikely that the state could afford to lose the nearly quarter billion it receives from the tax.

The new 401(k) retirement plan was recommended as part of a sea of changes that would help ensure that troops who don’t serve 20 years are still offered some types of retirement benefits. Under the current plan, troops that serve less than 20 years are not entitled to retirement benefits from the military. However, many private sector workers are offered retirement benefits and retirement savings plans after just months of employment with their company.

Of the 15 recommendations made by the Military Compensation and Retirement Modernization Commission, President Obama has said that he supports implementing 10 of them as soon as possible. These recommendations included better collaboration between the Defense Department and VA, improved access to childcare, and mandatory transition assistance for troop members leaving the military.

Members of the commission stressed that the retirement reforms are sorely needed and that they would benefit the vast majority of service members. When the full report introduced in January, the commission warned against implementing only certain pieces of their recommendations. The 15-package reform proposal should be implemented as an entire package, they said, to avoid any unintended effects on maintaining an all-volunteer force or on the budget.

In their version of the 2016 defense policy bill, the House Armed Services Committee voted to include implementing the new 401(k) plan by Oct. 1, 2017. While New York Republican Rep. Chris Gibson introduced an amendment to put off the implementation for another year, he was soundly defeated by the other committee members. The defense policy bill must now be approved by the full House and reconciled by Senate negotiators.

The average Fidelity 401(k) balance increased 3.6 percent from last year, rising to $91,800 at the end of the first quarter of the fiscal year. The average individual retirement account balance reached a record high of $94,100. The average overall savings rate, including employee and employer contributions, rose 12.5 percent during the quarter. This is good news for the savers contributing to these accounts, as it means that they will be more prepared when they reach their retirement years.

Unfortunately, the savings rate for the rest of the nation fall far short of the numbers reported by Fidelity. A January 2015 report from the National Institute on Retirement Security revealed that nearly 45 percent of working-age households, roughly 39.6 million households, do not have any retirement savings at all in retirement accounts. Of the Americans that have been able to save something for retirement, they had an average of $2,500 in their retirement accounts. This trend is alarming many financial professionals, who are now warning of an impending retirement crisis coming as baby boomers begin to retire.

Many people are concerned about not having enough money stashed in retirement savings to have a comfortable life once they do retire. A lack of retirement savings can cause great financial difficulty when a person must live on a fixed budget. It could lead to the accumulation of debt that you cannot afford to repay, prevent you from paying your bills in a timely manner, and damage your credit score. If you have not yet begun saving for retirement, it is never too late to start. Take advantage of a 401(k) account provided by your employer or open an individual retirement account and begin saving for retirement today.

Matching IRA Contributions

Fidelity Investments recently implemented a matching contribution program for individual retirement accounts. If assets in a traditional, Roth or rollover IRA invested with another company are transferred to Fidelity, the company promises match a portion of your future contributions for three consecutive years. Fidelity’s match is only valid on new contributions made after your initial transfer.

The amount of money you receive in matching funds will depend on both the amount of the initial deposit and the amount of your future contributions. Depending on the amount of the initial deposit, the match ranges from 1 percent to 10 percent of your future contribution. To get the 10 percent match, you must transfer at least $500,000 from a competitor account to a Fidelity account. If you transfer the minimum amount of $10,000, the match would be 1 percent.

Cash Bonuses

Until the end of May, Ally Bank is paying cash bonuses ranging from $100 to $500, depending on the size of the deposit, for IRAs transferred from other banks or brokerages. Online brokerage Motif Investing is offering a one-time bonus of $150 to those who transfer at least $5,000 to a Motif IRA prior to the end of 2015.

Both TD Ameritrade and E-Trade offer cash bonuses based on the amount of money rolled over from existing retirement accounts into new accounts. You must deposit a minimum of $250,000 to receive a $600 cash bonus. They both offer free trades as part of the deal.