"Dabbing" into Branding with Internet Content Creators

Nichole Francois, Special to Advertising Week

Chances are you’ve seen the video of a couple of friends “dabbing” during the Olympic Games. But who is the guy behind the viral video? That would be Logan Paul, Internet content creator and brand influencer.

During Advertising Week, Marcus Peterzell, EVP of Entertainment at Ketchum, sat down with Logan Paul, actress Meg Ryan, and writer Robert Gordon to discuss how the advertising industry can create content that grows bigger every day through Internet content influencers. These influencers not only act as brand spokespeople, but also help to create the content for the brand. Additionally, instead of creating content focused on the brand, marketers are more concerned with producing great content with the help of brand influencers, such as Logan Paul.

Paul, who described himself as “pretty crazy,” began creating videos when he was just 10-years-old. From the get-go, creating aesthetic on screen was exhilarating for Paul. However, it took quite a while for his career as an Internet content creator to launch, considering at age 18, Logan had only 4,000 subscribers. The break-through came when the six-minute video platform, Vine, first launched and Paul found his niche as the “crazy college kid from Ohio.” After nearly a year, a video compilation of all of his six-second Vines went viral, and Hollywood came knocking on his door. In addition to his Vine account, Paul has over 850,000 subscribers on YouTube, almost 13 million likes on Facebook, and 6.6 million followers on Instagram.

So, why do these numbers matter? They make Paul the perfect candidate for an Internet millennial influencer. Instead of using a movie star, such as Meg Ryan, in an advertisement, brands can use Paul to relate to millennials through unique content. Paul said using social media stars makes partnering with influencers easier because content can be much more visible on social posts. He creates videos and posts partnered with many different brands, such as Hanes and Aeropostale. Instead of going directly brands, brands come to him to pitch partnership ideas for his social media platforms.

 “Every single branded piece of content I’ve done has demolished, and so we’ve [taken] the laid-back approach, with the come to us, hard-to-get approach,” said Paul.

As an upside to being an Internet influencer, Paul can choose the brands that align with his goals and his voice. Obviously, if you’ve ever seen one of Paul’s videos, a conservative brand would not be the right fit. Paul tends to choose brands that are fun and risky, just like his personality. He says that the brand has to trust him and let him do his thing, and in return they will get the views and exposure. Hanes is the favorite brand Paul has gotten to work with because he was able to express himself in his own way for the brand, as he explained, “They let me do whatever I wanted. I got to ride a bull for it!”

However, social media platforms have recently placed more limitations on brands partnering with content creators. For example, Paul said you have to use the hashtags #ad and #sponsor in sponsored posts on Instagram. On Facebook, you have to disclose within the first five seconds that a video is in partnership with a brand. Logan said this has made it more difficult to create organic content, but he gets around the challenges through innovative content.

So why do brands enjoy pairing with content creators like Paul? Peterzell said brands are asking for real engagement and real narratives, and they want to be part of the conversation. It’s not always an easy formula to do, but picking content creators like Paul or actresses like Meg Ryan can help. Meg Ryan, who started acting in commercials in college, said there is a radical change in branding today. Ryan said in the 1980s, some actresses would fight for positions as a brand spokesperson. Today, actors and content creators, such as Logan Paul, can partner with brands more often on social media platforms because of social’s accessibility to the market. More importantly, influencers have the ability to give their own voice to what branded content is created.

African Nation Slaps Exxon With Fine Nearly 7 Times Its Own GDP

The African nation of Chad has ordered Exxon Mobil Corp. to fork over a sum of money that would make Austin Powers villain Dr. Evil proud ― not quite “100 billion dollars,” but close.

As Bloomberg reports, a court in Chad’s capital of N’Djamena announced in a ruling Oct. 5 that it has ordered the oil and gas giant to pay $74 billion in fines ― a figure nearly seven times the country’s 2015 gross domestic product.

The fine stems from a complaint from Chad’s Ministry of Finance that a consortium led by Exxon hadn’t met its tax obligations, Bloomberg reports. In addition to the $74 billion, the country demands $819 million in royalties. 

Quartz pointed out that Chad’s order would be comparable to the United States fining a company more than $100 trillion.

SUSAN LINNEE/AP

Chadian workers guide a pipe down a well in the Doba oil fields in southern Chad.

In Chad, Exxon operates oilfields and a pipeline system that transports crude oil to Cameroon for export. The country produces around 160,000 barrels of oil per day, according to the Council on Foreign Relations.

Todd Spitler, a spokesman for Exxon, said in a statement to The Huffington Post that the company disagrees with the court ruling and is “evaluating next steps.”

“This dispute relates to disagreement over commitments made by the government to the consortium, not the government’s ability to impose taxes,” Spitler wrote. “Contract sanctity and respect for the rule of law are core principles used to manage our business over the long term. It is vital for all parties to honor the terms of a contract and abide by applicable law in order to achieve the desired long-term benefits envisioned when projects begin.”

Brahim Abbo Abakar, president of the Chadian court, reportedly confirmed the ruling to Bloomberg.

The hefty fine from the landlocked African nation comes amid mounting troubles for Exxon in the U.S. The company faces numerous investigations into whether it lied to investors and committed fraud by covering up the risks of climate change for decades. The attorneys general of New York and Massachusetts are probing the company, and the Securities and Exchange Commission has begun an investigation into how Exxon Mobil values future projects amid climate change and plunging oil prices.

Last week, the Conservation Law Foundation, an environmental advocacy group, made good on its threat to sue Exxon Mobil, filing what it says is the first U.S. legal action aimed at holding the companyaccountable for its well-documented climate change cover-up. 

There Are More Immigrant Billionaires In The U.S. Than Ever Before

The Forbes 400 list might look like just a bunch of really, really rich Americans from afar. But what’s notable this year is that an unprecedented number of those who made the list ― including three married couples ― are foreign-born. 

Overall, the 42 foreign-born entries on the 400 list have a combined net worth of nearly $250 billion, and come from 21 different countries. With six people, Israel has the most representation, followed by India with five, and Hungary and Taiwan with four each. As far as continents, Asia and Europe led the pack with 21 and 15 people, respectively.

Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google, is 10th on the list. His estimated net worth is $37.5 billion, according to Forbes. He and his family fled Soviet Russia when he was 6 years old due to anti-Semitism.

George Soros, the richest hedge fund manager in the world, also made the list. His family survived Nazi-occupied Hungary, fleeing when the country was overtaken by communism. 

America's 400 richest people are worth more than ever before: a combined $2.4 trillion https://t.co/7ok3eTho7O #Forbes400 pic.twitter.com/95RFWVC3AC

— Forbes (@Forbes) October 5, 2016

It’s impressive to see the ways in which these billionaires have given back to causes that are tied to their own immigrant experiences. Brin, for instance, donated $1 million to HIAS, the nonprofit that helped his family resettle in the U.S., in 2009. Soros pledged $500 million to help refugees and migrants in September.

Also of note ― one-third of the foreign-born billionaires on the list are richer than Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, whose net worth has dropped to $3.7 billion, down $800 million from last year, Forbes said.

Familiar names still sit at the top of the list. Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft, holds the No. 1 slot with a net worth of $81 billion, followed by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, worth $67 billion, Warren Buffett, worth $65.5 billion and Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s founder, worth $55.5 billion.

Chobani To Start Offering Paid Family Leave To All Its Employees

Starting next year, workers at yogurt maker Chobani will be eligible for six weeks of paid parental leave when they have a child ― and it won’t matter whether they are mothers or fathers, or whether they work in corporate headquarters or a blue-collar plant.

Chobani founder and CEO Hamdi Ulukaya wrote in a blog post on LinkedIn Wednesday that the new policy grew out of personal experience. He recently became a new father, and wanted to find a way to help his employees when they have a baby or adopt or foster a child. Workers will collect 100 percent of their pay during the leave period.

“It was important to me that everyone at the company have this time ― especially the people in our plants,” Ulukaya wrote. “From the top down, we’ll encourage our folks to use this time knowing their careers at this company won’t be affected by it.”

Fortunately, it’s becoming more fashionable for U.S. companies to announce they’re instituting a more progressive parental leave policy for employees (and, of course, to invite a round of praise for their decision). The U.S., unlike just about all other advanced economies, does not legally guarantee paid time off for workers after having a child. Here, it’s up to companies whether they’ll provide it.

Not many do. Only around 12 percent of private-sector workers in the U.S. report that they get paid family leave through their jobs, according to Labor Department data. And not surprisingly, those who do tend to be wealthier than those who do not. As a result, lower-wage workers are often forced back onto the job after having a child much faster than white-collar professionals.

That’s why Chobani’s move is more notable than another Silicon Valley tech company deciding to ramp up its leave benefits. Chobani has two factories and 2,000 employees, many of them employed in food-processing positions. About a third of the company’s workforce is refugees, according to NPR.

The new policy, Ulukaya said, will not discriminate between job roles, and will include hourly as well as salaried employees, so long as they are employed full time. 

Chobani’s new policy is progressive in another way: It won’t differentiate between male or female employees, or gay or straight couples, when they have children. Paternity leave can be skimpy, even at companies that are generous with maternity leave, giving men little time before they have to return to work. And that can end up disadvantaging women both at home and in the workplace, by foisting more child-rearing duties onto them and keeping them out of the workforce longer. The same problem applies to gay workers who may not have borne a child, but are new parents nonetheless.

Chobani’s paid leave news Wednesday follows a run of positive press for the New York-based yogurt maker. In April, it announced that full-time employees would receive shares worth up to 10 percent of the company if and when it goes public. The New York Times estimated that the average employee’s haul could be $150,000, and longtime veterans could possibly top $1 million. 

How I Stopped Buying Things I Don't Need

This article is part of HuffPost’s “Reclaim” campaign, an ongoing project spotlighting the world’s waste crisis and how we can begin to solve it.

I’m kind of an impulsive shopper. You might even call me a compulsive shopper. I never met a white Zara blouse I didn’t like. 

I’m also an introvert who primarily enjoys the company of New York City streets. This means a Saturday walk in November can easily turn into a $75 binge on bathing suit bottoms at H&M.

I buy something cool and cheap, rip the tags from my bounty and, by the next week, I’ve lost all interested in wearing it. On top of that, I hate returning things. My aversion is rooted in a chronic lack of patience, general interpersonal anxiety and tendency to become lightheaded while waiting in lines.

When you don’t have a ton of money or an excess of square footage to call home, these habits can get out of hand. Within the last year, I realized things for me were way, way out of hand. 

Running late to work one day, with my hands two feet deep in new blouses, I was forced to confront the fact that I was draining a modest bank account into an even more modest bedroom closet.

The person I wanted to be has one quality black blazer she wears every day. The person I had become would crawl beneath a sale rack to claim three.

Solving my problem meant confronting a lifetime of neuroses and unproductive coping mechanisms. The first step was to start returning unworn items to the stores where I found them. The next would be to stop over-buying altogether.

I was draining a modest bank account into an even more modest bedroom closet.

Fashion is estimated to be one of the most polluting industries in the world. One facet of this complex problem is the sheer volume of stuff we throw out: About 85 percent of America’s 15.1 million tons of textile waste ended up in landfills in 2013. Secondhand clothes are often sent to cheap markets in the developing world, compromising local vendors’ ability to compete.

According to the International Labor Organization, many of the 170 million child laborers across the globe are employed in garment and textile-making industries ― in part because of massive demand for inexpensive, trendy clothes in the Western world. 

Meanwhile, my walls were dripping with cheap scarves and reckless materialism. I was paying a premium for cage-free eggs from chickens treated better than some of the humans who made my clothes. I was dropping off piles of never-worn polyester to Goodwill on the way to the farmers market with reusable bags. It didn’t make sense to me anymore.

NinaMalyna via Getty Images

It me!

But returning things was not a habit I ever developed. It’s certainly not something I ever learned from my parents. My mom grew up poor and my dad grew up cheap, so I inherited an irrepressible drive to acquire as many things as possible for the lowest possible price. Where frugality began, more good sense didn’t always follow. If you took a gamble on a bargain purchase and it didn’t work out, you just cut your losses.

Why spend two hours and $5 on subway fare to return a $10 blouse when you can just buy more hangers? 

More importantly, shopping for deals was a bonding activity for my mother, sister and me. Even as an adult confronting my own issues with clutter and overspending, the idea of declining my mother’s invitations to the outlet mall fills me with guilt.

For our family, buying things for people is an act of love. My mother sent me many of the unworn items that remain in my closet, which I imagine her buying and mailing with an excitement I understand all too well. A therapist once told me that my “money issues” with regard to shopping are really my “mommy issues.” I stopped by Urban Outfitters on the way home.

So here’s how I began to break out of the cycle. 

I could keep buying clothing under two conditions: I’d leave the tags on an item until I wore it, and I’d keep my receipts. Previously I’d throw away both immediately with post-purchase euphoria. And rather than wear the item immediately, I’d wait until I really wanted to wear it. Often, that moment never came. 

A therapist once told me my “money issues” are really my “mommy issues.” I stopped by Urban Outfitters on the way home.

I found that when I bought a new item on a whim, I’d get bored with it faster than its return policy would expire. I always had the option to bring it back.

Parting with the item was painless, but something that took 10 minutes to buy often took far, far more time to return. It wasn’t long before I realized the excitement of buying something new wasn’t worth the time and effort involved in returning it. 

Finally, a closet filled with cheap clothes I barely liked no longer appealed to me. And now that I was keeping better track of the items I bought only to endure an aggressive Zara return line a week later, I just couldn’t be bothered to buy them in the first place. 

With that small change, I’m happier and slightly richer. I feel better about myself as a global citizen and as a woman with at least a little self-discipline. Walking past a department store on payday isn’t exactly easy, but paying rent on time and choosing an outfit in under five minutes definitely is. 

While I didn’t completely cure myself of the impulse to shop, I put up enough barriers to doing so that I created a clearer path to reducing frivolous consumption. Will I resist buying underwear later this week to postpone doing laundry? Well, I’m only human. 

More stories like this:

• This Family Went A Whole Year Without Buying New Clothes
• These African Countries Don’t Want Your Used Clothing Anymore
• The ‘Chilling’ Moment This Father Realized Where His Kids’ Clothes Come From
• Before Buying More Clothes At H&M, Read This
• Something To Think About Before Donating Your Clothes
• This Company Is Basically A Hospital For Sad, Damaged Clothes
• Why This Company Wants You To Fall In Love With People’s Old Jeans

Largest Private Prison Contractor Slashes Jobs After Losing Federal Business

The country’s largest private prison contractor announced plans Tuesday to cut between 50 and 55 full-time jobs at its company headquarters in Tennessee, slashing its corporate workforce by 12 percent.  

The cuts are part of a restructuring that comes one month after the Department of Justice announced plans to phase out privatized prisons, following a blistering report by the department’s Office of the Inspector General concluding the facilities were less safe than government ones and not necessarily cheaper.

“Recognizing the continuing evolution of our core corrections and detention businesses, and our strategy to grow our reentry and real estate platforms, we conducted a thorough review of our corporate structure to optimize our support of both existing and future operations,” CCA President Damon Hininger, said in a press release.

Hininger gave up a stock grant valued when he received it last year at $2 million, as part of the efforts to save the company $9 million next year. CCA paid him $3.4 million in total compensation last year, including the stock grant.

CCA’s stock plummeted after the DOJ announced its intention to cancel the Bureau of Prisons contracts, shedding about 45 percent of its value since the Aug. 18 decision. BOP contracts accounted for about 11 percent of the CCA’s revenue last year.

At the presidential debate on Monday, Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton applauded DOJ’s decision to phase out private prisons and said she hoped that state governments would follow suit.

“I’m glad that we’re ending private prisons in the federal system; I want to see them ended in the state system,” Clinton said. “You shouldn’t have a profit motivation to fill prison cells with young Americans.”

But even as prison contractors like CCA stand to lose lucrative contracts with the Bureau of Prisons, the DOJ decision leaves much of their business untouched. The U.S. Marshals Service, a division of the DOJ, still relies on private corporations to lock up about one-third of the people in its custody ― roughly 18,500 people per day, as of 2013.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement depends even more on private companies to handle detention. About two-thirds of the people in immigrant detention sleep in beds managed for profit by private corporations.

That may change. Jeh Johnson, head of the Department of Homeland Security, last month ordered ICE to review its use of privatized detention centers in light of the DOJ reform.

How Can SEO Be Used to Target Millennials

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) remains one of the most powerful ways to reach your target audience. But Google's changes have meant that ranking websites is based on the user experience each customer gets. This means companies have to change the way they do things. SEO is not just a case of throwing in a few keywords and links to sites.

I spoke to Arya Bina, Founder and CEO of Kobe Digital, to talk about how SEO can be used to target millennials, which is one of the hardest groups to hit.

AJ: Thank you for joining me today. Could you tell me more about Kobe Digital?

CEO: Kobe Digital is a company that caters to small and medium-sized businesses. We help them to reach their target audiences. We remain a small firm with a global reach. Our role as a boutique Los Angeles digital marketing firm enables us to give our clients the personalized services they want to conquer the most competitive industries.

AJ: Do you think millennials look at SEO differently than any other generation?

CEO: Millennials definitely view SEO differently. The main difference is that millennials perceive strong SEO to be a requirement for any company they do business with. They have grown up with the Internet and Google their whole lives, the first generation to do so, and finding a piece of information online has become second nature. They do the same when they want to find out more about a business.

For the vast majority of them, the Internet is the first place they look when learning more about a company and its products. Companies that have failed to make a strong online presence their top priority are practically invisible to millennials. They're as good as dead in the water.

AJ: As a boutique LA digital marketing firm, do you find most of your clients are from the local area?

CEO: We have found that the majority of small to medium-sized businesses enjoy working with local agencies. This is because we find that any cultural and logistical challenges are already understood by the agency. Our list of clients reflects this, and the majority of the businesses on this list are based in Southern California to enable this personalized approach.

But Kobe Digital is a national company and there have been many companies from across the country deciding to work with us after being referred. Los Angeles is one of the biggest and best creative hubs in the country, which is why top marketing talent tends to flock here which has enabled Kobe Digital to hire some of the top millennial talent .

AJ: What direction do you think SEO is taking now?

CEO: To us, it's clear that SEO is becoming the new reality when it comes to marketing. SEO has enabled companies to execute campaigns that are targeted, scalable, and measurable. That's the gold standard in advertising. With over 90% of online experiences beginning with a Google search, SEO is the clear choice for any company that wants to hit millennial audiences.

SEO is part of an environment that's dynamic and fast-flowing. It's difficult to predict which direction it will move in over the next few years. But targeted marketing services are sure to continue their relentless advance. Companies will be able to leverage granular data, including time spent on pages, search engine users' search histories, and bounce rates. To a large extent, we've already seen this transformation.

AJ: When marketing to millennials does SEO and/or Social have the stronger place?

CEO: It's easy to think that millennials share every detail on social media, therefore social media marketing is the future of online advertising. At Kobe Digital, we have found that this is true to a certain extent. A strong social media marketing campaign is one of the most effective tools for building your brand and engaging with your customers.

But when it comes to introducing your company's products and services to new demographics, SEO is the best way to increase your visibility. Search engine users are far more likely than social media users to convert. 72% of people who perform a local search will visit the closest store to them. 61% of local searches also lead to a purchase.

Those are numbers social media marketing has yet to reach.

Conclusion - SEO is More Important than Ever

SEO is more important than ever before and there's no doubt that it's a cornerstone for reaching millennials. SEO might have been changed, but it's not going to disappear anytime soon. Companies that fail to invest in SEO are going to be at a crippling disadvantage. And there are no signs of this changing anytime soon as SEO becomes more targeted and more affordable.

What do you think is the most important benefit of SEO?

Black Women Are Leaning In And Getting Nowhere

Black women want a seat at the table. And yet they are close to invisible at the highest ranks of corporate America, reveals data released Tuesday morning by consulting firm McKinsey & Company and LeanIn.org, the nonprofit women’s leadership organization founded by Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg. 

This is the second year the organization has released the data, among the most comprehensive looks at how women are faring in the business world.

Overall, it’s not going terribly well. Women drop out of the corporate pipeline at high rates: For every 100 women promoted to manager (the first step on the track up the ladder), 130 men are advanced, the study found. Women get more pushback when they negotiate for raises, and are more likely to get labeled pushy or bossy by the higher-ups and generally receive less support from senior colleagues.

But women of color have it particularly bad, the study found. 

Defined as black, Asian or Hispanic, women of color make up just 3 percent of executives in the C-suite at the 132 North American companies surveyed, which include JP Morgan Chase, Procter & Gamble, General Motors and Facebook. Yet, these women comprise 20 percent of the United States population.

White women were also nowhere near parity in those high-level offices, but at 17 percent are doing much better by comparison.

“When women are stuck, corporate America is stuck,” Sandberg said in a statement. “We know that diverse teams perform better and inclusive workplaces are better for all employees, so we all have strong incentives to get this right.”

LeanIn.org

Women of color are far less likely to make it to the top in corporate America.

“Women of color are the most underrepresented group in the corporate pipeline,” write the authors of the report, which also surveyed women within these companies.

This is the second year that LeanIn.org and McKinsey have done this landmark survey. Though last year some data on women of color was included, the report did not break out pipeline data on women of color. 

The latest study looked at promotion and attrition rates at the various companies, which together employ more than 4.6 million people. Additionally, more than 34,000 employees at the companies responded to a survey on gender biases, work-life issues and career opportunities at their companies.

Women of color who responded to the survey, especially black women, tended to perceive their offices as less fair. Only 29 percent of black women said the best opportunities at their company go to the most deserving employees, compared to 47 percent of white women, 43 percent of Asian women and 41 percent of Hispanic women.

“This study makes clear that while all women remain underrepresented in the corporate pipeline, women of color face the steepest drop-offs,” LeanIn.org president Rachel Thomas said. 

When Sandberg’s corporate feminist manifesto Lean In came out in 2013, one of the most potent criticisms of the best-seller involved race. Many said the book, which urges women to speak up and be more ambitious at work, was less relevant for women of color, who face different challenges at the office.

Sandberg famously wrote that many women were giving up on attaining leadership roles in corporate America before their careers even took off. Women “leave before they leave,” she wrote, echoing a widely viewed TED Talk she gave in 2010. Essentially, the argument goes, women anticipate that they won’t be able to have full-throttle careers because at some point marriage and children will intercede. So they deliberately hold themselves back.

This may be a specific problem of white women, however. Women of color, according to surveys and plenty of anecdotal evidence, are far more ambitious. Indeed, black women participate in the labor market at higher rates than any other group of women.

While white women seem to struggle with whether or not to seek advancement at work, black women are far less ambiguous, according to a 2014 survey from the Center for Talent Innovation.

“In our research, we find black women are nearly 3 times more likely than white women to say they aspire to a powerful job with a prestigious title,” Tai Wingfield, one of the report’s authors and senior vice president of communications for the Center for Talent Innovation and managing director at Hewlett Consulting Partner, told The Huffington Post. 

In this year’s LeanIn.org survey, 48 percent of women of color said they aspire to leadership positions at their company, compared with 37 percent of white women. The difference is most stark at the entry level, where only 27 percent of white women aspire to be a top executive, compared with 41 percent of women of color.

Yet it’s white women who are far more likely to land top roles. After Xerox chairman and CEO Ursula Burns leaves her post this year, there will be no black women CEOs in the Fortune 500, noted Melinda Marshall and Wingfield in a recent piece for Harvard Business Review.

“The problem is leadership isn’t seeing them ― those qualified, well educated black women who are vying for leadership but are being overlooked,” Wingfield told HuffPost.

“Black women are already ‘leaning in,’” Valerie Purdie-Vaughns, a psychology professor at Columbia University, wrote last year in a fascinating piece for Fortune on black female leadership.

Steve Marcus / Reuters

Xerox chairman and CEO Ursula Burns is seen at the 2012 International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Jan. 11, 2012. The company refers to Burns as "chairman" rather than "chairwoman."

Part of the problem is “invisibility,” Purdie-Vaughns writes. When the average person thinks of a “woman leader,” she argues, the image that comes to mind is a white woman ― like Sandberg. If you picture a black leader, you’re more likely to think of a black man than a black woman.

“Because black women are not seen as typical of the categories ‘black’ or ‘woman,’ people’s brains fail to include them in both categories,” Purdie-Vaughns writes. “Black women suffer from a ‘now you see them now you don’t’ effect in the workplace.”

In Wingfield’s study, black women tell painful stories of how this plays at the office. One woman, after asking her boss about new opportunities at her firm, was told to be happy with what she’s achieved. “You’ve reached a milestone you’ve probably never imagined,” he tells her. “Do we really need to talk about what you haven’t yet achieved?” 

Yvette Miley, a senior executive at MSNBC, describes her experiences in the 1990s speaking up at editorial meetings only to see her ideas get ignored until a male colleague repeated it and had the buy-in of the room.

What seems clear is that the managers and executives who make decisions about promotions and advancement may have unconsciously absorbed some of these stereotypes and are holding back women of color.

And to make things even tougher, many companies aren’t very focused on racial diversity to begin with. According to LeanIn.org’s numbers, 55 percent of companies say racial diversity is a top priority. Gender diversity gets far more attention, with 78 percent of companies saying they’ve made it a top goal.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story incorrectly said that more than 34,000 women answered survey questions as part of LeanIn.org and McKinsey’s new report. In fact, both men and women participated in the survey. 

You Might Want To Check Your Washing Machine. It Could Explode.

First it was your cell phone battery, now your washing machine could be in danger of exploding. 

The Consumer Product Safety Commission issued a warning this week to owners of certain top-loading Samsung washing machines, saying the appliances may pose safety issues.

The warning comes on the heels of a class-action lawsuit customers have filed against the company claiming that their washing machines exploded during use, according to CNN.

Samsung said in response to the CPSC warning on its website that it was in active discussions with the agency about safety issues affecting some top-loading washing machines made from March 2011 to April 2016. The website also includes a way for customers to check if their machine is one of the affected products.

“In rare cases, affected units may experience abnormal vibrations that could pose a risk of personal injury or property damage when washing bedding, bulky or water-resistant items,” the company wrote.  

Do not buy or use #Samsung top-load washer. They might explode like ours did this morning. No joke. @Samsungtweets pic.twitter.com/WpifAgrgAl

— Chris Potts (@ctpotts) July 10, 2015

The company recommends consumers with affected models use the lower speed delicate cycle while washing bulky materials, saying that no “abnormal vibrations” slash explosions have been reported when customers use this cycle.

On Wednesday, Consumer Reports suspended its recommended status for any Samsung top-loading washing machine that earned that designation. The publication did note that none of the Samsung top-loaders experienced this issue during its washing machine tests, though researchers did not wash bedding or bulky items.

Carolyn Forte, director of Home Appliances and Cleaning Products Lab at the Good Housekeeping Institute, pointed out that today’s washers have super-fast spin cycles compared to machines in decades past. While she couldn’t speak about the Samsung cases in particular, she did note that high-spin speeds might cause a machine to go “off balance or become unevenly distributed possibly causing the machine to vibrate even more than normal.”

Head over to Samsung’s website to check if your machine is affected.

My 2013 'Warning' Letter To Wells Fargo's CEO John Stumpf

It comes as no surprise to me that employees at Wells Fargo resorted to dishonesty in opening bogus accounts, just to keep their jobs. Why am I not surprised? Because in 2013, after six years of employment, my sister was about to lose her job at Wells Fargo because she could not meet her sales goals. I wrote this letter to CEO John Stumpf, advising him that the intense sales culture was damaging to employees and consumers. I received a startling response. But first, here is that letter:

March 27, 2013

Mr. John Stumpf,
Chairman and CEO
Wells Fargo & Company
420 Montgomery Street
San Francisco, CA 94104

Dear Mr. Stumpf:

Knowing how busy you are, I apologize for the length of this letter; but as a long-time customer, I ask that you please grab a cup of coffee or tea, sit back, and take the ten minutes you will need to read this letter through to its end.

I very recently became aware of Wells Fargo's Vision Statement through a graduate school paper my niece was writing for a course. I was reading it, and here is what stood out:

"Our vision has nothing to do with transactions, pushing products or getting bigger for the sake of bigness. It's about building lifelong relationships one customer at a time."

Ironically, my sister, who has worked as a teller for Wachovia/Wells Fargo for almost six years and is terrific with customers, is about to lose her job. This is not due to unprofessional behavior. It is not due to excess absences. It is not due to transactional errors. It is not due to lack of excellent customer service. What it is due to is her failure to continue to meet sales goals through pushing products.

She transferred from a large public branch to a Wells Fargo branch located on a military base in Xxxxxx, XX. It is a controlled location with limited opportunity for sales, since new customers cannot just walk in off the streets. That my sister is extremely reliable, has rarely missed a day of work, is well liked by customers and her manager, offers excellent customer service, and does a very good job as a teller, seemingly counts for nothing.

The fact is, she cannot meet Wells Fargo's designated product sales goals and is therefore on her final warning and expects to be unemployed within a month. It seems extraneous circumstances, like branch demographics or economic anomalies, are not taken into account by Wells Fargo when it comes to setting goals for evaluating employee productivity and determining job retention.

For example, when sequestration cuts occurred on March 1, 2013, I thought to myself, this is going to hurt military people in terms of jobs and pay. My sister will have even less opportunity to sell. Indeed, the military healthcare system is affected, and will be cut by $3 billion. Any expendable income that might have gone into a new account -- perhaps a Custodial College Savings Account -- will be diverted for basic necessities, like health care and food. Hiring freezes, smaller staffs, and furlough days... All of these things, I thought, will affect military families' finances, and consequently my sister's employment status.

My niece (this sister's daughter) worked for Wells Fargo for a year before going back to get her Master's at California State University. Since she and her mother have both been enmeshed in the Wells Fargo "sales culture," she found it contradictory that your Vision Statement cites customer retention and relationships, not the pushing of products. The fact is, on the front line, that vision does not hold true. There is so much emphasis on the sale of any product that a teller cannot realistically ascertain all of a customer's financial goals, as is also declared in your Vision Statement.

I was a banker in Miami, Florida in times when (besides location) great customer service was the most important inducement a bank had to offer. I have been a branch manager, a commercial lender, and a VP in charge of a private banking division. I "retired" at the age of 36, and I am now 58, so I have been out of banking for a very long time, it's true. But I experienced tremendous growth in my branches, in my lending portfolio, and in our private banking division. And I distinctly attribute that growth to excellent customer service, which led to customers entrusting me and my bank with all aspects of helping them reach their financial goals.

Now let's look at Wells Fargo's Values Statement, which was also in my niece's paper:

"When they're (employees) properly supported, incented, rewarded, encouraged and recognized, they're even more satisfied with their jobs, providing even better service for our customers."

This is a time unlike any other in Corporate America history, when production goals are very high, with fear and anxiety being the prevalent motivators. Yet Wells Fargo states that support, incentive, reward, encouragement, and recognition are its employees' motivators. In truth, neither my sister nor my niece ever felt this was a part of the Wells Fargo culture. Rather, all employees hear is that keeping their jobs depends on sales.

The motivators you tout are lost in the intense sales culture, and the job satisfaction asserted in the Values Statement is illusory. It seems to me that firing a very good employee of six years because she can no longer meet her sales goals, then hiring and training a new employee, with the expectation of that employee having a better, immediate and all-knowing grasp of customers' financial goals, is ideally and fiscally unsound.

I must tell you I learned of my sister's plight from her daughter (my niece referred to herein.) My sister has never voiced her concerns as complaints. She is grateful to have her job. So when I learn that she -- who would have been a valuable employee to me as a manager because of her work ethic and her customer relations skills -- is about to lose her job because she cannot meet rigid sales goals at her particular branch, I am saddened and distressed on her behalf. She needs her job, and so she works very loyally and diligently and does succeed in every aspect of her job over which she has direct control -- like great customer service and financial transactional skills.

My husband and I are long-time (Wachovia) Wells Fargo personal and corporate customers who still appreciate a banking relationship with the people of our local branch, though we do a great deal of our banking electronically. We recently had to obtain some information from our WF branch, via phone, regarding a wire transfer from Europe. While looking up the information, your employee made a sales pitch for a home equity line. While I admired the effort, I was once again reminded of the intense need to sell. I think this underscores my assertion that an employee cannot know a customer's financial goals when he makes a stab at selling just any product over the phone during an information-seeking call. It is all about sales, but then again, if he didn't ask, there is no chance at all for a sale! So that's good...But must keeping a job depend solely on sales? What about the good service he provided by getting me the information I needed? That matters, and that is what will keep me a lifelong customer.

So, Mr. Stumpf, I have addressed you from three perspectives: A relative to an employee, a former commercial banker, and a customer. I think all of these qualify me to give you an honest assessment of how your Values and Visions Statements fail to faithfully filter down to the front-line employees at the branch level.

That said, I am ending this letter with my thanks for your having read it, and with a wish for a more aware and benevolent Wells Fargo corporate culture--one that recognizes the value of excellent service in customer retention; and one that acknowledges dedicated, long-term, hard-working employees like my sister with the most coveted reward of all...Continued gainful employment.

Sincerely,

REBECCA WARNER

In just a matter of days, I received a letter from Claudia Tokarz, employee Customer Relations, saying that she was writing on behalf of Senior Management at Wells Fargo Bank, responding to my letter to Mr. Stumpf, Chairman and CEO. Did my sister keep her job? My next blog will answer that question.

GM Wants To Fill The Gap Volkswagen's Dieselgate Scandal Left

In June 2014, General Motors CEO Mary Barra stood stern-faced in front of her employees and a battalion of cameras and said: “I never want to put this behind us.”

The Detroit auto giant had admitted to selling cars with faulty ignition switches that caused the vehicles to turn off without warning in the middle of driving. At least 124 people died in accidents caused by the defect.

Since then, the company has taken pains to refurbish its image. GM invested $500 million in the ride-hailing startup Lyft ― the “nice guy” runner-up to industry goliath Uber ― and vowed to help it build a fleet of self-driving taxis. It committed last week to running 100 percent of its operations with renewable energy by 2050. It poured money into electric vehicles, enough to beat Tesla Motors at its own game, bringing the first affordable, mass-appeal all-electric car to market. 

Now, GM plans to tap a market left wide open after the biggest auto industry scandal since its own infamous ignition switch failure. Last week, the automaker announced plans to offer a diesel option with the 2018 model Chevrolet Equinox, its best-selling small sport utility vehicle. The move comes a year after Volkswagen, the world’s largest automaker by sales, admitted to cheating on U.S. regulatory tests for its diesel cars, which spewed 40 times the legal limit of smog-causing emissions into the air.

The German auto giant agreed to pay a record $14.7 billion to settle with the U.S. government. Last month, the Department of Justice announced a plea deal with an engineer who designed the engine workaround. Unlike any executives involved in GM’s scandal two years ago, he may now face jail time.

Both incidents implicate companies that took fatal risks by sending to market products that weren’t quite ready. Volkswagen failed to design a diesel engine that could meet U.S. standards, so it cheated, causing, according one study, up to 60 premature deaths. GM, fearing an expensive recall, continued to sell faulty cars for nearly a decade after discovering the flaw. 

Popular in Europe, diesel ― which is roughly 30 percent more efficient than gasoline ― has struggled to catch on in the United States. Diesel-powered vehicles made up just 3 percent of total U.S. sales in 2014. Volkswagen made up about half of them, according to data from the U.S. Department of Transportation. 

As The Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday:

GM hopes to fill a niche in the U.S. vacated by its German rival’s pullback. And Chevrolet last year added a diesel-engine option to its Colorado midsize pickup that has drawn favorable reviews from car critics, emboldening GM to expand its diesel offerings.

“It’s only been since the VW challenges that people have been sort of scratching their heads a little bit” about diesels, GM North America President Alan Batey said in an interview. “But we’ve been absolutely thrilled with how they’ve taken off for us.”

If GM can popularize diesel vehicles, the company can help reduce the overall carbon footprint of its fleet, which it’s aggressively pushing to modernize with electric, self-driving alternatives. Slashing, and ultimately finding ways to eliminate, carbon emissions from vehicles is critical to meeting goals set in last December’s historic 180-nation Paris climate agreement.

Last year, Barra, announcing the company’s better-than-expected third-quarter earnings, declared that GM was “a vastly different company today than just five years ago.”

Whether GM can succeed where Volkswagen failed may be the clearest test of that yet. 

GM did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Sunday. 

Wells Fargo Faces Proposed Class Action Lawsuit Over Bogus Account Scandal

Wells Fargo & Co, embroiled in a scandal over the opening of sham accounts, was sued on Friday by customers who accused the bank of fraud and recklessness for its behavior.

The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court in Utah, and seeks class-action status on behalf of hundreds of thousands of customers nationwide.

Wells Fargo did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Last week, the San Francisco-based lender agreed to pay $190 million to settle regulatory charges that employees opened some 2 million accounts without customers’ knowledge, in order to meet sales targets.

Wells Fargo, the country’s third-largest bank by assets, has said it has fired 5,300 people over the matter and would eliminate sales goals in its retail banking on Jan. 1, 2017.

Federal prosecutors have begun examining Wells Fargo’s practices, and the bank’s Chief Executive Officer John Stumpf is scheduled to testify before Congress next week.

In the complaint, three plaintiffs said customers were hurt by “abusive and fraudulent tactics” used by employees who felt they had to “do whatever it takes,” including selling products they did not need or want, to meet sales quotas.

It was not immediately clear how the three named plaintiffs were specifically harmed by the bank’s alleged wrongdoing.

The case is Mitchell et al v. Wells Fargo Bank NA et al, U.S. District Court, District of Utah, No. 16-00966.

(Reporting by Karen Freifeld; additional reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

Donald Trump Could Slow Clean Energy's Hard-Won Progress

On the face of it, a Donald Trump presidency would not be good for the renewable energy industry.

The infamously fact-averse Republican nominee has called climate change a “hoax” invented “by the Chinese.” He has pledged to revive the coal industry, dismantle the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and renege on commitments to the historic climate accord reached in Paris last year. He has complained that wind turbines are “killing all of the eagles,” and says solar power is “not working so good,” in part because it’s “very, very expensive.”

Yet SolarCity CEO Lyndon Rive says he doesn’t fear the prospect of a Trump victory in November.

“It may slow down the advancement of our goal to accelerate clean energy,” Rive, whose company is the largest solar installer in the country, told The Huffington Post on Tuesday. “Unfortunately, one party may champion solar more than the other.”

But away from the spotlight of a bitter election, the partisan divide disappears, he said. 

“It’s not that way when you speak to voters, Democratic or Republican,” Rive said. “They are all very supportive.”

He may be right. Renewable energy enjoys broad public support. A majority of Trump voters believe that global warming exists and is caused by humans, according a poll released in May. More than half of homeowners listed solar as the energy source most important to the country, followed by wind power and natural gas, according to a survey of 1,400 homeowners conducted last year by the polling firm Zogby Analytics. (The results should be taken with a grain of salt ― SolarCity paid for the poll ― but the success of solar in traditionally Republican terrain makes the poll worth noting.)

Even Barry Goldwater Jr. ― son of the conservative icon and former Republican presidential nominee to whom Trump is sometimes compared ― has for the past three years waged an unlikely fight against utility companies in support of solar energy.

David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images

SolarCity CEO Lyndon Rive is the cousin of billionaire Elon Musk, who serves as chairman of the solar company.

Perhaps more importantly, the industry is in a good position. Incentives for clean energy are expected to continue regardless of who ends up in the White House, as a budget deal reached last December extended a solar investment tax credit until the end of 2021 ― a 30 percent credit that helps the industry compete against the heavily subsidized oil and gas sectors. Meanwhile, the price of solar installations has plummeted 63 percent since 2011, and it’s expected to keep getting cheaper.

Rooftop solar grew by more than 1,000 percent since 2010, at one point propelling stocks like SolarCity to $86 per share. Since, then growth has slowed. Until Congress extended the investment tax credit, many in the industry expected demand for solar to slump by 71 percent next year. But now, it could instead climb by 5.5 percent, according to Bloomberg.

And the sun should keep shining on solar ― in part because of the dark horizon for coal.

The coal industry has imploded, battered by competition from cheaper natural gas and renewables. In just the past year, Peabody Energy, Arch Coal, Alpha Natural Resources and Patriot Coal all went bankrupt. The cost of energy from a new coal-fired power plant climbed to north of $50 per megawatt-hour, according to data from Bloomberg New Energy Finance. By contrast, the price of solar hit a new low of $29.1 per megawatt-hour at a new plant slated to come online in Chile in 2020. For natural gas, which likely topped coal last year as the United States’ biggest source of electricity, that figure averages out to about $53 per MWh. 

Rive isn’t alone in his assessment. Others in the industry are trying to stay positive about the possibility of a Trump presidency.

“The Clinton campaign has put forward detailed proposals that will promote the growth of solar in the U.S.,” Christopher Mansour, vice president of federal affairs at the trade group Solar Energy Industries Association, told HuffPost in a statement. “The Trump campaign has been less specific regarding solar development.”

“A Trump presidency would probably not be the worst disaster, given that support is grandfathered in at the federal level,” said Jenny Chase, head of global solar analysis at Bloomberg New Energy Finance.

Chase says the fight has moved instead to the states, where solar companies navigate a patchwork of net metering policies ― rules that allow households or businesses with solar panels to sell excess electricity back to the grid during the day.

Trump could damage renewable energy development on the state level. He has threatened to discard President Barack Obama’s signature climate policy, the Clean Power Plan, which includes a $4 billion fund to provide state incentives to develop clean energy. A Trump presidency could also embolden utility companies already fighting back against state-level solar incentives.

“Assuming Trump follows through on the sort of policy statements he’s put out on energy, such as undoing the Obama administration’s climate rules and getting rid of the Clean Power Plan, that would definitely have an impact on solar development,” Molly Christian, a senior reporter at S&P Global Market Intelligence’s SNL Financial trade publication, told HuffPost. “It’d slow it down. It wouldn’t grow as quickly.”

The opposite may be true under Clinton, who has vowed to transform the U.S. into a “clean energy superpower.” Her ambitious climate plan, while lacking some key proposals, includes a $60 billion clean energy fund and a goal of increasing solar capacity by 700 percent by the end of the decade. 

In all, Trump still represents a profound threat to the U.S. economy, which could lose about $1 trillion by 2021 if he wins, according a forecast released this week from Oxford Economics.

“Apart from the whole U.S. descending into chaos, wouldn’t all U.S. companies take a hit?” Chase, who is British, said of a Trump victory, laughing. “I don’t think it will necessarily be a solar issue.”

Editor’s note: Donald Trump regularlyincitespolitical violence and is a serial liar, rampant xenophobe,racist, misogynist and birther who hasrepeatedly pledged to ban all Muslims — 1.6 billion members of an entire religion — fromentering the U.S.

Robert Scoble: Here's Why Virtual Reality Will Change Everything

Robert Scoble has been at the forefront of the technological trendlines in Silicon Valley his entire life. Now he’s dedicating all of his time to virtual and mixed reality. But why?

If you pinch the little Cirque du Soleil artist you can make her bigger and when you click on her she will start performing just for you. Right there in front of you by your desk. At the same time a zombie is coming through the wall while the CNN is on next to your work screen. Sounds like a fantasy come true. Well, it is.

Robert Scoble has seen it. Just like he has seen a lot of other stuff from the frontier of technology for the most part of his life growing up in Silicon Valley. And there has been some crazy things going on around him. Microsoft happened. Apple too. And then Facebook. Silicon Valley has been the center of technological innovation in a lot of industries. It’s been like a science fiction tv-series for the last 20 years with more breakthroughs and disruptions of industries than killings in Game of Thrones.

But you’ve seen nothing yet.

Now it’s time for something even more radical. It’s time for virtual reality and the even more immersive mixed reality as Robert Scoble favors.

“20 years ago one of my friends had a complete set up for VR games. And it worked. Only the computer running it cost a million dollars. Now you can get the same technology the size of a mobile device for just 2000 dollars.”

And that changes everything, says Scoble.

“Now we have low cost, small size and more bandwidth. But most importantly we have social systems. Like Facebook. And that’s why VR, AR and mixed reality will not only stay but change everything,” says Robert Scoble of UploadVR. And that’s when he starts to explain the six technologies that are fundamental to create all these new devices that will mix our reality with artificial experiences.

He’s fast paced. It’s about optics, sensors, high speed, dimension mapping, artificial intelligence as in deep learning. And audio. Audio will be tremendously important in the field of virtual and mixed realities.

It’s not that Robert Scoble is fast paced for the sake of speed. He is after all reclining horizontally in a sofa as we speak at the Trouble offices in Copenhagen. Like a missionary buddha of technology trendlines. But Robert Scoble is a storyteller with a lot of information. Just take a look at his social media appearances on Facebook and Twitter and his Scobleizer blog.

We’ll skip the technological explanation for now and go straight to consequences.

“We’re now in the fourth state of user interface of the personal computer era. The first was character mode as we saw in MS-DOS. The second was the GUI as in Graphical User Interface known from Macintosh and Windows. The third was touch as we know from the iPhone or Android. And here comes the fourth of spatial computing.”

It’s the most intuitive thing there ever was in computer interfaces. There almost is no interface. But to grasp the full potential of it you have to try it for yourself. You can design things in virtual reality and manufacture them in real life with the push of a button.

The article continues under the video.

So it’s three dimensions but this is not like 3D TV where it’s just an effect. This is actually a 3D replication of the world. Think about that. Or let Robert Scoble explain:

“We’re gonna put basketball games on the floor and I’m gonna be able to go on the court with Steven Curry and the Warriors and then I’m gonna stop the game and practice my three point shot right next to him. And I’m gonna hit play and see if he makes the shot the same way I did. He might even turn to me and give me some tips.”

And the thing that will tie all these new ideas together will be the social layer of the internet. If it’s gaming, everything is more fun when you play with someone else. In journalism it feels more real if you bring people virtually to a refugee camp in Syria instead of reading about it. Art will be extreme when you do anything you want. Medicine will change because you can better diagnose concussions. It is already happening.

“Everything about our world is going to change. And this means deep cultural change. The kind of change we saw in the 1960’s when the electric guitar brought us rock’n roll, when the pill brought us the sexual revolution and when the space race brought us to the Moon and gave us the internet.”

It feels promising. But will the feelings be real, virtual or mixed?

Let’s dive in.

...

For daily perspectives, rants, thoughts & ideas you should follow the Trouble people on Facebook. This post originally appeared on Trouble Stories.

America's Richest (And Poorest) States

The U.S. Census Bureau released on Wednesday new data from its 2015 nationwide population survey. According to the annual survey, the national median household income rose to $55,775 in 2015. No state reported income declines. While 39 states reported significant increases in household income, income levels in 11 states remained the same.

24/7 Wall St. ranked all 50 states according to the newly released median household income figures. Annual income levels range from $75,847 in Maryland to $40,593 in Mississippi.

High-income states typically share certain social and economic characteristics. For example, residents of states with the highest incomes also tend to have high education levels. In 17 of the states reporting higher than average household incomes, college attainment rates also exceed the national attainment rate of 30.1%.

Click here to see America's richest (and poorest) states. 

While it certainly does not make up the difference between a poverty wage and a six-figure salary, residents of low-income states enjoy cheaper goods and services than residents of high-income states. For example, goods and services cost 10.3% more in Maryland than they do across the nation. In Mississippi, meanwhile, goods and services cost 13.4% less than the national average.

Similarly, home values closely mirror household incomes. In 18 of the states with high household incomes median home values exceed the national median home value of $194,500. The opposite is the case in the nation’s poorest states.

To identify the richest and poorest states with the highest and lowest median household income, 24/7 Wall St. reviewed state data on income from the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2015 American Community Survey (ACS). Median household income for all years is adjusted for inflation. Data on health insurance coverage, employment by industry, food stamp recipiency, poverty, and income inequality also came from the 2015 ACS. Income inequality is measured by the Gini coefficient, which is scaled from 0 to 1, with 0 representing perfect equality and 1 representing total inequality. We also reviewed annual average unemployment data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) for 2014 and 2015.

These are America’s richest and poorest states.

The Poorest States:

• 5. Kentucky
• Median household income: $45,215
• Population: 4,425,092 (25th lowest)
• 2015 Unemployment rate: 5.4% (20th highest)
• Poverty rate: 18.5% (5th highest)

Like most states, Kentucky’s median household income of $45,215 a year has increased since 2014, when the median income, adjusted for inflation, was $43,014 a year. Residents are still quite poor, however. Kentucky’s poverty rate of 18.5% is the fifth highest poverty rate of all states. While no guarantee, a college degree substantially improves the odds of finding a job with a good wage. In Kentucky, just 23.3% of adults have a bachelor's degree, considerably lower than the national college attainment rate of 30.6%.

• 4. Alabama
• Median household income: $44,765
• Population: 4,858,979 (24th highest)
• 2015 Unemployment rate: 6.1% (8th highest)
• Poverty rate: 18.5% (5th highest)

Alabama is one of the poorest states in the nation with a median household income of $44,765 a year. However, this figure is notably higher than in 2014, when the median income, adjusted for inflation, was $42,895.

Like in many of the poorest states, Alabama’s poverty rate of 18.5% is among the highest of all states. Other problems the state faces are a high jobless rate and a high proportion of households relying on food stamps. Last year, 6.1% of workers were unemployed, the eighth highest jobless rate of any state. With low incomes, home values are also low in Alabama. The median home is worth $134,100, or more than $60,000 below the national benchmark of $194,500.

• 3. West Virginia
• Median household income: $42,019
• Population: 1,844,128 (13th lowest)
• 2015 Unemployment rate: 6.7% (the highest)
• Poverty rate: 17.9% (7th highest)

The typical West Virginia household earns $42,019, compared to the national median income of $55,775. Individuals struggling to find work who live on little to no income contribute to low household incomes in West Virginia. Of workers in the state, 6.7% were unemployed in 2015, the highest annual unemployment rate of any state.

West Virginia’s population is one of the largest recipients of government assistance programs such as SNAP, which each year help millions of people cope with poverty. Of households in the state, 16.0% use food stamps, the ninth highest share.

• 2. Arkansas
• Median household income: $41,995
• Population: 2,978,204 (18th lowest)
• 2015 Unemployment rate: 5.2% (24th highest)
• Poverty rate: 19.1% (4th highest)

Goods and services in Arkansas cost less on average than almost anywhere else in the country. While the relative affordability certainly helps low income households, state residents are still quite poor. The typical household earns $41,995 a year, second lowest after Mississippi. Also, 19.1% of people live in poverty, the fourth highest poverty rate of any state. Homes tend to have relatively low values to match the low incomes. At just $120,700, the typical home in Arkansas is valued at more than $70,000 below the national benchmark of $194,500.

• 1. Mississippi
• Median household income: $40,593
• Population: 2,992,333 (19th lowest)
• 2015 Unemployment rate: 6.5% (4th highest)
• Poverty rate: 22.0% (the highest)

With 2015 median household income unchanged from 2014, Mississippi is once again the poorest state in the country.The typical Mississippi household earned $40,593 last year, well below the national median income of $55,775. Mississippi also has the highest poverty rate in the country, with 22.0% of residents living below the poverty line. A relatively large share of state households are very poor. Some 11.5% earn $10,000 or less annually, the highest extreme poverty rate of any state. Similarly, there are relatively few affluent households in the state. Only 2.1% of Mississippi households earn $200,000 or more a year, the lowest such share.

The Richest States:

• 5. Connecticut
• Median household income: $71,346
• Population: 3,590,886 (22nd lowest)
• 2015 Unemployment rate: 5.6% (18th highest)
• Poverty rate: 10.5% (6th lowest)

A typical Connecticut household earns $71,346 in a year, considerably higher than the national median income of $55,775. With such high incomes, residents are better able to afford more expensive homes. Connecticut’s median home value of $270,900 is among the highest nationwide. A portion of every state's population is extremely wealthy, and the share of such high earners is especially large in Connecticut. More than one in 10 households earn $200,000 or more a year. Connecticut's relatively high education attainment rate partially accounts for the high incomes in the area. More than 38.3% of adults have at least a bachelor's degree compared to 30.6% nationally.

• 4. New Jersey
• Median household income: $72,222
• Population: 8,958,013 (11th highest)
• 2015 Unemployment rate: 5.6% (18th highest)
• Poverty rate: 10.8% (8th lowest)

While New Jersey households report some of the highest incomes in the nation, living in the state is not cheap. Goods and services cost an average of 14.5% more in New Jersey than across the country. Housing is also very expensive in the state. The median home value of $322,600 in New Jersey is considerably higher than the national median home value of $194,500.

Few states have a higher proportion of high-income households than New Jersey, where 10.9% earn $200,000 or more a year. While certainly not a guarantee for such high wages, high college attainment among adults in New Jersey partially explains the high median income. More than 37.6% of adults have at least a bachelor's degree, compared to 30.6% nationally.

• 3. Alaska
• Median household income: $73,355
• Population: 738,432 (3rd lowest)
• 2015 Unemployment rate: 6.5% (4th highest)
• Poverty rate: 10.3% (5th lowest)

A typical Alaska household earns $73,355 annually, nearly $18,000 more than the typical American household. While the price of oil has fallen considerably in recent years, Alaska still relies heavily on its traditionally high-paying oil industry. Of workers in the state, 5.6% work in the agriculture, forestry, fishing, and hunting, and mining sector -- which includes the oil industry -- the sixth highest such share of any state. State workers who are employed in the industry likely still earn relatively high wages.

Like the nation, the percentage of people without health insurance in Alaska dropped substantially in 2015. However, 14.9% of residents still do not have health insurance, the second highest rate in the nation.

• 2. Hawaii
• Median household income: $73,486
• Population: 1,431,603 (11th lowest)
• 2015 Unemployment rate: 3.6% (6th lowest)
• Poverty rate: 10.6% (7th lowest)

With its picturesque island scenery, Hawaii attracts some of the world’s wealthiest individuals. The state is also home to some of the more valuable real estate. Hawaii’s median household income trails only Maryland as the highest in the country, and the median home value of $566,900 is the highest of any state and several times greater than the national median home value of $194,500. Even the richest states do not necessarily have especially healthy job markets, but Hawaii’s unemployment rate of 3.6% in 2015 was one of the lowest in the country.

• 1. Maryland
• Median household income: $75,847
• Population: 6,006,401 (19th highest)
• 2015 Unemployment rate: 5.2% (24th highest)
• Poverty rate: 9.7% (2nd lowest)

Maryland leads the nation with a median annual household income of $75,847. The state’s poverty rate of less than 10% is also nearly the lowest of any state. The prosperity can be partially explained by high levels of education among state residents. More than 38% of adults have at least a college degree, many of whom are likely among the state’s high-income residents. The state also contains Washington D.C., home to some of the nation’s highest-paying government occupations. More than 10% of Maryland workers are employed in public administration, which represents only one portion of such government jobs.

Didn't see your state? Click here to see the full list.

Click here to see America's most segregated cities.

Click here to see the healthiest city in every state.

Click here to see America's most violent (and peaceful) states.

Meet Two Guys Who Are Changing The Fate Of Real Estate

In 2010, I was at a low point in my life. I had lost my job in the mortgage industry and had been blackballed from working in the profession again. I reached out to my longtime friend and referral partner, Michael Reese and we met up at the Gengis Grill in Frisco, Texas. On that particular day, Mike was amped up. Now, he's an excitable guy anyway, but this day he was over the top.

He didn't know it, but I was there to ask him for a job. I had always admired his work ethic and I wanted to be a part of his team. As fate would have it, the "working for you" conversation never took place. Instead, we talked about the Internet and the future of real estate.

During the time we were talking, I just nodded and agreed with Mike, having no idea in the world what he was going on about, chatting about how he and his partner Jay Kinder were working on a way to streamline the real estate process by pairing online and offline processes together. Again, it was all gibberish to me, but it sounded interesting.

Flash forward six years to the moment I witnessed firsthand, the operation Jay and Mike had been dreaming of. It was just a few days ago that I was able to tour the National Association of Expert Advisors (NAEA) facilities in Dallas, Texas.

To say my mind was blown is an understatement.

I've seen my fair share of real estate operations. I've helped launch and run ads for some of the biggest real estate firms on the planet. Yet, I've never seen anything like the partner program Jay and Mike have created.

Nothing even comes close to what they've birthed.

Mr. Reese and Mr. Kinder have taken the monotony out of real estate. Matter of fact, they have automated all the work agents hate. Cold calls, email marketing, pipeline follow up, CRM management--the "hard work" has been removed from the equation through the use of Jay and Mike's business strategies.

The Kinder Reese model allows agents to focus on what they do best: real estate. When members of the NAEA partner program get a lead, it's a real live lead. Matter of fact, it's more than a lead. It's basically the handoff of a new client to the agent and the agent getting to work for them immediately.

Most real estate agents will joke as they agree; the knowledge acquired in order to pass the board exam is rarely used in the field. Serious agents know sales and marketing drive real estate. Yet, they don't teach sales and marketing in real estate school. With the NAEA model, agents can focus on using their real estate knowledge and leave the sales and marketing to the automation side of the operation.

This partner program is so game-changing, Mike and Jay plan on teaching the model and fully launching it at their upcoming Exponential Growth Summit (EGS) from October 9-11 in Dallas, Texas. Each year, Mike and Jay go all out with an amazing line of speakers, and this year, you can expect more of the same.

The current roster of speakers is the best to date. Darren Hardy from Success Magazine will come by and impart knowledge in his own amazing way. Dustin Black, CEO of Black Tie Moving, will be speaking on how he grew an idea into a multi-million dollar moving company in a crowded market, and in less than five years. Josh Altman of Million Dollar Listing Los Angeles will be discussing real estate investing and how to sell high-end properties. Several other top tier speakers are also on the schedule. I'm one of them! I'll be speaking on selling in the modern marketplace.

Jay and Mike are revolutionizing the fate of real estate by altering the course of how real estate is bought and sold.

Their vision is so far into the future, it will be years before the big brands catch on.

Keep your eyes and ears out for these guys. Mark my words, "They will change the game."

The 25 Big Cities Where Your Paycheck Will Go The Furthest

Finding a job with a decent salary is a goal for many people, but maybe even more important is finding a place to live where your entire paycheck won’t be eaten up by housing costs.

An analysis from jobs site Glassdoor looked at the 50 biggest metro areas to see where your paycheck will go the furthest. To do so, the team compared local median salaries to local median home prices to come up with a cost of living ratio for each city. The higher the ratio, the better off you’d be financially.

If you want to get the most bang for your buck, you should consider looking for jobs in the Detroit area, according to Glassdoor, and you won’t have any luck on the West Coast. Here are the other 24 metro areas where your paycheck goes the furthest:

Glassdoor’s analysis doesn’t account for other living costs, such as transportation ― definitely a big one in Detroit, which has the highest rates for car insurance in the country.

“Though there are certainly other financial factors to consider when taking into account total cost of living, this data reinforces that pay typically goes further in mid-sized cities versus big metropolitan areas where there is often tighter competition for housing,” Andrew Chamberlain, Glassdoor chief economist, said in a statement.  

Read More:

• Here's How Much $100 Is Worth In Each State
• Here's How Much Money You Need To Make To Buy A Home
• Here’s How Much Income You Need To Afford Rent In Every State

Glassdoor determined the typical salary from reports users shared on the website from April 2015 to April 2016 ― at least 1,000 for each metro area. The median home prices come from the Zillow Home Value Index.

Nationwide, the biggest expenditure for families is housing, the Glassdoor report notes. About a third of Americans spend more than 30 percent of their income on housing costs, according to Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies. Spending 30 percent or less of your income is the amount typically deemed affordable, meaning a third of the country is struggling to afford housing.

Now you know a few places where it might be less of a struggle.  

HECM Reverse Mortgages: A Strategy For Seniors

Many senior homeowners are attracted to the idea of using a reverse mortgage to draw additional funds, but are so fearful of making a costly mistake involving their house, or being taken advantage of by loan providers, that they are immobilized and do nothing. The 3-step strategy described below is directed to them. It is risk-free because all three steps can be done without contacting a lender, using the HECM calculator on my web site, which was recently redesigned for this purpose.

The Three-Step Strategy

1. Identify your financial needs that might be met by a HECM.
2. Determine whether the amounts you can draw with a HECM, immediately or in the future, justify the decline in your home equity.
3. Narrow the selection by comparing price quotes from different lenders, and different combinations of interest rate and origination fee.

If you take the three steps and decide a HECM is not for you, that is the end of it - you are under absolutely no obligation to deal with any lender. If you decide to proceed, you can contact a lender with the confidence that comes from knowing exactly what your options are, and which options you want.

Step 1: Defining Your Financial Objectives

In counseling seniors about HECM reverse mortgages, I have found that they fall into 5 groups that have different financial objectives. Each of these groups requires different information to make good decisions. This information includes financial projections of future HECM debt, unused credit lines, and other factors over periods that are relevant to each individual borrower. Because none of the HECM calculators available on the internet provided this capacity, my colleagues and I decided to build it into ours.

The different financial objectives are as follows:

• Draw the largest possible initial or future credit line, with or without a cash draw.
• Draw the largest possible monthly payment for as long as you live in the house.
• Draw as much cash as possible, at closing or after 12 months.
• Draw a smaller monthly payment plus the largest possible credit line.
• Purchase a house with the smallest possible cash outlay.

Steps 2 and 3 For a Borrower Looking For the Largest Credit Line

I am going to illustrate Steps 2 and 3 for a 65-year old named Smith who has a house worth $400,000, who wants the largest possible credit line and is looking ahead 10 years. The credit lines calculated at Step 2 are based on prices posted on my web site by the lender whose HECM generated the lowest debt after 10 years of any of the lenders who price HECMs on my site. With this HECM, Smith could have obtained an initial credit line of $210,000, which if unused would grow to $330,000 in 10 years at current interest rates, and to $496,000 at the maximum rate on the HECM. The cost, measured by how much Smith would owe after 10 years in the absence of any draws, is $11,000 at current rates, $17,000 at the maximum rate.

Steps 2 and 3 For a Borrower Looking For the Largest Monthly Payment

Jones is the same age as Smith and her property value is the same, but Jones wants to use her borrowing power to draw the largest possible monthly stipend starting immediately, and lasting as long as she lives in her house. This is called a "monthly tenure payment." Jones wants to measure the cost of a HECM over 15 years rather than 10.

On September 3, the monthly payment on a HECM that would have resulted in the lowest debt after 15 years was $939. At current rates, she would owe $253,000. Assuming that Jones considers this a good deal, she should proceed to Step 3 and see if there isn't another deal that would be more advantageous. Among the possibilities is a tenure payment of $1161 that would generate a debt of $364,000 over 15 years. It is for Jones to decide whether an additional $222 a month was worth an additional $111,000 of future debt.

Bottom Line

I am not covering the remaining three categories of financial need because this analysis would be heavily repetitious. The important points are, first, that no matter what financial need category a senior falls into, a decision to take a HECM reverse mortgage or not should be data-based and include information about what is likely to happen in the future. Second, seniors who elect to go ahead with a HECM have options, and the more lenders from whom they obtain price quotes, the more options they have. But again, to select wisely from among their options, borrowers need information about what is likely to happen in the future. To my knowledge, such information is available only on my HECM reverse mortgage calculator.

5 Strategies I Used to Pay Off $81,000 In Student Loans

By Melanie Lockert, Content Writer at Credit Karma

Two degrees, nine years and over $81,000 later, I did something I had been dreaming about for years. I made the very last payment on my student loans and became debt-free.

When I graduated with my bachelor’s degree and $23,000 worth of student loan debt, I didn’t think much of it. After all, I had been told that college was worth the cost. I treated my debt like a bill and paid the minimum for several years.

It wasn’t until I took on an additional $58,000 in student loans to go to my dream school that I woke up and realized that I didn’t want to be in debt forever.

After obtaining my master’s degree in Performance Studies from New York University, I made a commitment to get out of debt as soon as possible so I could live freely ― not in the shadow of debt.

Getting out of over $81,000 in student loan debt, not including interest, was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done, but it was well worth it.

In order to get out of debt, I employed various strategies to help me reach my goal. Here’s what I did to reach my goal of debt freedom.

1. I employed the debt avalanche method.

There are two common methods people employ to pay off debt: the debt snowball method and the debt avalanche method.

Using the debt snowball method, borrowers pay off accounts with the smallest balances first, while paying the minimum on the rest of their loans. People like this method because it provides the feeling of quick wins and long-lasting motivation to keep paying off more debt.

The debt avalanche method, on the other hand, involves paying off accounts with the highest-interest debts first, while paying the minimum on the rest of their accounts. Borrowers can generally save more money using this strategy.

I went with the debt avalanche method ― paying the minimums on my low-balance, low-interest undergraduate loans while aggressively exceeding the minimum payments on my high-balance, high-interest graduate loans ― first paying off the 7.9 percent loans, then the 6.8 percent loans.

2. I calculated my daily interest to stay motivated.

When I graduated with my M.A. in 2011, I still had $68,000 of debt, and a lot of my payments were going to interest. One day, I decided to figure out how much interest I was paying per day.

To calculate my daily interest, I used the following formula:

Interest rate x current principal balance ÷ number of days in the year = daily interest

When I calculated my daily interest, I realized that I was paying roughly $10 per day, or $300 in interest each month.

After feeling discouraged about the state of my debt, I got angry that I was spending so much money on interest. From that moment forward, I used my anger to fuel my debt repayment and committed to getting out of debt as soon as possible.

3. I mastered the art of the side hustle.

In my first few years of debt repayment, I cut my budget to the bone and lived on very little. There wasn’t any room to cut back further, and the progress on my debt plateaued. I knew that I had to earn more to really make the progress I wanted to on my debt, so I started side hustling every chance I got, taking gigs on nights, weekends and early mornings.

I did anything I could to make an extra buck. Over the past few years, I’ve worked as:

• A pet-sitter.

• A brand ambassador.

• A house cleaner.

• A mother’s helper.

• A greeter for an art show.

• A registration attendant for a marathon.

During those years, the extra income really helped me to make higher payments toward my loans.

4. I made multiple payments throughout the month.

One of the best ways I combatted my debt was by making multiple payments throughout the month. Instead of making one monthly payment, I began making biweekly payments. Any time I had cash to spare, I made another payment.

5. I made student loan repayment my number one priority.

For better or worse, I prioritized my student loan payments over everything else. Over the past five years, I’ve focused on paying off my student loans by earning more, streamlining my expenses and increasing my payments.

Going all in helped me reach debt freedom several years earlier than if I had just paid the minimum payments and saved me money on interest payments.

Bottom line

It took me a total of nine years to pay off all my student loan debt, but the turning point was when I got really serious about my debt five years ago. I realized I didn’t have to be in debt for what felt like forever, and that I could make changes to my priorities and repayment strategies to get out of debt.

The hardest part was making the necessary lifestyle and attitude shifts required to get out of debt. While getting out of debt is obviously about money, it’s about mindset as well. Once I started to believe I could do it, committed to it and made the changes to my repayment strategies, I made it happen.

 

 About the author: Melanie Lockert is a freelance writer and editor currently living in Portland, Oregon. She is passionate about education, financial literacy and empowering people to take control of their finances. Her work has been featured on Rockstar Finance, GoGirl Finance, The Globe and Mail and more.

 

 

 

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Big Companies Backing Obama's Climate Agenda Also Fund Its Enemies

Many of the corporate giants touting their support for President Barack Obama’s environmental agenda are also backing that agenda’s biggest opponents. 

Companies including DuPont, Google and PepsiCo donated to droves of U.S. lawmakers who refuse to accept the scientific consensus on humanity’s role in climate change, according to a new analysis of public records by Reuters.

The report, published Tuesday, sheds new light on what is often a disconnect between the policies that large companies advocate for and the candidates behind whom they put their money. 

Reuters reviewed donations made during the 2016 election cycle by political action committees of the 30 biggest publicly traded U.S. companies that signed Obama’s “American Business Action on Climate Change Pledge.” The 2015 commitment, signed by 154 companies, served as a public promise by large businesses to push for environmentally friendly policies and to support strong climate action like the historic accord reached in Paris last December.

During the period reviewed by Reuters, two companies ― PepsiCo and the chemical giant DuPont ― doled out half or more of their political spending to the campaigns of more than 130 congressional lawmakers listed as “climate deniers” by Organizing For Action, a Democratic-leaning nonprofit founded by former Obama staffers. 

Google, AT&T, General Electric, Verizon and Mondelez gave more than a third of their political donations to candidates, almost all of them Republicans, on that list, Reuters found. (Verizon owns AOL, The Huffington Post’s parent company.)

A GE spokeswoman said in a statement that the company backs “elected officials based on a wide range of issues, but we have consistently been outspoken about the need to address climate change and have invested over $17 billion in cleaner technology R&D over the last 11 years.”

None of the other companies named above responded immediately to The Huffington Post’s requests for comment.

The Republican Party has long been the more business-friendly of America’s two parties, advocating for tax and employment policies that are favorable to companies’ bottom lines. Despite overwhelming scientific evidence, members of the party ― particularly those with backing from the fossil fuel industries, like coal and oil ― have denied the role of human activity in causing global temperatures to rise. Obama has slammed Republicans for being “the only major party that I can think of in the advanced world that effectively denies climate change.” 

That has produced a schism between some big businesses and the party that claims to represent their interests.

Last September, an unlikely coalition of companies ― including Goldman Sachs, Starbucks, Johnson & Johnson and Walmart ― committed to using 100 percent renewable energy within a decade.

Corporate purchases of clean energy skyrocketed last year ahead of the Paris treaty, which was formally ratified last week by China’s parliament. This was particularly true among companies that had never bought renewable power before. Of the more than 20 corporate giants that inked major renewable energy deals last year, 15 of them were first-time buyers, accounting for 67 percent of the market, according to a report by the nonprofit Rocky Mountain Institute.

Rocky Mountain Institute

First-time corporate purchases of renewable energy for this year already top those in 2011 and 2012 combined.

Still, the tension between certain companies’ political spending and their stated environmental values is sometimes hard to ignore. In June, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) wrote an op-ed lambasting companies for failing to lobby on behalf of climate-friendly policies. He criticized firms like PepsiCo for remaining part of trade associations that fail to acknowledge climate change, or that even deny its risks outright.

“Washington’s dirty secret is that even the American companies that are really good on sustainability put net zero effort into lobbying Congress on climate change,” he wrote in Forbes. “We are far closer to getting something big done on climate in Congress than most people think, but the good guys in the corporate sector have to start showing up.”

But there may be cause for optimism, according to Anne Kelly, a senior program director at the nonprofit Ceres, which pushes investors and companies to take environmental risk and sustainability seriously.

By backing candidates who question the science behind climate change, some companies could gain influence over those candidates and sway them to more climate-friendly positions, Kelly said.

“Our hope is that by funding certain lawmakers whose positions on climate and energy do not match the companies’ positions, they’re actually encouraging those lawmakers to evolve and giving them cover,” Kelly told HuffPost on Tuesday. “We understand that lawmaking is complicated and [companies] may need the support of those people for other issues that may have nothing to do with climate or energy, though that’s not an excuse.”