States With The Fastest Growing Economies

This article was originally published on 24/7 Wall St. 

The U.S. economy grew 2.4% in 2015. This is the most the economy has grown in more than five years, and is a slight improvement on 2014’s 2.2% growth.

The economies of all but two states grew in 2015, some substantially more than others, and for a variety of reasons. California and Oregon each grew by 4.1%, more than any other state. Alaska and North Dakota contracted, while several states saw increases of less than 0.5%.

The professional and business services industry, the information industry, and the real estate, rental and leasing industry contributed most prominently to the nation’s growth last year.

Click here to see the states with the fastest growing economies.

Click here to see the states with the slowest growing economies.

In an interview with 24/7 Wall St., Clifford Woodruff, an economist with the Bureau of Economic Analysis, explained that the biggest drain on state economies last year was the mining sector. Indeed, the mining sectors of 34 states declined last year, including declines of at least 10% in 20 of these. He went on to say that the national decline in oil prices has likely contributed to this drop in the sector.

The impact of a suddenly weak energy industry was most apparent in North Dakota. The state had been one of the fastest growing in the country, both in terms of population and GDP over the past few years, as the development of the Bakken shale oil formation led to a substantial boom. The state had the largest economic growth of any state in four of the five years through 2014, including a 21.7% increase in 2012. In 2015, the state economy contracted by 2.1%, more than any other state.

On the whole, populations grew substantially more in the states with the fastest-growing economies, and stagnated or declined in the worst performers. Population growth exceeded 0.4% in only one of the 10 states with the weakest economies in 2015. All of the 10 states with the strongest economies surpassed the national population growth rate of 0.8%.

Woodruff explained that population growth does not necessarily lead to GDP growth, as states can import goods from other states or countries without producing more goods locally. He added, however, that it makes sense that the two figures usually move in step. “Obviously, the more people that there are, the more products, the more food, the more houses they’re going to need.”

Based on figures published by the Bureau of Economic Analysis, 24/7 Wall St. reviewed 2015 real GDP growth rates in all 50 states. The real gross domestic product measurement accounts for the effects of inflation on growth. GDP figures published by the BEA for 2015 are preliminary and subject to annual revision. Real GDP figures for past years have already been revised. Population data are from the U.S. Census Bureau and reflect estimated growth between 2014 and 2015. We also used data on poverty from the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey (ACS). Both 2014 and 2015 unemployment rates are annual averages and are from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).

These are the states with the fastest (and slowest) growing economies.

10. North Carolina
>2015 GDP growth: 2.7%
> 2015 GDP: $442.5 billion (9th largest)
> 1-yr. population change: 1.0% (14th highest)
> 2015 unemployment: 5.7% (17th highest)

North Carolina’s economy grew at a 2.7% pace in 2015, the 10th fastest growing state economy. This was an improvement from 2014, when the state’s economy grew by 2.1%, which was 21st in the country that year. This economic growth pushed the state from the 10th largest economy in the country to the ninth, replacing Georgia. The finance, insurance, and real estate as well as the professional and business services industries contributed significantly to the state’s economic growth — expanding by 3.5% and 6.3%, respectively, in 2015. The state’s professional industry has recorded a 4% or higher growth rate in five of the past six years.

9. Nevada
>2015 GDP growth: 2.8%
> 2015 GDP: $126.2 billion (18th smallest)
> 1-yr. population change: 1.9% (3rd highest)
> 2015 unemployment: 6.7% (2nd highest)

Nevada’s economy grew at a 2.8% pace in 2015, slightly faster than the national 2.4% growth rate. Growth was largely driven by the 7.4% expansion of the finance, insurance and real estate industry, the largest in the state by economic output. The mining industry, which contracted by 13.8%, was one of the biggest drags on the state’s economy. Like all states with rapid economic growth, the number of people who call Nevada home is going up. The state’s population increased by 53,000 in 2015, a 1.9% increase.

Despite relatively rapid economic expansion, Nevada’s economy remains relatively weak. The state’s 6.7% 2015 unemployment rate is the highest in the country and far higher than the 5.3% nationwide rate.

 

8. Washington
>2015 GDP growth: 2.9%
> 2015 GDP: $397.3 billion (14th largest)
> 1-yr. population change: 1.5% (7th largest increase)
> 2015 unemployment: 5.7% (17th highest)

Washington’s economy grew at a 2.9% pace last year, surpassing the 2.4% national growth rate. One of the biggest contributions to the state’s economy came from its retail sector, which expanded by 9.4%. According to the National Retail Federation, a retail trade association, the retail industry is Washington’s largest private sector employer, directly supporting about one in every five jobs in the state. Other major contributions to Washington’s economic growth came from its information sector and its finance, insurance, real estate, rental, and leasing industries.

7. Florida
>2015 GDP growth: 3.1%
> 2015 GDP: $789.8 billion (4th largest)
> 1-yr. population change: 1.8% (4th largest increase)
> 2015 unemployment: 5.4% (22nd highest)

Florida is one of just seven states where GDP grew by at least 3% in 2015. The Sunshine State’s GDP, which remains the fourth largest in the country, increased to approximately $790 billion. Population tends to increase more rapidly in states with more robust economic growth, and Florida is no exception. The state’s population increased by 1.8% in 2015, the fourth largest growth in the country.

6. Utah
>2015 GDP growth: 3.3%
> 2015 GDP: $131.2 billion (19th smallest)
> 1-yr. population change: 1.7% (6th largest increase)
> 2015 unemployment: 3.5% (5th lowest)

Utah’s economy grew at a 3.3% pace in 2015, faster than all but five other states. One of the largest contributions to the state’s GDP came from its finance, insurance, real estate, rental, and leasing sector, which expanded by 4.5% over the year. Nationwide, the sector expanded by a much slower 1.8%.

Utah’s rapid economic growth may have helped maintain low unemployment in the state. Just 3.5% of Utah’s workforce is unemployed, much less than the 5.3% national 2015 unemployment rate.

5. Montana
>2015 GDP growth: 3.5%
> 2015 GDP: $41.1 billion (4th smallest)
> 1-yr. population change: 0.9% (15th largest increase)
> 2015 unemployment: 4.1% (11th lowest)

Montana’s economy expanded from $39.7 billion in 2014 to $41.1 billion in 2015, a 3.5% growth rate. Over roughly the same time period, the state’s jobless rate dropped from 4.7% to 4.1%. Economic growth was largely spurred by expansion in many of the state’s largest industries, including manufacturing, which grew at a rapid 12.5% pace. The mining industry was the biggest drag on the economy, contracting by 6.1%. 

4. Colorado
>2015 GDP growth: 3.6%
> 2015 GDP: $288.8 billion (18th largest)
> 1-yr. population change: 1.9% (2nd largest increase)
> 2015 unemployment: 3.9% (10th lowest)

Colorado’s economy grew at a robust rate for the second straight year. The state’s GDP growth rate of 4.1% in 2014 was third in the country. In 2015, Colorado’s 3.6% GDP growth rate was fourth largest. While there are exceptions, larger economic expansions tend to coincide with greater population growth. Each new resident will consume more goods and generate more economic output. Not surprisingly, Colorado’s population grew by nearly 2% in 2015, second fastest in the country and well above the national population growth rate of 0.8%.

The state’s finance, insurance, and real estate industry as well as its professional sector contributed substantially to Colorado’s economic growth, expanding by 4.6% and 5.0%, respectively.

 

3. Texas
>2015 GDP growth: 3.8%
> 2015 GDP: $1.48 trillion (2nd largest)
> 1-yr. population change: 1.8% (5th largest increase)
> 2015 unemployment: 4.5% (18th lowest)

The Texas economy grew by 3.8% in 2015, faster than any state other than Oregon and California. Texas has nearly one-third of the nation’s crude oil reserves, and its economy is heavily dependent on the price of oil. As oil prices have fallen in recent years, the economies of many of the most oil-dependent counties in the state also suffered. While the statewide unemployment rate fell from 5.1% in 2014 to 4.5% in 2015, the jobless rate in many of the state’s top oil-producing counties increased. Still, economic growth in the state was led by the mining sector, which grew at a rapid 12.4% pace. By comparison, the U.S. mining sector as a whole grew at a 5.1% pace in the same period and actually declined in most states.

2. California
>2015 GDP growth: 4.1%
> 2015 GDP: $2.21 trillion (the largest)
> 1-yr. population change: 0.9% (16th largest increase)
> 2015 unemployment: 6.2% (7th highest)

California’s $2.2 trillion GDP is the largest in the country. Its 4.1% economic expansion in 2015 was also the fastest in the U.S., tied only with Oregon. Growth was driven primarily by the professional and business services industry as well as the information industry, which grew by 7.0% and 10.3%, respectively.

The size of the state’s economy may not be surprising — with 39.1 million residents, California is also the most populous state in the country. As it is, there are not enough jobs in the state to accommodate the workforce. California’s 2015 unemployment rate of 6.2% is nearly a full percentage point higher than the national jobless rate of 5.3%.

1. Oregon
>2015 GDP growth: 4.1%
> 2015 GDP: $199.4 billion (25th largest)
> 1-yr. population change: 1.5% (9th largest increase)
> 2015 unemployment: 5.7% (17th highest)

Oregon’s GDP expanded by 4.1%, at the same pace as its neighbor to the south. State economic output increased from $191.6 billion in 2014 to $199.4 billion in 2015. Despite rapid economic growth, unemployment in Oregon remains higher than it is nationwide. The state’s 5.7% jobless rate is nearly half a percentage point higher than the national 5.3% unemployment rate.

Manufacturing, Oregon’s largest industry, had among the greatest impacts on the state economic growth in 2015, expanding by 5.7%. Manufacturing is likely to have a continued positive effect on the economy. In May 2016, the state legislature pledged $7.5 million for a manufacturing innovation center to train the next generation of industry workers.

Gun Stocks Are Up Sharply. You Know Why.

Gun stocks trended sharply higher Monday morning, a day after the deadliest mass shooting in American history killed 49 people and wounded 53 more at a gay nightclub in Orlando. 

Given the increased frequency of these types of attacks, at this point, the sad correlation between mass shootings and gun manufacturers' stock prices surprises no one -- not even the gun manufacturers themselves.

Bloomberg via Getty Images

AR-15 rifles are displayed at the NRA annual meeting in Louisville, Kentucky, on May 20, 2016. On Sunday, a shooter in Orlando used an AR-15 to kill 49 and wound 53 more.

In a letter to shareholders early last month, Sturm, Ruger & Co. CEO Michael Fifer noted a "significant spike in demand" that "was strongly correlated to the tragic, terrorist events in Paris and San Bernardino."

A shooting early last December at a social services center in San Bernardino, California, left 14 dead and 21 wounded. A month earlier, terrorists in Paris killed 130 people and injured hundreds in coordinated attacks.

"[In the past decade] there have been some significant ups and downs in demand, as political rhetoric and threats have spurred demand above the underlying normal rate of demand," Fifer wrote. "These spikes in demand have been followed by periods when demand retreated as the threats to gun rights failed to materialize to the degree that caused the spike in the first place."

True to form, in trading Monday, Sturm, Ruger & Co. was up 8.6 percent:

Google Finance

Smith & Wesson also jumped in early trading, opening up 10 percent before relinquishing some of the gains as the day continued:

Google Finance

"The No. 1 driver of firearms sales is fear," Brian Ruttenbur, an analyst at BB&T Capital Markets, told Bloomberg in December, after the San Bernardino shooting. “Primarily, fear of registration restrictions, banning and things like that.”

Ruttenbur added that people may also fear for their personal safety.

Apparently that fear has become a dominant force. There are more guns in America than there are Americans.

Fundraising Websites - Crowdrise

Here's What It Would Cost Walmart To Raise Wages To $15 An Hour

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Wal-Mart Stores Inc <WMT.N> would have to spend an additional $4.95 billion if it were to raise the minimum wage for its hourly employees in the United States to $15 per hour from the current $10 per hour, according to an estimate by the UC Berkeley Center for Labor Research.

As the country's largest private employer, Wal-Mart employs nearly 1.5 million people in the United States. Of that, 1.1 million are hourly employees, according to the study. The study estimated that 979,000 employees would get an increase if Wal-Mart went to $15 per hour.

The world's largest retailer raised wages for its hourly workers to $10 per hour earlier this year, but labor groups have called the raise inadequate. They have been demanding a $15 minimum wage, and the "Fight for Fifteen" movement has been a topic of discussion during the U.S. presidential campaign.

The research was released last week and has so far not been reported widely by the media. It was conducted at the request of OUR Wal-Mart, a union-backed group.

A $15 per hour minimum wage would mean an annual hike of $4,006 for part-time employees and $5,836 for full-time employees, the study showed.

The study used government data and worker surveys rather than internal numbers provided by Wal-Mart. The study used the $10 increase in hourly wages at the start of the year as a baseline and simulated that to calculate the results for $15 an hour.

Wal-Mart spokesman Kory Lundberg declined to comment on the wage estimates. He said the retailer is investing $2.7 billion over two years in training, education and higher wages.

In the year ended Jan 31, 2016 the retailer generated $482.13 billion in revenue and posted net income of $14.69 billion.

In an online opinion piece on the study, Christine Owens, executive director of the National Employment Law Project said, "Wal-Mart can easily afford the $15 minimum wage", based on the retailer's annual earnings.

"An employee working 34 hours per week at $10 per hour still earns less than $18,000 per year and cannot meet her family's basic needs on Wal-Mart's wages alone, even in states with low costs of living," she said.

(Reporting by Nandita Bose in Chicago; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

Gawker Media Files For Bankruptcy

Gawker Media has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

The filing lists the company's assets as between $50 and $100 million and says its liabilities are between $100 million and $500 million.

Gawker is currently appealing a $140 million verdict in favor of former professional wrestler Hulk Hogan, who sued the company for invasion of privacy. In 2012, Gawker published excerpts of a video showing Hogan, whose real name is Terry Bollea, having sex with the wife of his then-best friend. Last month it was revealed that Silicon Valley billionaire Peter Thiel was personally financing Hogan's lawsuit.

In a statement Friday afternoon, Gawker said it had reached an asset purchase agreement with media company Ziff Davis, but other bidders can offer a higher price as the company goes through an auction supervised by a bankruptcy court. 

The Ziff Davis bid is reportedly between $90 to $100 million, according to The New York Times.

Gawker Media's statement: pic.twitter.com/Ntf37UnUlP

— Ben Mullin (@BenMullin) June 10, 2016

"In the event we become the acquirer, the additions of Gizmodo, Lifehacker and Kotaku would fortify our position in consumer tech and gaming. With the addition of Jalopnik, Deadspin and Jezebel, we would broaden our position as a lifestyle publisher," Ziff Davis told employees in a memo announcing the agreement.

The bankruptcy filing is an effort to prevent the company from having to pay out the $140 million in damages, Recode reported.

New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman defended the New York-based outlet on Twitter.

Freedom of the press is a cornerstone of our nation. Like them or not, sad to see NYC media giant @Gawker forced to the brink.

— Eric Schneiderman (@AGSchneiderman) June 10, 2016

Bollea, meanwhile, expressed gratitude.

What a beautiful day,and the good doesn't prevent the better! In the present I AM always grateful,only good happens to me. HH

— Hulk Hogan (@HulkHogan) June 10, 2016

Chapter 11 bankruptcy is a legal remedy that a distressed business can pursue to restructure its debts in the hopes of saving itself. A bankruptcy judge supervises a plan to make the company financially viable again, including renegotiating its debts.

The company can continue to operate as normal while seeking bankruptcy protections, but it must get the court’s permission for some decisions.

Many large corporations, such as American Airlines, have successfully emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

Crucially for Gawker, filing for Chapter 11 triggers a stay on all litigation, meaning the company would not have to worry about paying the $140 million penalty or defending against other lawsuits while they go through the process. That could give the company the time and resources it needs to prepare its appeal.

And if Gawker Media fails to reach an agreement with its creditors during bankruptcy, it could be liquidated entirely, which would likely also result in a significant reduction in the payment Bollea receives.

For these reasons, the status of being in bankruptcy actually strengthens Gawker's bargaining position against Bollea. It is "very likely" Bollea will settle for a lower payout during the bankruptcy period, posited John Pottow, a bankruptcy law professor at the University of Michigan.

CEO Nick Denton, a former Financial Times and Economist reporter, founded Gawker Media in 2002. The group now owns eight different websites, including Deadspin, Jezebel and Gizmodo. The sites receive a combined 64 million monthly readers in the U.S.

"Attracting fans and critics alike for their inimitable delivery of news, scandal, and entertainment, the Gawker Media properties are heralded as everything from 'deliciously wicked' to 'the biggest blog in the world,'" the brand's website reads.

The company has built a reputation of calling out public figures for their misdeeds. That approach has led some to accuse it of "spewing hatred" and "bullying," Gawker editors wrote this week in a piece that defended the outlet's "lengthy published record of news, essays, investigations, satire."

Gawker sold a minority stake to investment company Columbus Nova Technology Partners in January, in part to raise money for the lawsuit.

This is a developing story. Check back for details.

Michael Calderone, Willa Frej and Daniel Marans contributed reporting.

How Clothing Designer Eileen Fisher Came To Embrace The Masculine

Sometimes growing a brand means rethinking your leadership style.

Eileen Fisher ran into this problem as her eponymous clothing line approached $300 million in annual revenue. The company grew so big that she recently realized she needed to revise how it's run.

Fisher spoke to The Huffington Post's executive editor for impact and innovation, Jo Confino, at the Sustainable Brands conference in San Diego this week in the video below.

The clothing brand founder talked about the difference between what she called masculine and feminine leadership styles (around the 5:40 mark). Her company has recently become more masculine, she said.

"The feminine is more listening and receptive kind of mode. And I feel like that has sort of helped me hear others, and work with others, and create a collaborative and intuitive kind of environment," she explained. 

"I think we've done really well with this sort of feminine model, but we've kind of hit a point where we're too big almost and we need more structure. I never use the word 'structure' -- and 'strategy.' Those are sort of masculine words to me," Fisher said. 

By dubbing the two management styles masculine and feminine, Fisher noted that she didn't mean to suggest they align with actual gender: There are masculine and feminine traits in everyone. The masculine side values efficiency, she said.

Lately, Fisher said, the company has brought in more men. One man in particular started talking about the differences between masculine and feminine leadership styles. She said she hadn't thought about management that way before. 

"I always saw things moving organically and fluidly and intuitively and all of that. But now we have to be efficient and we have to be effective and we have to be focused and we have to make decisions more clearly," Fisher said. "And we have to have more definition." 

Parents Say Panera Gave Allergic Girl Peanut Butter In Her Grilled Cheese

A Boston-area family is suing Panera Bread, claiming their highly allergic 5-year-old daughter was given two dollops of peanut butter in her grilled cheese sandwich despite repeated warnings to the restaurant of her allergy.

In a lawsuit filed against the chain last week, John and Elyssa Russo of Natick, Massachusetts, claim their daughter had to be hospitalized overnight after the family ordered a meal online on Jan. 28, The Boston Globe reports.

The Russos say they specifically noted their daughter's peanut allergy on the online order form, and so were mystified as to why the extra ingredient had been added to her meal.

“Is this somebody doing this on purpose?" John Russo later asked a manager at the Natick Panera, in his own telling. "Because it’s two freakin’ tablespoons of peanut butter on this sandwich and it’s a grilled cheese."

The Russos didn't realize there was peanut butter in the sandwich until the girl had already bitten into it. She vomited and broke out in hives later that evening, the family says.

Scott Olson/Getty Images

A restaurant manager reportedly apologized for the mistake and blamed it on a "language" issue.

Russo said the manager apologized for the mistake and blamed it on a “language” issue.

A Panera spokesman declined to comment directly on the suit when reached by The Huffington Post Monday.

"Panera takes the issue of food allergens, including the reported incident at our franchise bakery-cafe, very seriously,” the spokesman said in an email. “We have procedures in place across the company to minimize exposure and risk for our guests and associates. We do not comment on pending litigation."

The suit was filed in Massachusetts' Middlesex County Superior Court on Thursday.

Anti-'Socialism' Diner Owner Accused Of Fraud 'Needed A Safety Net'

Customers at the American Diner in Liverpool, New York, know exactly where owner Michael Tassone stands politically.

Even the coffee is stirred to the right.

Fox News has called Tassone's eatery "the most politically incorrect diner in the Empire State -- and possibly the nation." It's not hard to see why: One of the breakfast items is a "Dictator Obama" special. You get eggs and toast for $3.59... plus an additional $27.99 "tax."

There is also the “Anti Michelle Obama, Don’t Tell Me What To Eat or Feed My Kids Burger,” a 16-ounce beef patty with bacon, cheese and a side of fries for $11.99.

The menu includes a list of various statements above the burgers: "Everyone Doesn't Get The Same Size Trophy"; "Defeat socialism and communism"; "Actually, I did build MY business"; "Gov't & Taxes are the problem"; "We don't like Political correctness or special interest."

But Tassone, 48, is facing accusations of hypocrisy after pleading guilty to defrauding the government of more than $23,000 in benefits between May 2009 and April 2011, Syracuse.com reported last week.

Tassone admitted to offering a false instrument for filing, a misdemeanor. He paid $23,354 in restitution to the county.

Tassone was originally charged with welfare fraud and Medicaid fraud in 2011, according to McClatchy News. Prosecutors said Tassone and his wife, Michelle, failed to disclose income on their application and received benefits they weren't eligible for.

For his part, Tassone says the truth is more complicated.

He said he and his wife applied for Medicaid and welfare years ago, before he opened the diner.

"We were between jobs and I needed a safety net for my sick wife," Tassone told The Huffington Post. "I qualified, but there was a technicality. My wife didn't check the right box."

"It wasn't welfare fraud," he said, "which is why it was only a misdemeanor." 

Michael Kasmarek, the senior assistant district attorney for Onondaga County, agrees that calling it "welfare fraud" may not be completely accurate, since there is a separate statute for that crime.

"Putting that label on it is problematic, but the conduct did violate those statutes," Kasmarek told HuffPost. "We negotiated down to the misdemeanor because he paid the money back prior to the plea and [because of] a lack of criminal history."

Tassone said he only agreed to the charge because he had no more money for attorney's fees and didn't want to risk being tried by a jury of people who are "not of my peers and risk losing the business and putting seven people out of work."

He accused the district attorney's office of going after him because of his beliefs.

"Guys like me are a target," Tassone told Syracuse.com in March. “Because I speak the truth.”

Kasmarek said that no one in his office was aware of the business or of Tassone's political views until the restaurant received national attention for its quirky menu earlier this year.

The American Diner currently has a three-star rating on Yelp, based on 49 reviews.

One reviewer, who gave the place four stars, said, "I even was shocked by the menu because there was so many political remarks that it made me feel awkward but no denying the food was good."

Tassone said he may make his views clear on the menu, but his diner is a place for open discussion.

"We have a lot of fun here," he said. "A lot of liberals order the Michelle Obama burger."

This Enlightened CEO Takes Every Friday Off And You Should, Too

Just in time for summer comes more evidence that the four-day workweek is good for your work and personal life.

The boss of a Vancouver-based company describes in The Wall Street Journal how he was close to total burnout five years ago. Then he made a decision that changed everything: He would take Friday as a "free day" and not work.

Brian Scudamore, who is chief executive and founder of home services company O2E Brands, also decided to designate Mondays as "think days," when he works from home and takes no meetings. 

But taking off on Friday was the most important thing he did, Scudamore writes in the article. "[Fridays are] days where I do what I love -- skiing with my children, cooking, learning languages and biking," the 40-year-old says. "When I’m away from the office, things have time to marinate. Connections bubble up and often turn into big, business-changing ideas."

Scudamore's company encourages employees to set their own schedule, too, O2E brand publicist Sarah Gray told The Huffington Post. "We can pick our own schedule -- come in when we want and leave when we want. It's not a culture of 'clock watchers,' " Gray said in an email. "We're more about setting/achieving our goals than we are about hammering home a 9-5 workweek."

O2E

CEO Scudamore out biking and not working.

There's loads of research out there that demonstrates that working longer hours is bad for your health. Working more means that there's less time to exercise, de-stress and sleep, among other things. And that causes real, physical damage. Those who work more than 55 hours per week have an increased risk of stroke compared to those who work less than 40 hours, according to a major analysis of studies that NYMag.com's Science of Us blog cites.

"Overwork and the resulting stress can lead to all sorts of health problems, including impaired sleep, depression, heavy drinking, diabetes, impaired memory, and heart disease," said Sarah Green Carmichael in Harvard Business Review last year.

Long hours are particularly hard on the health of lower-income workers, research shows. They already have more stress just coping with the anxiety of making ends meet and are even more vulnerable to the health risks that overwork brings on.

Overworked, unhealthy employees also cost companies more to insure, are absent more often and their work isn't that hot either.

Though your boss may think that working longer hours is a sign you're working super-hard and productively, the truth is managers don't often haven't a clue about who is really productive. You can't judge someone's performance by how frequently they're spotted at their desk.

The higher-ups at one consulting firm had no idea that some of their best workers were only pretending to put in 80-hour workweeks, according to a widely cited study from Erin Reid, a professor at Boston University's business school.

Scudamore says that taking Fridays off has helped him think more creatively. Anyone who's ever had an amazing idea while in the shower or just taking a walk can surely relate to this. 

And it's not just knowledge workers who see benefits from working less. A century ago, Henry Ford cut worker shifts in his automobile plant to eight hours from nine (and doubled their pay) -- and business boomed. 

Some companies are already on board with the  notion of a shorter week. Basecamp, a Chicago-based software company, does four-day work weeks in the summer. A design firm in Indiana is only open Monday through Thursday because its founder believes his workers are more motivated, according to a piece in CNN Money. The article says that about 14 percent of small companies offer employees a chance to work a compressed four-day week.

If you're at a company who hasn't yet seen the light, feel free to send a link to this piece to your boss. Good luck. (Yes, I wrote this on a Friday, but I do plan to leave early. Baby steps.)

There's A Profoundly Simple Explanation For San Francisco's Housing Crisis

This is an apartment listing San Francisco residents can only dream about: $150 for a brand new, three-room apartment with a “tremendous fireplace.” Yes, it’s real -- or it was in 1961. Today, a one-bedroom at the same address rents for $2,800 a month.  

Credit: Eric Fischer

A 1961 listing for an apartment found in the San Francisco Chronicle.

In recent years, there’s been growing concern about San Francisco’s skyrocketing housing prices, fueled by the tech industry’s boom and too-small supply for the growing population. It’s the most expensive rental market in the country, with the median one-bedroom apartment renting for over $3,500, according to this month’s report from real estate site Zumper. Residents have been beset by evictions and rent hikes (sometimes in the triple digits) -- making offbeat “solutions” like living in a truck, tent or wooden box almost seem reasonable.  

But the crisis can be traced back decades, as recently illustrated in a blog post that offers a data-driven perspective on the extent and length of the problem.    

Eric Fischer, a developer and data artist at Mapbox, analyzed thousands of apartment listings going back to 1948. Though there have been some deviations, he notes, rents have gone up about 6.6 percent annually since the 1950s, or 2.5 percent when inflation is taken into account.

“Today's outrageous prices are exactly in line with the 6.6 percent trend that began 60 years ago,” Fischer wrote on his blog, Experimental Geography.

Prices began rising when the city ran out of large areas of vacant land, Fischer said.

Fischer’s analysis began with a conversation on Twitter about the number of kitchens allowed in apartments, which sent him to the library to look up an obscure zoning rule. While he was there, he came across other documents about neighborhood revitalization and housing.

“It was just remarkable reading this thing from 1968, basically about gentrification in the Mission,” he told The Huffington Post. “It just became apparent pretty quickly that these trends in housing prices and gentrification and all these issues, we think of them as new issues, but they’ve been going on for decades.”

Fischer used a combination of sources to track rent over the years. He modeled his data after the San Francisco Housing DataBook, which tracked rents advertised in the San Francisco Chronicle on one day each year between 1979 and 2001. He used archives of Craigslist postings for the later years, and, most impressively, scoured microfilm and page scans of the Chronicle from 1948 to 1979, transcribing prices from 12,000 ads. The below image shows a few listings for furnished apartments in a 1961 issue of the Chronicle.

 

Fischer also used city records to graph housing inventory, as well as federal data on wages and number of employees as a stand-in for the health of the economy and the pool of people who need housing. Comparing supply and employment with rents, his models show that rising housing costs are driven by increasing wages, but increasing housing supply appears to moderate rent growth.

Fischer analyzed how rents could hypothetically go down, based on his model. Assuming you don’t want to lower wages or employment, rolling back to the inflation-adjusted rents of 1995 (half of current costs) would require increasing the housing supply by 30 percent.

But that’s not realistic, he points out, “because the necessary construction rates were never achieved even when planning and zoning were considerably less restrictive than they are now.”

Keeping rents steady would currently require increasing the housing supply by 5,700 units, or 1.5 percent -- more than triple the rate of growth since 1975.

“Whatever the goal ought to be, it is a long way away,” he wrote.

Fischer stresses that his analysis is just a model (see more details on his blog) and that it still doesn’t explain a few outliers, like a 1998 dip in rents. But it’s a valuable look at a problem that has no clear solutions -- one report projects 10.5 percent rent growth by the end of the year -- and he provides the raw data for others to analyze.

While there are many people pushing for easing restrictions on development and for more housing to be built in the Bay Area, others oppose it. Some people believe that a wave of high-rises would transform the character of San Francisco. Other groups worry that new construction caters to the wealthy, and increasing housing density will displace lower-income residents. 

Fischer said his data predicts that, at the very least, increasing the supply of housing at any price point won’t make rents go up.

"I think that it's getting people talking quantitatively about what the solution might be, which I think is as good of a [result] as I can hope," he said. "I'm just trying to do my part to make information available. Hopefully, if we all pool our thoughts on this, then we can figure it out." 

A proposed statewide plan aimed at increasing housing would eliminate some of the hurdles developers have to jump through, with particularly big changes to the process in San Francisco. The city is considering proposals to increase both density and affordability of housing.

Fischer has seen the effect of the housing crisis first-hand since he moved to California in 2000 -- first to San Francisco, then Oakland.

“Housing was shockingly expensive and unavailable in 2000 and feels like it has been getting worse ever since,” he wrote in an email. “I am insulated from the direct problem now myself, except that it's hard to imagine how it would ever be possible to move again.”

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Kate Abbey-Lambertz covers sustainable cities, housing and inequality. Tips? Feedback? Send an email or follow her on Twitter.   

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Related stories:

• Million-Dollar Homes Are Taking Over These U.S. Cities At An Alarming Pace
• How Sky-High Rents Are Radically Changing New York’s Neighborhoods
• The Cities Where A Six-Figure Income Is Barely Enough To Get By
• New York City Just Took A Huge Step To Tackle Obscenely High Rents
• How The Eviction Epidemic Is Trapping Black Women In Poverty
• Housing Programs Are So Strapped For Cash That Millions of Families Can’t Even Get On Wait Lists
• Renters Are Mostly Screwed, But Here’s One City That’s Actually Affordable

Here's Another Reason For Standing Desk Users To Feel Smug

Standing desks. Love 'em or hate 'em, there are plenty of articles to back up whatever opinion you have.

On the one hand, studies have shown that standing desks could help reduce your risk of obesity and diabetes. On the other, experts have said standing desks don’t help with weight loss and could give you back problems, so ¯_(ツ)_/¯. 

Now, another study has come out, this one in favor of standing desks. Researchers at the Texas A&M Health Science Center found that standing desks helped employees get more done during the day. Though the results might not translate for all types of work environments, they should give standing desk proponents reason to rejoice.

Published last week in the journal IIE Transactions on Occupational Ergonomics and Human Factors, the study followed 167 employees in a call center over six months. Seventy-four of them used standing desks, and researchers found that they were 46 percent more productive than those who sat at their desks.

The participants' employer, a health services company that's not named in the paper, commissioned the study to better understand the returns on the standing desks it had bought for the office.

Productivity was determined by the number of successful calls to clients that the health and clinical advisors made per hour. The company earned revenue for each successful call, during which an advisor checked in on a client’s progress in an exercise program, for example, or verified to see that a client was taking proper medication.

Employees typically made between 400 and 500 calls a month, and the company wanted them to average around two successful calls each hour. Those who had standing desks met that quota, while those who remained seated averaged 1.5 successful calls per hour, Gregory Garrett, a public health doctoral student and lead author on the study, told The Huffington Post. If an advisor was unable to reach a client over the phone, that was counted as an unsuccessful call. 

Interestingly, the people who stood actually made more phone calls than the ones who sat, Garrett said.

The results almost seem too good to be true -- after all, who wouldn’t want a nearly 50 percent boost in productivity just from using a standing desk?

Even the researchers were a little baffled by what they saw.

“My first thought was, ‘This couldn’t be right,’” Mark Benden, who leads the Ergonomics Center at Texas A&M and was a co-author of the study, told HuffPost. “I would expect the public to raise an eyebrow, and that’s okay. But this wasn’t a snapshot. This was every day, every call, every worker for six months.”

While these results might be unique to a call center or other types of offices where employee productivity is easily quantifiable, the researchers say that cognitive performance can still benefit from less sedentary behavior. 

“Standing has a positive impact on an individual’s cognition, and that could be transferable” to other types of work environments, Garrett said.

The researchers add that their findings could help give companies more concrete evidence of the value of their investments in standing desks.

“How do you justify ‘this desk makes me feel happier, and I feel better’? That’s not going to pay the bills,” Benden said.

But, he continued, the study shows that standing desks can in fact "affect a company’s bottom line. That’s really significant.”

Sheryl Sandberg’s Shoes Perfectly Illustrate The Hypocrisy Of Tech's 'Casual' Dress Code

The rules for dressing for the office are completely different for men and women. 

Perhaps no two people better exemplify the double standard than the most well-known executives working at Facebook: cofounder and Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg, known for wearing the same grey T-shirt and jeans every day, and Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg, who is typically seen perched atop towering high heels.

Sandberg is arguably the most influential female executive in Corporate America, inspiring (or pissing off) many women with her book Lean In. Her frank openness about dealing with the sudden death of her husband last year was both heartbreaking and admirable. She's incredibly successful by every measure.

Yet on Wednesday, while watching her talk to Recode's Kara Swisher and Facebook Chief Technology Officer Michael Schroepfer, I caught myself staring at her shoes. Just look at them:

Here's a closer look:

Facebook/Recode

I couldn't help but marvel at the fact that while Zuckerberg slomps around in super-casual clothes every day, Sandberg is smartly decked out in full corporate power garb: towering, patent leather, red peep-toe heels.

Here's a pair of shoes Sandberg wore to the World Economic Forum in Davos in January.

Ruben Sprich / Reuters

And another from the power confab:

Ruben Sprich / Reuters

Here's a photo of Mark Zuckerberg's closet:

Here he is speaking at a recent conference in San Francisco:

Stephen Lam / Reuters

You get it.

To be sure, these two are an extreme example. Sandberg, who holds an MBA from Harvard, is a seasoned executive and considered to be the "adult" in the room who brings balance to Zuckerberg's more introverted personality. And of course, nobody is forcing Sandberg to wear her (extremely stylish) stilettos.

Still, their case highlights the fact that even in the tech world, where the concept of dressing down was invented, and even at Facebook, a progressive company run by a guy in jeans, women and men don't quite play by the same rules.

Women can't just roll out of bed, toss on yesterday's jeans, brush their teeth and do well at work. If they do, they'll struggle in the professional world. One woman I spoke with recently, who works at a private equity firm, told me that she wasn't taken seriously at work until she started wearing stilettos.

In fact, women who spend more time grooming -- including efforts like putting on makeup -- are promoted more often and make more money than their bare-faced colleagues, according to one recent study.

“Although appearance and grooming have become increasingly important to men, beauty work continues to be more salient for women because of cultural double standards with very strict prescriptions for women,” the paper says.

So if you're looking to be the next Sheryl Sandberg, better bust out that lipstick and heels. You'll be be spinning your wheels without them.

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