Apple CEO Tim Cook came out as gay in a powerful essay for Bloomberg Businessweek.
In the essay, published Thursday, Cook said that he has never denied being gay, but has not publicly discussed his sexuality until now: "So let me be clear: I’m proud to be gay, and I consider being gay among the greatest gifts God has given me."
He described how his sexuality has given him an acute social perspective.
Being gay has given me a deeper understanding of what it means to be in the minority and provided a window into the challenges that people in other minority groups deal with every day. It’s made me more empathetic, which has led to a richer life. It’s been tough and uncomfortable at times, but it has given me the confidence to be myself, to follow my own path, and to rise above adversity and bigotry. It’s also given me the skin of a rhinoceros, which comes in handy when you’re the CEO of Apple.
The revelation comes just days after Cook advocated on behalf of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights in his home state of Alabama.
"[Alabama is] still too slow on equality for the LGBT community," he said, per the Associated Press, while calling for laws protecting people based on sexual orientation and gender identity. "Under the law, citizens of Alabama can still be fired based on their sexual orientation. We can't change the past, but we can learn from it and we can create a different future."
Cook's sexuality has been a point of speculation for quite some time. Gawker reported that Cook was gay back in 2011 before he succeeded Steve Jobs.
Since then, Cook himself has seemingly dropped hints about his sexuality. Last year, during a speech about human rights at Auburn University Cook discussed the discrimination he faced as a young person, according to ValleyWag.
"Since these early days, I have seen and have experienced many types of discrimination and all of them were rooted in the fear of people that were different than the majority," he said.
However, since the 53-year-old had not publicly come out, the question still remained. In May, the New York Times ran a story titled "Where Are The Gay Chief Executives?" and had to subsequently clarify their definition of "openly gay." CNBC's Simon Hobbs made headlines for mistakenly saying Cook was "fairly open" about being gay during a live segment back in June.
Head over to Businessweek to read Cook's full essay.
The Federal Trade Commission announced on Tuesday that it is suing AT&T for slowing down the data speeds for some customers who thought they were getting an “unlimited” data plan.
After some customers exceeded a certain amount of data during a billing cycle, AT&T slowed, or "throttled," the customers' Internet speed, the agency claims.
"The company has misled millions of its mobile customers, charging them for so-called unlimited data plans that were in reality not unlimited at all," Edith Ramirez, chairwoman of the FTC, said during a call with reporters Tuesday afternoon.
The FTC said AT&T did not "adequately" inform customers who had signed up for the company's unlimited data plan that their speeds would be slowed if they used a certain amount of data, which was sometimes as little as 2 gigabytes during a billing cycle. Streaming one hour of Netflix in HD can use as much as 3 gigabytes.
The agency alleged that in some cases, AT&T slowed the data speeds of some of these customers by more than 90 percent, preventing people from being able to stream movies, load websites or use the phone's GPS function. The FTC said 3.5 million customers have been throttled 25 million times.
In a statement, AT&T's general counsel, Wayne Watts, called the FTC's complaint "baseless" and said that the company has been "completely transparent with customers since the very beginning” that it would throttle people with unlimited plans. The company began the practice in 2011.
"We informed all unlimited data-plan customers via bill notices and a national press release that resulted in nearly 2,000 news stories, well before the program was implemented," Watts wrote in a statement to The Huffington Post.
From 2007 to 2011, AT&T was the only carrier in the U.S. to offer the iPhone. The company stopped offering "unlimited" plans in June 2010. Customers who had previously purchased unlimited plans were "grandfathered" in when they signed new contracts, though the FTC said they weren't informed that they may be throttled.
The FTC said that AT&T got thousands of complaints from customers who said their speeds were slowing down. Then, AT&T went after people who canceled their service, the agency said
"When customers canceled their contracts after being throttled, AT&T charged those customers early termination fees, which typically amount to hundreds of dollars," the FTC said in a statement.
As phones and apps have become more advanced and wireless networks have gotten faster, consumers have gobbled up increasing amounts of data. The average mobile customer in the U.S. used 1.4 gigabytes per month in 2013, according to Cisco, the networking equipment company. That figure is expected to increase to 9.1 gigabytes per month by 2018.
In response to increased data consumption, wireless companies have moved to tiered data plans, which offer a fixed amount of data each month. If a person goes over their plan, they have to pay a penalty.
AT&T said that throttling has to do with managing network congestion -- there is a finite amount of spectrum, and the more people use it, the slower it gets for everyone. But Ramirez told reporters that the throttling "had no particular relation to the network's congestion at the specific time."
"It looks like AT&T was trying to push people into more expensive plans," Delara Derakhshani, policy counsel for Consumers Union, an advocacy organization, said in a statement to HuffPost. “Consumers have been complaining about throttling for years. We’re glad the feds are going after companies that are ripping people off."
"We think that millions of customers have been affected and we hope to put money back in their pockets," Ramirez told reporters.
Disclosure: The author of this post has an unlimited plan with AT&T and may be affected by any settlement that is reached.
The United States has made modest progress on gender equality since last year, according to the World Economic Forum's 2014 Global Gender Gap Report, released on Oct. 28. The U.S. ranks 20th out of 142 countries assessed, up from 23rd in 2013.
Since last year's report, public discourse on issues related to women's equality in America has been largely qualitative. National conversations have centered around work-life balance, reproductive rights, equal pay and safe work environments -- to name JUST a few.
While these concerns are not directly addressed in the global report, the results show that the U.S. has chipped away at a quantitative gender gap, with the greatest gains for women in labor force participation and political empowerment.
The Global Gender Gap Report ranks 142 countries countries based on 14 indicators of gender equality across four key areas:
1. Economic participation and opportunity, which includes the ratio of estimated female-to-male earned incomes, wage equality for similar work, and the percent of highly skilled jobs held by women. 2. Educational attainment, which measures literacy rates and the ratio of women to men at all levels of education. 3. Political empowerment, measured by the number of women holding political office beyond the local level and the number of female heads of state over the last 50 years. 4. Health and survival, which is compares female and male life expectancy and mortality rates.
The report assigns countries a score between 0 (total inequality) and 1 (total equality) for each of the 14 indicators, which are averaged to determine overall rankings.
Scores reflect the percent of its gender gap a nation has closed. Iceland is ranked first with a score of .8594, having closed approximately 86 percent of its overall gender gap. With a score of .7463, the United States has closed nearly 75 percent of its gender gap.
Ranked 20th, the United States falls just short of Canada's 19th place score of .7464. (Canada is the #1 ranked country for gender equality in educational attainment, vs. the United States' at #39.) Ecuador trails the United States in 21st place with a score of 0.7455.
Overall, the highest ranked countries are largely European nations with high degrees of educational attainment, economic participation and political empowerment in the female population. While some of the lowest ranked nations (including Saudi Arabia) have also exhibited high rates of improvement since 2006, Middle Eastern and North African countries still comprise the majority of states at the bottom of the gender equality scale.
To be sure, factors that are critical to women's quality of life fall outside the scope of the Global Gender Report. Access to reproductive services is not directly measured, and while threats to abortion access in the United States persist, it is illegal to terminate a pregnancy in Nicaragua and the Philippines -- both of which rank higher than the U.S.
The United States broke the top 20 for the first time since 2011, owing largely to an increase of women in political positions. Still, the U.S. ranks 54th in political empowerment.
Ranking fourth on the report's "Economic Participation and Opportunity Sub-index," the United States leads other nations in terms of female labor force participation and percentage of women in technical and professional jobs.
Despite modest gains in work force participation, the wage gap persists.
Unfortunately, equal pay for equal work still eludes many U.S. women, which may contribute to the U.S.' relatively poor showing in the overall rankings. Given that the United States has largely eliminated a gender gap in educational attainment -- by about 99.8 percent in 2014 -- pay equality has clearly not kept pace with progress in other areas. Women earn 57 percent of bachelor's degrees, 60 percent of master's degrees and 52 percent of doctorate degrees awarded in the U.S. Yet with a score of .66, the United States places ranks 65th in terms of "wage equality for similar work."
The top three best countries for gender equality -- Iceland, Finland and Norway -- fall in the ranks when assessed on wage equality alone. (The 1st ranked country is Burundi.) Still, the disparity between women's education attainment and workplace participation, and the financial rewards this should afford them, appears particularly pronounced in the United States.
Indeed, less than a week before the release of the report, the CEO of the Fortune 500 company Microsoft implored female employees to "trust the system" rather than ask for a raise.
According to additional data from the World Economic Forum, countries with greatest success in closing the gender gap are also among the most economically competitive. Here's hoping the United States keeps this in mind and breaks into the teens next year.
Here are 19 countries that have more overall gender equality than the United States:
1
1. Iceland
Flickr: Andos_pics
2014 score: 0.8594
In 2013, Iceland ranked #1 with a score of 0.8731.
2
2. Finland
Flickr: purplespace
2014 score: 0.8453
In 2013, Finland ranked #2 with a score of 0.8421.
3
3. Norway
Flickr: Moyan_Brenn
2014 score: 0.8374
In 2013, Norway ranked #3 with a score of 0.8417.
4
4. Sweden
Flickr: Mr Phil Price
2014 score: 0.8165
In 2013, Sweden ranked #4 with a score of 0.8129.
5
5. Denmark
Flickr: JamesZ_Flickr
2014 score: 0.8025
In 2013, Denmark ranked #8 with a score of 0.7779.
6
6. Nicaragua
Flickr: marklarson
2014 score: 0.7894
In 2013, Nicaragua ranked #10 with a score of 0.7714.
7
7. Rwanda
Rob Kroenert via Getty Images
2014 score: 0.7854
This is the first year Rwanda has been included in the Global Gender Gap Index.
8
8. Ireland
Flickr: Mr G's Travels
2014 score: 0.7850
In 2013, Ireland ranked #6 with a score of 0.7823
9
9. Philippines
Flickr: alxndrtgt
2014 score: 0.7814
In 2013, the Philippines ranked #5 with a score of 0.7832.
10
10. Belgium
Flickr: Tom Holbrook
2014 score: 0.7809
In 2013, Belgium ranked #11 with a score of 0.7684.
11
11. Switzerland
Flickr: Boobook48
2014 score: 0.7798
In 2013, Switzerland ranked #9 with a score of 0.7736.
12
12. Germany
Flickr: Zanthia
2014 score: 0.7780
In 2013, Germany ranked #14 with a score of 0.7583.
13
13. New Zealand
Flickr
2014 score: 0.7772
In 2013, New Zealand ranked #7 with a score of 0.7799.
14
14. The Netherlands
Flickr: Bastiaan_65
2014 score: 0.7730
In 2013, the Netherlands ranked #13 with a score of 0.7608.
15
15. Latvia
Flickr: auws
2013 score: 0.7691
In 2013, Latvia ranked #12 with a score of 0.7610.
16
16. France
www.saint-tropez-photo.com via Getty Images
2014 score: 0.7588
In 2013, France ranked #45 with a score of .709.
17
17. Burundi
Flickr: Peter Eichenauer
2014 score: 0.7565
In 2013, Burundi ranked #22 with a score of 0.7397.
18
18. South Africa
Flickr: YoTuT
2014 score: 0.7527
In 2013, South Africa ranked #17 with a score of 0.7510.
19
19. Canada
Flickr: SparkyLeigh
2014 score: 0.7464
In 2013, Canada ranked #20 with a score of 0.7425.
Oct 29 (Reuters) - Hedge funds and other rapid-fire investors get access to market-moving documents before other users of the Securities and Exchange Commission's system for distributing company filings, giving them a possible edge on the rest of the market, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing two independent studies.
The two sets of researchers have been examining when paying subscribers receive SEC filings compared with when they become available on the agency's website, the newspaper reported. (http://on.wsj.com/135V9mM)
They found a wide variation in the lag time, from no delay to one lasting more than a minute. The ability to get the information before it is on the SEC website can give traders extra seconds to act on the news, WSJ said.
The studies focus on the SEC's Electronic Data Gathering, Analysis and Retrieval system, or Edgar, which is used to disseminate earnings reports and other documents filed to the regulator. (http://on.wsj.com/1zHpmae)
Representatives for the SEC were not immediately available to comment on the report outside regular U.S. business hours.
However, an SEC spokeswoman told the Journal that the agency has reviewed the working paper and was conducting a thorough assessment of the dissemination process to make necessary systems modifications.
A book by best-selling author Michael Lewis that asserted equities markets are rigged by high-frequency traders - who can dip in and out of markets in fractions of a second - triggered renewed regulatory scrutiny earlier this year.
The SEC for the past few years has been investigating high-speed traders and others for potential concerns about manipulation or other practices that may give some market players an unfair advantage. (Reporting by Supriya Kurane in Bangalore; Editing by Gopakumar Warrier)
Gas prices always go down in the fall, but usually not this much.
At 56 percent of the nation’s gas stations, the price of gas is now under $3 per gallon, according to Michael Green, a spokesman for AAA, an auto club federation. AAA collects information on gas prices from consumers who use between 80,000 - 100,000 different U.S. gas stations every day, Green said.
This is a huge change from a year ago, Green said, when only 11 percent of stations were selling unleaded fuel for less than $3. Gas hasn't been this cheap in nearly four years, AAA said in a statement on Monday.
Gas prices always fall in the autumn, as colder temperatures mean fewer people go on road and boat trips, said Patrick DeHaan, a senior petroleum analyst at GasBuddy, a website that lets people share information about gas prices.
Yet today's prices are way down even when compared with previous seasonal lows, as this graphic shows:
(Chart courtesy of AAA)
The low cost of gas could be a boon for the U.S. economy: spending less to fill up their tanks means Americans have more disposable income going into the holiday season. U.S. households save $120 for every 10 cent drop in the price of gas, the New York Times reported earlier this month, citing GasBuddy's Tom Kloza.
There are a few reasons why gas is cheaper this fall than in previous years. For one thing, crude-oil prices have tumbled recently as investors fear that a global economic slowdown could weaken demand.
When the price of oil falls, the price of gasoline falls, too. Experts say the price of oil makes up about two-thirds of the price of gas. Other factors, such as taxes and refining and distribution costs, also play a role in determining the cost of a gallon of gas.
In many places in America, gas is even cheaper than $3 a gallon:
(U.S. gas price heat map courtesy of GasBuddy)
Oil prices are also falling because major OPEC oil producers Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Iran chose to slash prices earlier this fall, DeHaan told The Huffington Post.
Analysts have speculated that Saudi Arabia, which produces more oil than any other OPEC member, wants to increase its share of the market.
“If there’s a landlord who sells all his houses for greatly under value, it causes the whole market to tank,” DeHaan said. “That’s what’s happening with oil. The Saudis are basically flooding the market with cheaper oil, and that’s putting a huge amount of downward pressure on oil prices.”
One more reason gas is so cheap, according to DeHaan: The U.S. is sucking more and more oil out of the ground than at any time since the 1980s. “So we have all these sources of new crude oil in the U.S., and that’s adding to the global oil supply, which naturally pushes prices down,” he said.
Steve Ballmer could score a $1 billion tax break from his purchase of the Los Angeles Clippers, according to an analysis by the Financial Times.
The former Microsoft CEO shelled out $2 billion to buy the NBA franchise in May, following the ouster of owner Donald Sterling. But Ballmer can use a little-known tax credit called "goodwill" to claim roughly $1 billion over the next 15 years, according to FT.
Ballmer -- and the markets at large -- are bullish on sports franchises as the value of media rights for college and professional sports teams skyrocket. Ballmer has reason to believe the Clippers are a wise investment, even though he paid four times more than anyone ever has for an NBA team.
"Do I think my investment in the Clippers will be as good as an investment, total return, as an S&P investment fund? I believe it will be, and I believe it has less downside," Ballmer told Charlie Rose last week. "If you compare it to tech stocks, it's got real earnings."
The FT explains that "goodwill" is "commonly used by tax specialists to structure deals for sports teams." Using a conservative estimate, the outlet finds that Ballmer could be looking at $1 billion in tax credits.
While Ballmer may get a break on his purchase, critics have called out other professional sports leagues for their use of tax breaks to build costly stadiums with public money. Leagues like the NFL and NHL are registered as nonprofit, tax-exempt organizations, and they receive millions in public subsidies.
The NBA, in contrast, is not tax-exempt, but the league did just finalize a record-breaking TV deal with Walt Disney and Time Warner worth $24 billion. And some leading players are reportedly pushing to remove maximum salary contracts to better reflect their value to the franchises.
"I don't see how the owners can say they're losing money now," Kevin Durrant, the league's MVP, told reporters.
But judging by Ballmer's recent Clippers' pep rally, he's excited about a lot more than just a good tax deal:
Unlike dozens of other retailers who kick off their Black Friday sales on Thanksgiving Day, Costco will remain closed on the holiday, the retailer confirmed to The Huffington Post Friday.
"Since our inception 30-plus years ago, we have always been closed on Thanksgiving," Paul Latham, a spokesman for Costco, told HuffPost. "It will be the same this year."
Costco is one of a handful of large retail stores that have refused to take part in what some have called a "War on Thanksgiving" being waged by companies looking to squeeze the most profit out of the holiday shopping season. In recent years, Walmart, Target, Macy's and dozens of other large chains have kicked off their Black Friday sales on Thanksgiving Day, meaning millions of low-wage workers can't spend the holiday with their families.
Costco has cultivated a reputation for treating its workers better than its competitors do. The company pays a much higher starting salary than other retailers and offers health benefits to many part-time workers. Its tradition of staying closed on Thanksgiving is in that same spirit, according to the company.
"Our employees work especially hard during the holiday season, and we simply believe that they deserve the opportunity to spend Thanksgiving with their families," Latham told HuffPost last year.
Sam's Club, the Walmart-owned bulk goods retailer, will also be closed on Thanksgiving day, according to Sarah McKinney, a company spokeswoman. Most Walmart stores will be open all day on the holiday, though it hasn't announced when its Black Friday sales will start.
Dillard’s, Burlington, REI, and American Girl will remain closed on Thanksgiving, according to ThinkProgress.
Though limited-time sales on Thanksgiving Day bring shoppers out in droves, the hype is often marred by violence. And some shoppers have reported being completely turned off by the whole thing.
Still, retailers keep encroaching more and more on Thanksgiving Day. This year, Macy's will be opening its doors to Black Friday shoppers earlier than ever -- 6 p.m. on Thanksgiving Day.
Hat tip: ThinkProgress
This post has been updated to include a statement from Walmart.
Each year as the temperature dips, women across the country turn to their closets and dig their Ugg boots out of hibernation. Others head to stores to score a pair of the squat sheepskin booties in preparation for a chilly winter.
This year the Ugg frenzy may be even bigger than usual. Sales at the Ugg brand rose nearly 24 percent last quarter to $417 million, compared to $337 million for the same period the year prior, parent company Deckers reported Thursday. The spike was due to higher wholesale sales, online sales and new retail store openings worldwide.
And now, Ugg is about to enter its prime season.
"With temperatures turning cold in recent weeks, sell-through of weather boots and classics have gained pace across the majority of our markets," Deckers chief executive Angel Martinez said on a conference call with analysts on Thursday.
Ugg's upcoming product lines are "as compelling as we have ever seen for the company," Sam Poser, an analyst at Sterne Agee, wrote in a note to clients on Friday. He added that Ugg's reaping the benefits of favorable fashion trends, as shoppers search the aisles for comfy clothes like stretchy leggings and oversized sweaters.
However Ugg's holidays turn out, "Ugg Season" will remain. The annual donning of the Uggs has even made its way into memes, like "Girls be like."
Meanwhile, Ugg's plan to diversify its offerings seems to be working. Ugg is now selling more items that aren't dependent on cold weather. It launched a home goods line in October, offering an assortment of sheepskin area rugs, knit pillows and floor poufs. There's also Ugg's loungewear line, a casual clothing label. On the call, Martinez said that Ugg's home and loungewear businesses are still "small but burgeoning" and early results have been "very strong." Ugg will be pushing both lines hard through the holidays.
In an attempt to tell customers Ugg sells more than just shearling boots, the brand launched an advertising campaign in August with the tagline "THIS IS UGG," featuring sketch artist Langley Fox Hemingway and New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady.
But until those lines get bigger, Ugg remains a slave to the elements. According to a report from Nomura Securities, Deckers is the best example of a company that's exposed to weather risk, something it could never hope to control. So far, the climate has treated Deckers, which also owns footwear brands Teva and Sanuk, quite well this year.
"Despite the mild weather conditions over the last two winters, this year was more seasonably cool and snowy in many parts of the U.S., which had a substantially large impact on companies with a great deal of cold weather product including Deckers," Nomura analyst Bob Drbul wrote in the report.
Each year as the temperature dips, women across the country turn to their closets and dig their Ugg boots out of hibernation. Others head to stores to score a pair of the squat sheepskin booties in preparation for a chilly winter.
This year the Ugg frenzy may be even bigger than usual. Sales at the Ugg brand rose nearly 24 percent last quarter to $417 million, compared to $337 million for the same period the year prior, parent company Deckers reported Thursday. The spike was due to higher wholesale sales, online sales and new retail store openings worldwide.
And now, Ugg is about to enter its prime season.
"With temperatures turning cold in recent weeks, sell-through of weather boots and classics have gained pace across the majority of our markets," Deckers chief executive Angel Martinez said on a conference call with analysts on Thursday.
Ugg's upcoming product lines are "as compelling as we have ever seen for the company," Sam Poser, an analyst at Sterne Agee, wrote in a note to clients on Friday. He added that Ugg's reaping the benefits of favorable fashion trends, as shoppers search the aisles for comfy clothes like stretchy leggings and oversized sweaters.
However Ugg's holidays turn out, "Ugg Season" will remain. The annual donning of the Uggs has even made its way into memes, like "Girls be like."
Meanwhile, Ugg's plan to diversify its offerings seems to be working. Ugg is now selling more items that aren't dependent on cold weather. It launched a home goods line in October, offering an assortment of sheepskin area rugs, knit pillows and floor poufs. There's also Ugg's loungewear line, a casual clothing label. On the call, Martinez said that Ugg's home and loungewear businesses are still "small but burgeoning" and early results have been "very strong." Ugg will be pushing both lines hard through the holidays.
In an attempt to tell customers Ugg sells more than just shearling boots, the brand launched an advertising campaign in August with the tagline "THIS IS UGG," featuring sketch artist Langley Fox Hemingway and New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady.
But until those lines get bigger, Ugg remains a slave to the elements. According to a report from Nomura Securities, Deckers is the best example of a company that's exposed to weather risk, something it could never hope to control. So far, the climate has treated Deckers, which also owns footwear brands Teva and Sanuk, quite well this year.
"Despite the mild weather conditions over the last two winters, this year was more seasonably cool and snowy in many parts of the U.S., which had a substantially large impact on companies with a great deal of cold weather product including Deckers," Nomura analyst Bob Drbul wrote in the report.
The bowling alley used by a New York man the night before he was diagnosed with Ebola will reopen Friday, according to the New York Times.
Williamsburg bowling alley The Gutter, shut down on Thursday as a "precautionary measure" while it worked with the New York Health Department to have the bar cleaned and sanitized, it said on its Facebook page.
Post by The Gutter.
Although bowling alleys where people rent shoes and share balls are notorious incubators of germs, it's extremely unlikely that you can get Ebola from a bowling ball. "There is no evidence that it has been passed, as colds or flu sometimes are, by touching surfaces that someone else touched after sneezing into their hand," says a separate article in The New York Times.
Still, closing its business down for cleaning was probably a smart move for the bowling alley. "They’re losing some money obviously by being closed, but what they gain in peace of mind and goodwill I think is worth a lot to them," said Lynda Maddox, a marketing and advertising professor at George Washington University. Maddox noted that this is the first time Americans are dealing with ebola on their soil and there's currently a lot of skepticism with regards to how the CDC is handling the virus. A little extra care is going to be well-perceived.
Craig Spencer, the 33-year-old doctor who contracted New York's first case of Ebola, told authorities that he had gone bowling at The Gutter on Wednesday night before taking an Uber back to his apartment in Manhattan.
Uber said on Thursday that the car and driver involved were not a risk for ebola.
The following morning, Spencer felt feverish and was diagnosed at Bellevue Hospital.
The Gutter said it had been told by doctors advising the New York Health Department that there was no risk to its staff or to any customers. The New York Health Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Huffington Post.
While there have been some reports saying Spencer also "caught some music" at The Brooklyn Bowl, a larger bowling and concert venue nearby, Brooklyn Bowl said on its Twitter page that Spencer did not go there.
The musician Questlove, who plays a regular show at Brooklyn Bowl on Thursday nights, said Thursday that the venue was safe to hang out at:
Ladies & Gents @brooklynbowl is safe (*said* bowling alley in WB is called "The Gutter") out bowling alley is open and clean #BowlTrain
As a woman gets heavier, her chances of working in a low-paying, physically taxing job grow, according to a new study from Jennifer Shinall, a law professor at Vanderbilt University. But weight doesn’t have nearly as much bearing on the type of job a man lands.
Though obese men are more likely than men of average weight to work in lower-paying, physical jobs, the effect isn't nearly as strong as it is for women. As a result, obese women make $7 less than their average-weight counterparts, while obese men make just $2 less.
“It absolutely suggests that weight is much more of a consideration in the labor market for women than it is for men,” Shinall told The Huffington Post in an interview.
Shinall’s findings add to the growing body of evidence that physical attributes play a depressingly large role in the lives of working women, no matter how they look. Very skinny women tend to get paid more. Hiring committees penalize attractive women by not calling them for interviews.
Such factors typically add to the broader discrimination women already face at work. Research shows women earn less than men in the same roles and are also more likely to work in low-paying fields.
Many female-dominated, low-wage jobs, such as home health care and child care, are where obese and morbidly obese women are most likely to end up, Shinall’s study found.
"Those are the only jobs that are available for the heaviest women in the labor market," she said.
For her study, Shinall analyzed occupation, health and population data for 10,007 women and 8,928 men. She found that, the heavier women get, the more likely they'll end up working in jobs that require more physical activity.
The opposite is true for women seeking jobs in fields that involve a lot of personal interaction, such as sales. Women become less likely to land those roles the more overweight they are. Morbidly obese women who do get jobs in such fields are paid about 5 percent less, on average, than other women, even controlling for factors like education, the study found.
For men, on the other hand, being heavier can actually boost earnings in some jobs. Overweight men working in more physical jobs make about 4 percent more, on average, than their average-weight colleagues, according to the study.
Shinall said she suspects that one of the main reasons obese and morbidly obese women tend to cluster in low-paying, strenuous jobs is because of discrimination in hiring for white-collar roles. Companies may not want an overweight woman representing them to customers, she said, and it's also possible that the person doing the hiring may not want to work with an obese woman.
Ben & Jerry's is refusing to rename its "Hazed & Confused" flavor.
The ice cream company said last month that it would consider changing the moniker after Lianne and Brian Kowiak of Tampa, Florida -- whose son, Harrison, was killed in 2008 while pledging a fraternity -- complained that the name made light of the dangerous college tradition of hazing.
But after reviewing its marketing, the Unilever-owned ice cream brand said it found nothing that "condoned hazing, supported hazing, or even inferred hazing," according to a report on Bloomberg.
"It didn't make sense for us to change the name," Sean Greenwood, a Ben & Jerry's spokesman, told Bloomberg. "We named it because it's a pop culture reference."
A Ben & Jerry's spokesman confirmed this statement in an email sent to The Huffington Post Monday morning.
The chocolate and hazelnut flavor's moniker alludes to a hit song by Led Zeppelin and a 1993 cult-classic film by Richard Linklater.
Ben & Jerry's tongue-in-cheek ice cream names have stirred controversy before. In 2012, the company apologized for being racially offensive over "Taste The Lin-Sanity" -- a limited-release flavor named for basketball star Jeremy Lin that contained lychee honey and chunks of fortune cookie. Lin, the son of Taiwanese immigrants, was born in California. Before that, the company's "Saturday Night Live"-inspired "Schweddy Balls" was protested by groups who said it was inappropriate for children.
Based on recently released Census Bureau data, women made up almost half of the workforce last year. Yet, even working full-time and year-round, they were paid only 79 cents for every dollar men made. The wage gap varies considerably between states. Women receive 86 cents for every dollar men make in New York, for example, while in Louisiana, women are paid just 66% of what men earn.
Income inequality is only one of the challenges women face. Across the nation, women are less likely to serve in leadership roles both in the private and public sectors. Health outcomes among female populations also vary considerably between states. Based on 24/7 Wall St.’s analysis, Mississippi is the worst state for women in the nation.
Click here to see the 10 worst states for women
In all of the worst rated states, women were less likely than their male peers to hold private sector management positions. In two of the worst states — South Dakota and Utah — women held fewer than one in three management jobs. According to Ariane Hegewisch, study director at the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, women are discriminated not just in base pay, but also lack career opportunities available to men. “A lot of [the wage gap] is also promotions, recruitments, and networking,” Hegewisch said. Perceptions of performance can also be affected by gender, meaning “the more the pay is related to performance and bonuses, the bigger the wage gap.”
Women in the worst rated states were also less likely to have leadership roles in government compared to women in the rest of the country. Only six of the 10 states had any female representation in Congress. Many of these states were among the nation’s worst for female representation in their own state legislatures as well. State Senates usually have between 30 and 50 Senators. Of the 10 states on this list, however, only Kansas had more than 10 female senators.
While the United States is among the most developed countries in the world, it was one of just a handful of nations where maternal mortality actually rose over the last decade, according to a recent study published in The Lancet, a respected medical journal. Pregnancy related mortality rates vary considerably between states.
To determine the worst states for women, 24/7 Wall St. developed on a methodology based on the Center for American Progress’ 2013 report, “The State of Women in America.”
We divided a range of variables into three major categories: economy, leadership, and health. Data in the economy category came from the U.S. Census Bureau and included male and female median earnings, the percent of children enrolled in state pre-kindergarten, state spending per child enrolled in pre-kindergarten, and education attainment rates. The leadership category included data on the percent of women in management occupations from the Census. It also includes the share of state and federal legislators who are women, and states that currently have female governors. The health section incorporated Census data on the percent of women who were uninsured as well as life expectancy. Infant and maternal mortality rates came from the Kaiser Family Foundation. Data on the expansion of Medicaid, as policies towards maternity leave, sick days, and time off from work came from the National Partnership for Women and Families.
State rankings on each of these measures were averaged to determine a score for each category. Possible scores ranged from 1 (best) to 50 (worst). The three category scores were averaged to create an indexed value that furnished our final ranking.
Go to 24/7 Wall St. to see the 10 worst states for women.
