Archives for November 2013

Unemployment in the 17 European Union members that use the euro dropped to 12.1 percent in October, from the 12.2 percent record of the previous month, according to official figures. While it was mildly encouraging that an estimated 61,000 fewer people were jobless, the unemployment figures also showed that the rate in the 28 countries in the European Union, including countries not in the euro zone like Britain, Poland or Romania, was unchanged at 10.9 percent.

At the same time, estimated inflation in the euro zone rose to 0.9 percent in November from a year earlier, up from 0.7 percent in October, according to Eurostat, the European Union’s statistics office. The inflation rate is still well below the European Central Bank’s target rate of around 2 percent, and short of the level required to convince many economists that the euro zone is safe from deflation, a persistent and broad decline of prices that is a typical feature of economic depression.

“The threat of deflation has not been removed by this single month,” said Zsolt Darvas, a senior fellow at Bruegel, a research organization in Brussels. “Over all, I continue to be somewhat skeptical about recovery in the euro zone. The major problems are still there.”

Neither the unemployment data nor the inflation numbers did much to settle the debate among economists over whether the euro zone is slowly mending or stagnant and still under the threat of a renewed downturn.

As Mr. Darvas pointed out, the euro zone banking system is not functioning properly, credit remains tight, business investment is weak and government austerity still prevails.

Much of the dip in unemployment came from France, as companies there hired more young people on temporary contracts. Joblessness also fell in Portugal and Ireland, but remained high in Spain, where the rate rose to 26.7 percent from 26.6 percent.

The lowest rates were in Austria, with 4.8 percent, and Germany, with 5.2 percent. In Greece, which is several months behind in its reporting, the rate for August was 27.3 percent.

A downgrade of the Netherlands’ public debt by the rating agency Standard Poor’s left only three countries in the euro zone with S.P.’s highest AAA rating, Germany, Luxembourg and Finland.

“The downgrade reflects our opinion that the Netherlands’ growth prospects are now weaker than we had previously anticipated,” S.P. said as it reduced the country to AA+ from AAA. Still, the new rating is stronger than that of France and well above those of countries like Spain or Ireland.

Market rates on 10-year Netherlands government bonds fell slightly to just above 2 percent, a sign that investors were hardly alarmed by the rating agency’s action.

Still, the downgrade is “a reminder, if one were needed, of the extent to which the creditworthiness and economic performance of the core of Europe’s single currency area has been undermined over the past two years,” Nicholas Spiro, managing director of Spiro Sovereign Strategy, said in a note to clients.

S.P. raised its rating on Cyprus to B-, from CCC+, and said the outlook for Spain’s rating was stable instead of negative, as before. There has been speculation that the European Central Bank could take further action to stimulate lending on Thursday when it holds its monthly meeting on monetary policy. The central bank could perhaps emulate the Bank of England by offering cheap loans to banks on condition that they lend the money on to businesses and individuals.

But most analysts do not expect a further decrease in interest rates so soon after the central bank cut its benchmark interest rate to 0.25 percent earlier this month, a record low.

Low inflation was the result of falling energy prices, Eurostat said, while the cost of food rose an estimated 1.6 percent and services 1.5 percent. Prices of industrial goods rose just 0.3 percent.

Some economists, noting a pickup in prices for services, saw the rise in inflation as a sign that deflation fears were overblown.

“The data confirm our assessment that the fall of the inflation rate in October was an outlier and the euro zone is not heading for deflation,” Christoph Weil, an economist at Commerzbank, said in a note.

But others warned that deflation, once it starts, could plunge Europe back into crisis and revive doubts about the survival of the euro zone. Deflation can lead consumers to delay purchases in anticipation of ever lower prices, undercutting corporate profits and causing companies to stop investing in new plants and equipment.

Analysts at the advisory firm Oxford Economics calculate that if the euro zone suffered deflation, unemployment could rise to 16.5 percent by 2018. At the same time, Greece and other hard-hit countries in Europe would have even more trouble meeting their obligations, because economic output would shrink and tax receipts would dwindle.

“While there has been a lot of talk about deflation in the euro zone, we think that the implications of such a scenario have not been fully grasped,” Oxford Economics said in a report issued Friday. “Without decisive policy action, a euro zone breakup would be hard to avoid in this scenario.”

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: November 29, 2013

An earlier version of this article misstated one of the countries that still retains a triple-A rating from S.P. It is Luxembourg, not Austria. The earlier version also reversed the percentage rise in the cost of food and services. Food costs rose an estimated 1.6 percent and services 1.5 percent, not the other way around.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/30/business/international/euro-zone-inflation-rises-jobless-rate-dips.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

But ATT failed to reckon with the likes of John J. Legere.

Mr. Legere, 55, was named chief executive of T-Mobile in September 2012, after the antitrust division of the Justice Department sued to block the proposed ATT merger and ATT threw in the towel. As a former chief executive of Global Crossing during the fiber-optic network company’s trip through bankruptcy and re-emergence as a public company, he had experience with difficult turnarounds. But nothing on his résumé quite prepared anyone for the John Legere who emerged at the helm of T-Mobile.

He dumped suits and ties in favor of hot pink T-shirts emblazoned with the T-Mobile logo, which he often wore under a black leather motorcycle jacket with jeans and sneakers. Gone was the corporate slicked-back hair: His modishly long hair now grazed his collar.

Mr. Legere not only looked but also acted the part of the “disruptive” competitor beloved by antitrust regulators but all too rare in most concentrated industries (there are just four major cellular carriers). He branded T-Mobile the “Un-carrier” and took square aim at the staid giants of the industry, ATT and Verizon, publicly describing them with language that can’t be printed in this newspaper.

This might have been dismissed as little more than a colorful stunt, given the depth of T-Mobile’s problems. But then the results started rolling in. Earlier this month, T-Mobile announced that it had added more than 600,000 wireless contract subscribers, its second straight quarter of subscriber growth. Its upgraded nationwide 4G LTE network was reaching more than 200 million users. And although still operating at a modest loss, revenue was up 9 percent. After going public in May at $16.38 a share, T-Mobile US shares have surged this week to over $26, a gain of 62 percent.

“It’s not just coloration,” said Albert A. Foer, a lawyer and president of the American Antitrust Institute, who lobbied fiercely against the ATT merger. “Some personalities are just disruptive. A disruptive-type C.E.O. can bring a company a long way in the right circumstances. That’s what Legere seems to be doing here.”

A wireless industry analyst, Jeff Kagan, agreed: “The T-Mobile of today seems to be a different company than the one we saw lying on its deathbed just a few short years ago. Legere is the reason. He is punching their way back onto the map.”

How did he do it?

Pinning down the peripatetic Mr. Legere for an interview wasn’t easy — a divorced father of two grown daughters, he works seven days a week, travels constantly and spends evenings listening in on customer conversations at call centers. This week, he jumped in on one of those and persuaded a customer to switch from ATT. He blasts out emails and provocative Twitter posts. “The difference between us and them? We have to work to keep you. They trap you and forget about you. … Until your contract is almost up,” he tweeted last week. But he took a pre-Thanksgiving break to share some of his strategies and insights.

The John Legere of the hot pink T-shirts and modish hair? That, he said, is “the real me. I’m totally comfortable with it.” He said his father wore conservative Brooks Brothers suits and button-down shirts, which he emulated earlier in his career. But now he has reverted to the jeans and longer hair of his college days, when he was a cross-country star at the University of Massachusetts. Next week, he’ll be in Washington meeting senators and members of the House, and he said he would be wearing his signature T-shirt. “I may tone down the sneakers a little bit and wear a suit over it,” he said. “That’s still under negotiation.”

Beneath the clothes is a fierce competitor who still runs marathons (including this year’s in Boston) and seems to enjoy nothing more than denouncing ATT and Verizon, which he refers to as a “pseudo duopoly.” (He doesn’t think Sprint is even worth mentioning.)

When he joined T-Mobile, “We had a limited time window and a sense of urgency,” he told me. “We were losing over two million customers a year. So we moved as fast as we humanly could. My board wondered if we were doing too much. But the fact is, speed has become one of our biggest weapons. The current industry is arrogant, stupid and slow, which gives companies like T-Mobile a real competitive advantage.”

Though the task of reviving T-Mobile seemed daunting, “I felt that as a challenger, we might just have a pretty amazing opportunity in front of us,” he continued. “We could take a completely different approach to this business, we could create real customer value by driving serious change in this ridiculous and broken industry.”

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/30/business/brash-ceo-revives-a-moribund-t-mobile.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

But the rate of firings soared during the credit crisis and Great Recession, hitting a peak of 20.4 percent in late 2009.

Now it has fallen to the lowest level ever recorded — 14.8 percent.

In other words, a worker’s chance of being fired is now less than it was when the job market was booming, and much less than it was when the economy was in trouble four years ago.

And yet, the job situation now is not a good one. While fewer people are being fired, the rate of hiring has barely picked up. And as can be seen in the accompanying charts, the long-term unemployment rate — the proportion of the labor force that has been out of work for more than 15 weeks — remains higher than the short-term rate. In October, the long-term rate was 3.8 percent, while the short-term rate was just 3.5 percent.

From 1948, when the Bureau of Labor Statistics began to publish monthly unemployment rates based on a survey of households, until mid-2009, the long-term rate was never as high as the short-term rate. Since then, it has consistently been higher, although the gap has narrowed.

What seems to have happened in the United States is that job mobility — historically an important feature of the nation’s labor market — fell rapidly during the recession and has yet to recover much.

The data on hirings and firings is compiled by the government in its monthly Jolts — Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey — report. The charts on hirings and firings, as well as on voluntary departures, are based on actual numbers over 12-month periods, not on the seasonally adjusted figures.

By adding the monthly figures, the charts may overstate job mobility to some extent. In some cases, the same worker may have been hired several times during a year, and have left just as many jobs during the same period. That is particularly true in industries like construction, where many jobs are for relatively brief periods.

But even taking that into account, the fact remains that in a normal year the number of workers leaving jobs — whether voluntarily or involuntarily — amounts to more than 40 percent of the total number of jobs. The number of new hires is, of course, at a slightly higher rate if employment is rising.

In good times, most of that job mobility represents the choice of workers, as more people leave their jobs by choice than because they were laid off or fired. Some of those retired, but most quit, either because they had found a better job or because they expected to find one. But during the recession, the number of people leaving voluntarily plunged, and for the first time since the data was collected, the number of people losing their jobs because they were fired in 2009 exceeded the number who left voluntarily.

One measure of the health of the job market is the number of unemployed people for each unfilled job vacancy. At the end of 2000, when the data was first collected, that figure was just over one — an indication of the boom that ended with the 2001 recession. It soared to nearly seven to one during the recession.

The latest figures show the ratio has fallen back to 2.9. By that measure, the job market is finally a little better than it was at the low point early in the last decade.

But it appears that many of the people who have been unemployed the longest simply lack the skills to get the available jobs. The short-term unemployment rate is back to the levels that prevailed for most of the period before the recession. But the long-term rate, while it is falling, remains higher than it was at any time before the recession.

Floyd Norris comments on finance and the economy at nytimes.com/economix.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/30/business/economy/for-long-term-jobless-a-stubborn-trend.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

“Great Savings for the Holidays on Bissell” said the Amazon.com home page this week. (Category: vacuum.)

The Estée Lauder Anti-Wrinkle Essentials Value Set was a “gift of the day” on the Macys.com holiday beauty page. Among the site’s other head-scratching holiday deals: $50 off a Sonicare electric toothbrush. (Down to $129.)

All were aimed at a particular type of holiday shopper: the self-gifters — people who cannot resist taking advantage of the frenzied seasonal sale wars to buy a few things for themselves. (Those “buy one, get one free offers” are particularly potent bait.)

Even the classic gift of affection for others — jewelry — is fair game, and retailers know it. Under the banner Black Friday Jewelry Deals, Macy’s website coaxed: “This holiday season, get an unforgettable gift for a loved one (or yourself). Black Friday jewelry is a go-to choice for the ultimate present under the tree.”

A number of studies show that since the recession, and even a year or two before, self-gifters have been growing in both numbers and the dollars they spend. Perhaps these shoppers have reasoned that big sales offer the only legitimate excuse to spend for themselves — or in years when their finances were improving, they were finally able to ease up enough to splurge on something.

Whatever the motivation, they’ve become a special demographic niche that retailers depend on heavily, so much so that many preholiday shopping surveys now track them. But some recent surveys suggest this year that these shoppers may be a feeling a little less indulgent — a worrying prospect for companies heading into a season already filled with uncertainty and weak sales projections.

Prosper Insights Analytics, a consumer intelligence firm that conducts surveys on holiday spending for the National Retail Federation, for example, found that a smaller share of holiday shoppers planned to take advantage of discounts to buy “nongift items” for themselves or their family this holiday season, compared with last year or the year before.

Given that impulse-buying promotes self-gifting, retailers will be doing everything they can this year — overtly, subtly and even subliminally — to tempt people to be more like Robert Kissell of Nags Head, N.C.

Mr. Kissell, 25, is an incurable self-gifter. When the stores open Thanksgiving night and Black Friday morning, he will be on the chase for a 60-inch LED smart TV at Walmart that he says will be on sale for $688, a slow cooker at Ace ($15), an Android tablet at Kmart ($39) and a whole bunch of Blu-ray discs at Target.

He plans to keep every one for himself.

Mr. Kissell hastens to add that he has a wife, parents and others for whom he is also plotting to buy great presents. But the reality is that the number of people on anyone’s gift list — and the general amount they will spend on each — is, in economists’ terms, fairly inelastic. It simply doesn’t vary that much from year to year.

For retailers, the potential for growth is greater with self-gifters because personal wants or domestic needs know fewer limits. And they can be justified as a smart household budget move.

Hence the vacuum cleaner strategy — or as Marshal Cohen, chief retail analyst at NPD Group, a research and consulting firm, describes it, promoting items that really aren’t gifts.

“How many people are you going to buy a big-screen TV for?” asked Mr. Cohen. “That item is not necessarily a gift-giving item.” Retailers, he said, “create it so the price point is so attractive” that it is very easy to rationalize buying it for yourself or even as “a family gift.”

“You are doing yourself a disservice if you don’t wait to see what’s available,” said Mr. Kissell. “The discounts really are worthwhile,” he continued, adding, “I would never buy a TV the other 10 months of the year.”

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: November 29, 2013

An earlier version of this article misspelled the name of a subscription website that offers 30 days free shipping, with the clock starting with your first purchase. It is Rue La La, not Rulala.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: November 29, 2013

A picture caption with an earlier version of this article rendered incorrectly the name of town in North Carolina. It is Nags Head, not Nag’s Head. 

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/29/business/retailers-sly-message-get-yourself-something-too.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Stocks on Wall Street rose modestly on Friday in a short post-holiday session, with the Standard Poor’s 500-stock index set for its longest weekly winning streak in 10 years.

In midday trading the Standard Poor’s 500-stock index was up 0.3 percent, the Dow Jones industrial average gained 0.3 percent and the Nasdaq composite was 0.6 percent higher.

Volume was light, with slightly over 1.1 billion shares traded on all U.S. platforms, according to BATS exchange data, as many investors remained out following the Thanksgiving holiday. The stock market will end its regular session three hours early following an all-day closure on Thursday.

“It’s just drifting up because at the moment, the path of least resistance is up. There is no news that is going to push it lower,” said Ken Polcari, director of the N.Y.S.E. floor division at O’Neil Securities in New York. “There is nothing negative out there for anyone to take anything off the table.”

In global markets, the Nikkei in Tokyo notched its best November since 2005 despite some late profit-taking in Asia, as the yen, at a five-year against the euro and a six-month low versus the dollar, bolstered hopes for its big exporting firms.

European shares ended their session mixed, with the Euro Stoxx 50 index off 02 percent and Britain’s FTSE 100 0.1 percent higher.

Retail stocks will be in focus in American markets as investors attempt to get an early read on the strength of the holiday shopping season. “Black Friday” sales typically mark the unofficial start to the holiday shopping season, but many stores opened on Thursday and offered steep discounts.

“I’m happy with the size of the crowds I’ve seen so far; it is very important to see the consumer, especially the midlevel consumer, alive and well over the coming weeks,” said Mr. Russell. “The important thing will be whether shoppers stay excited through the season.”

The S.P. retail index rose 0.4 percent. Among some of the most active retail names, Target declined 0.4 percent, Best Buy jumped 1.6 percent, and J.C. Penney gained 0.7 percent.

Equities on Wall Street have surged in recent weeks on the back of expectations for continued stimulus from the Federal Reserve. The Dow and S.P. 500 closed at record highs on Wednesday while the Nasdaq ended at a 13-year high.

The S.P. 500’s eight-week winning streak is the longest run for the benchmark index since a nine-week climb between November 2003 and January 2004.

For the month of November, the Dow is up 3.5 percent, the S.P. is up 2.9 percent and the Nasdaq up 3.2 percent. It is the third straight month of gains for these indexes, with the Dow climbing 8.7 percent over that three-month period, the S.P. up almost 11 percent and the Nasdaq rising 12.7 percent.

For the week, the Dow is up 0.2 percent and the S.P. is up slightly more than 0.1 percent, with both indexes on track for their eighth straight weekly gain. The Nasdaq is up 1.3 percent on the week.

While the Fed’s stimulus program is expected to put a floor under equity prices for as long as it continues, recent volatility has come on uncertainty over when the program will end. The central bank has said it would begin to slow the program when certain economic measures meet its targets. Data on Wednesday, including on the labor market and consumer sentiment, pointed to economic improvement.

In the health care sector, CVS Caremark shares gained 0.6 percent in the wake of Wednesday’s news that CVS would buy drug infusion services provider Coram LLC for $2.1 billion. The transaction will let CVS Caremark bolster its pharmacy benefits management business by offering cost-effective delivery of specialty drugs.

Australia rejected a $2.6 billion takeover of GrainCorp by Archer Daniels Midland, bowing to pressure from grain growers in a rare and surprising decision.Shares in A.D.M. fell 2.6 percent.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/30/business/daily-stock-market-activity.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Other shoppers around the country ventured in the opposite direction, flooding stores in search of promised Black Friday deals on electronics like tablets, giant televisions and children’s toys.

“It was crazy,” DeVonte Johnson, a 20-year-old sales associate at the Leesburg Corner Premium Outlets in Virginia, said of the overnight wave. “It was three in, three out. I felt like I was at a club.”

Retailers beckoned shoppers during morning television shows on Friday, with commercials and holiday songs to remind viewers that the stores were open and the sales were on. But for many, the bargain shopping had already begun on Thanksgiving, as families and teenagers seemed to carve out time for shopping around their holiday turkey, or went out at night when many department and retail stores opened with major deals.

With the kickoff to the holiday retail season underway, labor groups and some Walmart workers planned protests on Black Friday near stores nationwide, in an effort to rally support for higher wages. Some marched earlier, carrying signs for better pay, while others planned disruptions later in the day.

At the Leesburg outlet stores in Virginia, Tammy Hawkins and her daughter, Ashley, outfitted in red holiday hats with jingling bells, braved near-freezing temperatures and arrived at 4:30 a.m. Ashley, 25, said she saved 50 percent on a bag at Kate Spade. She had taken note of the sale on Facebook.

“Using the social networking, the stores have definitely got out and reached out to shoppers,” she said.

In Norcross, Ga., customers at the Forum open mall on Peachtree Parkway had mixed reactions to the sales promotions.

Melvina Bolston, 48, came from nearby Doraville for her first Black Friday experience, and vowed not to do it again. She accompanied her sister — but made it clear she’d rather be anywhere else, including at home vacuuming, despite a few deals she found.

“I’ve been tortured by being out here, but my sister is into all of this,” Ms. Bolston said outside the Old Navy store. “The savings are worth it, but to me, it’s a little like torture.”

The night before, she had waited 85 minutes in a checkout line at a Walmart, she added.

Others found the savings worthwhile. “There were some things we really needed to get, so we decided to take advantage of the deals,” said Gloria Moses, while shopping at the Forum.

And after finding a parking space, Mrs. Moses and her husband even agreed to purchase an item that wasn’t on sale: a pair of New Balance shoes.

More than 400 people lined up in 28-degree weather outside a Target in Schaumburg, Ill., just before the store opened Thursday night. Perhaps 1,000 stood in front of a Best Buy in Los Angeles. As a Target in Hyattsville, Md., began to open Thanksgiving evening, people folded up the mesh chairs they’d been sitting in – some since midnight on Wednesday – as employees in bright yellow vests ushered them inside and passed out brochures with a map of the store inside.

“Thanksgiving dinner is over,” said Becky Solari, 18, standing on line with a friend at the Schaumburg mall. “And there’s nothing else to do.”

Retailers had been banking on that sentiment — and possibly younger shoppers bored with family dinners — as many expanded hours on the holiday, promising many of the same steep price cuts on Thursday that would continue into Friday.

At a Best Buy in Los Angeles, teenagers and young adults made up most of those in line.

“To be honest, it’s more of a tradition than anything else because my family, we don’t do much for Thanksgiving,” said Stephen Chea, 24. “So, my friend’s family and I would always line up the day before or early in the morning and they would actually bring the turkey.” Mr. Chea said they would eat it in line.

Elizabeth Harris reported from New York. Steven Greenhouse contributed reporting from New York; Rachel Abrams in New Jersey; Ken Maguire from Falls Church, Va.; Jada F. Smith from Hyattsville, Md.; Alan Blinder from Atlanta; Kimiya Shokoohi from Los Angeles; and Idalmya Carrerra from Chicago.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/30/business/young-bored-and-looking-for-a-deal.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

And more so than in years past, the focus is on retail workers as more stores open on Thanksgiving Day, requiring many more to work on the holiday. Even if they have the option of staying home, those still stuck at the bottom economic rung long after the recession’s end have little choice but to take on extra shifts.

Food stamps have been cut for some, and many were stung by the payroll tax increase. Even their own companies have set up food drives to aid low-paid employees at individual stores or created help lines advising them how to stretch their food dollars and apply for public assistance.

Chardé Nabors, a mother of two who works as a $9-an-hour cashier at Sears in the Chicago Loop, feels left behind by the holiday festivities, partly because she was scheduled to work from 7:30 p.m. Thanksgiving to 6 a.m. Friday. “I’m here watching shoppers buy all these items, and I’m working to help these people, and I can’t even buy my children the same products,” said Ms. Nabors, whose 3-year-old son wants a Spider-Man doll she cannot afford.

For retail workers nationwide, who earn a median pay of about $9.60 an hour, or less than $20,000 a year, holiday shopping sprees are most often enjoyed by customers on the opposite side of the counter.

On Black Friday, workers at Walmart and their union allies plan to stage protests at some 1,500 Walmart stores to demand higher pay. Moreover, many lawmakers, seeing the squeeze on incomes nationwide, are pushing an idea that they say could give a much-needed boost to retailers’ languishing sales: increasing the minimum wage.

The idea has been picking up momentum, with several new developments in the last month.

The Massachusetts State Senate approved a measure last week that would increase that state’s minimum wage to $11 an hour, far more than the $7.25-an-hour federal minimum. Hoping to reduce low-wage workers’ dependence on government aid, a conservative billionaire in California, Ronald Unz, is backing a referendum to raise his state’s minimum wage to $12 — even more than the $10 minimum that Gov. Jerry Brown signed into law in September. And on Tuesday, officials in Washington State announced that voters in SeaTac, a Seattle suburb, had approved a referendum to establish a $15-an-hour minimum wage for the 6,500 workers at the international airport there. Also this week in Maryland, the Montgomery and Prince George’s county councils voted to raise the minimum to $11.50 an hour by 2017.

Earlier this month, White House officials said they would back a bill in Congress that calls for raising the federal minimum to $10.10 an hour over two years, although opposition within the Republican-controlled House makes passage unlikely anytime soon. Major retailers and fast-food companies have opposed an increase, saying it would force them to raise prices and reduce worker numbers.

Median pay for the nation’s 3.4 million fast-food workers stands at $8.80 an hour. For Tenesha Hueston, a shift manager at a Burger King in Durham, N.C., a $10.10 minimum wage would be a godsend for her Christmas shopping. She says her pay — $7.75 an hour —is too meager for her to buy the gifts her children are hankering for: a bicycle for her 5-year-old son and a Leapfrog Tablet learning toy for her 4-year-old daughter. Ms. Hueston, 36 and recently divorced, does housecleaning on the side, and moved back into her father’s house with her children last spring when Burger King reduced her weekly hours.

With a higher wage, Ms. Hueston said, “I’d be able to buy things. Maybe I’d be able to move out of my father’s house. Maybe I could get off food stamps. Maybe I could start giving back to the economy.”

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/29/business/on-registers-other-side-little-money-to-spend.html?partner=rss&emc=rss