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More Americans Delaying Medical Treatment Due to Cost

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A record 25% of Americans say they or a family member put off treatment for a serious medical condition in the past year because of the cost, up from 19% a year ago and the highest in Gallup’s trend. Gallup reports:

Another 8% said they or a family member put off treatment for a less serious condition, bringing the total percentage of households delaying care due to costs to 33%, tying the high from 2014 …

Reports of delaying treatment for a serious condition jumped 13 percentage points in the past year to 36% among adults in households earning less than $40,000 per year while it was essentially flat (up a non statistically significant three points) among those in middle-income and higher-income households.

As a result of the spike in lower-income households this year, the gap between the top and bottom income groups for failure to seek treatment for a serious medical condition widened to 23 percentage points in 2019. The income gap had averaged 17 points in the early years of Barack Obama’s presidency, but narrowed to an average 11 points in the first few years after implementation of the ACA, from 2015 to 2018.

College-Educated Workers Are Taking Over the American Factory Floor

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American factories demand white-collar education for blue-collar work. New manufacturing jobs that require more advanced skills are driving up the education level of factory workers who in past generations could get by without higher education, an analysis of federal data by The Wall Street Journal found.

Within the next three years, American manufacturers are, for the first time, on track to employ more college graduates than workers with a high-school education or less, part of a shift toward automation that has increased factory output, opened the door to more women and reduced prospects for lower-skilled workers.

U.S. manufacturers have added more than a million jobs since the recession, with the growth going to men and women with degrees, the Journal analysis found. Over the same time, manufacturers employed fewer people with at most a high-school diploma.

Employment in manufacturing jobs that require the most complex problem-solving skills, such as industrial engineers, grew 10% between 2012 and 2018; jobs requiring the least declined 3%, the Journal analysis found…

Specialized job requirements have narrowed the path to the middle class that factory work once afforded. The new, more advanced manufacturing jobs pay more but don’t help workers who stopped schooling early. More than 40% of manufacturing workers have a college degree, up from 22% in 1991.

Looking ahead, investments in automation will continue to expand factory production with relatively fewer employees. Jobs that remain are expected to be increasingly filled by workers from colleges and technical schools, leaving high-school graduates and dropouts with fewer opportunities. Manufacturing workers laid-off in years past also will see fewer suitable openings.

Unemployment Rate Drops to 50-Year Low of 3.5%

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Employers added 266,000 jobs in November and the jobless rate fell to a 50-year low of 3.5%, matching September’s level, the Labor Department said Friday. Wages advanced 3.1% from a year earlier. The Wall Street Journal reports:

The U.S. job market strengthened in November, as hiring jumped and unemployment fell, adding fuel to the economic expansion.

The stronger pace of hiring could help juice up the broader U.S. economy, which is still expanding but at a slower pace than last year. U.S. stock futures and government-bond yields rose Friday after the data was released.

Hiring was strong in health care, restaurants and transportation jobs. In November, manufacturers added 54,000 jobs, 41,000 of which were in auto manufacturing. General Motors Co. workers, who were on strike in October, helped drive the bounceback.

Iowa Man Used His Life Savings to Send 33 Strangers to College

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An Iowa man, Dale Schroeder, used his life savings to send 33 students to college. Dale Schroeder was a simple, humble man from Iowa, who ended up changing the lives of 33 people forever. Schroeder worked as a carpenter at the same company for 67 years. He grew up poor and had no wife or children of his own. CBS News reports:

Schroeder had saved up a fortune over the years. He had no living descendants, so before he died, he went to his lawyer with a plan for his money.

“He said, ‘I never got the opportunity to go to college. So, I’d like to help kids go to college,'” Nielsen said. Not only did Schroeder have enough money to send a few kids to college, he had enough saved to send dozens.

“Finally, I was curious and I said, ‘How much are we talking about, Dale?’ And he said, ‘Oh, just shy of $3 million.’ I nearly fell out of my chair,” Nielsen remembered.

Schroeder’s friend was shocked by his secret fortune. So were the strangers who received pieces of it.

48 Million Americans Are Still Paying Off Credit Card Debt From Last Holiday Season

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Overspending, however, is too easy. In fact, about 48 million Americans are still paying off credit card debt from last holiday season, according to a NerdWallet survey conducted by The Harris Poll. USA Today shows how to avoid financial regrets in 2020 by shop intentionally. Here’s how:

Understand why overspending is easy: Pressures and emotions run high. Ideally, your holidays are full of joy. But they may be loaded in other ways, like the pressure to buy everyone presents …

Learn to shop intentionally: Acknowledge emotions and triggers. Recognize feelings, like sadness, and that they may lead to overspending. Plan to cope in another way, like calling a friend …

The Richest Man in Babylon

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The Richest Man in Babylon is a 1926 book by George S. Clason that dispenses financial advice through a collection of parables set 8,000 years ago in ancient Babylon. The book remains in print almost a century after the parables were originally published, and is regarded as a classic of personal financial advice.

The Richest Man in Babylon offered commonsense financial advice told through ancient parables. This classic reading reveals their secrets for creating, growing, and preserving wealth.

The ancient Babylonians were the first people to discover the universal laws of prosperity. Through these entertaining tales of merchants, tradesmen, and herdsmen, you’ll learn how to keep more out what you earn; get out of debt; put your money to work; attract good luck; choose wise investments; and safeguard a lasting fortune.

Read it here: The Richest Man in Babylon

2 Million Americans Don’t Have Access to Running Water and Basic Plumbing

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More than 2 million people in the U.S. lack running water and basic indoor plumbing, according to a new report by the human-rights nonprofit DigDeep and the nonprofit U.S. Water Alliance — and race and poverty are key determinants of who has access to clean water and sanitation. MarketWatch reports:

Native Americans are 19 times more likely to lack indoor plumbing than their white counterparts, putting them in the worst spot of any group, and African-American and Latino households lack indoor plumbing at almost twice the rate of white households, the report found.

“The United States is home to some of the most reliable water and wastewater systems on earth, and many Americans believe access is universal,” the authors wrote. “But in fact, millions of the most vulnerable people in the country — low-income people in rural areas, people of color, tribal communities, immigrants — have fallen through the cracks.”

Lacking access to safe water and sanitation “makes it difficult to stay healthy, earn a living, go to school, and care for a family,” they added.

‘Tidal Wave’ of 21M Homes to Be on Market — But Who Will Buy Them?

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The U.S. is at the beginning of a tidal wave of homes hitting the market on the scale of the housing bubble in the mid-2000s. This time it won’t be driven by overbuilding, easy credit or irrational exuberance, but by an inevitable fact of life: the passing of the baby boomer generation. Fox News reports:

One in eight owner-occupied homes in the U.S., or roughly nine million residences, are set to hit the market from 2017 through 2027 as the baby boomers start to die in larger numbers, according to an analysis by Issi Romem conducted while he was a senior director of housing and urban economics at Zillow. That is up from roughly 7 million homes in the prior decade.

By 2037, one quarter of the U.S. for-sale housing stock, or roughly 21 million homes will be vacated by seniors. That is more than twice the number of new properties built during a 10-year period that spanned the last housing bubble.

FCC Bars Huawei, ZTE from Billions in Federal Subsidies

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The US Federal Communications Commission on Friday voted to bar use of its $8.5 billion a year Universal Service Fund to purchase equipment and services from Huawei and ZTE. The government fund is used by multiple programs to subsidize US broadband deployment and services. CNET reports:

In a unanimous vote during its November open meeting, the FCC approved an order that blocks the use of USF funds to purchase equipment and services from companies that pose a national security threat. The order also establishes a process for barring more companies in the future. So far, just Huawei and ZTE are on the list. 

“Given the threats posed by Huawei and ZTE to America’s security and our 5G future, this FCC will not sit idly by and hope for the best,” said FCC Chairman Ajit Pai in a statement Friday. 

The main issue with Huawei and ZTE is their cozy relationship with the Chinese government. National security officials fear that equipment from these manufacturers could be used to spy on other countries and companies. The Commerce Department blacklisted Huawei following a May executive order from President Donald Trump that effectively banned the company from US communications networks. 

Amazon Is Planning to Open Cashierless Supermarkets Next Year

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Amazon.com is preparing to open Amazon Go supermarkets and pop-up stores, an expansion of the company’s cashierless ambitions that includes the possibility of licensing the technology to other retailers. Bloomberg reports:

The new store formats and licensing initiative could launch as soon as the first quarter of 2020, according to a person familiar with the project. Amazon is testing a supermarket equipped with Go technology in a 10,400-square-foot retail space in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood.

The Go expansion is the e-commerce giant’s latest attempt to compete in the $900 billion U.S. grocery industry and perhaps other areas of retail, as well. The company already operates the Whole Foods Market chain and last week confirmed plans to launch a separate supermarket brand, starting with a location in the upscale Woodland Hills neighborhood of Los Angeles. Those stores will have human cashiers. The previously unreported plan to expand Go revives Amazon’s original vision of creating full-size grocery stores without checkout lines.

Amazon opened the first Go convenience store at its Seattle headquarters almost two years ago and now operates 21 locations around the U.S. It’s not clear how much money the company has lavished on the project, but some of the 1,000 or so people working on it were recently told their cumulative salaries have totaled more than $1 billion since the project got underway in 2012, the person said.

Study: Quality Of Friendships, Not Quantity, Linked to Well-Being

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Everyone knows that having friends boosts well-being. In fact previous research has even suggested that having numerous friends reduces the risk of medical conditions like heart disease. However, a new study finds that not all friendships are created equal. Researchers from the University of Leeds conclude that well-being is more closely related to how people feel about their friends than their overall number of friends. Study Finds reports:

According to the survey results, older adults had fewer friends on average than younger adults, but the number of acquaintances participants called “close friends” wasn’t related to age. Younger adults did, however, report more general acquaintances because of social media networking sites. These sites, like Facebook, facilitate larger and more impersonal friend groups, the researchers theorize.

Only the reported number of close friendships was found to be significantly associated with social satisfaction and well-being. This finding even stayed consistent after accounting for the number of family members, neighbors, or acquaintances each participant reported.

Workers Continue to Struggle Despite ‘Strong’ Jobs Reports

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There’s plenty of anecdotal evidence that America’s workers are being left behind. But now a group of researchers and economists have identified a key part of the problem — the kinds of jobs increasingly available to America’s workforce. And what they’ve found, as illustrated in a new U.S. Private Sector Job Quality Index (JQI), is troubling. The Hill reports:

Since 1990, the United States has been creating an overabundance of low-quality service jobs. In fact, 63 percent of the production and nonsupervisory jobs created over the past 30 years have been in low-wage and low-hour positions. That’s a marked contrast from the start of the 1990s, when almost half of these jobs (47 percent) were high-wage.

For more than a year, economists from Cornell University, the Coalition for a Prosperous America, the University of Missouri, Kansas City and the Global Institute for Sustainable Prosperity have been sifting through private sector jobs data to develop the JQI. And they’ve found that, in the past three decades, the U.S. economy has become increasingly dependent on jobs that offer fewer hours of work and at lower relative wages.

What exactly do these low-hour, low-wage positions look like? They could be one of the almost 15 million nonmanagement jobs in leisure and hospitality. These offer an average of 24.6 hours of work per week at $14.65 an hour. That’s $360 a week.  Or they could be one of 13.5 million retail jobs offering 30.3 hours a week at $16.73 an hour. That’s $506 weekly.  

There are now roughly 105 million production and nonsupervisory jobs in the U.S. That’s 83 percent of all private sector jobs. And more than half of them — 58 million — pay less than the average weekly U.S. wage of $793. Many of these jobs don’t offer health care or other benefits. These are the best jobs that many Americans can find and the most hours they can get. 

White House Unveils Rules Requiring Online Disclosure of Hospital Prices

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The Trump administration on Friday unveiled new rules to require increased disclosure of health care prices, in a move officials said would drive down costs by increasing competition. The Hill reports: 

One regulation would require hospitals to provide a consumer-friendly online page where prices are listed for 300 common procedures like X-rays and lab tests. A second regulation would require insurers to provide an online tool where people could compare their out-of-pocket costs at different medical providers before receiving treatment. 

Officials billed the announcement as a major step in President Trump’s health care agenda. The move is controversial with the health care industry, as both hospitals and insurers have objected to having to disclose the information…

President Trump said in remarks at the White House on Friday that the move is “another major victory in our mission to deliver great health care at a price you can afford.”

“I don’t know if the hospitals are going to like me very much anymore but that’s okay,” he said, later adding, “after many, many years we finally have transparency.”

Indeed, hours after the announcement, the American Hospital Association, along with other provider groups, announced it would sue to stop the rule. 

Down Hits 28,000 for the First Time Ever

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The Dow Jones Industrial Average rallied to record levels on Friday, reaching 28,000 for the first time ever, after White House economic advisor Larry Kudlow said China and the U.S. were getting close to reaching a trade deal. CNBC reports: 

The 30-stock average closed 222.93 points higher, or 0.7% at 28,004.89. It took the Dow just over four months to go from 27,000 for the first time to 28,000…

The S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite made new all-time highs as well, climbing 0.8% to 3,120.46 and 0.7% to 8,540.83, respectively.

Wall Street also wrapped up another week of gains.

The Dow notched its fourth week of consecutive gains, rising 1.2% in that time. The S&P 500 advanced 0.9% for the week, posting its sixth straight weekly gain. That’s the longest streak for the S&P 500 since 2017, when it climbed for eight straight weeks. The Nasdaq rose for a seventh consecutive week, advancing 0.8%.

Stocks 10-Year Run Becomes Best Bull Market Ever: Up 468%

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The longest bull market in history is also the best ever. The current market boom, which started March 9, 2009, has enjoyed a whopping 468% gain for the S&P 500 through the first day of November, making this record-long bull run also the best-performing one since World War II, according to The Leuthold Group. CNBC reports: 

The S&P 500, which eked out a record closing high Thursday, has soared 472% in this epic run.

The bull market from 1949 to 1956 scored a 454% gain for the S&P 500, the second-biggest return in recent history, the firm said. The explosive bull run in the 1990s saw the S&P 500 rally 391%, while the bull market of 2002–2007 pulled off a 121% gain for the benchmark, according to The Leuthold Group.

More than 10 years off the financial crisis bottom, the market still hasn’t lost its momentum as it currently sits at its all-time high lifted by renewed hopes for a U.S.-China trade resolution.