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A Dozen Facts about America's Struggling Lower-Middle-Class
Melissa S. Kearney and Benjamin H. Harris Wednesday, December 4, 2013
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This Hamilton Project policy paper provides a dozen facts on struggling lower-middle-class families focusing on two key challenges: food insecurity, and the low return to work for struggling lower-middle-class families who lose tax and transfer benefits as their earnings increase. These facts highlight the critical role of federal tax and transfer programs in providing income support to families struggling to remain out of poverty.
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Many American families whose incomes are not low enough to officially place them in poverty live in economically precarious situations. This struggling lower-middle class consists of the 30 percent of working-age families with children who have incomes between 100 and 250 percent of the federal poverty level (FPL), or between roughly $15,000 and $60,000, depending on family composition. Though not officially poor, these individuals and families experience limited economic security. One major setback could thrust them into economic chaos.
The struggling lower-middle class encompasses low- and middle-skilled workers whose wages have stagnated in recent decades (Autor, Katz, and Kearney 2008). More than half of these families are headed by married couples, and of these families, roughly half rely on two earners to make ends meet. While lower-middle-class families face many challenges, this policy paper focuses on two pointed struggles—food insecurity and low returns to work due to the design of tax and transfer programs.
Compared to families officially living in poverty, these struggling lower-middle-class families have substantially different characteristics: they have higher rates of marriage, more dual-earning spouses, and higher levels of educational attainment, yet they face some of the same challenges faced by families living in poverty. For example, these households are often unable to meet the most basic requirement of obtaining a sufficient diet. In 2012 more than 24 percent of struggling lower-middle-class children ages twelve to seventeen (or approximately 1.7 million children) lived in a household identified as being food insecure. Many of these families also rely on government programs for income support. In 2012 approximately one in three struggling lower-middle-class families (approximately 3.7 million families) relied on at least one major federal government transfer program. In fact, more than 20 percent of families (approximately 2.4 million families) relied on food stamps in that year alone.
An array of tax and transfer programs—including food stamps, Medicaid, and the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC)—strengthen the resources available to struggling lower-middle-class families and provide a safety net for families in need. Income support programs undoubtedly improve the economic well-being of families on the cusp of poverty, but they often come with unintended consequences. One major problem, highlighted in this paper, is the implicit tax on families who receive reduced benefits as a result of higher earnings. Transfer program benefits phase out as family earnings rise, which reduces the return to work and makes it difficult for these families to work their way firmly into a better economic life.
A founding principle of The Hamilton Project's economic strategy is that long-term prosperity is best achieved by fostering economic growth and broad participation in that growth. This principle calls for economic security among a thriving and prosperous middle class, which has been a long-celebrated feature of our nation's social and economic fabric. In this spirit, we offer "A Dozen Facts about America's Struggling Lower-Middle-Class" to bring attention to who these families are, to highlight two particular challenges facing this broad group of American society, and to set up a framework to consider what policies would be appropriate for strengthening their economic security and well-being.
These facts focus on those who are above the federal poverty level, and yet are still quite economically insecure, relying on government transfers, facing high levels of anxiety about being able to feed their families, and facing extremely high marginal tax rates as they try to work themselves securely away from poverty.
Chapter 1 describes the group we define as made up of struggling lower-middle-class families. Chapter 2 focuses on the challenge of food insecurity and provides information about the nation's most-important and wide-reaching government program focused to address this issue, the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP). Chapter 3 presents evidence about the relevant set of tax and transfer programs facing the struggling lower-middle class, highlighting how this panoply of programs can inadvertently make the climb into middle-class security more difficult.
Chapter 1: A Snapshot of Struggling Lower-Middle-Class Families
Many families in America's struggling lower-middle class—defined to include those with income between 100 and 250 percent of the federal poverty level, or between roughly $15,000 and $60,000, depending on family size and composition—live in economically precarious situations. Though not officially poor, these families experience limited economic security; one major setback in income could push them into poverty.
1. More than half of families in the United States earn $60,000 or less per year.
More than half of America's working-age families with children under age eighteen (approximately 20.1 million families) have annual incomes of $60,000 or below. This is true whether we consider only earned wages and salary, or if we use a broader definition of pretax, pretransfer income, which also includes some unearned sources of income, such as investment income and alimony payments. Figure 1 shows the distributions for working-age families by (1) earned income, and (2) pretax, pretransfer income. (Neither of these measures includes taxes or transfer payments.).
The blue and green dotted lines in figure 1, corresponding to the right axis, show the cumulative share of families with income under various thresholds. Around 40 percent of families earn $40,000 or less each year, 54 percent of families earn $60,000 or less (demonstrated by the black dotted line), and 76 percent of working-age families earn $100,000 or less. For working-age families with children, earning over $100,000 is the exception, not the rule.
The vertical bars in figure 1, corresponding to the left axis, show the percent of families that fall within various income ranges. About 15 percent of working-age families (or approximately 5.6 million families) earn between $1 and $20,000 a year, while 19 percent of families (approximately 7.1 million families) earn between $20,001 and $40,000. On the opposite end of the distribution, fewer than 3 percent of families earn $260,001 or more.
2. Nearly half of families in the United States live below 250 percent of the federal poverty level.
Nearly one in five American working-age families with children lives in poverty, officially defined as being below 100 percent of the federal poverty level (FPL). Approximately 30 percent of families have incomes that place them between 100 and 250 percent of the FPL. Federal poverty thresholds vary by family size and composition, meaning that families with the same income, but with different household compositions, can be in different positions relative to the FPL.
The U.S. Census Bureau defined the FPL in 2012 for a family made up of one adult and one child to be $15,825 (250 percent of the FPL for this family was therefore $39,563); for a family with two adults and one child, the FPL was $18,480 (250 percent of the FPL was $46,200); for a family with two adults and two children, the FPL was $23,283 (250 percent of the FPL was $58,208); and for a family with two adults and three children, the FPL was $28,087 (250 percent of the FPL was $70,218) (U.S. Census Bureau 2012).
These families' proximity to the poverty line means that any unanticipated downturns in income could push them into poverty. For this reason, we could reasonably consider these families to be the struggling lower-middle class. Figure 2 illustrates the income distribution relative to the FPL for working-age families with children under age eighteen. Together, these statistics (represented by the dotted black line) reveal that nearly half of American families live either in poverty or in the struggling lower-middle class.
3. Struggling lower-middle-class families are almost equally headed by single parents and married couples.
As illustrated in figure 3, household composition of families in the struggling lower-middle class varies substantially from the household composition of families in poverty. Of families with income below the federal poverty level (FPL) (approximately 7.1 million families), 70 percent are headed by a single parent (61 percent are single female parents), 24 percent are headed by a married couple with one or two earners, and 6 percent are headed by a married couple with no earners.
The composition of the struggling lower-middle class—defined here as working-age families with children under age eighteen whose income places them between 100 and 250 percent of the FPL—is markedly different from families in poverty in terms of marriage and presence of earners. Of families in the struggling lower-middle class (approximately 11.4 million families), 44 percent are headed by a single parent (34 percent are single female parents), 27 percent are headed by a single-earner married couple, another 27 percent are headed by a dual-earner married couple, and 2 percent are headed by a married couple with no earners.
4. Nearly one out of two families in the struggling lower-middle class is headed by an adult who has attended college.
College attainment differs markedly by poverty status. As illustrated in figure 4, 33 percent of household family heads below 100 percent of the federal poverty level (FPL) attended at least some college, although just 6 percent of those family heads have a bachelor's degree or higher. Among household family heads with income between 100 and 250 percent of the FPL, 48 percent have attended some college, and14 percent have a bachelor's degree or higher.
In stark contrast to those living at or below 250 percent of the FPL, 77 percent of household family heads above 250 percent of the FPL attended at least some college, and about half have a bachelor's degree or higher. Only a very small share of this group (4 percent) did not earn a high school diploma.
5. Nearly one-third of struggling lower-middle-class families rely on income support from a government program.
A majority of working-age families with children living below the federal poverty level (FPL) receive federal transfer programs. Of the families that rely on at least one government transfer program, almost all receive food stamp benefits through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Federal transfer programs are not just for the very poor, however. As shown in figure 5, approximately 33 percent of families with incomes between 100 and 250 percent of the FPL depend on at least one government transfer program for income support. SNAP is by far the most prevalent transfer program for this group, with 21 percent of these families (approximately 2.4 million families) depending on SNAP for food assistance at some point during the year. It is important to note that families only receive benefits when their income is low, such as during spells of unemployment, but not in months when their income is higher than SNAP's income threshold of 130 percent of the FPL. This highlights the role of SNAP in supporting families through temporary downturns, and the short-term dependence on the program for many beneficiaries.
Figure 5 shows only the share of families who depend on various transfer programs in a single year; a much larger share will rely on transfers at some point in their lives. For example, while in any given year most Americans will not have to rely on food stamps—approximately 17 percent of children under age eighteen participated in SNAP in 2007 before the Great Recession—between the ages of twenty and sixty-five, more than half of Americans will receive SNAP benefits (Leftin and Wolkwitz 2009; Rank and Hirschl 2005; U.S. Census Bureau 2008). In addition to these transfer programs, tax credits, such as the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and the Child Tax Credit (CTC), are important sources of income support for low- to moderate- income families. These two programs transferred 59 billion and nearly 57 billion dollars, respectively, in 2012 (The Joint Committee on Taxation 2013).
Chapter 2: The Struggling Lower-Middle Class, Food Insecurity, and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)
Similar to families living in poverty, many families in America's struggling lower-middle class are not comfortably able to afford a sufficient diet. Food insecurity in households with children is widespread, existing in every state. The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) serves a fundamental role in mitigating food insecurity and providing food assistance to both poor and struggling lower-middle-class families.
6. Roughly 40 percent of children in the struggling lower-middle class experience food insecurity or obesity, or both.
Children from low-income households have high rates of food insecurity or obesity, or both. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) classifies a household as food insecure when it has limited or uncertain availability of nutritionally adequate and safe foods or limited or uncertain ability to acquire acceptable foods in socially acceptable ways (USDA 2000).
Figure 6 illustrates the differing nutritional circumstances of children based on their family's income. More than 10 percent of children in households below the federal poverty level (FPL) are both food insecure and obese, and more than 50 percent have at least one of these conditions. Unfortunately, children in the struggling lower-middle class—children whose family income places them between 100 and 250 percent of the FPL—more closely resemble children in poverty than they do children in higher-income groups (above 250 percent of the FPL). More than 24 percent of children (or approximately 1.7 million children) in the struggling lower-middle class are food insecure and approximately 23 percent are obese; almost 7 percent of these children simultaneously face both obesity and food insecurity. In stark contrast, approximately 85 percent of children (or more than 9.3 million children) living above 250 percent of the FPL face neither challenge. These statistics highlight the diverging nutritional conditions of children by socioeconomic status.
Food insecurity, especially among children, is particularly worrisome given the potential negative effects of hunger during childhood. Indeed, literature in economics and medicine has documented the importance of early-life events, such as nutrition, on adult outcomes such as earnings and mortality (Almond and Currie 2011). Almond, Hoynes, and Schanzenbach (2011) found that during the initial rollout of the program in the 1960s children whose families had access to food stamps while they were in utero and during their childhoods had higher birth weight overall. Recent academic research has also shown that individuals who had access to food stamps had markedly better long-run health (as measured by self-reported health status, obesity, and reported diagnoses of diabetes and other chronic conditions) than individuals who did not have access to food stamps (Hoynes, Schazenbach, and Almond 2012). Among women, this study also found that access to food stamps during childhood improved adult economic outcomes, ranging from increased likelihood of attaining a high school diploma and higher lifetime earnings, to reduced likelihood of being reliant on federal safety-net programs during adulthood.
7. More than one in five children faces food insecurity in thirty-seven states and the District of Columbia.
Food insecurity exists everywhere in the United States, with more than 16 percent of individuals living in households reporting conditions indicating food insecurity. The share of children living in food-insecure households, approximately 22 percent, is even higher. The highest rates of child food insecurity in the country are found in New Mexico and Washington, DC, where roughly three out of ten children live in households that are food insecure. Even in North Dakota, the most food-secure state in the country, one in ten children is food insecure. Furthermore, in thirty-seven states and the District of Columbia more than one child in five is food insecure, as represented in figure 7.
There are regional patterns with regard to child food insecurity: the most food-insecure states are consistently located in the South and the West. Indeed, with the exception of Ohio, all of the states with child food insecurity rates above 25 percent are located in these two regions.
8. Nearly 90 percent of Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP) recipients live in a household with at least one child, one disabled individual, or one elderly individual.
The Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP) caseload overwhelmingly comprises families with at least one child, one disabled individual, or one elderly individual. As illustrated in figure 8, 87 percent of SNAP participants in 2011 lived in such a household. The remaining 13 percent of participants lived either in single-person or multiple-person households that did not include at least one child, one disabled individual, or one elderly individual.
SNAP participants who are aged eighteen to forty-nine, who are not disabled, and who do not live with children are commonly referred to as able-bodied adults without dependents, or ABAWDs; they constitute roughly 10 percent of SNAP participants (Lee 2013). Most, but not all, of these ABAWDs are included within the 13 percent of participants in figure 8. (ABAWDS can be in the 87 percent if they themselves are able-bodied, aged eighteen to forty nine, and live with an elderly or disabled person, but with no children.) SNAP program rules typically require able-bodied adults aged eighteen to forty-nine to satisfy work requirements, however, and impose a time limit on the receipt of benefits for those who are not employed or in a work program at least half time. Some of these policies can be suspended for areas with high unemployment, and as a result, were suspended during the Great Recession in most of the country, but have begun to be reinstated throughout the country as the economy recovers.
Many of the participants (nearly 37 percent) live in single-parent households with at least one child, but a sizable share (more than 18 percent) live in households comprising married adults with at least one child (Strayer, Eslami, and Leftin 2012). In the year 2011 approximately 82 percent of SNAP participants lived at or below the FPL in the month of SNAP receipt, and these individuals received more than 91 percent of all monthly SNAP benefits (ibid.). In the same year, 45 percent of SNAP participants were children, and 9 percent were elderly individuals. SNAP's benefit expenditures were proportional, with children receiving 44 percent of prorated SNAP benefits and elders receiving 7 percent (ibid.).
Chapter 3: The Struggling Lower-Middle Class, Taxes, and Transfer Programs
A variety of government tax and transfer programs augment the resources available to struggling lower-middle-class families. The phase-out of these transfer programs, however, makes it difficult for these families to work their way into a more stable economic life.
9. America's tax and transfer system expands the middle class.
In the United States the system of taxes and transfers plays an important role in determining the amount of income a family ultimately has at its disposal. Taxes (such as federal and state income taxes, payroll taxes, and property taxes) typically reduce family income, but the federal tax system also provides credits (such as the Earned Income Tax Credit [EITC] and the Child Tax Credit [CTC]) that can increase the cash income for qualifying families.
Transfer program and targeted tax benefits protect families against economic hardship and supplement low earnings, which for some families could be zero. Some transfer programs provide cash payments, such as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), and Supplemental Security Income (SSI); others are in-kind programs, paying a nonmonetary benefit, such as a food voucher in the case of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).
Figure 9 illustrates how the tax and transfer system changes the distribution of income for working-age families with children. Before taxes and transfers, about 5 percent of families have no income, but this share falls to about 1 percent after accounting for taxes and transfers. Similarly, the share of families with income between $1 and $20,000 falls from over 16 percent to about 12 percent. On the other end of the income distribution, there are fewer families in all of the income groups at $80,001 and above. The direct effect of the tax and transfer system is to expand the middle class by compressing the number of families located at either end of the income distribution and raising the number of families in the middle range.
10. Struggling lower-middle-class families depend on an array of tax and transfer benefits.
Families living in poverty and among the struggling lower-middle class have access to a number of income-support programs. The nature and level of support of these programs changes throughout the income distribution. For families below the federal poverty level (FPL), the major transfer programs are designed to provide for basic needs such as food and health care. In addition, the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) is designed to subsidize earnings. At higher levels of income, families have access to child-related tax credits and health insurance exchange subsidies implemented by the Affordable Care Act (ACA).
As shown in figure 10, struggling lower-middle-class families benefit from the EITC, Medicaid, and the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP), among other tax and transfer benefits. For the single-parent family with two children illustrated in the figure, the total value of benefits falls from about $14,000 just below the FPL to about $7,500 at 250 percent of the FPL.
While these programs undoubtedly improve the economic security of low-income families, the programs' impacts are not included in the official measure of poverty. A family's official poverty status is based on pretax income, and thus does not include benefits received through the EITC or the Child Tax Credit (CTC), nor does it include in-kind transfers, such as food stamp benefits, Medicaid, or housing assistance. Consequently, official poverty estimates produced by the U.S. Census Bureau reveal little to policymakers about the effect of these programs on poverty and near-poverty rates. Additional measures of poverty are needed to reveal the impact of the social safety net on economic well-being in the United States (see Blank and Greenberg 2008; and Meyer and Sullivan 2012).
11. A low-income, single parent can face a marginal tax rate as high as 95 percent.
Marginal tax rates for low- and moderate-income families can be exceptionally high. Marginal tax rates are the taxes paid on additional work or investment. Effective marginal tax rates are determined by taxes paid, tax benefits received, and tax and transfer benefits lost due to extra income. For instance, as low- and moderate-income families see an increase in earnings, their transfer payments (such as Medicaid) and tax credits (such as the Earned Income Tax Credit [EITC]) are clawed back or phased out. This can raise effective marginal tax rates and make the after-tax return to additional earnings quite low.
In the absence of transfers, marginal tax rates tend to be low—and often negative—for low-income families. Through personal deductions or exemptions, the federal income tax code allows low-income families to exclude a substantial share of their income from taxation. In addition, refundable tax credits—tax credits that can drop a family's tax bill below zero—often make marginal tax rates negative. For the hypothetical single parent with one child illustrated in figure 11, marginal tax rates including taxes, but not accounting for transfers, are around –40 percent, indicating that these taxpayers would receive an additional 40 cents for every extra dollar they earn. These marginal tax rates turn positive only at earnings of approximately $10,000.
The gap between the light and dark green lines in figure 11 shows the effects of transfer phase-outs on this particular taxpayer's marginal tax rate. At the Medicaid limit, denoted by the first vertical black line, the phase-out of transfer benefits increases the taxpayer's marginal tax rate by about 60 percentage points—from around –40 percent to about +20 percent. For this taxpayer, the impact of transfer phase-outs is dramatic and could discourage additional work that moves her earnings beyond roughly $8,000. Depending on family circumstances and program eligibility, there is a wide range of marginal tax rates facing low- and moderate-income households. As shown in this figure, a low-income, single parent can face a marginal tax rate as high as 95 percent.
Academic studies illustrate the complex impacts of tax and transfer programs on worker behavior. For example, the EITC has been shown to provide meaningful incentives for single parents with dependent children to work (Eissa and Liebman 1996; Meyer and Rosenbaum 2001). At the same time, however, the EITC tends to provide a disincentive for married mothers with children to work, since the combined income of a wife and husband reduces (and sometimes eliminates) a family's EITC benefit (Eissa and Hoynes 2004a, 2004b).
12. The highest marginal tax rates tend to fall on the struggling lower-middle class.
Marginal tax rates—the tax collected on an additional amount of income or earnings—are often highest for families at or just above the federal poverty level (FPL). Low- to moderate-income families see an increase in marginal tax rates as their transfer payments (such as Medicaid) and tax credits (such as the Earned Income Tax Credit [EITC] are clawed back or phased out.
As shown in figure 12, marginal tax rates are highest for those families with income at or above the FPL. For example, 10 percent of families with earnings between 100 and 149 percent of the FPL have marginal tax rates of 60 percent or higher—meaning that these families keep 40 cents or fewer of each additional dollar they earn. For the poorest families and for those with incomes above 250 percent of the FPL, the top 10 percent of marginal tax rates fall around 35–45 percent.
Figure 12 also illustrates that there is far more variation in marginal tax rates for families near the FPL than for families farther from it. This disparity is primarily due to the varying eligibility for transfer programs. Families that qualify for transfer programs will often lose their benefits if they earn additional income, while ineligible families face lower marginal tax rates because they do not have any benefits to lose. As a result, families with earnings higher up on the income distribution, who as a group tend to be ineligible for transfer programs, experience less variation in marginal tax rates.
High marginal tax rates for some low-income families are a byproduct of safety-net programs that aim to provide means-tested benefits—benefits aimed at low-income families—to the most vulnerable households. An unfortunate consequence is that some low-income households have little incentive to work because they risk losing significant benefits as they move up the income distribution.
High marginal tax rates can make the after-tax return to additional earnings quite low. This low return to work means that, ultimately, families with high marginal tax rates have limited ability to improve their own well-being.
Compared to families living in poverty, families in the struggling lower-middle class are more likely to be headed by a married couple, to have a second adult worker, and to be headed by an individual with some college education. Those in the struggling lower-middle class still face many of the same challenges as those in poverty, however, including food insecurity and a reliance on government programs for income support.
There are programs in place to assist the struggling lowermiddle class. In fact, nearly one-third of these families rely on at least one government transfer program for income support in any given year. For both the struggling lower-middle class and families living in poverty, the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP) is by far the most prevalent program. Low-income families benefit from an array of tax credits and transfer programs, such as the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and Medicaid. The phase-out of these programs at near-poverty levels of income leads to high marginal tax rates on low- to moderate-income families, however, lessening the return to work and making economic security more difficult for working families to achieve.
This policy paper presents a snapshot of America's struggling lower-middle-class families and highlights their challenges with food insecurity and with barriers to work that are inadvertently created through the tax and transfer system. An important next step is to identify policies that can improve the well-being of these families.
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Closed captioning for this video is available on YouTube: MacMost Now 564: iCal To Do Reminders.
Hi, this is Gary with MacMost, now. On today's episode, let me show you To-Do Items in I-Cal. Now, To-Do Items in I-Cal are different than a vent. Vents have a specific date and time to them, but To-Do Items can be added with no specific date and time, even though you can add alarms. Now, in the future, in line, these are going to be called Reminders, but the functionality is the same. So in I-Cal, I can add a new Event. I could just go to File, New Event, but under that, I could do New To-Do and command K is the shortcut for that. When I do, I get a list of To-Do items on the right, and I'll just name this one, like that. Now, if I double-click, I'll get a little pop-up there that allows me to set more information. I can give it a priority; I can also give it a due date. So, let me set it for a couple of days in the future, and I can set an alarm for that To-Do date, just like I can for, uh, an Event. So I can have it do a message, an email, uh, run a script - whatever I want. I can also set what calendar it goes to and some notes, like a URL, or just some text information. So, notice now that I've got this To-Do Item and it's set for a due date of the 14th; it's not in the calendar, though. There's no Event there. These are separate from items in the calendar. On an accomplished task, I can check it off, and it's done. Now, To-Do Item, just like an Event, is attached to a calendar, so you can see why its color is attached to my home calendar. I can change that, and, uh, say, set it to go to my work calendar, and you can see it changes color to match that one. I can also have it be part of another type of calendar, say, a mobile-me, or maybe in the future it'll be an I-Cloud Calendar. Uhm, and hopefully that just syncs across devices. One neat thing you can do with To-Do Items, if you decide they need to be in the calendar - you can actually drag and drop them onto a date there, and it'll create an event from that. And then you can just delete the To-Do Item, and it remains there in your calendar. Likewise, you can take an event and drag it to become a To-Do Item, and it retains the Event there, and you can leave it in the calendar, or delete it. You can sort To-Do Items by clicking on the top there, and you can sort them by due date, priority, uh, just alphabetically, uhm, or you can have a manual sort, which then allows you to drag and drop them into any order you want. The little pin down, at the bottom of I-Cal, right here, allows you to hide or show the list of To-Do Items. Now, to be sure, there are a lot better applications out there for putting To-Do Lists together. But, if you just need some basic functionality, and perhaps you're already using I-Cal for various things, this is a good way to do it. Now, we already know that there will be a new reminder's app in IOS 5 for the I-pad and I-phone. Hopefully, this will in-sync with these To-Do Items or Reminders in I-Cal in line. We'll just have to wait and see if that's the case. Til next time, this is Gary with MacMost, now.
Great video as always, Gary.
At the moment, To-Dos in iCal don't sync over to anything in the iOS. Not Calendar, nor even Mail (where Notes are synced on the Mac, and where To-Dos can be entered but again don't sync to anything in iOS).
The new Reminders app coming in iOS 5 doesn't allow sorting by priority or due date, or even manual sorting. According to what I've read, they just list in whatever order they were entered. And I haven't seen anything yet explaining how they will sync into iCal, although it's been said that they will do so – somehow.
I'm currently using Errands and Alarmed, both by Yoctoville, on the iOS. They don't offer cross-device or cross-platform syncing, but are really powerful and easy to use apps. I'd love to get a to-do app they offers their level of functionality along with syncing. I've tried Wunderlist recently and many others in the past but keep coming back to Errands and Alarmed.
Do you use the iCal to-dos? If so, what if anything do you use on your iPhone or other iOS device? If you use something else that syncs, what is it?
I personally use Google's "Tasks," which is a part of Gmail. It isn't fancy. There are almost not features. But it is truly "in the cloud" since it is web-based. And there is a mobile interface to it, so I just go to that page on the iPhone, or access through Gmail on my Mac.
I have a Gmail account. In fact, I use a Gmail calendar as my primary calendar on my iPhone and within iCal. But GTasks is too limited for me. I tried it, but as you stated yourself, it has almost no features.
Ah well, for now I'll keep using Errands and Alarmed since I have my iPhone with me all the time anyway. But I'll keep an eye on Wunderlist, which is really quite good for a free set of apps and a free syncing service; and hope that iOS 5's Reminders will be better at release than it seems to be now.
How can an all day event show the whole wording. And how can multiple events be listed on a certain day in chronoclogical order?
So, you're not talking about reminders here, right? You're just talking about whole events?
Multiple events should be listed on that date in the order of the start time.
why did you delete my comment? It was totally topic related.
Not sure. Can you repost? I've got several spam filters set up (otherwise this site would be overrun with spam in a day). Perhaps it was cause as a false positive.
In ical I want to set event with sounds, but the alarms in ical are to short and to low. I would like to know if there is a way that I can set my own town as my alarm and for it to work on my ipad.
On an iPad? No. But perhaps soon. There has been some talk of allowing you to use your own sounds for various things in iOS 5. We'll have to wait and see if that includes Calendar alarms.
Hey Gary. How are you?
To start, I want to say that I'm a really fan of you and of your videos. You have the way to explain.
Than, I'm starting on MAC and iPhone and want to use iCal. Which video can you suggest for me to figure out how to use? May you make a video with the new design of iCal?
I don't really have an "iCal" basics video. I would just start playing with it. Create some events and try different things. It isn't a very deep program. Just events with alarms, really.
where is the alarm tab for ical ?
Alarm tab? What do you mean?
How do I stop duplicate ical entries from showing up on my iphone. And if I enter events on my mac book what do I need to do to have them show up on my iphone.
I'm using lion and as far as I know I have the icloud functioning…as far as I know.
Could me that you are just subscribed to the calendar twice. Maybe once with iCloud and once with syncing "from my mac." Check your Settings.
Ive de-selected the "All from My Mac" set of calendars on my iPhone and just have the "All iCloud" calendars checked but the events that I've entered on my macbook don't appear. Isn't that how it's supposed to work? If I enter things on my iPhone they should show up on my Macbook and visa versa?
Right, as long as you are entering them with your iCloud calendar.
And how can I be sure I'm doing that?
Am I supposed to enable something on my macbook?
Just make sure you have chosen an iCloud calendar (as opposed to a calendar that is somewhere else) when you create an event. You can always look at an event and see which calendar it belongs to. You can always look at the web version of iCloud to see your calendar there too.


When it comes to health, better is different for everyone. Read about the difference between the public and private systems for common hospital procedures, and find out if health insurance is right for you.
What if I need a hip or knee replacement?
What if I need a colonoscopy?
What if I need a knee reconstruction?
What if I am planning a baby?
What if I need to have IVF?
Do I need health insurance if I'm healthy?
Questioning if you need health insurance?
Decided health insurance is better for you?


Plan vacation or business trip with eTravel.com and search best offers, cheap rates and discounts on hotels rooms in Budapest. Find your next great offer and book your perfect hotel in Budapest. On this page we give you information related to hotels and activities available in Budapest, Budapest, Hungary.


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St. Louis Mayor Krewson Touts Development Projects And Climate Change Efforts
By Andy Field • Apr 17, 2019
Mayor Lyda Krewson at St. Louis City Hall On April 17.
Andy Field | St. Louis Public Radio
St. Louis Mayor Lyda Krewson presented a two-year report at City Hall Wednesday touting the city's completed and ongoing development projects. She also highlighted the city's efforts to tackle climate change.
The report says that $8 billion in projects have been recently completed or are underway. These include the Gateway Arch Park and Museum, the Soldiers Memorial and Ballpark Village.
In 2018, the city issued more than $1.22 billion in building permits, which the report said is $500 million more than the previous year. The permits translate into nearly 4,000 new jobs, more than 6,000 residential units, 2.2 million square feet in new commercial space and more than 2,000 new hotel rooms, according to the report.
The report also says that the design for the 97-acre National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency western headquarters has commenced. The report reads that this $1.7 billion project will lead to 3,100 permanent and 1,500 construction jobs.
Tackling Climate Change
"This is the 30th year of Earth Day. So I think it's important to take stock of that, especially when in our country we are thankfully talking more and more about our environment," Krewson said.
Earth Day is April 22.
The city was declared a winner of Mike Bloomberg's "American Cities Climate Challenge" in October. Krewson said that as part of the two-year program, the city will receive around $2.5 million in technical support to reduce air pollution and citywide emissions.
During the event at City Hall, Krewson said the city's program application stated its goals "to improve energy efficiency in public and private buildings, execute a comprehensive solar action strategy and to accelerate the availability of electric-vehicle infrastructure."
"We are very excited about it, and we hope our participation in it will really help us meet our challenges," she said.
The city's goal is to transition into 100% clean energy by 2035.
"In line with that goal, we are beginning to explore a variety of ways to use solar energy, not only to help the environment but to create local green jobs and support workforce development," said Krewson.
The mayor also mentioned the city's Recycle Responsibly educational campaign, which is spreading awareness of the detrimental effects of plastic bags in recycling.
"They clog up the equipment, they shut down the line and break the equipment. And they also force items which would otherwise be recyclable," Krewson said. "But if you put that in a plastic bag, and that in a dumpster, then they are not recyclable, they go to the landfill. None of us want that."
Krewson also presented a map of the Wells Goodfellow Neighborhood Green Space project. The plan will convert nine acres of vacant parcels in the Wells Goodfellow Neighborhood to community green space.
"To create this green space is going to result in new recreation space, new open space, low-lying native grasses, flowers, fruit trees, walking trails and improved lighting in this neighborhood," Krewson said. "It's a great example, I think, of transforming vacant properties into an asset for the neighborhood."
Follow Andy Tsubasa Field on Twitter @AndyTsubasaF
Send questions and comments about this story to feedback@stlpublicradio.org
Mayor Lyda Krewson
Missouri And Illinois Reduce Carbon Emissions But Still Remain Top Polluters
By Eli Chen • Apr 10, 2019
File Photo | Véronique LaCapra | St. Louis Public Radio
Missouri and Illinois are producing less carbon pollution than a decade ago but are still emitting more than many other states, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
Both states have cut their emissions from 2005 by about a sixth, according to the federal statistics agency, a division of the U.S. Department of Energy. However, Missouri and Illinois are among the states with the top 15 highest emissions.
Putting the 'village' in Ballpark Village: 2nd phase gets underway with residential options
By Holly Edgell • Dec 14, 2017
Holly Edgell | St. Louis Public Radio
The second phase of Ballpark Village got underway Thursday, and, at the heart of it all, will be a luxury apartment building. The St. Louis Cardinals and development partner, the Cordish Companies, are betting that people will pay top dollar to live at One Cardinal Way, at the corner of Clark Avenue and South Broadway.
A nearby office tower will be the first Class A office building constructed in downtown St. Louis since Metropolitan Square opened in 1989. At the groundbreaking ceremony Thursday, Cardinals President Bill DeWitt III announced that PriceWaterhouseCoopers will be the lead tenant.
Hundreds celebrate opening of Arch museum and visitors center
By Mary Delach Leonard & Abigail Censky • Jul 3, 2018
Ryan Delaney | St. Louis Public Radio
The Normandy High School Band provided the beat and Mother Nature brought on the heat, as hundreds gathered on the St. Louis riverfront Tuesday morning to celebrate the opening of the new museum and visitors center at the Gateway Arch.
The ribbon cutting marked the final stage in a five-year project to revitalize the Arch grounds. Speakers emphasized the public-private partnership that planned and funded the $380 million project.


BookExpo America, the U.S. book industry's largest trade event, hits NYC next week. Here are a few themes to look out for.
Publishers are realizing that to compete with Amazon (s AMZN) they have to be able to sell directly to consumers. One way they can do that is by making their books more discoverable. Joint venture Bookish is now almost a year late and nowhere to be seen, so startups are trying to fill the gap — for instance, Zola Books, a New-York based company that lets publishers and authors sell e-books directly, is launching at the show. Meanwhile, the always-interesting Peter Hildick-Smith argues at Publishers Launch on Monday afternoon that bookstores are still a crucial source of discovery for readers, and that SEO and social networks aren't coming close to filling the gap. Just don't expect the discoverability question to be answered this year.
Those would be the Department of Justice, which is suing Apple (s AAPL) and big publishers for allegedly colluding to set e-book prices, and Amazon, the presumed beneficiary of the DOJ suit. Nobody's talking about DOJ loudly or on the record, but the lawsuit affects the mood in the Javits Center and makes publishers wary of throwing back too many drinks with their colleagues from other houses.
Amazon, meanwhile, is at BEA. Its booth (which is far from the big-six publishers, but happens to be right next to the Authors Guild, which should make for some awkward conversation. Last year Amazon dropped the Larry Kirshbaum announcement the night before BEA; this year it'll be showing off the first fall books from Kirshbaum's New York imprint.
Library e-book distributors OverDrive and 3M Cloud Library have been battling for attention this week ahead of the fair; OverDrive rolled out an HTML5-based Web reader, while newcomer 3M is announcing new partnerships — including one with self-publishing site Smashwords — that increase its collection to over 200,000 titles. (OverDrive has about 500,000 titles.) I'm still waiting for 3M to announce a bigger client, a big-six publisher — Hachette, Macmillan or Simon & Schuster — signing with the service to make its e-books available to libraries for the first time.
What's the next "Hunger Games"?
Last year Google (s GOOG) was a big presence at BEA. This year, Google Play has a booth but none of its execs are on panels, as far as I can find (though there is an education session about using Google+, "the next big thing right now!"). It seems that Google, which ended the partnership that allowed indie bookstores to sell its e-books earlier this year, is backing away from the e-books space, and that e-book rental service the company alluded to at BEA last year has evaporated into the cloud.
Come see me at BEA! At Publishers Launch on Monday, June 4, I'm moderating a panel at 11:25AM ET: "Agents in Transition: Direct publishing, new deals and rethinking sub-rights. At IDPF Digital Book on Tuesday, I'm doing a presentation on e-singles at 9:00AM ET: What they are, why they matter and what's next for that format. And on Wednesday at 9:00AM ET, I'm leading "Apps for Publishers: The What, Why and How Workshop." In between, you'll find me on the floor and on Twitter @laurahazardowen.
Plus, don't miss GigaOM executive editor Ernie Sander at IDPF Digital Book on Monday, talking about emerging models for content monetization.
Interesting that it is reported that a startup is offering a way for publishers to sell eBooks directly, when this ability has been offered to publishers in mid-2011 through MyTabletBooks.com.
We'll be there at BEA in the Digital Book Zone too!


text:
« Industrial Management Notes
MP-3 VTU Notes »
Mine Kafon: the low-tech tumbleweed minesweeper
A dramatic visualization of the Mine Kafon in use
An Afghan designer has come up with a novel tumbleweed-esque device to find and detonate mines, a device that has evolved from the wind-powered toys he made as a child. Massoud Hassani's Mine Kafon is made mainly from bamboo and biodegradable plastics, but the simple addition of a GPS chip means the wind-swept spheres can be monitored to reveal the location of mines.
GPS chip aside, this is an extremely low-tech approach to mine detection. Typically the process involves the sweeping of mine fields, either manually with metal detectors, or with specialized vehicles (sometimes remotely controlled). The Mine Kafon, on the other hand, is an array of bamboo sticks with plastic disks at the end. It's light enough to be caught and moved by the wind, but heavy enough that it should trip any mine it passes over. The Mine Kafon will probably be destroyed in the process, but better that than a human life.
Clearly, the Mine Kafon will never be as efficient a means of clearing mines as an intensive sweep using specialist technology. The Mine Kafon is bound to travel the path of least resistance, and so it's not as if you can pop one into a field and expect it to clear the area. But the ability of the Mine Kafon to report on its route, trackable on the web thanks to its GPS chip, means that perhaps, were many of these low cost devices be released at scattered locations, they might chance upon mine fields that were previously undocumented.
There's something artful about the Mine Kafon, though, that is just as valuable. Perhaps it's the poetic symmetry of this peaceful response to the problem of land mines emerging from a nation ravaged by them. The UN puts Afghanistan's land mine count at 10 million, though Hassani insists there are "far, far more." Some of these are Valmara 69s, an anti-personnel mine designed to leap half a meter (or a foot and a half) into the air when tripped before scattering about 1000 steel shards over a lethal radius of 25 meters (82 ft).
"When we were young we learned to make our own toys," Hassani writes at his website. "One of my favourites was a small rolling object that was wind-powered. We used to race against the other kids on the fields around our neighbourhood. There was always a strong wind waving towards the mountains. While we were racing against each other, our toys rolled too fast and too far. Mostly they landed in areas where we couldn't go rescue them because of land mines. I still remember those toys I'd made that we lost and watching them just beyond where we could go." Twenty years on, and Hassani's windswept creations are set to return to Qasaba, Kabul, where he grew up.
The Mine Kafon is set to appear at New York's Museum of Modern Art, and is the subject of a documentary by Callum Cooper. You can see the trailer for the film below.
Source: Massoud Hassani
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Home/News/Cybercriminals Cashing In on FIFA World Cup-Themed.../Full Text
ACM News
Cybercriminals Cashing In on FIFA World Cup-Themed Cyberattacks
By Help Net Security
Said a CloudSEK researcher, "The gap between the supply and demand of FIFA World Cup game tickets, flight tickets, hotels, souvenirs, etc., has been co-opted by cybercriminals, to defraud fans and enthusiasts."
Credit: CloudSEK
The hype and popularity of the FIFA World Cup has attracted audiences from across the globe. And this, in turn attracts a variety of cybercriminals, who want to exploit the varied fan following, and the organizations participating, to make a quick buck.
Advanced persistent threat (APT) campaigns, phishing, credit card/cryptocurrency fraud, DDoS attacks, and identity theft are among the threats faced by organizations and audiences, CloudSEK reports. The cybercriminals are motivated by financial gain, ideology, or geo-political affiliations.
From Help Net Security
Cyberattacks on Hospitals Thwart India's Push to Digitize Healthcare
An Interview with Dana Scott
Len Shustek
5 Best Practices for Cloud-Based Backup and Recovery in 2023
Alex Tray


text:
<!DOCTYPE html>

  <title>Platform Test</title>
  <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />

Game requests

  <input type='button' onclick='invite();' value='Invite Friends'/>

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


Kazakhstan, Jeff Shea On Tibet 98 Expedition, 1998 - Here, I 'horse around' during a break on our travels across Russia and Kazakhstan. We were on our way to China and Tibet. In 1998, our expedition was self-financed; we bought two Russian Lada 4-wheel drives. We drove all the way to Rongbuk base camp at the foot of Mount Everest, at a height of approximately 17,000 feet. Lada was so pleased, they made three special 4-wheel drives for our expedition the following year. In 1999, we drove to a height of 18,781 feet on a mountain in Tibet.


There are a couple of anniversaries I celebrate here: August 31 (the day DanShanoff.com was launched) and January 6 (the day the Daily Quickie launched) are the biggies.
But neither would matter -- would even exist, most likely -- if not for tomorrow's anniversary: October 3, my wedding anniversary.
If not for my wife, I would not be a Florida fan. And if I wasn't a Florida fan, I'm not quite sure WHAT I'd be, fan-wise -- probably the same aimless, rootless fan I was before I met her.
And it goes without question that my wife's own sports fandom -- that she was a fan at all, let alone a die-hard college football and college hoops fan -- was some sort of necessary attribute to our relationship working out.
One of my wife's biggest pet peeves is when people say to her "Oh, it's so nice you're a Florida fan with Dan" -- as if she glommed on to MY team. She brusquely corrects them (as she should).
She loves sitting on the couch all day on Saturdays, watching college football -- even when the Gators aren't playing. She particularly likes the NCAA Tournament. ("March Madness" was listed on her resume under "Interests.") Her skill in bracket-picking is prolific: Remember back in 2006, when my unborn son's bracket finished in the Top 10 OUT OF 10,000 entries in the Quickie Readers pool -- that was my wife, making the picks.
Later that night, after the rehearsal dinner, worlds collided as my Northwestern friends watched NU pull off a stunning rare win over Ohio State -- the Florida fans were as loud in pulling for the Cats as the NU crowd.
I couldn't imagine a wedding weekend that DIDN'T pay at least some homage to college football -- as anyone who has held (or attended) a fall wedding can attest. It is one of the things I remember most about the weekend.
None of it would have happened or been possible without the complete support of my wife. She encouraged me to make the Quickie a reality; she encouraged me to dedicate the time I put into the blog -- now blogs, plural. She has been my biggest fan and my toughest (but fairest) critic and, frankly, the inspiration for all of it. Any success I have had is because of her influence and support.
And if I have any regret, it's that life is a zero-sum game: The hour you spend writing is an hour you don't spend with your wife or your kids or your friends or some other pursuit you care about. And I enjoy spending time with my wife so much, I miss those hours as much as I cherish the ones we do get to have together.
Ironically, there is no Gator game for us to watch together tomorrow, on the actual day of our anniversary. We will click on LSU-Georgia and settle in -- what more can you ask for that you get that kind of partnership for a BYE week. But, like I said, she's a bigger -- and better -- sports fan than I ever was. But you already knew that. And I love her for it.
So to my wife: Thank you for the five best years of my life. For our relationship. For my kids. For my sports fandom. (Just to confirm: Yes, in that order...even if some mornings it doesn't feel like it.) I love you -- now more than ever.
Who would put up with that kind of deviant behavior? The early mornings? The TV addiction? The obsession with awk. abbrev.? That would be devoted Quickie reader Margery, who -- assuming the rally caps work -- I'll marry on Sunday.
Five years after marrying me -- which was already a year and a half into the Quickie and three years into my Page 2 writing -- she still puts up with it.
Great writeup Dan. Congrats on five years!
Required wedding/football connection - The PSU/Texas game was moved for TV to be during our wedding. I got to watch the first quarter while getting dressed at my soon-to-be in-laws with my best man. Penn State lost (boo!) - glad the marriage turned out better!
I'm not implying we are on a cosmic collision course or anything... however Aug 31 is my birthday and Oct 3 is my wife's birthday.
I've read your column for about 4 years, and first time commenting.
Congrats. I get married today. As a college football fan, I salute your Sunday wedding.
As a Hokie, I ensured our wedding was going to either be a bye week, or Duke(hopefully not a jinx).
Anyhow, just thought I would send a congrats your way.
I was in a similar situation myself (convenientally enough with Florida also!) and was dragged into Gator-dom about 5 years ago. That lucky timing has allowed me to cheer for 2 NCAA BB and CFB Champions. That is still part of the reason I follow your blog (and your passion for Tebow) on a regular basis.
Congratulations on the anniversary and the true love you found. Your perspective on time and "your better half" was, as usual, spot on.
I have been reading your material for over two years, quickly ending up on my daily reading list.
As a lifelong UVA fan, I only wish us to be competitive and graduate great kids. And beat Carolina, Maryland, and now Tech whenever possible.
Hey, everyone: Huge thanks for the comments -- they made my day.
I love stories of how people's relationships with their significant others intersect with rooting interests.


Smart car manufacturer and one of the most prominent car innovators, Tesla motors are gearing up for their premium launch of their "Uber-Style" mobility services in the forthcoming year. The news comes fresh off Tesla's website on self-driving capabilities of the new Models S vehicle that will roll out with fully autonomous features.
Although this service currently remains unnamed Tesla Network, the electric automaker is preparing to enter the field and ride-hailing services that were first introduced CEO Elon Musk in his master plan in July.
"Please note that using a self-driving Tesla for car-sharing and ride-hailing for friends and family is fine, but doing so for revenue purposes will only be permissible on the Tesla Network, details of which will be released next year," read the website's disclaimer. The market potential for Tesla Network had interested Barclays analyst Brian Johnson enough to write about it in a note to investors quite interestingly. Although a Tesla Network could "excite the market" over its potential earnings stream, it was a costly proposition, he wrote.
The Tesla Network apparently goes hand-in-hand with full self-driving at some point too. Musk envisions your car being put to use while your at work, or sleeping or doing something else that doesn't require use of your own vehicle. Like plenty other automakers, Tesla has been planning on adding mobility services for some time. In Elon's "Master Plan", Part Deux" in July, Musk included a system in which a Tesla owner could add a car to a shared Tesla fleer using a simple mobile app.
For the owner of Tesla, it would offer and opportunity to generate income and lower the cost of ownership. In cities where car ownership is lower, Tesla would operate its own fleet, Musk wrote elaborately in his master plan.
Global growth in Uber's ridership, along with its Pittsburgh self-driving car test project has brought a great deal of attention to the ride-hailing company. Alliances with Toyota and Volvo were formed this year, while potential partnerships with Google and Tesla appear to be fading away.
It's an interesting fact that Google had invested $ 258 million in Uber as the technology giant explored mobility services that could fir with its self-driving car project. But in May, Google had begun testing a carpooling service that could take business away from ride-hailing leaders Uber and Lyft.
David Drummond, Google parent company Alphabet's executive said in August that he resigned from Uber's board because of the increasing competition between the companies, according to the Wall Street Journal. Uber had been using Google's mapping software for its drivers, but recently began developing its own maps. Uber's CEO Travis Kalanick said that when Tesla's vehicles become fully autonomous, he would be interested in buying every one of them. The comments had been relayed by a venture capitalist during a Silicon Valley awards dinner, and so far appear to have been more of a conversational topic than a business alliance.
With the start of a new era, General Motors has been leading the way this year is mobility services through its investment in Uber's competitor Lyft and through starting up its Maven car sharing division. Ford had also taken the opportunity to introduce Smart Mobility and announced acquisition of Chariot that happens to be an app-based, crowd-sourced shuttle company and collaboration with Motivate to launch Ford GoBike in San Francisco. An interesting fact is that mobility solutions have gone way beyond automakers could ever imagine. Around $ 27 billion dollars into the ride services sector have been invested in the past decade. Let's wait for more mobility solutions worldwide.


With a stay at Hotel Carmer 16 in Berlin (Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf), you'll be within a 10-minute drive of Victory Column and Berlin Zoological Garden. This 4-star hotel is 0.6 mi (1 km) from Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church and 2.9 mi (4.7 km) from Reichstag Building.
Make yourself at home in one of the 39 guestrooms featuring refrigerators and flat-screen televisions. Complimentary wireless Internet access keeps you connected, and digital programming is available for your entertainment. Private bathrooms with bathtubs or showers feature complimentary toiletries and hair dryers. Conveniences include desks and irons/ironing boards, and housekeeping is provided daily.
Quench your thirst with your favorite drink at the bar/lounge. A complimentary buffet breakfast is included.Pets allowed Check-in time starts at 2 PM Check-out time is 10 AMFeatured amenities include a 24-hour front desk, luggage storage, and a safe deposit box at the front desk.Extra-person charges may apply and vary depending on property policy.


text:
from __future__ import print_function

from datetime import timedelta

from django.core.management.base import BaseCommand, make_option
from django.utils.timezone import now

from ... import models

class Command(BaseCommand):
    help = 'This removes orders with the status "incomplete" that have been'
    ' created more than n days ago.'

    option_list = BaseCommand.option_list + (
        make_option('-d', '--days', action='store', dest='days', default=7,
                    type='int',
                    help='Number of days prior to which purchases should be'
                         ' purged'),
    )

    def handle(self, *args, **options):
        print("Purging orders older than {0} day(s):".format(options['days']))
        date = now() - timedelta(days=options['days'])
        for purchase in models.Purchase.objects.filter(
                state='incomplete',
                date_added__lt=date):
            print(purchase, purchase.date_added)
            purchase.delete()


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By Alexandra Jardine - 37 min 6 sec ago
2 hours 2 min ago
By Ethan Jakob Craft - 1 day ago
By Jessica Wohl - 2 days ago
Privacy and Regulation
Survey: Advertisers Rank Below Government at Protecting Personal Data
Gfk Study Finds Just 25% Believe Marketers Can Be Trusted
By Kate Kaye. Published on April 14, 2014.
Consumers trust marketers and advertisers with their data about as far as they can throw 'em. More than half of those participating in a recent privacy study said doctors, search engines and banks warrant their trust when it comes to personal data protection. Marketers and advertisers, on the other hand, elicted the least faith from those surveyed; just 25% said the industry is trustworthy with personal information.
A data privacy study conducted by research firm GfK in March suggests that, while nearly half of consumers surveyed say they appreciate getting targeted marketing messages, they're skeptical of how corporations use their personal data and doubt that stringent security measures are in place. Forty-nine percent of those surveyed agreed "advertising that is tailored to my needs is helpful because I can find the right products and services more quickly."
But there's a bit of a disconnect: 64% said they don't trust how their personal data "is handled" by marketers and advertisers.
Consumers want that to change. Overall, 54% of those surveyed said they'd like to see marketers and advertisers alter their personal data policies and activities. The age breakdown is distinct, however. Far more pre-boomers (75%) and boomers (60%) want marketers to adjust their data practices, while younger generations seem less bothered. Half of gen X-ers, 46% of Generation Y and 47% of Generation Z respondents say marketers whould change their data ways.
The research firm conducted the study, the first of its kind by GfK, "to provide marketers and the industry with a benchmark on consumers' attitudes and behavior around data privacy," said Dave Krajicek, CEO of GfK Consumer Experiences North America.
While advertisers and marketers are on the low end of the data-protection-reputation totem pole, several industries got relatively high marks for personal data handling. More than half of those surveyed said healthcare firms (72%) and banks (64%) -- harvesters of some of the most sensitive data around – can be trusted. Social sites (39%) and international businesses (28%) also drew skepticism.
Mr. Krajicek suggested healthcare and financial firms are more trusted because they are so heavily regulated.
Marketers may be in the proverbial privacy doghouse but government authorities aren't exactly reliable data protectors according to study participants. More than half – 53% -- said authorities need to change their personal data policies and activities (though only 42% said they trusted the authorities).
Gfk surveyed 1,000 people aged 18 and up from March 7 through March 9 for its Data Privacy Analysis study.
Kate Kaye
Kate Kaye covers the data industry for Advertising Age and is the main contributor to the Ad Age DataWorks section. Before joining Ad Age in November 2012, Kate worked as a writer and reporter covering the digital marketing industry since 2000, focusing on beats including data-driven targeting, privacy, and government regulation. Kate helped cultivate the online political campaign beat, and in 2009 wrote "Campaign '08 A Turning Point for Digital Media," a book about the digital media efforts of the 2008 presidential campaigns. Before joining Ad Age, Kate was managing editor of ClickZ News, where she worked for nearly 7 years.


Your Toyota FJ Cruiser was designed to enhance your off-road adventures while remaining rugged, practical and reliable. Camping trips are probably at the top of your list when it comes to getting away from things. Unless you plan on sleeping in your Cruiser's cargo space or on the ground, you may have been considering purchasing an FJ cruiser roof top tent set-up that either rests on your vehicle's roof or on an fj cruiser off road camping trailer. Both arrangements will provide you with the above-ground comforts you're looking for, but which is the better all-round choice?
Is a Roof Top Tent for You?
For family-style camping, some roof top tent arrangements can provide more than 7 x 6 feet of space and accommodate 2 or more people. When you're looking for a roof top tent for sale, check for features such as waterproof and mold-resistant fabrics, the number and quality of mattresses, under-tent storage space and included set-up tools.
An issue that might cause you to instead favor an overland trailer tent arrangement is the need to pack-up your roof top tent set-up before you can take off from your base camp and go exploring or shop for supplies. This lack of immediate mobility, however, becomes a non-issue if you have no intention of wheeling away from your base camp until you head home. If you would rather not have a trailer hitched up to your vehicle during your off-road trips, however, a roof top set-up will be your best bet.
Will an Overland Trailer Tent Provide More of the At-Home Comforts You'd Like?
Off road trailers for fj cruisers can provide comforts, conveniences and storage space that may not always be available in a roof top tent set-up. When you're looking for the best off road trailer for sale, you can add to your wish list features such as generator and refrigerator storage areas, a complete kitchen set-up with ample water storage for full cooking needs and solar panel readiness. A well-equipped overland trailer tent will provide shade and prepping space for meals that rival what can be prepared at home. The addition of an option such as a lower level annex will offer an even greater degree of at-home comfort by providing privacy for larger families or traveling couples. If your camping expeditions are taking you to some rough off-road terrains, however, you may be more comfortable with a roof top arrangement rather than traveling with a trailer in tow.
Your addition of either an overland trailer or a roof top tent will enable you to get the most out of your camping trips. The choice of which option works best for you depends on how you feel about hitching up a trailer, what type of amenities you would like, environmental conditions and your purchasing budget. Factors such as your vehicle's towing capacity, cargo storage space and roof top weight limit will also figure in your decision. Plan ahead and balance your wants with your needs — you'll make the best choice that way.


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Robber Barons
Gilded Age Homes
Labor Unions Rise
Railroad Strikes
Gilded Age Cities
Women in the Gilded Age
Carrie Nation
Limits to Power
Populist Party
End of the Gilded Age
The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today was a famous satirical novel by Mark Twain set in the late 1800s, and the term "Gilded Age" soon came to define the tumultuous years between the Civil War and the turn of the twentieth century. During this era, America became more prosperous and saw unprecedented growth in industry and technology. But the Gilded Age had a more sinister side: It was a period where greedy, corrupt industrialists, bankers and politicians enjoyed extraordinary wealth and opulence at the expense of the working class. In fact, it was wealthy tycoons, not politicians, who inconspicuously held the most political power during the Gilded Age.
Before the Civil War, rail travel was dangerous and difficult—but after the war, George Westinghouse invented the air brake, which made braking systems more dependable and safe.
Soon, the development of Pullman sleeping cars and dining cars made rail travel comfortable and more enjoyable for passengers. It wasn't long before trains overtook other forms of long-distance travel such as the stagecoach and riding horseback.
In 1869, the Transcontinental Railroad was finished and led to rapid settlement of the western United States. It also made it much easier to transport goods over long distances from one part of the country to another.
This enormous railroad expansion resulted in rail companies and their executives receiving lavish amounts of money and land—up to 200 million acres, by some estimates—from the United States government. In many cases, politicians cut shady backroom deals and helped create railroad and shipping tycoons such as Cornelius Vanderbilt and Jay Gould.
Railroad tycoons were just one of many types of so-called robber barons that emerged in the Gilded Age.
These men used union busting, fraud, intimidation, violence and their extensive political connections to gain an advantage over any competitors. Robber barons were relentless in their efforts to amass wealth while exploiting workers and ignoring standard business rules—and in many cases, the law itself.
They soon accumulated vast amounts of money and dominated every major industry including the railroad, oil, banking, timber, sugar, liquor, meatpacking, steel, mining, tobacco and textile industries.
Some wealthy entrepreneurs such as Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller and Henry Frick are often referred to as robber barons but may not exactly fit the mold. While it's true they built huge monopolies, often by crushing any small business or competitor in their way, they were also generous philanthropists who didn't always rely on political ploys to build their empires.
Some tried to improve life for their employees, donated millions to charities and nonprofits and supported their communities by providing funding for everything from libraries and hospitals to universities, public parks and zoos.
The Gilded Age was in many ways the culmination of the Industrial Revolution, when America and much of Europe shifted from an agricultural society to an industrial one.
Millions of immigrants and struggling farmers poured into cities such as New York, Boston, Philadelphia, St. Louis and Chicago, looking for work and hastening the urbanization of America. By 1900, about 40 percent of Americans lived in major cities.
Most cities were unprepared for rapid population growth. Housing was limited, and tenements and slums sprung up nationwide. Heating, lighting, sanitation and medical care were poor or nonexistent, and millions died from preventable disease.
Many immigrants were unskilled and willing to work long hours for little pay. Gilded Age plutocrats considered them the perfect employees for their sweatshops, where working conditions were dangerous and workers endured long periods of unemployment, wage cuts and no benefits.
Homes of the Gilded Age elite were nothing short of spectacular. The wealthy considered themselves America's royalty and settled for nothing less than estates worthy of that distinction. Some of America's most famous mansions were built during the Gilded Age such as:
Biltmore, located in Asheville, North Carolina, was the family estate of George and Edith Vanderbilt. Construction started on the 250-room chateau in 1889, prior to the couple's marriage, and continued for six years. The home had 35 bedrooms, 43 bathrooms, 65 fireplaces, a dairy, a horse barn and beautiful formal and informal gardens.
The Breakers in Newport, Rhode Island, is another Vanderbilt mansion. It was the summer home of railroad mogul Cornelius Vanderbilt. The Italian-Renaissance style home has 70 rooms, a stable and a carriage house.
Rosecliff, also in Newport, was completed in 1902. The oceanfront home was contracted by Theresa Fair Oelrichs and built to resemble the Grand Trianon of Versailles. Today, it's best known as the backdrop for movie scenes in The Great Gatsby, High Society, 27 Dresses and True Lies.
Whitehall, located in Palm Beach, Florida, was the neoclassical winter retreat of oil tycoon Henry Flagler and his wife Mary. The 100,000 square foot, 75-room mansion was completed in 1902 and is now a popular museum.
The industrialists of the Gilded Age lived high on the hog, but most of the working class lived below poverty level. As time went on, the income inequality between wealthy and poor became more and more glaring.
While the wealthy lived in opulent homes, dined on succulent food and showered their children with gifts, the poor were crammed into filthy tenement apartments, struggled to put a loaf of bread on the table and accompanied their children to a sweatshop each morning where they faced a 12-hour (or longer) workday.
Some moguls used Social Darwinism to justify the inequality between the classes. The theory presumes that the fittest humans are the most successful and poor people are destitute because they're weak and lack the skills to be prosperous.
Muckrakers is a term used to describe reporters who exposed corruption among politicians and the elite. They used investigative journalism and the print revolution to dig through "the muck" of the Gilded Age and report scandal and injustice.
In 1890, reporter and photographer Jacob Riis brought the horrors of New York slum life to light in his book, How the Other Half Lives, prompting New York politicians to pass legislation to improve tenement conditions.
In 1902, McClure Magazine journalist Lincoln Steffens took on city corruption when he penned the article, "Tweed Days in St. Louis." The article, which is widely considered the first muckracking magazine article, exposed how city officials deceitfully made deals with crooked businessmen to maintain power.
Another journalist, Ida Tarbell, spent years investigating the underhanded rise of oilman John D. Rockefeller. Her 19-part series, also published in McClure in 1902, led to the breakup of Rockefeller's monopoly, the Standard Oil Company.
In 1906, activist journalist and novelist Upton Sinclair wrote The Jungle to expose horrendous working conditions in the meatpacking industry. The book and ensuing public outcry led to the passing of the Meat Inspection Act and the Pure Food and Drug Act.
It soon became obvious that the huge disparity between the wealthy and poor couldn't last, and the working class would have to organize to improve their working and living conditions. It was also obvious this wouldn't happen without some degree of violence.
Much of the violence, however, was between the workers themselves as they struggled to agree on what they were fighting for. Some simply wanted increased wages and a better working environment, while others also wanted to keep women, immigrants and blacks out of the workforce.
Although the first labor unions occurred around the turn of the nineteenth century, they gained momentum during the Gilded Age, thanks to the increased number of unskilled and unsatisfied factory workers.
On July 16, 1877, the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company announced a 10-percent pay cut on its railroad workers in Martinsburg, West Virginia, the second cut in less than eight months.
Infuriated and fed up, the workers—with the support of the locals—announced they'd prevent all trains from leaving the roundhouse until their pay was restored.
The mayor, the police and even the National Guard couldn't stop the strike. It wasn't until Federal troops arrived that one train finally left the station.
The strike spread among other railroads, sparking violence across America between the working class and local and federal authorities. At its peak, over 100,000 railroad workers were on strike. Many of the Robber Barons feared an aggressive, all-out revolution against their way of life.
Instead, the strike—later known as the Great Upheaval—ended abruptly and was labeled a dismal failure. Yet it showed America's tycoons there was strength in numbers and that organized labor had the potential to shut down entire industries and inflict major economic and political damage.
As the working class continued to use strikes and boycotts to fight for higher wages and improved working conditions, their bosses staged lock-outs and brought in replacement workers known as scabs.
They also created blacklists to prevent active union workers from becoming employed elsewhere. Even so, the working class continued to unite and press their cause and often won at least some of their demands.
Innovations of the Gilded Age helped usher in modern America. Urbanization and technological creativity led to many engineering advances such as bridges and canals, elevators and skyscrapers, trolley lines and subways.
The invention of electricity brought illumination to homes and businesses and created an unprecedented, thriving night life. Art and literature flourished, and the rich filled their lavish homes with expensive works of art and elaborate décor.
In 1876, Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone and made the world a much smaller place for both individuals and businesses. Advances in sanitation and housing, and the availability of better quality food and material goods, improved quality of life for the middle class.
But while the middle and upper classes enjoyed the allure of city life, little changed for the poor. Most still faced horrific living conditions, high crime rates and a pitiable existence.
Many escaped their drudgery by watching a vaudeville show or a spectator sport such as boxing, baseball or football, all of which enjoyed a surge during the Gilded Age.
Upper-class women of the Gilded Age have been compared to dolls on display dressed in resplendent finery. They flaunted their wealth and endeavored to improve their status in society while poor and middle-class women both envied and mimicked them.
Some wealthy Gilded Age women were much more than eye candy, though, and often traded domestic life for social activism and charitable work. They felt a new degree of empowerment and fought for equality, including the right to vote through women's suffrage groups.
Some created homes for destitute immigrants while others pushed a temperance agenda, believing the source of poverty and most family troubles was alcohol. Wealthy women philanthropists of the Gilded Age include:
Louise Whitfield Carnegie, wife of Andrew Carnegie, who created Carnegie Hall and donated to the Red Cross, the Y.W.C.A., and other charities.
Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, wife of John D. Rockefeller, Jr., who helped create hotels for women and solicited funds to create the New York Museum of Modern Art.
Margaret Olivia Sage, wife of Russell Sage, who after the death of her miserly husband gave away $45 million of her $75 million inheritance to support women's causes, educational institutions and the creation of the Russell Sage Foundation for Social Betterment, which directly helped poor people.
Many women during the Gilded Age sought higher education. Others postponed marriage and took jobs such as typists or telephone switchboard operators.
Thanks to a print revolution and the accessibility of newspapers, magazines and books, women became increasingly knowledgeable, cultured, well-informed and a political force to be reckoned with.
Jane Addams is arguably the best-known philanthropist of the Gilded Age. In 1889, she and Ellen Gates Star established a secular settlement house in Chicago known as Hull-House.
The neighborhood was a melting pot of struggling immigrants, and Hull-House provided everything from midwife services and basic medical care to kindergarten, day care and housing for abused women. It also offered English and citizenship classes. Adams received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1931.
Temperance leader Carrie Nation gained notoriety during the Gilded Age for smashing up saloons with a hatchet to bring attention to her sobriety agenda. She was also a strong voice for the suffrage movement.
Nation's belief that alcohol was the root of all evil was partially due to her difficult first marriage to an alcoholic, and her work with women and children displaced or abused by over-imbibing husbands.
Convinced God had instructed her to use whatever means necessary to close bars throughout Kansas, she was often beaten, mocked and jailed but ultimately helped pave the way for the 18th Amendment (prohibiting the sale of alcohol) and the 19th Amendment (giving women the right to vote).
Many other pivotal events happened during the Gilded Age which changed America's course and culture. As muckrakers exposed corrupt robber barons and politicians, labor unions and reformist politicians enacted laws to limit their power.
The western frontier saw violent conflicts between white settlers and the United States Army against Native Americans. The Native Americans were eventually forced off their land and onto reservations with often disastrous results. In 1890, the western frontier was declared closed.
As drought and depression struck rural America, farmers in the west—who vilified railroad tycoons and wanted a political voice—organized and played a key role in forming the Populist Party.
The Populists had a democratic agenda that aimed to give power back to the people and paved the way for the progressive movement, which still fights to close the gap between the wealthy and poor and champion the needy and disenfranchised.
In 1893, both the overextended Philadelphia and Reading Railroad and the National Cordage Company failed, which set off an economic depression unlike any seen before in America.
Banks and other businesses folded, and the stock market plunged, leaving millions unemployed, homeless and hungry. In some states, unemployment rose to almost 50 percent.
The Panic of 1893 lasted four years and left lower and even middle-class Americans fed up with political corruption and social inequality. Their frustration gave rise to the Progressive Movement which took hold when President Theodore Roosevelt took office in 1901.
Although Roosevelt supported corporate America, he also felt there should be federal controls in place to keep excessive corporate greed in check and prevent individuals from making obscene amounts of money off the backs of immigrants and the lower class.
Helped by the muckrackers and the White House, the Progressive Era ushered in many reforms that helped shift away power from robber barons, such as:
trust busting
labor reform
women's suffrage
formation of trade unions
increased conservation efforts
food and medicine regulations
By 1916, America's cities were cleaner and healthier, factories safer, governments less corrupt and many people had better housing, working hours and wages. Fewer monopolies meant more people could pursue the American Dream and start their own businesses.
When America entered World War I in 1917, the Progressive Era and any remnants of the Gilded Age effectively ended as the country's focus shifted to the realities of war. Most robber barons and their families, however, remained wealthy for generations.
Even so, many bequeathed much of their wealth, land and homes to charity and historical societies. And progressives continued their mission to close the gap between the wealthy and poor and champion the needy and disenfranchised.
Chicago Workers During the Long Gilded Age. The Newberry.
Gilded Age Reform. University of Virginia.
The Doll House: Wealth and Women in the Gilded Age. Journeys Into the Past: An Online Journal of Miami University's History Department.
The Gilded Age. Scholastic.
About Jane Addams. Jane Addams Hull-House Museum.
Carrie A. Nation (1846-1911). The State Historical Society of Missouri: Historic Missourians.
Lincoln Steffens Exposes "Tweed Days in St. Louis." History Matters.
The Breakers. The Preservation Society of Newport County.
The Progressive Era (1890-1920). The Eleanor Roosevelt Papers Project.
Biltmore Estate History. Biltmore.
Margaret Olivia Sage. Philanthropy Roundtable.
https://www.history.com/topics/19th-century/gilded-age
Weapons of the Middle Ages
Voting Age Lowered
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People use the phrase "Middle Ages" to describe Europe between the fall of Rome in 476 CE and the beginning of the Renaissance in the 14th century. Many scholars call the era the "medieval period" instead; "Middle Ages," they say, incorrectly implies that the period is an ...read more
The Stone Age marks a period of prehistory in which humans used primitive stone tools. Lasting roughly 2.5 million years, the Stone Age ended around 5,000 years ago when humans in the Near East began working with metal and making tools and weapons from bronze. During the Stone ...read more
An ice age is a period of colder global temperatures and recurring glacial expansion capable of lasting hundreds of millions of years. Thanks to the efforts of geologist Louis Agassiz and mathematician Milutin Milankovitch, scientists have determined that variations in the ...read more
The Bronze Age marked the first time humans started to work with metal. Bronze tools and weapons soon replaced earlier stone versions. Ancient Sumerians in the Middle East may have been the first people to enter the Bronze Age. Humans made many technological advances during the ...read more
The Iron Age was a period in human history that started between 1200 B.C. and 600 B.C., depending on the region, and followed the Stone Age and Bronze Age. During the Iron Age, people across much of Europe, Asia and parts of Africa began making tools and weapons from iron and ...read more
Shipping and railroad tycoon Cornelius Vanderbilt (1794-1877) was a self-made multi-millionaire who became one of the wealthiest Americans of the 19th century. As a boy, he worked with his father, who operated a boat that ferried cargo between Staten Island, New York, where they ...read more
It was the time of the world's first Industrial Revolution, political reform and social change, Charles Dickens and Charles Darwin, a railway boom and the first telephone and telegraph. But the Victorian Era—the 63-year period from 1837-1901 that marked the reign of England's ...read more
The labor movement in the United States grew out of the need to protect the common interest of workers. For those in the industrial sector, organized labor unions fought for better wages, reasonable hours and safer working conditions. The labor movement led efforts to stop child ...read more
Crédit Mobilier
The Crédit Mobilier scandal of 1872-1873 damaged the careers of several Gilded Age politicians. Major stockholders in the Union Pacific Railroad formed a company, the Crédit Mobilier of America, and gave it contracts to build the railroad. They sold or gave shares in this ...read more


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Proud History and Legacy
Thatcher's Funeral Home began during the time when horses pulled wagons through the streets of Kansas City, KS. The area of 1st, 2nd & 3rd streets in Wyandotte County, Kansas City, KS were populated by black families who had moved to "Free Kansas" when they left the cotton and sugar plantations of the South. To serve the Negro community with a first class mortuary, in 1912 Nathan W.Thatcher Sr. founded Thatcher's Funeral Home located at 1514 North 5th Street 47 years after the abolishment of legal slavery in the United States.
Continuing the family legacy, the business passed on Thatcher Sr.'s death to son Nathan W.Thatcher, Jr. who operated the business for 28 years then upon his death to daughter Quintelle Thatcher Davis. Mrs. Davis, with assistance of her mother, Myrtle Thatcher, ran the business for 27 years. Upon Mrs. Davis' death in 2007, her son (and great grandson to Thatcher, Sr.) Robert Davis, Jr. became the general manager of Thatcher's Funeral Home. Mrs. Myrtle Thatcher, though retired, remains a pillar of the community and available to advise her grandson who carries on the 100 year legacy of Thatcher's Funeral Home. Through the generations, all stayed dedicated to the ideals of Nathan Thatcher Sr. to provide a first class mortuary service.
We've included a number of photographs of our funeral home below. Click on an image to view a larger copy. Once viewing the larger version, click on the left and right edges to move through the image collection.


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