There's A Startling North-South Divide When It Comes To Health Care

The good news is the uninsured rate in the U.S. has fallen to a record low. The bad news is the benefits of health care reform aren't reaching a large swath of the country.

Over the last year, the uninsured rate in the U.S. fell 3.5 percentage points, from 17.3 percent in 2013 to 13.8 percent in 2014, according to the latest data from Gallup. That's the lowest yearly rate that's been recorded by Gallup's Well-Being Index.

According to Gallup, much of the decline can be linked to President Obama's health care reform law, which implemented a number of new policies to help Americans afford health insurance. But some states' refusal to adapt Obamacare's key provisions are causing a startling gap in uninsured rates across the country.

The states with the highest uninsured rates in 2014 are pretty much all found in the South, the Gallup poll found.

Not coincidentally, all 10 of the states with the highest uninsured rates have refused to carry out two key parts of Obamacare.

"States that have implemented two of the law's core mechanisms -- Medicaid expansion and state health exchanges -- are seeing a substantially larger drop in the uninsured rate than states that did not take both of these actions," Gallup announced. "Consequently, the gap in uninsured rates that existed between these two groups in 2013 nearly doubled in 2014."

That said, two southern states -- Arkansas and Kentucky -- saw the sharpest declines in their uninsured rates, which fell by 11.1 and 10.6 percentage points, respectively. Both states expanded Medicaid and had implemented state exchanges. (Arkansas had a state-federal partnership in 2014 and is transitioning to a state-run exchange.)

Ten out of the 11 states that saw their uninsured rates fall the most had expanded Medicaid and offered either a state-run exchange or a state-federal partnership.

Walmart Gives 500,000 Workers A Raise

WASHINGTON -- In a move that could alter the minimum wage debate and improve the image of the world's largest retailer, Walmart announced it will raise the baseline wage of its current store employees to $10 per hour, bringing pay hikes to an estimated 500,000 workers.

The company said in an announcement on Thursday that it would raise its wage floor to $9 in April, followed by a second boost to $10 by next February.

The decision follows similar moves by other major retailers such as Gap and IKEA, but the sheer size of Walmart sets the company apart. The Arkansas-based retailer is the largest private-sector employer in the U.S., with an estimated 1.4 million employees, and it is largely seen as a trend-setter in the retail industry.

On a quarterly earnings call aligned with the announcement, Doug McMillon, the company's CEO, said raising wages would be good for both employees and customers.

"Overall, these are strategic investments in our people to reignite the sense of ownership they have in our stores," McMillon said. "As a result, we firmly believe that our customers will benefit from a better store experience, which can drive higher sales and returns for our shareholders over time.

"Right now we want to make sure everybody is crystal clear [on] how vital our store experience is for our future," McMillon added in a later CNBC interview. "Customers need to be served, and associates need to be happy and love their job."

According to a Walmart spokesman, the new wage floors will apply to current employees. New hires next year will be earning at least $9, but will be bumped up to at least $10 per hour after roughly six months of training.

In the CNBC interview, McMillon suggested that the improving U.S. economy -- with unemployment falling recently to 5.7 percent from a peak of 10 percent after the recession -- was also pressuring Walmart to raise wages.

"It's great to see the job market getting better, and the market works, so we're adjusting to that market," he said.

Walmart has long been saddled with a reputation as a low-wage employer, and its battles with labor unions -- in particular the United Food and Commercial Workers union -- stretch back decades. In recent years, labor groups have organized high-profile worker strikes to coincide with the company's Black Friday shopping events, pillorying the retailer over its pay practices.

The across-the-board pay hikes should help rehabilitate that image. They will probably also help Walmart improve customer service in its stores. Over the past two years, bare shelves in Walmart supercenters have become a common sight. A report from a research firm last year traced the troubles in part to a lack of investment in the company's labor.

"We know that this wouldn't have happen[ed] without our work to stand together with hundreds of thousands of supporters to change the country's largest employer,” Emily Wells, an OUR Walmart member, said in a statement Thursday from the group. Wells said she's currently earning $9.50 per hour and will now see a raise, though she added that workers still face erratic scheduling.

A $10 wage would still leave many workers and their families below the poverty line, but it's well above the $7.25 federal minimum wage that still prevails in states without a higher one.

The fact that Walmart is raising its base wage could help lawmakers in Congress in their push to raise the federal wage floor, which hasn't been raised since 2009. Democrats have proposed hiking it to $10.10 per hour and tying it to an inflation index, but Republicans in both chambers have blocked the measure from moving forward.

The proposal is extremely popular among Americans in general, polling with broad approval that crosses party lines. The decision by Walmart could make Republicans look even more out-of-touch.

"It is encouraging that the nation’s largest employer, Walmart, has recognized what Republicans in Congress fail to acknowledge: that $7.25 is significantly too low an hourly wage for any American worker," said Drew Hammill, spokesman for House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). "We hope that this move will help convince Republicans to stop blocking efforts to raise the wage."

With Congress gridlocked, many states have moved ahead with raises to their own minimum wages, with a slate of ballot measures passing in the November elections. For the first time ever, a majority of states now have a higher minimum wage than the federal level.

HuffPost readers: Did you receive a raise due to the recent minimum wage hikes on Jan. 1? Tell us how much it changed -- or didn't change -- your paycheck.

This story has been updated with statements from Emily Wells and Drew Hammill.

Here's Proof You Don't Have To Sacrifice Sleep To Succeed

It's rare to get a company-wide email from your boss reminding you to sleep. But that’s exactly what happened last week to the employees at Lightspan Digital, a Chicago-based digital marketing agency.

Mana Ionescu, the president of the company, is a big fan of shut-eye and a devotee of celebrity fitness trainer Jillian Michaels. So when Michaels sent a message to her followers extolling the benefits of a good night’s sleep, Ionescu, 37, forwarded it along to her staff.

“I’m a huge advocate for sleep, and I prioritize it the same way I would prioritize going to the gym and seeing my friends,” said Ionescu, who aims for eight hours a night but estimates she gets closer to seven. “It’s so hard because it’s the thing that seems the easiest to sacrifice.”

Ionescu said she’s even been called lazy and weak after expressing her views about sleep. It’s easy to see why -- the American work culture seems to give more value to people who grind away at their jobs at the expense of sleep.

The business leaders who say they get by on very little sleep, such as Fiat Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne and Pepsi CEO Indra Nooyi, seem to get a lot more airtime than those who say the opposite. Everywhere are headlines about “19 Successful People Who Barely Sleep,” “Do history's greatest figures owe their success to sleeping LESS?” and “The secret of success: Needing less sleep?”

But sacrificing sleep could be hurting more than just the executives in need of a good night’s rest. When people don’t sleep, they don’t function at their highest levels, research shows. In a work context, that means missing opportunities to make money. American companies are losing $63.2 billion a year due to sleep deprivation, according to a 2013 study from Harvard Medical School.

That may be why a growing number of bosses, like Ionescu, are waking up (pun intended) to this reality and extolling the virtues of a decent night’s sleep. In the most prominent recent example, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella told ABC News earlier this month that he sleeps on average eight hours a night. Other renowned business leaders including Instagram co-founder Kevin Systrom, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg have told interviewers in recent years they’ve realized the value in getting a good night’s sleep if they want to operate at their highest levels.

These leaders follow in the footsteps of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and venture capitalist Marc Andreessen, who have been bragging about their eight hours of rest a night at least since 1999, when they discussed their sleep habits with a Wall Street Journal reporter.

More and more research indicates that they’re taking the correct approach. Bosses can get mean and workers less productive when they don’t get a good night's sleep, according to one recent study. Sleep is such an important predictor of the ability to get our jobs done well that getting one extra hour a night can increase wages by 16 percent a year on average, according to a study by economics graduate students at the University of California at San Diego. That’s more than the boost from an extra year of education.

“Sleep is as important as water and food,” said Pat Byrne, the founder of Fatigue Science, a company that works with athletes and companies to help them use sleep to increase performance. But many people struggle to prioritize it.

It’s hard for people who sleep very little each night to detect the consequences, Byrne said, because after a while their bodies “re-norm” so they can continue to go through the motions during the day, even while they’re getting just four or five hours of sleep a night. But that doesn't mean the sleep-deprived person is functioning as well as he or she could be.

“It’s very insidious in that it creeps up on you,” Byrne said of the effects of a prolonged lack of sleep. That dynamic may explain why executives and others think they’re operating just fine on a prolonged lack of sleep.

Of course not everyone has the luxury of a good night’s sleep. Parents of young children and people scraping by on multiple jobs may find it difficult to get eight hours a night. But why is it so common for some of the most powerful people in the world to deprive themselves?

“One common approach to sleep is ‘I’m too dedicated to my job and too important to spend my time sleeping,’” said Christopher Barnes, a management professor at University of Washington’s Foster School of Business. Barnes’ research finds that when bosses get less sleep, they’re meaner to their employees, who end up disengaging from their work as a result.

“They might be partially correct, they might be doing really important stuff, but they might not be appreciating the fact that if they’re not getting enough sleep,” they’re probably not at their highest level, Barnes said.

Sabrina Parsons, the CEO of Palo Alto software, has a more blunt term for business leaders’ tendency to claim they survive on just a few hours of sleep a night: “Bravado bragging.” Parsons’ experience raising three young children taught her that functioning normally on a few hours of sleep a night is nearly impossible.

Now, Parsons tries to get seven or eight hours every night. She encourages her 55 employees to do the same, and to take breaks during the day to exercise or do other activities if they’re feeling sluggish.

She does this to keep workers from getting burned out -- and also to “call bullshit on everybody else” who claims to do their job well despite being sleep-deprived.

“I don’t think you really have someone who sleeps four hours every night for months and months and years and years, who is a functional person,” she said. “You’re not doing that, and if you are, then you’re not being productive.”

Volkswagen Might Have Found A Fix For America's Youth Unemployment Problem

Amy Mitchum loves the way her daughter’s kindergarten classmates’ eyes light up when she tells them she works with robots.

The 38-year-old Volkswagen factory worker is a graduate of the automaker’s experimental apprenticeship program, modeled on the vocational training used to educate workers in Germany. In 2012 she left an unfulfilling career in real estate office management and enrolled in the Chattanooga, Tennessee-based Volkswagen Academy's three-year course.

She completed her training in August and now spends her workday overseeing an assembly line of spindly robots coating glossy paint onto the tempered-steel shells of what will ultimately become Passat sedans.

“When I tell the little kids I work on robots, they think that’s the coolest thing in the world,” Mitchum told The Huffington Post. “I go in the classroom once a month to and spend the day, and I wear my Volkswagen shirt.”

Mitchum is among the first wave of U.S. workers to graduate from Volkswagen's five-year-old, learn-on-the-job program, which operates in partnership with Chattanooga State Community College. Hoping its experiment can serve as a new paradigm for American workers, the German automaker pays a wage throughout the education -- starting at $10 an hour and increasing $1 for each completed semester -- and offers jobs to graduates.

Of the 25 who have completed the program so far, all but two now work at the Chattanooga plant: One opted for a job elsewhere; the other has a position reserved for him when he finishes the classes he is taking outside Volkswagen’s program.

Apprentices spend a portion of their education in classrooms, and the rest getting hands-on training on the factory floor.

Apprenticeship programs in the United States dropped 40 percent from 2003 to 2013, in part because of their blue-collar image and fear among businesses that workers will leave company-sponsored programs after getting their education, according to the National Center for Policy Analysis.

But the skills learned during such programs are crucial, and the demand for adequately trained workers is real. The U.S. manufacturing sector couldn't fill 600,000 jobs in 2012 due to a lack of skilled workers, according to a study by consulting firm Deloitte LLP.

Volkswagen is now ramping up marketing for its apprenticeship program and proselytizing the benefits of this approach to learning. Company executives crisscross the U.S., calling on leaders to advocate for apprenticeships as a means of educating more American youths, whose unemployment rate stood last month at 12.2 percent, more than double the national average.

“Right now we’re in a situation where, on the one hand, we have these high levels of youth unemployment and on the other hand, we have employers saying we can’t hire the people we need to hire,” Sarah Ayres-Steinberg, a senior policy analyst at the nonprofit Center for American Progress. “Clearly there’s some friction in the labor market -- and apprenticeship eliminates that friction.”

In Germany -- a country known for worker-friendly practices -- apprenticeships are part of the school system. Between the ages of 12 and 14, students choose between two educational paths: One is a vocational apprenticeship, the other leads to university. Labor unions, chambers of commerce and industry groups help determine the learning criteria for apprentices, to make sure they leave school with the skills needed to enter the workforce.

Just this week, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon praised Germany’s apprenticeship programs for training students to get jobs out of school. Last December, the youth unemployment rate in that country was 7.2 percent, though standards for measuring unemployment rates vary from country to to country.

Volkswagen isn’t alone in trying to import Germany’s apprenticeship model. BMW and engineering giant Bosch, both German companies, have started similar programs at plants in South Carolina, where there is a state program encouraging apprenticeship.

But there are challenges to implementing U.S. versions of Germany's programs. Volkswagen has had a particularly tough time convincing parents that an apprenticeship is an adequate alternative to college.

A college degree generally translates to making more money. A recent study found that college grads can earn about $800,000 more than those with just high school degrees. But college isn't for everyone, and in a competitive job market, an apprenticeship may be a decent option.

“There is a negative attitude and a common behavior that everyone has to go to a college or a university instead of running to a vocational training or an apprenticeship,” Sebastian Patta, Volkswagen of Chattanooga’s vice president of human resources, told HuffPost in his thick German accent.

People, Patta said, have misconceptions about Volkswagen's factory floors. “They think it’s dirty, it’s dark, it’s loud, it’s crazy -- it’s a completely wrong picture," he said of the factory in Chattanooga. In reality, he added, the place is pristinely clean.

Apprenticeships could also make workers feel good about themselves. The sense of pride instilled in people paid to learn a trade boosts morale, says Robert Lerman, an American University economics professor who specializes in youth employment and family structure.

“These systems tend to convey a strong sense of occupational pride that too many of our middle-skilled positions don’t,” he told HuffPost. “They don’t have a strong sense that they’re part of a community of practice, and as a result, they don’t get sufficient respect or feel self-respect.”

Sparkling Water Is The New Soda

The hottest drink in America is water with bubbles.

Long a kitchen table staple in European households, sparkling water is making inroads in the U.S. thanks largely to Americans’ waning interest in soda. Between 2009 and 2014, the volume of carbonated bottled water sold in the U.S. has increased by 56.4 percent, according to data from Euromonitor International, a market research firm. Soda drinking declined sharply during the same period.

Still, sparkling water sales are a fraction of soda sales. The U.S. soda market is worth about $39 billion, according to Euromonitor. The market for unflavored sparkling water, flavored sparkling water and "functional" water -- a category that includes flavored still water and enhanced still water like Smartwater -- is just $4 billion.

It has a way to go before it catches up to soda, but sparkling water is indeed having a moment.

The growth in millions of liters of sparkling water sold in the U.S.

The decline in millions of liters of soda sold in the U.S. Note that the scale is very different from the chart above, with soda sales still dwarfing sparkling water sales.

Americans’ growing obsession with health is the biggest reason for the shift, according to Jonas Feliciano, a global beverage analyst at Euromonitor. Coke and Pepsi have resorted to hawking products like energy drinks and even milk to boost sales as Americans become increasingly wary of the high levels of sugar in soda.

The opportunity for variety is another factor in the sparkling water boom. These beverages are available in a range of flavors, from orange-pineapple to kiwi-strawberry. Feliciano noted that most mainstream soda comes in just cola and lemon-lime flavors. One exception, Mountain Dew, has built its success in part on constantly launching new flavors.

“[Americans] are turning away from things that identify with soda and instead are turning toward things that identify with water,” Feliciano said. “If I’m looking for health and I’m looking for variety, sparkling water with different flavors seems to provide that.”

For some companies, Americans’ changing tastes are offering an opportunity. The growth in sales at Washington-based Talking Rain Beverage Company, which makes flavored sparkling water, has pretty much directly mirrored the rise of the beverage's popularity. The company brought in more than $384 million in sales in 2014 compared to just $2.7 million in 2009. Sparkling Ice, a Talking Rain line of zero-calorie sparkling water in flavors like pink grapefruit and peach nectarine, is responsible for most of that growth.

Kevin Klock, Talking Rain’s CEO, says the company doesn’t try to make health claims about its drinks because shoppers recognize on their own that sparkling water is probably healthier than soda.

“It’s great that it’s zero calories, but it’s probably not the number one thing the consumer is looking for,” Klock said. “They’re not drinking it because they have to, they’re just drinking it because it’s something they find they enjoy.”

Sparkling Ice on display in New York.

Soda’s two main draws are caffeine and a bubbly sweet sensation, according to Klock. As concerns about soda’s health consequences mount, drinkers are turning to coffee and energy drinks for their caffeine fix, and flavored sparkling waters for that throat-tickling combination of bubbles and sweetness.

“I don’t see it as a fad,” Klock said of flavored sparkling water, noting that the trend in all beverages, including liquor and beer, is toward more variety and flavor.

SodaStream is betting big that interest in sparkling water continues to grow. The at-home carbonation machine company has shifted its marketing in recent months to focus more on the product's ability to make sparkling water and less on its ability to make soda. SodaStream rebranded its devices as sparkling-water makers instead of soda makers, and it has changed its slogan from “set the bubbles free” to “water made exciting.”

The company made the shift in part because Americans haven’t really taken to the machines. In the U.S., SodaStream is probably better known for its Scarlett Johansson commercials than for its carbonation device. So far, just 1.5 percent of households in the U.S. have a SodaStream, compared to about 20 percent of households in Finland or Sweden, according to Daniel Birnbaum, SodaStream’s CEO.

SodaStream's 2014 Super Bowl ad.

Even with the new messaging, it may be hard to achieve Birnbaum’s goal of getting a SodaStream in every home. Feliciano notes that low-income shoppers aren’t likely to make the switch from soda to sparkling water anytime soon. Even those who don't shell out for a SodaStream machine -- the cheapest option on the company's website is $79.99 -- will probably find better deals on soda than sparkling water.

While there's not that much difference in the average price per liter ($1.10 per liter for soda versus $1.30 per liter for sparkling water, according to Euromonitor), the supermarkets, discount outlets and convenience stores where most low-income Americans shop offer promotional deals on soda that often make it much cheaper than sparkling water, according to Feliciano.

“This is still not for the masses,” Feliciano said.

But Birnbaum is confident that Americans' shift away from soda is more than just a whim.

“We feel like we are now at the early stages of a revolution in the beverage industry in America,” Birnbaum said, noting that about 70 percent of SodaStream’s customers globally use the machine only for carbonating water.

“The death of soda comes with the life of something else,” Birnbaum said.

Former Hooters Waitress Proves You Don't Need A Harvard MBA To Be A Successful Leader

NEW YORK -- The lobby of the Ace Hotel was bustling on a recent Monday afternoon. Twenty- and 30-somethings in scarves, chunky sweaters and jeans typed at laptops and huddled around French-press coffeepots at communal tables.

Not the typical hangout of a corporate executive. But then Kat Cole -- the former Hooters waitress who in 2011 became president of Cinnabon, Inc. -- is not the typical corporate executive. And that may be the key to her success.

In blue jeans, boots and a black top, Cole, 36, blended so well into the Ace Hotel’s hipster hive that she was difficult to spot. She was in New York promoting Cinnabon’s starring role in the pilot of AMC's eagerly anticipated “Breaking Bad” spinoff, “Better Call Saul.”

Cinnabon gave away mini-bons Monday in honor of the brand's appearance on the show.

A week earlier, after four years running Cinnabon, Cole had been given a bigger job, overseeing licensing, manufacturing and e-commerce at Focus Brands -- the company that owns Cinnabon and other chains.

She’s come a long way in a short time, and took an unusual route to get there. She started her career as a teenage waitress at Hooters. By age 20, she had dropped out of college and at age 26 she became a vice president at the wing chain. Cole eventually earned her MBA at Georgia State University, graduating shortly after she started at Cinnabon as the company's chief operating officer in 2010. But today she’s still a rarity in the highest echelons of corporate America, which are largely populated by middle-aged white men, many of whom have elite degrees.

This atypical career path has not hurt Cole. In a lot of ways, it seems to have helped. Cole thinks her background has made it easier for her to find solutions that somebody with a classic pedigree might have overlooked. And her experience has taught her that any one of her employees is worth consulting -- because, who knows? They too could be corporate-executive material.

Cole at an event in 2013.

“When you’re not used to having doors opened for you," Cole told The Huffington Post, "you will do things and have meetings with people and spend your time in places that maybe someone with a more traditional path would think is too small or not deserving of their time or their energy."

Cole said she has developed a “really tough skin,” a quality that she credits with helping her handle failure more constructively.

“When you have people who question why you are where you are, or who treat you very differently, as if you don’t deserve to be there because you’re young, or female, or in my case, a Hooters girl, it’s really interesting the muscle that that builds,” she said. “You have to develop that over time to not be totally shaken every time you walk into a boardroom, or every time someone is an asshole.”

Research suggests that traditional backgrounds don’t always help corporate leaders succeed. For example, CEOs with Ivy League degrees do no better than other CEOs when it comes to things like stock performance and profitability, according to a study from Brian Bolton, a finance professor at Portland State University’s School of Business.

Still, boards seem to love hiring alums of elite schools. Fifteen percent of CEOs at the nation’s 1,500 largest companies in 2012 had at least one degree from Harvard, according to Bolton’s research. More than one-fourth of the CEOs in the sample with MBAs got them at Harvard. And Bolton estimates that only 3 or 4 percent of CEOs lack a college degree. Less than 2 percent of the CEOs in the sample were women.

“It’s hard for boards or for executives to hire unknowns,” Bolton told HuffPost. “They default to what’s safe, and hiring an MBA from Harvard is safe. It’s going to be accepted by stockholders and employees.”

But if Cole’s success is any indication, the safe option may not always be the best one.

Cole took the reins of Cinnabon four years ago during what she calls a “really shitty” time. The sluggish economy was keeping people away from the malls and airports that are Cinnabon’s typical environs.

Her plan to turn the company around involved reaching out to others for partnerships -- a tactic she believes was heavily influenced by her background. She speculates that leaders with a more typical pedigree might have been less willing to look outside the company for help.

Cole approached it differently. She and her team pitched packaged-good companies and other fast-food chains on the idea of working together to create a line of Cinnabon-branded products, such as Cinnabon-flavored Green Mountain coffee, Cinnabon Air Wick and Cinnabon Vodka. (And in some cases the companies came to Cinnabon as well).

It worked. Sales of those products grew to more than $1 billion by 2013, and now they make up about 75 percent of Cinnabon’s total global product sales.

“We had this serious humility -- we weren’t too good for anything,” Cole said. “I’ve seen other leaders not be that scrappy and take much longer and spend a lot more money trying to turn something around.”

It turned out to be a trendsetting approach. Darren Tristano, executive vice president at the market research firm Technomic, said he expects McDonald’s and other chains to get more branded products into grocery stores down the line.

“That’s something we’re going to see a lot of,” Tristano said.

Cole’s experience has also given her a healthy respect for the rank-and-file worker. When she took over Cinnabon, instead of shelling out for consumer research, she spent 60 days visiting franchises all over the country, meeting with owners and workers, making Cinnabons and ringing up customers to get a feel for what the company needed.

“It hasn’t been that long since I’ve been that hourly employee," Cole told HuffPost. "I remember that people doing the work every day are the ones who really know what the answers are."

Cole’s days as a server are so fresh in her mind that it still hits a nerve when she sees a customer treating one poorly. She recalled an incident a few years ago, in the same Ace Hotel lobby, when a man sitting next to her berated a waitress for not bringing sugar with his coffee.

“As I was watching her and sitting so close, I just remembered it. I remember people yelling at me, I remember people being unnecessarily disrespectful and looking at me -- because I was in orange shorts, serving chicken wings -- like I was the scum of the earth,” Cole said, sipping coffee about a foot away from where the incident took place.

Cole said she scolded the man and gave the waitress “the biggest tip I think I’ve ever given in my life,” in the hope that it would encourage her to stay positive.

As her career advanced, more and more people began asking Cole to speak about her history, which included watching her mother feed her and her siblings on just $10 a week for three years after she divorced Cole's father who was an alcoholic at the time. A year or so ago, Cole, wary of overexposure, briefly considered taking a break from talking to the media. Then a mentor criticized her for not using her platform to inspire others. That mentor died just weeks after giving Cole that piece of advice.

Other executives may want to embrace aspects of their past that don’t fit the CEO stereotype, Cole said. She suggested that her story may not actually be that unique.

“A lot of executives were waitresses and bartenders and hostesses, but they don’t connect those things” to the success they’re having now, said Cole.

Raising her hand slightly above her head, she added, “It’s like they have to stay so up here."

Rush Of Obamacare Enrollees Expected Before Sunday Deadline

With only a few days remaining in the second-ever Obamacare sign-up season, the White House, insurance companies and enrollment workers expect a big rush as Americans hurry to get health coverage.

“Consumers should consider Feb. 15 as their last opportunity to get coverage,” said Andrew Slavitt, principal deputy administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, during a conference call with reporters Wednesday. “Interest in signing up for coverage in the final week of open enrollment is beginning to increase,” he noted.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is the federal agency that oversees enrollment under Obamacare.

In the weeks leading up to the deadline, federal and state officials, the insurance industry and enrollment workers around the country have stepped up their outreach, marketing and assistance activities. They expect a wave of new sign-ups in the final days, as happened when the first Obamacare enrollment period wound down last April. Traffic to HealthCare.gov was 58 percent higher Wednesday than a week before, and calls to the hotline have increased 37 percent, Slavitt said.

“People are going to perk up and people are going to start paying attention close to those deadlines,” said John Gilbert, national field director for Enroll America, a Washington-based nonprofit that organizes sign-up campaigns.

After this Sunday's deadline, the next open enrollment period for private health insurance sold on the Affordable Care Act’s exchanges won’t begin until October. Anyone who starts an application prior to the Feb. 15 deadline will have time to complete it, Slavitt said. In addition, people can access the insurance exchanges during the year if their life circumstances change -- if they get married, for instance, or have a baby. Plus, there is no deadline for enrolling in Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program.

The second Obamacare sign-up period has gone considerably more smoothly than the first, which launched with a thud in October 2013 amid confusion and near-catastrophic technological failures of HealthCare.gov and the websites of several state-run exchanges. The websites have been running much better this year, and the numbers of enrollees reflects that and the greater public awareness of the Affordable Care Act.

“In every respect, this is working not just as intended but better than intended,” President Barack Obama said at the White House last week. “I want everybody to get on HealthCare.gov. Find out what options are available to you in your state and in your community.”

The president may be overstating the case for his signature program, but round two of Obamacare is going much better from the perspective of those seeking to enroll people. “Certainly, it is much improved from last year,” said Kurt Kossen, vice president for retail markets at Chicago-based Health Care Service Corp., which operates Blue Cross and Blue Shield health insurance plans in Illinois, Montana, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas.

Since this year’s sign-up period began on Nov. 15, almost 10 million people have enrolled in private health insurance plans selected via the exchanges. Those include the 37 sites run by the federal government via HealthCare.gov and the 14 operated by states and the District of Columbia, like Covered California and Your Health Idaho. About 3 million of those customers were new to the online marketplaces, and the remainder were individuals with exchange policies last year who had renewed, the Department of Health and Human Services reported last month.

If the last sign-up period is any guide, those numbers could jump after Feb. 15. Forty-seven percent of the 8 million people who enrolled for 2014 coverage did so during the final month of the campaign. Enrollments for 2015 already surged shortly before Dec. 15, which was the final day to choose a plan that would be in place at the beginning of this year.

More than 1,400 enrollment events are scheduled for the final two weeks of the sign-up period, according to HHS. Officials, workers and volunteers are stressing the availability of both health coverage and financial assistance for low- and moderate-income families.

People wait at the Baltimore Convention Center to enroll in health coverage this past Saturday. (Photo: Jeffrey Young/The Huffington Post)

Enroll America and its partner organizations arranged 1,110 events in 109 cities across 11 states in the three weeks leading up to Feb. 15, Gilbert said. The group’s “Countdown to Get Covered” bus tour will hit Alabama, Florida, Georgia and North Carolina in the final days, he said.

Health insurance companies also are gearing up for the deadline. Health Care Service Corp. ramped up its TV advertising in the middle of January, said Kossen. The company’s on-the-ground outreach includes mobile assistance centers across its home territory, like the “Destination Blue” recreational vehicle visiting numerous towns in Texas.

“We’re just starting to see indications of increased activity starting to come in, especially at our community events over the weekend,” Kossen said. “We anticipate seeing increased activity throughout the remainder of the week.”

An enrollment event in Baltimore on Saturday attracted more than 300 people looking for help. Some waited hours at the city’s convention center for an opportunity to sit down with one of 40-some enrollment counselors from HealthCare Access Maryland, which ran the six-hour event.

“It’s been very quiet and it’s been steadily busy,” Kathleen Westcoat, president and CEO of HealthCare Access Maryland, said of this year’s sign-up campaign. “We are seeing more people towards the end of enrollment period trying to enroll.”

The turnaround in Maryland since the last time may be even more striking than the improvements to HealthCare.gov. The Maryland Health Connection website was worse than HealthCare.gov, leading the state to scrap its system and use technology from Access Health CT, Connecticut’s exchange. As of Feb. 4, almost 101,000 people had signed up for private insurance for 2015 on Maryland’s exchange, 20,000 more than the number who enrolled for 2014 coverage.

Baltimore resident Harold Waters, 56, joined those ranks Saturday, when he spent more than two hours at the convention center getting help in choosing a subsidized insurance policy from Kaiser Permanente. The policy will cost Waters $74 a month because of tax credits that reduced its price from $434.

Melinda Jones and Harold Waters attended a health insurance enrollment event at the Baltimore Convention Center on Saturday. (Photo: Jeffrey Young/The Huffington Post)

Waters has been unemployed and uninsured since he was laid off as a grocery store manager in July. He suffered a minor stroke after that and was fortunate that Kaiser Permanente offered him a deep discount on his medical treatments, charging him only $962 of the more than $3,000 he owed. “I’ll be able to go see a doctor now,” he said.

Without insurance, Waters was afraid to run up medical bills, said his partner, Melinda Jones, 59.

“I have to scream at him to get him to go to the doctor, because he won’t go. ‘I don’t have any insurance. I don’t have any insurance.’ I don’t want to hear it!” Jones said. “If he dies on me, I’m digging him up and killing him again.”

Apple To Power New Headquarters With Solar Energy

Apple is going green in a big way.

CEO Tim Cook said Tuesday that the company would power its new corporate headquarters with energy from a 2,900-acre solar farm being built by First Solar. Apple committed $848 million to the solar project, which was approved for construction last month.

“We know at Apple that climate change is real,” Cook said at the Goldman Sachs’ 2015 technology conference in San Francisco, according to 9to5Mac. “The time for talk is past and the time for action is now.”

Apple spokesman Chris Gaither confirmed Cook's comments.

Steve Krum, a spokesman for the solar panel maker, also confirmed the partnership, telling The Huffington Post that Apple is "contracted to buy electricity from a plant that we are developing and building to power their new headquarters and data center.”

The iPhone maker is currently building its new, doughnut-shaped home base in Cupertino, California. When construction wraps next year, the headquarters will draw electricity from First Solar's California Flats Solar Project, slated to be complete by the end of 2016. Apple agreed to a 25-year contract with the company, making it the solar industry’s largest-ever commercial power deal, according to First Solar.

A drone video of Apple's new headquarters, currently under construction.

“Apple is leading the way in addressing climate change by showing how large companies can serve their operations with 100 percent clean, renewable energy,” Joe Kishkill, the chief commercial officer at First Solar, said in a statement sent to HuffPost. “Apple’s commitment was instrumental in making this project possible and will significantly increase the supply of solar power in California.”

Apple will use the majority of the Cholame, California, farm's electrical output, and the remaining energy will be sold to the power company Pacific Gas & Electric.

Environmental group Greenpeace praised Apple's move.

"Apple still has a lot of work to do to reduce its environmental footprint, but other Fortune 500 CEOs would be well served to make a study of Tim Cook, whose actions show that he intends to take Apple full-speed ahead toward renewable energy with the urgency that our climate crisis demands," Gary Cook, the group's senior IT sector analyst, said in a statement.

Apple's stock price closed at $122.02 on Tuesday, giving the company a market value of more than $700 billion -- making it the first U.S. company in history to reach that mark.

Meet The Man Who Wants To Build The ESPN Of Finance

Keith McCullough is nothing if not committed. “For better or worse, I’ll die here,” he says in reference to Hedgeye Risk Management, the independent investment research firm he founded in 2008. "Sink or swim, that’s what we have."

McCullough sees himself as fighting for the little guy over entrenched interests. He tends to describe his Stamford, Connecticut-based firm, which sells investment advice to institutions and individuals, in antagonistic terms: against traditional Wall Street research, against financial media, against pretty much every market pundit.

In turn, McCullough attracts antagonism. A former hedge fund manager, he is largely known in certain segments of the financial media for his social media feuds with certain segments of the financial media: CNBC’s Jim Cramer and Steve Liesman, their former colleague Ron Insana, blog ZeroHedge, Bloomberg’s Joe Weisenthal, hedge fund manager Doug Kass and prospective-customer-turned-critic Carmine Pirone, to name a few. (The fight with Pirone escalated to the point where McCullough sued him for defamation.)

Through it all, McCullough has been called a self-promoter, a fraud, a charlatan and the P.T. Barnum of finance. But he's convinced that he's right, and that his critics are some combination of dead wrong and jealous.

It's that conviction -- along with McCullough’s frustration with CNBC, where he used to be a frequent guest -- that led him to focus on building his own ways to “tell the truth first in the most efficient formats.”

Hedgeye now has an online video channel aimed at individual investors, and has hired producers away from CNBC to run it. An outgrowth of work the company has been doing since 2010, the videos' combination of mass-audience appeal and high-level sources, McCullough says, “is our ESPN’ing of finance.”

The Hedgeye CEO likens the company's approach to that of Fox football commentator and former Dallas Cowboys quarterback Troy Aikman, who explains strategy on camera for a mass audience, then in the privacy of the locker room assumes the role of confidant and mentor to current players.

“I think what I have is more that pro-to-pro, buy it or sell it” dialogue with institutional clients, McCullough told The Huffington Post.

One of Hedgeye's daily videos.

Polemics are part of the furniture at Hedgeye. Though much of the office looks like standard-issue Connecticut finance -- where young men in dress shirts and Vineyard Vines fleece vests sit at white desks and stare at multiple monitors -- the space also includes a Republican-themed conference room complete with club chairs, a cowhide ottoman, an antler chandelier, a silver-plated AK-47 table lamp and portraits of GOP leaders from Lincoln to Nixon. (There's a Democrat room as well.)

The tone of the firm's analysis is brash and conversational. The morning research note is probably alone in the industry in combining Bayesian analysis, hashtags like #globalslowing and #deflation and image macro memes. And Hedgeye is likely the only research firm that employs its own cartoonist.

A Hedgeye cartoon on falling U.S. government bond yields.

A Hedgeye chart showing U.S. utilities' performance against the S&P 500 in 2014.

Those who watch Hedgeye's video channel or pay to subscribe to its research won't hear the advice most retail investors need. They won't get someone calmly and cheaply telling them to trade less, ignore pretty much all short-term investing advice and just buy low-cost index funds. Instead, McCullough thinks it's his job to tell retail investors who trade frequently how to do it better, and to help institutions boost investment returns.

“We’ve branded ourselves as being Mac versus PC,” McCullough says. The PC in his analogy stands for both traditional Wall Street research, which he calls “conflicted, compromised and constrained,” and the financial media. Hedgeye is the Mac.

The main thing that attracts people to Hedgeye, though, is McCullough himself.

Jim, I am formally warning u - unblock or everything u say will be audited by Hedgeye Risk Mgt police @jimcramer

— Keith McCullough (@KeithMcCullough) June 14, 2013

@rinsana @CGasparino yeah, u were in the room - when I walked out, I said to the guys, Ronnie better have inside info b/c he's f'n clueless

— Keith McCullough (@KeithMcCullough) November 7, 2014

Talking with McCullough, it’s clear he enjoys being a Twitter pugilist.

“Yeah, I led Yale in points. But I also led Yale in penalty minutes,” he says, referencing the days when he was the captain of his college hockey team. “That’s who I am.” He’s energetic and direct, occasionally laughing boisterously at his own jokes and insights.

An equity hedge fund manager who has a very small ownership stake in Hedgeye described McCullough slightly differently.

“He’s bombastic, but it’s tactical. He’s doing it to get attention for Hedgeye, and hopefully that leads to more subscriptions,” said the investor, who asked to remain anonymous. Two other hedge funds and the seed fund 500 Startups also have small stakes in the company.

McCullough thinks Hedgeye's critics in the financial media overlook his ability to attract subscribers and talk to big players. That's because the critics usually come across Hedgeye through "our main marketing channel," Twitter, where they encounter McCullough at his most antagonistic.

"Sometimes when I’m on the ice punching you, I look a little more like the person that they want me to be, which is just another lying Wall Street scumbag, which is false,” he says, adding that investors who get to know him find out he's "self-effacing to a fault.”

Even if that's true, McCullough certainly isn't shy when he thinks he's right.

“Investigative research and investigative journalism, what’s the difference? We’re trying to get to the same point,” he says, comparing Hedgeye’s aggressive short calls against energy companies Kinder Morgan and Linn Energy to Ida Tarbell’s crusade against Standard Oil. Though Kinder Morgan stock is up about 16 percent since Hedgeye’s bearish call in September 2013, the bet against Linn has worked out better for McCullough. Linn is down about 70 percent since Hedgeye’s March 2013 short call on the back of an SEC investigation into the company’s accounting practices.

McCullough is also proud of his prescient call earlier in 2014 that bond yields would fall, a prediction that was out of the mainstream at the time.

He has had big misses too. In 2010, he predicted that the Federal Reserve’s quantitative easing program could, over an undefined period of time, lead to the collapse of the U.S. economy. So far, of course, it has not. A close analysis of his 2013 recommendations showed that if you’d traded only on Hedgeye’s suggestions, you would have made just 0.3382 percent. In contrast, the S&P 500 was up 31 percent that year.

But McCullough says his buy and sell signals shouldn’t be used to create a portfolio.

The portfolio he currently recommends is 52 percent in cash and just 6 percent stocks, an asset allocation that goes beyond conservative and into territory a financial doomsday prepper would appreciate. But even that's not McCullough at his most extreme: In 2012, he recommended a 100 percent cash portfolio.

The Hedgeye CEO is unperturbed by criticism about the quality of his product or how he presents it. He believes he has always accurately represented Hedgeye. “We have never said we are a hedge fund,” he says in response to allegations that language in his real-time alert product implied he was making trades, rather than recommending them. “I’m basically the journalist of the buy-side,” he adds.

Independent research is a business which has always seemed almost on the verge of being about to break through, but it's never really been able to stick. McCullough thinks Hedgeye’s mix of single-stock research, macroeconomic analysis and daily alerts can be different. “There’s no top to this, in terms of our ability to grow content,” he says.

Hedgeye currently has 23 analysts and 57 employees in total. The company says revenues grew about 25 percent to more than $12 million last year. McCullough sees those dollars as a vindication of his views.

Hedgeye has hired an executive recruiting firm to help attract new hires, and McCullough says his company has no problem luring in talent. Perhaps, he says, that’s because “we’re in Stamford, so we’re kind of the only game in town.”

Though Stamford is teeming with hedge funds, McCullough doesn’t seem to think he has much competition in building the ESPN of finance -- a point he makes with a reference to hedge fund giant Citadel and college hockey.

“If the captain of Cornell, who’s elected by his teammates, was running money at Citadel and decided to open up Hedgeye II, that would be my first very relevant competition.”

Here's A List Of RadioShack Stores Slated To Close By March 31

RadioShack as we know it is dead.

The electronics retailer, which filed for bankruptcy protection last week, will sell up to 2,400 stores. Many of those stores are slated to stay open and be operated by Sprint. The rest of the stores are scheduled to shut down.

Store closures will start as soon as February 17, according to court documents. In total, 1,784 stores could potentially close by the end of March.

Below is RadioShack's "potential store closure list," which can be found on the company's website. The list is grouped by sale termination date (ie. when the stores are planning to close), with the first bunch of stores scheduled to close on February 17, the second group scheduled to close on February 28, and the third group scheduled to close on March 31.

According to The Wall Street Journal, liquidation sales have already begun. Head on over to the WSJ's site for a searchable map of which RadioShack locations are planning to close.

RadioShack did not immediately respond to The Huffington Post's request for comment.

RS Store Closure List

'Super Women' Replace Supermodels In Fashion Ads And The Results Are Epic

It's safe to say that non-models are having a moment in the fashion industry.

Once our beloved Joan Didion for Céline campaign hit the interwebs in January, it seems there's been a series of fabulous, unconventional ads to take our news feeds (and hearts) captive.

But what if, instead of these ads being a pleasantly surprising exception, they became the rule? That's the question Elisa Rodríguez-Vila, a writer at Fusion not only asked but answered -- by taking matters into her own hands.

Rodríguez-Vila has taken some of our favorite "super women" (Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Laverne Cox and Gloria Steinem to name a few,) and superimposed them on to fashion ads for big names like Chanel, Versace and Louis Vuitton. In an e-mail to HuffPost Style, she explained her inspiration for the project:

I enjoy flipping through fashion magazines just as much as the next person, but I didn't fully realize how bored I had become with fashion ads until I saw the Joan Didion Celine ad. I've never even been able to afford a pair of socks by Celine, but all of a sudden they had my attention on so many levels. This was a woman who was beautiful and stylish, but those characteristics were just footnotes to the amazing life she has led. It got me thinking how EASY it would be to recreate that feeling with in fashion ads.

She also notes that in making these images, her intention is not to detract from a career in modeling, but merely to suggest that, as demonstrated by many ads this year, great style isn't confined to just models. "This doesn't mean I think models are completely void of intellect or live totally un-interesting lives," she said, adding, "the point of creating these "dream fashion ads" was simply to suggest an added diversity to the fashion world. Women who are older, or who don't fit into the traditional standards of beauty and gender can make amazing models, and shouldn't be excluded."

We couldn't agree more. Click here to read the entire story.

Americans Are More Stressed About Money Than Anything Else -- And It's Taking A Toll On Their Health

The economy may be improving, but finances are still a stressful burden on Americans -- especially among young adults and parents, according to the American Psychological Association's new Stress in America survey.

The report highlights a growing health problem when it comes to well-being and financial security. Nearly three-quarters of participants reported feeling stressed about money at some point, with some respondents saying they went as far as sacrificing health care because of finances.

"When people are financially challenged, it makes sense their stress level could go up," Norman Anderson, Ph.D., the chief executive officer and executive vice president of the American Psychological Association said in a press conference Wednesday. "Many industries in the economy have shown improvement, but we still know many people aren't benefiting and are still concerned about economic well-being."

The 2015 report, which was conducted by Harris Interactive on behalf of the APA, surveyed more than 3,000 American adults in August 2014. While the APA reports that stress is down overall, there are still some major health concerns. Below are some of the survey's biggest findings about financial anxiety, general stress and well-being:

• Money is the No. 1 stressor overall, but particularly for millennials, those in Generation X and for parents.

• Nearly 1 in 5 Americans say they have skipped or considered skipping going to the doctor in the last year when they needed heath care due to financial problems.

• Those who reported experiencing extreme money concerns were also more likely to resort to unhealthy behaviors to manage their stress.

• A third of Americans said a lack of money prevents them from living a healthier lifestyle.

• Women are more stressed than men overall, with 51 percent reporting that stress has kept them awake at night, compared to only 32 percent of men.

When financial worries become too much of a barrier to a healthy lifestyle, experts recommend seeking social support to mitigate stress.

"You may not be able to change your financial situation but you may be able to better manage it," said Katherine Nordal, Ph.D., executive director for professional practice at the APA. "I think having a support system -- some people who believe in you -- gives you that extra emotional strength to be able to get through the day and do the things you need to do to try to improve your situation."

There's ample research to support her claim, not to mention that emotional support is beneficial for issues beyond financial concerns. Studies show a close-knit support system can improve your longevity, encourage you to be active and even lower your risk for heart disease.

"Emotional support helps with managing stress from a variety of sources," Anderson said. "It's one of the most generally positive things one can do for their health and emotional well-being."

Uber Can't Really Prove That It's Caused A Reduction In Drunk Driving Accidents

Last week Uber revealed another way the ridesharing service is revolutionizing travel: Cities that use Uber see a reduction in drunk driving accidents among young people, a company report showed.   

"When empowered with more transportation options like Uber, people are making better choices that save lives," the company declared.

David Plouffe 2013 President Obama's former campaign manager who is now filling the same role for Uber 2013 emailed millions of users to share the astounding news. "Since we launched uberX in California, drunk-driving crashes decreased by 60 per month for drivers under 30," Plouffe wrote. "That's 1,800 crashes likely prevented over the past 2 ½ years."

What is Uber's evidence that they "likely prevented" so many crashes?

Not much.  

Indeed, Mothers Against Drunk Driving, which co-authored the report, cautioned us against connecting the rise of Uber to a drop in drunk driving. "Nobody is saying that there is a causation relationship here, this is a correlation relationship. Purely correlational," said Amy George, senior vice president of marketing and communications for MADD. (MADD took a less cautious stance in a  press release last week: New Report from MADD, Uber Reveals Ridesharing Services Important Innovation to Reduce Drunk Driving.)

Uber's report has two key graphics: The first shows alcohol-involved crashes in California markets where Uber operates. The second shows the same, but in cities where there is no Uber service. Each graph compares accidents between under-30 and 30-and-over drivers. The charts actually show, in general, a downward trend of drunk driving accidents in both Uber and non-Uber markets.

But Uber and Plouffe are hanging their assertion on another facet of the analysis: drunk driving crashes for those under 30 have dropped more in cities that have Uber versus those that don't.

 

"We believe there is a direct relationship between the presence of uberX (Uber's lowest-cost option) in a city and the amount of drunk driving crashes involving younger populations," the report says.

That could be. But we don't really know, and neither does Uber.

 

Uber does not provide evidence in its report that Uber users and those under 30 are the same population. A methodology shared with us by Uber asserts that their users are generally younger and more technologically savvy. MADD's George said they sent the data analysis to an outside research group for extra vetting. She declined to name the group because they were not formally part of the report.

Michael Amodeo, an Uber spokesperson, sent us a statement in response to questions about the analysis:

"We believe the results of the study are an encouraging step in the right direction and provide evidence that ridesharing services like Uber are making a meaningful and positive impact on mindsets and the rate of drunk driving. We attempt to deal with other factors in our study by breaking out the under 30 and over 30 groups, and we're comparing them against each other."

Uber's report credits an analysis by Nate Good, who is chief technology officer for an online ticketing company as well as an amateur statistician and self-described ridesharing proponent. Uber's report reads: "Inspired by Nate Good's analysis -- which demonstrated a clear downward trend in alcohol-related crashes in Pennsylvania's youngest cohort once ridesharing was available -- we decided to replicate that study in California at large using data procured from the State."

However, Good's study had nothing to do with "alcohol-related crashes." Good analyzed DUI arrests. "That was a poor choice of words on Uber's part," Good told us.

Good was careful to note various caveats of his analysis. No 1 on his list: "Correlation does not equate to causation." No. 2: "I am a computer science professional and a data science enthusiast, but by no means a statistician."

Good said he attempted to analyze alcohol-involved crash data but could not find a reliable data source.

We've also reached out to Plouffe, but haven't heard back yet.

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Here's What The People Delivering Your Instacart Groceries Really Think

In today's app economy, part-time work just isn't what it used to be.

Once upon a time, a part-time job at a supermarket would have meant spending hours behind a cash register. These days, a part-time grocery job could mean spending hours in your car waiting for an order to come in -- and not necessarily getting paid for that time.

As Instacart, a grocery delivery app that pairs customers with personal shoppers, continues to increase in popularity, some employees at the much-hyped startup are speaking out about what it's really like to do their jobs. Their experiences raise a number of questions about what the future holds for increasingly popular apps that offer on-demand services, from car rides to vacation rentals to home cleaning.

Instacart contracts with 4,000 independent personal shoppers, who work in 15 cities around the country. Shoppers receive a digital shopping list from customers and then pick out those items at a local grocery store, before showing up at the customer's door with the goods. In return, the shoppers are "compensated based on a formula that factors in the number of orders per shift and the number of items per order," according to a company spokeswoman. "During busy shifts, shoppers can earn $20 or more an hour depending on tips.” The company's website says shoppers "make up to $25 an hour."

When shifts aren't busy, several employees said their minimum hourly base pay was $10, and that their typical hourly pay usually hovered around that figure. Instacart declined to confirm whether it offers base pay, and some Instacart workers told HuffPost they are not offered an hourly guaranteed wage.

“It’s a really strange job, and there are many weeks where you’re just sitting in the car waiting for orders and hoping something comes in, not being paid to be there,” one of Instacart’s personal shoppers, a 24-year-old college dropout based in Chicago, told The Huffington Post in an interview. “But it’s keeping gas in my car. I’m working a job that requires gas that is essentially just paying for my car. It feels like selling my hair to buy a hairbrush.”

The employee, who did not wish to be identified for fear of losing his job with the company, said that during his first week with Instacart, he made about $350 working just three days. At the end of the week, however, he made a mistake on an order and received a negative customer rating, which led to fewer and smaller orders to fill. Because he’d only been working for a few shifts, it took some time for his "shopper score" -- and his pay -- to bounce back. Meanwhile, his better-rated colleagues were getting more lucrative opportunities.

He would have quit months ago, he said, but he needs the money to keep his car, which he uses to get to his other two part-time jobs.

“It feels like I’m playing a video game, except in real life for real money," he said.

Another shopper who worked with the company in Philadelphia for six months last year said the amount of driving required by the gig sometimes meant spending more money on gas than she earned over a five-hour shift making deliveries to neighborhoods and suburbs located more than a half-hour’s drive from her home near Center City. The 31-year-old entrepreneur is no longer with the company.

“For a part-time gig to earn some extra cash, sure, [the pay was fair],” the former shopper, who also did not want to be identified by name, told HuffPost. “Not really for a main source of income because it's minimum wage and very physically and mentally taxing.”

Not all Instacart workers are disenchanted, of course. Another employee in Chicago, a 27-year-old film student and musician who started shopping for Instacart two months ago, told HuffPost he is “overall pretty grateful” for the work. He praised the experience as “kind of fun” -- like being a contestant on the defunct game show “Supermarket Sweep.” He plans to stick around.

“There are days when I’m on point and can see the order, and it’ll be like ‘A Beautiful Mind’ and I can just map out the whole store in my head and know where everything will be,” he said. “Other days, I’m just staring [down an aisle] like, ‘Where is the molasses?’ Those moments to me are the worst because in my mind I feel the clock moving.”

Lace, a 28-year-old performance artist who started working as an Instacart shopper in Houston last year but has since transferred to Los Angeles, also said she "loves" working for the company.

"It's really easy work that pays well," Lace told HuffPost.

The worst part, she said, is dealing with "pushy and demanding" customers who don't tip, even after she lugs heavy items -- like cases of bottled water -- into their homes. When Instacart shoppers order multiples of the same heavy item, like cases of water or bags of cat litter, the company formula still counts those as "one" item, shoppers explained. As a result, getting the order to the customer's house doesn't always come with a bulk-order bonus.

"Some complain about the price of produce, then you get to their place and they live in a giant mansion in the hills," Lace added. "Catering to every whim of the upper crust, when you're just trying to hustle through your shift, can be aggravating, but we do our best."

Sunil Raman, a general manager at Instacart, told HuffPost that the company's data on the continued activity of its shopper fleet indicates that most shoppers are happy with the gig.

"There are bound to be bumps in the road, but we’re really working hard to help our shoppers along the way," Raman said.

Scrolling through dozens of Instacart worker reviews on Glassdoor.com, a site that lets people post anonymous reviews and salary information about companies, some common themes emerge: People posting on the site described being happy with the flexible scheduling, a high level of autonomy and a relatively relaxed work environment. Other posters complained about sometimes-unpredictable pay and the isolation of spending most of a work shift alone, as well as the financial stress of paying for a vehicle, gas, tolls and smartphone -- the engine that powers it all.

Arun Sundararajan, a professor at New York University who has been dubbed the “go-to expert” on the so-called sharing economy, said the conditions are ripe for a company like Instacart to expand rapidly, as on-demand apps continue to grow in popularity. (The sharing economy, for the uninitiated, describes an emerging business category catering to individuals who rent or borrow goods, such as cars or apartments, instead of buying them.) Instacart also sees greater odds for success thanks to the availability of apps and smartphones that use GPS, technologies that weren't in people's pockets when dot-com flameouts like Kozmo and Webvan attempted grocery delivery and failed.

“It’s very easy for someone to get a GPS-enabled smartphone, so your labor pool is potentially huge, and the technology in the stores has also become far more amenable to this,” Sundararajan said. “The click-and-collect model of how we buy stuff has become increasingly possible because of all of this.”

Still, the success of a company like Instacart ultimately depends on the quality of service offered by its workers, the vast majority of whom are independent contractors who do not earn health insurance, vacation days or paid sick leave. Instacart's full-time employees -- developers, managers and sales reps, for example -- do enjoy such benefits, but there are only about 100 of these positions at the company.

Sundararajan argued that this business model is risky for Instacart and other firms like it because it hands over so much control to workers who don't feel particularly invested in the company's overall health. Workers have detailed similar experiences at other rapidly growing apps, Uber and HomeJoy among them.

Sundararajan suggested that a company like Instacart consider, at minimum, pairing newbie shoppers with expert mentors when they are starting out.

“Eventually these companies’ brand comes from consistent high quality, and that rests almost entirely in the hands of freelance workers,” Sundararajan said. “It’s simply smart capitalism to have a healthy workforce of people motivated to work for you.”

Raman, the Instacart manager, told HuffPost the company does "try to incorporate feedback [from shoppers] into all the improvements we make in the business.”

He said the company formed a "shopper happiness" team late last year, which provides support to workers through a shopper hotline that's available 18 hours a day. The team is also responsible for shopper roundtables to inform how the company's software is designed, as well as shopper parties and other get-togethers.

Hunter Stuart contributed to this story from New York.

Clarification: A previous version of this story described Instacart's shoppers as employees; they are independent contractors.

Here Are The Best Cities To Find A Job In 2015

The U.S. job market just had its best year for hiring in 15 years, and according to a recent report from jobs website ZipRecruiter, certain cities in the West, Midwest and Southwest are primed to be big hirers in the coming year.

ZipRecruiter identified 10 cities with the strongest job markets after examining Bureau of Labor Statistics data on the 100 biggest metro areas (by job market size) that have an unemployment rate below the national average of 5.6 percent. Combining those findings with internal data, the site was then able to rank the cities based on applications per job and applicants per employer.

Job markets in major midwestern cities like Minneapolis and Fargo, for example, have blossomed in recent years, thanks to a boom in natural gas production, ZipRecruiter found. And though hiring in the oil industry may be tapering off, other sectors of these local economies are flourishing.

As for the kinds of jobs available, ZipRecruiter found that listings for positions in health care, construction and manufacturing are particularly bountiful in cities with the strongest hiring markets.

Here’s the ranking of the best cities for hiring in 2015, according to ZipRecruiter:

• 10. Minneapolis, Minnesota ASSOCIATED PRESS ZipRecruiter score: 0.76
  Unemployment rate: 3.00
  
  Which industries are hiring: Professional services, health care, tech and food manufacturing are all local industries expected to hire in 2015.
• 9. Boulder, Colorado Scott Leigh via Getty Images ZipRecruiter score: 0.75
  Unemployment rate: 3.20
  
  Which industries are hiring: Small and medium-sized businesses in the sectors of education, government, tech and manufacturing will be the key drivers of employment in Boulder.
• 8. Fort Collins, Colorado Marek Uliasz via Getty Images ZipRecruiter score: 0.69
  Unemployment rate: 3.20
  
  Which industries are hiring: Job seekers in the fields of education, tech and manufacturing will have the best luck finding a job in Fort Collins, Northern Colorado's economic hub, according to ZipRecruiter.
• 7. Omaha, Nebraska Jupiterimages via Getty Images ZipRecruiter score: 0.66
  Unemployment rate: 3.0
  
  Which industries are hiring: Home to Warren Buffett, the financial services industry, as well as the health care and tech industries will provide job growth in Omaha, according to ZipRecruiter.
• 6. Provo, Utah Denis Jr. Tangney ZipRecruiter score: 0.61
  Unemployment rate: 3.0
  
  Which industries are hiring: Home to Brigham Young University, the fields of education, tech and health care are all experiencing healthy growth, according to ZipRecruiter.
• 5. Odessa, Texas artfotoss via Getty Images ZipRecruiter score: 0.49
  Unemployment rate: 2.8
  
  Which industries are hiring: Led by a thriving oil industry, energy services and construction lead job creation in Odessa, according to ZipRecruiter.
• 4. Sioux Falls, South Dakota inkknife_2000 (2.5 million + views)/Flickr ZipRecruiter score: 0.39
  Unemployment rate: 2.7
  
  Which industries are hiring: Sioux Falls boasts a diversified and fast-growing economy, providing job growth in the fields of mail-order pharmaceuticals, medical device manufacturing and information assurance, according to ZipRecruiter.
• 3. Rochester, Minnesota Andy445 via Getty Images ZipRecruiter score: 0.32
  Unemployment rate: 2.6
  
  Which industries are hiring: Rochester, home to the world-renowned Mayo Clinic, is a major center of health care hiring. A new project by the clinic is also expected to bring thousands of construction jobs, according to ZipRecruiter.
• 2. Fargo, North Dakota Davoud Davies via Getty Images ZipRecruiter score: 0.11
  Unemployment rate: 2.2
  
  Which industries are hiring: Thanks to booming population growth over the last decade, education and health care are the main drivers of job growth in Fargo.
• 1. Lincoln, Nebraska Jupiterimages via Getty Images ZipRecruiter score: 0.07
  Unemployment rate: 2.1
  
  Which industries are hiring: Lincoln is first in the nation in job growth for construction, financial services, state government, manufacturing and health care, according to a study by the University of Nebraska.

10 Worst States To Grow Old In

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

The U.S. elderly population has grown exponentially in recent decades. The number of Americans 65 and older grew from 35 million in 2000 to 41.4 million in 2011 and to an estimated 44.7 million in 2013. This trend is expected to continue as members of the baby boomer generation reach retirement age.

While it can be difficult to grow old in some U.S. states, life for seniors is often far worse in many other countries. Still, the United States will face increasingly large challenges. In the coming years, state officials, families, and individuals will need to pay more attention to the needs of the elderly — to improve medical care, access to services, infrastructure, or other amenities that become more necessary late in life.

Click here to see the worst states to grow old in

HelpAge International evaluates each year the social and economic well-being of elderly country residents in its Global AgeWatch Index. Last year, the United States was among the better places to grow old in the world, at eighth place. However, domestically, each state offers a very different quality of life for its older residents. Based on an independent analysis by 24/7 Wall St., which incorporated a range of income, health, labor, and environmental indicators, Utah is the best state in which to grow old, while Mississippi is the worst.

To be considered among the worst states to grow old, senior citizens in the states had to have relatively weak income security, as measured by several indicators. The 2013 median income among families with a head of household 65 and older, for example, did not exceed the comparable national figure of $37,847 in nine of the worst states to grow old. A typical elderly household in Mississippi earned less than $30,000, the least nationwide.

Retirees often have fixed income as they begin to tap into their savings and collect social security. Kate Bunting, CEO of AgeWatch USA, explained that, “It’s really important for older people to have reliable access to a guaranteed income.” More than 90% of Americans 65 and older in the vast majority of states received social security income in 2013. Yet, the average monthly social security benefit of $1,294 was likely not enough for many seniors.

Many older Americans also had non-social security income, such as withdrawals from 401Ks and savings as a supplement. In 2013, 47.9% of Americans 65 and older had such supplemental retirement incomes. Comparable figures in a majority of the worst states to grow old actually exceeded the national figure. Even with the supplemental retirement income many elderly residents had, it was frequently not enough to offset their financial burdens. At stake, according to Bunting, is the elderly’s “ability to eat nutritious foods, which impacts their health, and their ability to access other critical services.”

Click here to see the best states to grow old in

With lower, and often fixed, incomes, elderly Americans are vulnerable financially. In addition, age often brings a host of health problems, causing greater reliance on medical and accessibility services. To determine how the states fared when it comes to health care, we examined health services and outcomes. Among the worst states, for example, life expectancy was relatively low. In all of the 10 worst states, it was less than 80 years. Life expectancy at birth in 2011 did not exceed 76 years in four of the states.

A good education, which can lead to employment opportunities and higher incomes, is also an indication of well-being. More than 24% of Americans 65 and older had at least a bachelor’s degree as of 2013. In seven of the 10 worst states to grow old, however, less than 20% of elderly residents had attained at least a bachelor’s degree. In Mississippi, just 14.2% did, the lowest rate nationwide.

Safety often becomes a greater concern for aging Americans, as older people are often targeted by criminals. Residents of any age in the worst states to grow old also did not feel particularly safe. On a recent survey, less than 70% of residents in nine of the 10 states told Gallup they felt safe walking home alone at night. The violent crime rate in four of the worst states was also greater than 500 violent crimes reported per 100,000 residents, all among the higher violent crime rates in the nation.

In addition, policies often shape the quality of life of a state’s elderly population, particularly in terms of accessibility to services. Based on an OECD survey, all of the worst states for old people had worse accessibility to services than the majority of states. Bunting said that the aging population is growing, and it will become increasingly “important that [states] have the right kinds of policies in place that help support a quality old age.” Adapting to these demographic patterns through age-friendly policy, Bunting continued, is “important and worthwhile to do, no matter what age you are.”

These are the worst states to grow old in.