Women In Business Q&A: Miriam Illions, Co-founder & CMO, Hometalk

Miriam Illions

Miriam Illions is the Co-founder and CMO of Hometalk. Since its launch in 2011, Miriam has grown the site from the ground up to 21 million monthly visits, while cultivating Hometalk's community, positioning it among the highest engaged home and garden social channels on the web.

How has your life experience made you the leader you are today?
I grew up in a religious environment at home and in school that required a disciplined following of established codes of conduct and behavior. That created in me a foundation of doing "the right thing." As my self-awareness and dedication to leadership grew, I experienced a personal transformation and found a softer and more empowering approach with myself and others. I utilize the discipline I grew up with to apply this approach both personally and professionally to help access true potential and to create an environment that allows people to flexibly grow and give their best.

How has your previous employment experience aided your tenure at Hometalk?
One particular experience, where I traveled from Israel to Atlanta alone and opened a fully operational new office in six weeks, which seemed almost impossible, taught me how to break out of my comfort zone and not allow my perceived limitations to dictate what I can and cannot do. As a startup, every milestone brings with it a new challenge, but that prior experience helped me have confidence in my own capabilities, even when I don't always see an immediate solution or when something seems impossible.

What have the highlights and challenges been during your tenure at Hometalk?
The early days at Hometalk were challenging, as we struggled to crack the formula of why and how people would be compelled to share DIY projects and answer questions on Hometalk. A major highlight was hitting one hundred thousand tutorials on the site earlier this year (we sure cracked the code!) and a more recent milestone of one billion tutorial views! Having a positive influence and impact on the lives of millions of people on a monthly basis is the most incredible thing in the world. It's especially pronounced when we receive emails from people letting us know Hometalk enabled them to accomplish something they always wanted to do in their home, or when a Hometalker posts an amazing DIY project that was inspired by another Hometalker.

What advice can you offer to women who want a career in your industry?
Believe in yourself and don't let fear hold you back. One of my favorite sayings is feel the fear and do it anyway.

What is the most important lesson you've learned in your career to date?
I've learned to take ownership over my circumstances to affect change. It's very easy to blame external factors when something isn't "working," but doing so hinders positive change and growth.

How do you maintain a work/life balance?
I haven't fully cracked that code yet, but prioritizing non-work activities has helped me achieve a better balance. I make a conscious effort to unplug and be fully present when I'm not working, and try not to get preoccupied with work worries. It's refreshing and empowering, and I return to work feeling sharper and more energized.

What do you think is the biggest issue for women in the workplace?
I feel very fortunate to work in a company where I don't experience issues as a woman in the workplace. In speaking with others with experiences unlike my own, I realize how fortunate I am and find it appalling that any woman shouldn't be recognized as an equal in all regards for her ideas, skills, and contributions to the organization she works for.

How has mentorship made a difference in your professional and personal life?
I would not be where I am today without the support and guidance of key people in my life throughout my journey. I read Energy Leadership by Bruce D. Schneider a couple of years ago, which focuses on transforming your workplace and life from the core. I was lucky to find an amazing Energy Leadership coach and have been able to experience the transformation firsthand.

Which other female leaders do you admire and why?
I admire female leaders with strong inner confidence who use their strengths to help and empower others. My Aunt, Wendy Silverstein, was the Executive Vice President and Co-Head of Acquisitions and Capital Markets at Vornado Realty Trust. She lost her husband at a young age and rose to become the top female executive at Vornado, while raising two children. I am proud to be her niece and she has influenced my own career path in many positive ways. Louise Hay is also a role model to me for the way she helps so many people tap into their creative powers and true potential for personal growth and self-healing.

What do you want Hometalk to accomplish in the next year?
As the world's largest DIY platform and community, Hometalk is changing the way people improve their homes, by empowering and inspiring them to DIY. As we continue our explosive growth, and with the Hometalk community as the driving force, we're excited to continue building out our platform to provide more value to Hometalkers and become the end to end destination for all their DIY needs.

What Would You Pay For An Empty Room?

By Kyle Chayka

As a kid, Harold and the Purple Crayon was one of my favorite books. With the utensil of the title, Harold could draw anything in the air and it would come to life: A tree, a skyscraper, even his own bedroom all popped into being from simple outlines. As a New Yorker for most of the past decade, I often think about how nice it would be. Whenever you need a seat, a bathroom, or an extra closet, you just draw it, and it appears.

On a recent afternoon I was walking down the Bowery on Manhattan’s Lower East Side feeling like I could use a break and a phone charge. I stopped at a building I had never been in before, got a door code from an app on my phone, took the elevator up to the fifth floor, and walked into an austerely luxurious room with a floor-to-ceiling view of the street that would be mine alone for the next hour and a half. I plugged in my phone, logged onto the Wi-Fi, and put my feet up on the marble coffee table.

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This pop-up work lounge appeared courtesy of Breather, a start-up that has raised $25 million in funding to provide on-demand multi-purpose rooms in cities. The company has grown to over 100 spaces in New York alone, launching in Downtown Brooklyn last week. It could be described as Uber for living rooms, or an hourly version of WeWork. But what Breather really does is turn physical space into a frictionless app with the same magic as Harold’s crayon. It doesn’t exist until you want it, and then when you leave, you never have to think about it again.

Breather appears almost utopian — occupy only what space you need, and then let someone else have it. Yet it left me with a certain anxiety. Could the future of urban space really be so many empty rooms, taking on an hourly purpose and then transitioning smoothly to the next without a trace of history?

Breather appears almost utopian — occupy only what space you need, and then let someone else have it.

CEO Julien Smith and CCO Caterina Rizzi founded Breather in Montreal in 2014. Smith was a writer who collaborated on books with the likes of business guru Seth Godin, and while traveling he found himself struggling to find coffee shops to work in. After some literal back-of-napkin math, he found that it wouldn’t take selling too many hourly rentals to outweigh the costs of a lease.

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Like WeWork (offices), Common (apartments), and Managed by Q (cleaning), Breather isn’t so much a technology company as a tech gloss on a very old, very conservative business: the temporary meeting-room industry. Incumbents like Regus book days in advance and are designed for big clients who buy add-ons like breakfast catering. “This doesn’t make sense when I just want to charge my phone for 30 minutes,” Smith says.

Smith calls what his company does “time-slicing space.” “We’re slicing multiple use cases into the same space, making space more democratic in the city,” he says. The company identifies a potential spot in places like London, Los Angeles, San Francisco, or Toronto, and takes on a lease (the Bowery space I used just started a five-year lease). Breather’s team of designers redecorates, installing furniture from hip design outlets like Blu Dot, Muuto, and Gus Modern, plus books: TED Talks, architecture monographs. Then it goes live on the app, with prices ranging from $10 an hour for a desk in a shared workspace “Library” to $150 an hour for a 24-person room.

Smoking and vaping aren’t allowed, nor is alcohol. There are no security cameras, so there’s nothing to prevent, ahem, romantic rendezvous. Love may find a way, but the skeletal furniture isn’t going to make it any easier, and cleaners arrive promptly, risking an encounter. The app tracks rentals, so there’s little chance of anonymity, and fees will be levied for any “incidents,” as the FAQ warns.

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One of the selling points is sameness: no matter where you are, a Breather room will look like Breather, with similar design, amenities, and branding. “You can use it in Hong Kong, you can use it in London, you can use it in New York; you’ll always feel this is a safe space,” Smith says. “There’s no risk to turning the knob.” If you’re used to the aesthetics of start-up offices and characterless renovated condos, you’re going to feel perfectly at home. The Wi-Fi will always be good and you won’t have to sit next to any strangers. It’s yours for an hour.

It’s an appealing prospect. The room I occupied was comfortable, though not quite a hotel level of plush, more like a conference room with nice couches. Glitches also showed through: Lamp mountings wiggled, and garbage cans and storage lockers stuck out in awkward spots. The well-kept restroom in the hallway was a bonus.

Itinerant entrepreneurs, therapists, and even churches use Breathers for meetings. Companies like Red Bull, Uber, and Apple have corporate accounts, allowing them to avoid taking on larger leases themselves. The vision of the company is you can have the space without any long-term commitment or responsibility. “From a macro perspective, people don’t want to own things. That will be truer and truer as time goes on, as technology allows you to have access to stuff when you want it,” Smith says.

Breather is part of the coming on-demand world. You will soon be paying for quick “slices” of everything from cars and apartments to office space and even cafe seating. Smith describes this condition as “more democratic.” While it’s true that getting an Uber requires less money upfront than buying a car, and a Breather less than renting office space, a more efficient distribution of resources is not necessarily any more equitable. Breather creates a marketplace that excludes as many as it serves.

The Breather building on Bowery is down the street from the future site of a new 180-room Ace Hotel, which used to be the Salvation Army Chinatown Shelter. The shelter provided temporary space of a far different kind than the start-up, for people who could never afford to pay an app for the sake of an hour’s office space or a quick nap on a designer couch. Next door, lines still form for meals at the Bowery Mission, no thanks to Seamless.

“On demand” does not mean just anyone can demand it. By relentlessly turning any commodity into a short-term rentable product, these services downplay the role that stable public resources play in our lives. We use Uber instead of the subway, Breather instead of parks. And the less people use public resources, the faster they’ll disappear.

As is the case with so many start-ups that continue to promote visions of democracy, how much of the future you have access to depends on how much you can pay for it.

At the end of my allotted time (a $120 value that I could never afford), I didn’t want to leave the Breather room. I walked out onto the city street feeling a little calmer and more productive. A similar respite can be found in a coffee shop for $3 or a bar for $7. The fee isn’t even hourly, but it might not come with designer furniture or a phone charger, and you won’t be alone. As is the case with so many start-ups that continue to promote visions of democracy, how much of the future you have access to depends on how much you can pay for it.

This story originally appeared on TheAtlantic.com.

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A Refund For Unused Life Insurance Is Possible, But It's Not Cheap

By Elizabeth Renter

With most term life insurance policies, you pay for coverage for a set period. If you don't die within the term of the policy, it ends, there's no payout, and your money is gone.

There is an exception, however -- although it's a costly one. Return-of-premium life insurance provides a refund if you don't die within the term.

The upside of return-of-premium policies

Think of return-of-premium term life insurance as a way to make sure there's a payout, no matter what happens. You make payments every month in the form of premiums. If you die, your beneficiaries are entitled to the face amount of the policy, say $100,000. If you don't die, and your policy term ends, you're entitled to the premiums you paid.

The downsides of return-of-premium policies

The biggest drawback of a return-of-premium policy is the cost. You can expect to pay from 30% more to three times as much for a return-of-premium policy than a regular term policy, according to Trusted Choice, an organization of independent insurance agents.

A number of factors go into pricing an insurance policy, including your health and age. The more features, or riders, you add, the more expensive it gets. And the return-of-premium rider is the most expensive of all, according to Life Happens, an insurance education organization.

These policies accounted for just 2% of all term policies sold in the first half of 2016, according to LIMRA, an industry research group, and an even smaller percentage of the overall insurance market. Cost is one reason for that.

Not all insurance companies offer return-of-premium policies, and you might not be able to get a smaller-value policy with this feature. As with any life insurance, it's important to read the fine print. Expect to find different rules for return-of-premium policies, depending on the insurer. Also, keep in mind that whether you buy regular term or return-of-premium life insurance, if you cancel the policy, you won't receive any money.

When to consider a return-of-premium policy

• You're likely to outlive the policy. If you're healthy and young, there's a good chance you'll live longer than a 20- or 30-year term and have a chance to cash in on a return-of-premium policy.
• You wouldn't otherwise invest or save the extra money. Because your refund won't include any interest, it may be better to buy a traditional term policy and put the difference into a 401(k) at work, for example. But if you aren't disciplined about saving money, a return-of-premium life insurance policy would force you to set aside money each month.
• You can afford the higher premiums throughout the term. If the higher premiums for this kind of insurance are a stretch, consider traditional term life.

While getting your money back for unused life insurance sounds like a great idea, be sure to compare the cost of this feature at multiple insurers to see which has the best deal.

Elizabeth Renter is a staff writer at NerdWallet, a personal finance website. Email: elizabeth@nerdwallet.com. Twitter: @ElizabethRenter.

Should Wells Fargo Execs Responsible For Bilking Customers Be Forced To Return Their Pay?

By Lee Reiners, Duke University

Having spent five years supervising large financial institutions on Wall Street, I am rarely surprised by the latest news of banks behaving badly.

But even the most hardened cynics, such as myself, were taken aback by the recent announcement that Wells Fargo was being fined $185 million for fraudulent sales practices that included opening over two million fake deposit and credit card accounts without informing its customers.

Adding to my shock was the revelation that the firm fired 5,300 employees over the course of five years for engaging in this behavior, clearly evidence that this was more than just a few bad apples.

The financial crisis and its aftermath have taught us that it is unlikely any of Wells Fargo's senior executives will face criminal charges. The reasons for this are numerous, but essentially prosecutors have a hard time identifying criminal intent within the upper ranks of bank management.

At the very least, don't Wells Fargo's customers have a reasonable expectation that executives who profited off their misfortune be required to return some of their ill-gotten gains?

The good news is that in April, U.S. regulators released a proposed rule requiring financial institutions to do just that. Unfortunately for fraud victims seeking a pound of flesh from Wells Fargo executives, the rule is not scheduled to be finalized until November, although the bank claims to be in adherence with the proposal's main provisions.

Nonetheless, I thought it would be interesting to examine the text of the proposed incentive-based compensation rule through the lens of the Wells Fargo situation to try and understand its potential implications.

Cultural failure

On the surface Wells Fargo's fraud appears to be an all-too-familiar case of cultural failure within a big financial institution. Apparently CEO John Stumpf disagrees.

In a Wall Street Journal interview shortly after the story broke, Stumpf refused to admit any institutional failure at the bank, claiming the behavior of the terminated employees "in no way reflects our culture nor reflects the great work the other vast majority of the people do."

If Stumpf thinks that over 5,000 unethical people just so happened to find their way to Wells Fargo, he may want to rethink the company's hiring practices.

Thus far the company has declined to say how many branch, regional or corporate managers were among those let go. The initial readout seems to be that most of those dismissed were low-level branch employees -- hardly your typical Wall Street villains.

The spotlight has now turned to senior managers, and what they did or did not know. It is shining brightest on Carrie Tolstedt, who has run Wells Fargo's community banking division since 2008 and is set to retire at the end of the year. Tolstedt appears to have profited handsomely from the sales practices in question.

A 2015 company filing indicates that part of Tolstedt's 2014 inventive compensation award of roughly $8 million stems from:

Success in furthering the company's objectives of cross-selling products from other business lines to customers, reinforcing a strong risk culture and continuing to strengthen risk management practices in our businesses.

It now appears that cross-selling products and strengthening risk management were competing objectives.

Clawing back compensation

As noted earlier, Wells Fargo says it's already in compliance with the main provisions of the proposed rule.

Specifically, in a recent filing, the bank claims:

Wells Fargo has strong recoupment and clawback policies in place designed so that incentive compensation awards to our named executives encourage the creation of long-term, sustainable performance, while at the same time discourage our executives from taking imprudent or excessive risks that would adversely impact the Company.

This means the bank can cancel, or claw back, any incentive-based executive compensation, such as deferred bonuses or stock options, from executives who engaged in misconduct or who received such compensation based upon materially inaccurate information, "whether or not the executive was responsible."

Thus far the company has given no indication it intends to claw back any of Tolstedt's compensation, although pressure from the public and regulators may soon change this.

The proposed rule

So let's imagine the new incentive-based compensation rule was already in place and consider how it would work.

The rule's most stringent requirements apply to "level 1" financial institutions like Wells Fargo with over $250 billion in consolidated assets. Its provisions cover all employees who receive incentive-based compensation, with enhanced requirements for individuals referred to as senior executive officers and significant risk takers.

As head of a major business line, Tolstedt would qualify as a senior executive officer, and her compensation would be subject to:

• higher minimum deferral requirements -- the percentage of incentive-based compensation that cannot be cashed in until the passing of a specific amount of time (meant to encourage long-term thinking);
• forfeiture of "unvested" compensation (that is, compensation that has been awarded but has yet to be fully transferred to the employee); and
• clawbacks for so-called vested compensation that has already been transferred to the employee.

Since Tolstedt is retiring soon, the rule's minimum deferral requirements are less relevant here. But for past performance periods, unvested compensation could be forfeited and vested pay could be clawed back.

Even if one generously assumes Tolstedt was unaware of the fraud taking place, she was still likely responsible for setting the sales goals and compensation structure that incentivized so many employees to defraud customers. Indeed the firm's own filings with the SEC seem to confirm this. Using these assumptions and applying the text of the proposed rule, it is clear that nearly all of her unvested incentive-based compensation could be forfeited, and her vested compensation could also be at risk of being clawed back.

The proposed rule identifies several types of events that would require covered firms to initiate a forfeiture review. Those most relevant in the Wells Fargo situation include:

• inappropriate risk-taking, regardless of the impact on financial performance;
• material failures of risk management or control; or
• noncompliance with statutory, regulatory or supervisory standards that results in enforcement or legal action against the covered institution brought by a federal or state regulator or agency.

The proposal leaves it to the firm to determine the amount to be forfeited, provided it can support its decisions.

The standards that trigger a review of whether vested compensation should be clawed back are higher (though firms can loosen them). Such situations include a senior executive officer engaging in misconduct that results in significant financial or reputational harm to the institution, fraud or intentional misrepresentation of information used to determine the employee's incentive-based compensation.

Based on the facts as we currently know them, it would be difficult to prove Tolstedt met the rule's clawback criteria, since it's not known if she actually engaged in the fraud herself. If she had, all of the incentive-based compensation that had vested since the fraudulent activity began would be subject to being clawed back.

"Standard-bearer of our culture"

Assuming the rule was currently in effect, and Wells Fargo was adhering to it, how much would Tolstedt stand to lose?

This is almost impossible to determine given that she has worked at the firm for 27 years, we don't know how long the fraudulent activity went on for, publicly available information on her compensation is limited and the rule leaves it up to the firm to determine the dollar amount that is forfeited and/or clawed back.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's Wells Fargo ruling indicates the "relevant period" lasted from Jan. 1, 2011, to Sept. 8, 2016. Over that time frame, Tolstedt received at least $36 million in incentive-based compensation, compared with $8.5 million in base salary.

Under the terms of the proposed rule, Wells Fargo would be able to get back at least half of the $36 million. If Tolstedt was found to have known about the fraud taking place within her division, they could likely get it all back.

When the firm announced in July that Tolstedt would be retiring at the end of the year, Stumpf referred to her as a "standard-bearer of our culture" and "a champion for our customers." At the time, the firm was winding down its five-year employee purge.

Knowing what we know now, Stumpf could have easily fired her and attempted to claw back a significant amount of her pay. Instead he chose loyalty to a long-time employee over loyalty to his customers. Next time that choice may be off the table.

Lee Reiners, Director of Global Financial Markets Center, Duke University

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

America's Richest (And Poorest) States

The U.S. Census Bureau released on Wednesday new data from its 2015 nationwide population survey. According to the annual survey, the national median household income rose to $55,775 in 2015. No state reported income declines. While 39 states reported significant increases in household income, income levels in 11 states remained the same.

24/7 Wall St. ranked all 50 states according to the newly released median household income figures. Annual income levels range from $75,847 in Maryland to $40,593 in Mississippi.

High-income states typically share certain social and economic characteristics. For example, residents of states with the highest incomes also tend to have high education levels. In 17 of the states reporting higher than average household incomes, college attainment rates also exceed the national attainment rate of 30.1%.

Click here to see America's richest (and poorest) states. 

While it certainly does not make up the difference between a poverty wage and a six-figure salary, residents of low-income states enjoy cheaper goods and services than residents of high-income states. For example, goods and services cost 10.3% more in Maryland than they do across the nation. In Mississippi, meanwhile, goods and services cost 13.4% less than the national average.

Similarly, home values closely mirror household incomes. In 18 of the states with high household incomes median home values exceed the national median home value of $194,500. The opposite is the case in the nation’s poorest states.

To identify the richest and poorest states with the highest and lowest median household income, 24/7 Wall St. reviewed state data on income from the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2015 American Community Survey (ACS). Median household income for all years is adjusted for inflation. Data on health insurance coverage, employment by industry, food stamp recipiency, poverty, and income inequality also came from the 2015 ACS. Income inequality is measured by the Gini coefficient, which is scaled from 0 to 1, with 0 representing perfect equality and 1 representing total inequality. We also reviewed annual average unemployment data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) for 2014 and 2015.

These are America’s richest and poorest states.

The Poorest States:

• 5. Kentucky
• Median household income: $45,215
• Population: 4,425,092 (25th lowest)
• 2015 Unemployment rate: 5.4% (20th highest)
• Poverty rate: 18.5% (5th highest)

Like most states, Kentucky’s median household income of $45,215 a year has increased since 2014, when the median income, adjusted for inflation, was $43,014 a year. Residents are still quite poor, however. Kentucky’s poverty rate of 18.5% is the fifth highest poverty rate of all states. While no guarantee, a college degree substantially improves the odds of finding a job with a good wage. In Kentucky, just 23.3% of adults have a bachelor's degree, considerably lower than the national college attainment rate of 30.6%.

• 4. Alabama
• Median household income: $44,765
• Population: 4,858,979 (24th highest)
• 2015 Unemployment rate: 6.1% (8th highest)
• Poverty rate: 18.5% (5th highest)

Alabama is one of the poorest states in the nation with a median household income of $44,765 a year. However, this figure is notably higher than in 2014, when the median income, adjusted for inflation, was $42,895.

Like in many of the poorest states, Alabama’s poverty rate of 18.5% is among the highest of all states. Other problems the state faces are a high jobless rate and a high proportion of households relying on food stamps. Last year, 6.1% of workers were unemployed, the eighth highest jobless rate of any state. With low incomes, home values are also low in Alabama. The median home is worth $134,100, or more than $60,000 below the national benchmark of $194,500.

• 3. West Virginia
• Median household income: $42,019
• Population: 1,844,128 (13th lowest)
• 2015 Unemployment rate: 6.7% (the highest)
• Poverty rate: 17.9% (7th highest)

The typical West Virginia household earns $42,019, compared to the national median income of $55,775. Individuals struggling to find work who live on little to no income contribute to low household incomes in West Virginia. Of workers in the state, 6.7% were unemployed in 2015, the highest annual unemployment rate of any state.

West Virginia’s population is one of the largest recipients of government assistance programs such as SNAP, which each year help millions of people cope with poverty. Of households in the state, 16.0% use food stamps, the ninth highest share.

• 2. Arkansas
• Median household income: $41,995
• Population: 2,978,204 (18th lowest)
• 2015 Unemployment rate: 5.2% (24th highest)
• Poverty rate: 19.1% (4th highest)

Goods and services in Arkansas cost less on average than almost anywhere else in the country. While the relative affordability certainly helps low income households, state residents are still quite poor. The typical household earns $41,995 a year, second lowest after Mississippi. Also, 19.1% of people live in poverty, the fourth highest poverty rate of any state. Homes tend to have relatively low values to match the low incomes. At just $120,700, the typical home in Arkansas is valued at more than $70,000 below the national benchmark of $194,500.

• 1. Mississippi
• Median household income: $40,593
• Population: 2,992,333 (19th lowest)
• 2015 Unemployment rate: 6.5% (4th highest)
• Poverty rate: 22.0% (the highest)

With 2015 median household income unchanged from 2014, Mississippi is once again the poorest state in the country.The typical Mississippi household earned $40,593 last year, well below the national median income of $55,775. Mississippi also has the highest poverty rate in the country, with 22.0% of residents living below the poverty line. A relatively large share of state households are very poor. Some 11.5% earn $10,000 or less annually, the highest extreme poverty rate of any state. Similarly, there are relatively few affluent households in the state. Only 2.1% of Mississippi households earn $200,000 or more a year, the lowest such share.

The Richest States:

• 5. Connecticut
• Median household income: $71,346
• Population: 3,590,886 (22nd lowest)
• 2015 Unemployment rate: 5.6% (18th highest)
• Poverty rate: 10.5% (6th lowest)

A typical Connecticut household earns $71,346 in a year, considerably higher than the national median income of $55,775. With such high incomes, residents are better able to afford more expensive homes. Connecticut’s median home value of $270,900 is among the highest nationwide. A portion of every state's population is extremely wealthy, and the share of such high earners is especially large in Connecticut. More than one in 10 households earn $200,000 or more a year. Connecticut's relatively high education attainment rate partially accounts for the high incomes in the area. More than 38.3% of adults have at least a bachelor's degree compared to 30.6% nationally.

• 4. New Jersey
• Median household income: $72,222
• Population: 8,958,013 (11th highest)
• 2015 Unemployment rate: 5.6% (18th highest)
• Poverty rate: 10.8% (8th lowest)

While New Jersey households report some of the highest incomes in the nation, living in the state is not cheap. Goods and services cost an average of 14.5% more in New Jersey than across the country. Housing is also very expensive in the state. The median home value of $322,600 in New Jersey is considerably higher than the national median home value of $194,500.

Few states have a higher proportion of high-income households than New Jersey, where 10.9% earn $200,000 or more a year. While certainly not a guarantee for such high wages, high college attainment among adults in New Jersey partially explains the high median income. More than 37.6% of adults have at least a bachelor's degree, compared to 30.6% nationally.

• 3. Alaska
• Median household income: $73,355
• Population: 738,432 (3rd lowest)
• 2015 Unemployment rate: 6.5% (4th highest)
• Poverty rate: 10.3% (5th lowest)

A typical Alaska household earns $73,355 annually, nearly $18,000 more than the typical American household. While the price of oil has fallen considerably in recent years, Alaska still relies heavily on its traditionally high-paying oil industry. Of workers in the state, 5.6% work in the agriculture, forestry, fishing, and hunting, and mining sector -- which includes the oil industry -- the sixth highest such share of any state. State workers who are employed in the industry likely still earn relatively high wages.

Like the nation, the percentage of people without health insurance in Alaska dropped substantially in 2015. However, 14.9% of residents still do not have health insurance, the second highest rate in the nation.

• 2. Hawaii
• Median household income: $73,486
• Population: 1,431,603 (11th lowest)
• 2015 Unemployment rate: 3.6% (6th lowest)
• Poverty rate: 10.6% (7th lowest)

With its picturesque island scenery, Hawaii attracts some of the world’s wealthiest individuals. The state is also home to some of the more valuable real estate. Hawaii’s median household income trails only Maryland as the highest in the country, and the median home value of $566,900 is the highest of any state and several times greater than the national median home value of $194,500. Even the richest states do not necessarily have especially healthy job markets, but Hawaii’s unemployment rate of 3.6% in 2015 was one of the lowest in the country.

• 1. Maryland
• Median household income: $75,847
• Population: 6,006,401 (19th highest)
• 2015 Unemployment rate: 5.2% (24th highest)
• Poverty rate: 9.7% (2nd lowest)

Maryland leads the nation with a median annual household income of $75,847. The state’s poverty rate of less than 10% is also nearly the lowest of any state. The prosperity can be partially explained by high levels of education among state residents. More than 38% of adults have at least a college degree, many of whom are likely among the state’s high-income residents. The state also contains Washington D.C., home to some of the nation’s highest-paying government occupations. More than 10% of Maryland workers are employed in public administration, which represents only one portion of such government jobs.

Didn't see your state? Click here to see the full list.

Click here to see America's most segregated cities.

Click here to see the healthiest city in every state.

Click here to see America's most violent (and peaceful) states.

Gary Vaynerchuk on Self-Awareness

If any of you have been following the #AskGaryVee Book Club series on my YouTube channel, you will know that I have found an unimaginable amount of value in that book so far. Today, we are covering chapter 17 and it is all about self-awareness. It's one of those concepts that GaryVee promotes heavily across all of his content and the first quote I want to cover from this chapter really helps to set the tone for how important self-awareness is.

"If I could sell a formula made up of gratitude, empathy, and self-awareness it would be my billion-dollar coconut water idea." (pg 279)

Self-awareness is one of the most important traits to master when it comes to making your own success. When you have the ability to recognize what you suck at, you are much quicker to go all in on the areas where you excel. Being able to understand the areas of your business that you need to delegate to others, and those that you should keep close to your chest, is invaluable to building any kind of business.

What are some easy ways to become more self-aware?

This is the first question that really stuck out to me in this chapter. It's an obvious question for a book like this, right? People want to know what the quick and easy route is! They want to know how they can skip the years of development and discipline and just go straight to success. Gary could have been horribly severe with this question, but he came up with an excellent and practical answer.

"...embrace the people who tell you you're full of crap. Double down on those relationships, because they're the ones that will help you improve the most." (pg 280)

Depending on who you are, this can be easy or immensely difficult. I have been lucky enough in my own life to be surrounded by friends and family that tell me like it is. They praise me for my accomplishments and look out for me when they see me going down the wrong path. Some of you out there will need to cultivate those relationships. Don't pour you time into befriending toxic people, but find those individuals who aren't "yes men" who treat you with kid gloves no matter your failure. You want people who genuinely care about you to the extent that they will tell you the truth no matter what.

What's the most common mistake founders make when building a consumer-focused business?

Although the question was worded this way in the book, I believe Gary's response fits with any kind of business. Whether you are B2C or B2B, this wisdom applies.

"Not having the self-awareness to know they're not good enough to do it." (pg 281)

My company is entirely B2B and I have definitely experienced this. Honestly, I have experienced it more often than I would like to admit. It's a humbling experience to fully recognize that you aren't good enough to keep up with a particular area of your business and you have to hand it off to someone else. That is particularly hard because, as of writing this, I am the only employee of my business. When I suck at something, it is a matter of finding a service or some kind of automation that I trust enough to handle my shortcomings. Though this can be difficult, the faster you recognize your weaknesses, the faster you can hand it off and focus on your strengths.

What was the biggest decision in your life that made you successful today?

Here is one of those few areas where I depart heavily from Gary's perspective. It's not that I necessarily disagree with him, but I can't relate to his position.

"It was the day I made the choice to suck at school." (pg 284)

The primary reason I am disconnected from this concept is because I didn't suck at school. I was the kid that barely tried and somehow got straight A's on every report card. In college, I just sat in the front row of every lecture, halfway listened, and pulled off stellar grades every semester. Despite this lack of any kind of academic challenge, I believe I have the hustle to be successful. I don't think Gary believes you have to suck at school to be successful, however he never covered the alternative in his answer. He didn't send out encouragement to those A students and say, "Don't worry! Even if you had it easy in school, you can still have the drive, motivation, and hustle to succeed." I am disappointed that he left that out, but I am saying it now! Regardless of your grades, you can succeed!

What was the toughest thing you ever had to do for your career?

Historically, Gary's answer to this question has always been "leaving Wine Library", but for the book he decides to go a little deeper. He tells us that the toughest challenge has actually been putting himself out there; getting up front for all the world to see and for them to critique the way he does things. He has been blasted for his language, his attire, his so-called "arrogance" on-stage, and the list goes on. He says that has been the hardest part of his career so far, but then he goes on to say:

"You might not like that I don't dress up, or that I curse onstage, or that I self-promote, but if I execute, you just have to 'take it.'" (pg 286)

This is an inspiring quote for those that are trying to put themselves out there professionally. Even if you don't fit into some kind of box that society has created to define the "professional" in your field, if you are executing at a high level, they just have to suck it up. I often have to defend the fact that I go to potential client meetings in jeans. I tell those dissenters that I want people to know that what they see is what they get. I am not trying to sell myself as something I am not. My presentation is part of my brand. My ability to present them in an honest light on social media and through content is the key to my success as a professional, so why should I lie about who I am when we first meet?

Is it necessary to have an outgoing personality to be a successful entrepreneur?

This is so relevant to today's culture and I'm glad Gary decided to include it in this book. We see entrepreneurs on Shark Tank, we see the content that Gary puts out, and we think that we need to be those personable and outgoing people. That's absolutely not the case!

"Never make the mistake of thinking that you need to be louder or more outgoing, or fake a bigger personality." (pg 289)

The best way to succeed is to play to your strengths and be exactly who you are. If you are cut out to be an entrepreneur and build amazing businesses, but you aren't cut out to be the "hype man" of the brand, then hire someone who is! Find a partner who can be the face and voice of the amazing brand you have developed. You are not required to be outgoing and social to build something amazing!

In Conclusion

I just want to cover a couple quotes out of order here that I think sum up this whole concept of self-awareness.

"I know that the same things that draw people to me turn others off and keep them away. I'm okay with that, because I think I can help more people and get my point across better when I'm my unfiltered self." (Pg 279)

Be yourself. It's cheesy, but it's great advice. Don't try to fight for those areas where you are weak. Bet on your strengths, and if that turns some people off, they were not your target audience in the first place. There is generally an audience out there for everyone. You just need to be yourself and find yours.

"Now, here's the thing. If you do suck but you love the thing you suck at, do it! If you love singing more that breathing, go for that singing career. I would just like it if you could go for it with the full realization that you're most likely going to wait tables for your entire life. You can't be disappointed if you go in with your eyes wide open." (Pg 283)

You are allowed to love something that you suck at! You are even allowed to pursue that thing you suck at! It's just going to be much easier for you if you recognize that you suck at it. You aren't going to be fifty years old and still waiting for your "big break." You will be living a happy life, doing the thing you love to do, and understanding that you need to work another job to pay for that passion. Those of us who love the same thing we are strong in are unbelievable blessed. Not everyone ends up that way. Do what you love and develop the self-awareness to recognize whether or not it lines up with your strengths.

Trump’s Maternity Leave Plan Is His Biggest Insult To Women Yet

Donald Trump’s last-ditch effort to appeal to women voters turns out to be a huge and profound slap in the face to all women everywhere. Oh and also to men. And children.

On Tuesday, at the urging of his daughter Ivanka and desperate to curry favor with women turned off by his history of sexist comments, the Republican presidential nominee proposed a six-week maternity leave policy, as well as tax credits for stay-at-home mothers and other child care credits.

Men are not included in the leave plan, the campaign confirmed to The Huffington Post.

Let’s repeat that: Trump’s solution for struggling American families leaves out men. 

More than any other problem with the plan ― and there are lots ― omitting half the population is its profoundest and most revelatory flaw, confirming once again Trump’s antiquated, sexist and harmful worldview: Men work. Women do the child-raising. The end.

Instead of helping working mothers, as is apparently intended, Trump’s plan would do them harm: At home, they’d be burdened with more childcare. At work, they’d be discriminated against because employers would likely set them on the “mommy track,” ratcheting back expectations for women who are assumed to be more devoted to the home sphere.

The Trump scheme is really just a hazy fantasy in which white men drink scotch (or in Trump’s case, Diet Coke) all day at the office while a woman at home tends to all the details of life. (People of color were never quite included in the “traditional” familial construct of stay-at-home mom and working dad.) In 2016, the difference is women can have jobs ― but they still must do all the home stuff.

Trump’s plan even includes a credit for stay-at-home mothers, but not for stay-at-home fathers. That such a man exists wouldn’t even cross the Trumpian mind.

Leaving men out quite obviously hurts fathers ― who want to be involved in their own lives ―  and their families. It particularly insults gay men who become fathers.

“His announcement is so sexist it’s hard to believe [Trump] exists in this millennium,” Josh Levs, the author of All In, a book about fatherhood and work, told HuffPost.

Levs battled with his employer Time Warner several years ago for the right to paid leave. His book documents the many issues men have with employers who, like Trump, don’t even consider that men might need time off to care for, or be with, children or partners or family members.

In one particularly painful anecdote Levs recounts in his book and in the Harvard Business Review, a man named Jay Ramsey takes part of a week off after his wife had an emergency C-section and is then berated by his boss for disloyalty. Men don’t do that, the rationale goes.  

Lucas Jackson / Reuters

Hillary Clinton's paid leave proposal, by contrast, offers 12 weeks of time off and would be available to men and women.

No legitimate parental leave policy in this country is tethered to that belief. The federal Family and Medical Leave Act covers all workers at large companies who need time off to care for a child or ailing family member. The states that offer paid leave provide it to both genders. And leave is granted for a host of reasons ― to care for a newborn, adopted child, foster child; as well as to care for a family member with a disability or serious health condition. Increasingly, companies are offering men and women equal amounts of paid leave. Yes, birth mothers need leave for medical reasons alone, but that’s not where this conversation ends.

A policy that only includes maternity leave “misses a lot of reasons men would need to take time off,” Ben Gitis, the director of labor market policy at the American Action Forum, a conservative think tank, told HuffPost. These would include “medical issues or if you have to care for an ill child or ill, elderly parents.”  

Even in the best of circumstances, men need to be involved and home with their families, Working Mother Media Editorial Director Jennifer Owens told HuffPost. “It’s the moment where we’re taking and learning responsibilities.” New dads ― just like new moms ― need some time to figure our their new role, to bond with their baby. New parents need each other.

With Trump’s plan, “there’s this implication that parenting is a mother job and not a father job. That is just old-fashioned thinking,” Owens said.

That of course is how Trump, who famously was not and is not involved in the child-rearing duties in his home, thinks. “I won’t do anything to take care of them,” he told Howard Stern in 2005. “I’ll supply funds and she’ll take care of the kids. It’s not like I’m gonna be walking the kids down Central Park.”

The Trump scheme is really just a hazy fantasy in which white men drink scotch all day at the office while a woman at home tends to all the details of life.

Leaving men out damages the families that need them at crucial times. But it’s also super terrible for women in the workplace. Not just mothers but little girls dreaming of their future or young fresh-faced college graduates plotting out their careers or families.

In countries where women get more paid leave than men, employers discriminate against them. They aren’t promoted and hired at the same rates. Pay for women declines. The pay gap widens. Consciously or unconsciously the boss thinks of you as a walking uterus just waiting for implantation and the inevitable scaling-down of the workload. 

In Italy, where women are expected to take on the child-rearing and are given little support via public policy, some employers even ask women to presign a resignation letter should they become pregnant, The New York Times reported Tuesday.

A less harsh version of this kind of “mommy tracking” still happens in offices around the U.S. It would not get better if we codify discrimination, as Trump’s plan would.

The plan, while ostensibly embracing a progressive stance, rolls back decades of progress in work and in parenting in the U.S., where men have taken on more of the parenting work, and women slowly have become equals in the work world. This process is ongoing and it’s real. 

Owens, whose magazine annually ranks the best companies for working mothers, says that increasingly employers get this. The best companies are seeking parity when they craft parental leave policies ― giving equal amounts to men and women. It’s a way for your boss to say “we support you,” she said. 

Like many, Owens was glad Trump has brought parental leave into the national conversation, despite its flaws. She’s seen the issue go from a fringe concern to one on the national agenda.

It is definitely significant that Trump has broken with his party on this issue. The GOP has historically seen paid leave as harmful to business.

”Yes, I would like [Trump’s plan] to be better and include men and make sure it’s broad,” said Owens, “but on the good side I’m glad because him talking about it means people are talking about it.”

That’s kind of the best thing it has going for it.

Editor’s note: Donald Trump regularly incites political violence and is a serial liar, rampant xenophobe, racist, misogynist and birther who has repeatedly pledged to ban all Muslims — 1.6 billion members of an entire religion — from entering the U.S.

Wells Fargo Faces Proposed Class Action Lawsuit Over Bogus Account Scandal

Wells Fargo & Co, embroiled in a scandal over the opening of sham accounts, was sued on Friday by customers who accused the bank of fraud and recklessness for its behavior.

The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court in Utah, and seeks class-action status on behalf of hundreds of thousands of customers nationwide.

Wells Fargo did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Last week, the San Francisco-based lender agreed to pay $190 million to settle regulatory charges that employees opened some 2 million accounts without customers’ knowledge, in order to meet sales targets.

Wells Fargo, the country’s third-largest bank by assets, has said it has fired 5,300 people over the matter and would eliminate sales goals in its retail banking on Jan. 1, 2017.

Federal prosecutors have begun examining Wells Fargo’s practices, and the bank’s Chief Executive Officer John Stumpf is scheduled to testify before Congress next week.

In the complaint, three plaintiffs said customers were hurt by “abusive and fraudulent tactics” used by employees who felt they had to “do whatever it takes,” including selling products they did not need or want, to meet sales quotas.

It was not immediately clear how the three named plaintiffs were specifically harmed by the bank’s alleged wrongdoing.

The case is Mitchell et al v. Wells Fargo Bank NA et al, U.S. District Court, District of Utah, No. 16-00966.

(Reporting by Karen Freifeld; additional reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

Wells Fargo CEO Blames Multimillion-Dollar Fraud On The Lowest-Level Employees

Less than a week after Wells Fargo was slapped with a historic $185 million fine to settle customer fraud allegations, CEO John Stumpf is starting to open up about the scandal.

But instead of taking responsibility for what’s been described as a “pressure-cooker sales culture,” Stumpf seems to be blaming low-level Wells Fargo employees for opening up millions of fake bank and credit card accounts and billing customers for services and products they didn’t request.

Richard Drew/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Wells Fargo chairman and CEO John Stumpf, seen here in 2015, is putting most of the blame for his company's recent customer fraud scandal on some of its low-level employees.

In a Tuesday interview with The Wall Street Journal, Stumpf refused to say who was responsible for the corporate culture that regulators say led to the creation of more than 2 million deposit and credit card accounts that customers didn’t necessarily authorize.

Stumpf insisted there was nothing in Wells Fargo’s atmosphere that encouraged these practices. “There was no incentive to do bad things,” he told the Journal. 

Instead, he appeared to lay blame at the feet of what he characterized as a minority of bad employees who didn’t “honor” the bank’s culture. Wells Fargo has said that at least 5,300 employees were fired over a five-year period for “inappropriate sales conduct.”

Not everyone in the financial industry accepts Stumpf’s assertion that Wells management knew nothing of the shady practices. 

“Stumpf has clearly forgotten Harry Truman’s maxim that ‘the buck stops here.’ He’s responsible for how the org runs,” said Helaine Olen, a financial columnist at Slate and the author of the personal finance industry exposé Pound Foolish.

“It takes a particular level of what my grandmother called ‘chutzpah’ to ― when you are earning millions of dollars annually ― to turn and dump the blame on what are fairly low-paid employees,” Olen told The Huffington Post.  

Shifting the blame to employees is “an astonishing indictment of how people in power think,” she said.

“Come on...this went on for years and they didn’t smell anything in the air about fake accounts?”Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.)

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), who is set to grill Stumpf next week when the Senate Banking Committee holds a hearing on Wells Fargo’s fake customer accounts, has been equally dubious that the company’s higher-ups were in the dark about the sales practices. 

“Come on...this went on for years and they didn’t smell anything in the air about fake accounts?” Warren told CNN last week.

In a later appearance on CNBC’s “Mad Money,” Stumpf modified his stance somewhat, telling host Jim Cramer that “the buck stops with all of us” and “especially me.” 

Stumpf also pushed back on the idea that he should resign in the wake of the scandal, telling Cramer the best thing he can do right now is to lead the company. 

Olen and Cramer both pointed to E. Scott Reckard’s bombshell 2013 story in the Los Angeles Times that exposed the very culture Stumpf denied knowing about ― even as the practices raised in the report prompted employee dismissals. 

“From that day forward, Wells had to know it had a problem,” Olen said. “But the settlement last week did not take on any of the higher-ups, and that is concerning.”

Olen said Stumpf’s denials “could come back to bite him” if the Securities and Exchange Commission decides to investigate Wells Fargo and finds evidence that contradicts his claims.

On Wednesday, federal prosecutors said they plan to investigate the bank. No civil or criminal charges against anyone with Wells Fargo have been announced, but prosecutors have issued a subpoena for documents.

A spokeswoman for Wells Fargo declined to comment to HuffPost.

“We’ve seen that very few in the financial services sector are held to account for anything right now,” Olen said. “I find it hard to believe that if there’s already this [Consumer Financial Protection Bureau] settlement, when there’s a fairly decent body of evidence saying Wells had to know about this. It defies reason that they were unaware of this.”

The Power of Play at Work

Imagine a workplace where people are allowed to play and even better encouraged to play. Believe it or not, that is what is happening in some organizations. Look at Google, all employees have access to and can play during their workday. They have all sorts of activities like bowling, meditation, wall climbing, volleyball and more. Facebook, LinkedIn and Ideo also provide opportunities for play time at work, anything from ping-pong to arcade games and a few take it one step further by instilling a culture of play. These fun activities are not just for lunch, employees can get up and go play when they get tired of working on a project or answering emails.

Most think of play at work as a distraction, -- inappropriate or simply a waste of time. The paradigm of play is that it's seen as taking time away from "real work." Just think, what if what we thought work could benefit from play? What if, the opposite of play isn't work, but rather boredom? We have made assumptions over the years that play doesn't belong during work hours. As a communication and culture consultant, the typical conversation with clients is often about employee engagement and how to create a more positive and energized workforce. I believe play is the vital missing solution at work. Play in my definition is simply having fun, being joyful and energized. Wouldn't it be great if all employees were having fun while at work?

In his book Play, author and psychiatrist Stuart Brown, MD, compares play to oxygen. He writes, "...it's all around us, yet goes mostly unnoticed or unappreciated until it is missing." Think about how play shows up in your life? Play is games, art, books, sports, movies, music, comedy, flirting, talking and even daydreaming. More trainers, and consultants are using games and out-of-the-box activities to bring play into the workplace even if it's within a teambuilding experience or company event. When learning is fun, employees are more inclined to remember what they learned and use it.

Dr. Brown, is also the founder of the National Institute for Play, and he states, "when employees have the opportunity to play, they actually increase their productivity, engagement and morale." It begs the question, why aren't all companies insisting on more playtime at work? Dr. Brown goes on to say, "Not only does having a playful atmosphere attract young talent, but experts say play at work can boost creativity and productivity in people of all ages. There is good evidence that if you allow employees to engage in something they want to do, (which) is playful, there are better outcomes in terms of productivity and motivation."

The good news is that there are a lot of benefits for bringing play into work.

Other research shows that play can decrease absenteeism, stress, and health care costs. When employees take time out to play, it lessens the stress of work, which leads to less sickness, a more positive attitude and more energized work environment.

Allowing play in the workplace is good for business and employees. It's a win-win The opportunity to play on the job shows employees that they are valued, and helps them lead a more balanced life. In turn, employees are more engaged, collaborative, focused when they are working, more creative and ultimately perform better. By encouraging play at work, it increases job satisfaction and general employee happiness, and happier workers have been shown to be more productive and increasing profits. What will you do today to play a little more while at work? I dare you.

Michelle Burke is a Communication and Workplace Strategist, published Author, Consultant, and Speaker. She is Co-founder and President of The Energy Catalyst Group dedicated to creating more positive and engaged workplaces. Her years' experience working with Fortune 100, 500 companies, established her as a leading expert in bridging communication, gender and cultural gaps. Michelle consults with HR and leadership to focus on increasing individual, team and organizational energy. She collaborates with clients using her 3-A Model: Awareness, Accountability and (purposeful) Action. Clients include Stanford University, Visa, Sony, Disney, Receptos and Genentech. Michelle authored, The Valuable Office Professional, and was featured in Business Week's Frontier Magazine, LA Times, SF Chronicle, and Wall Street Journal. Her articles have been in Training, HR, and Chief Learning Officer Magazines. She also co-created Personalogy™ made Amazon's Top 100 Best Selling Card Games of 2015. Please connect with her Michelle@energycatalystgroup.com

WordPress Is Great, But It's Not Always The Best Solution

Before I dive into this slightly controversial topic, I want to make something readily clear:

This post is not an attack against WordPress. I use it. I know it. It's great!

With that being said, even though WordPress is one of the most beloved website building systems out there and powers 25% of the internet, that doesn't mean it's the best choice for everyone in the world who wants to build one.

Why not? Here are some reasons why.

Four Reasons WordPress May Not Be For You

It's Free, and That Get's Costly

Say what? How can something free get costly?

Well, think about it. Let's say you're planning to start a blog for your business.

There are many things that you need for a WordPress blog to work for your marketing purposes. Aside from spending time creating content, there is a lot of other expenses that you will incur:

• Hosting
• An SSL certificate
• WordPress Themes
• WordPress Plugins
• Paying for Support when things go wrong (and they do go wrong)

It may not seem like this stuff adds up, but over time and depending on what you need, it can get very expensive.

The Elegant Themes blog, an authority blog on all things WordPress, had this to say about it costs:

"After everything is added together, it can cost as little as $72.99 per year and as much as $33,162.18 per year to run a WordPress site."

That's a big price range. Now, chances are you're not going to be that person who is dropping $33K a year on a website. But realistically, you should expect to spend around $800 a year on it.

Need a visual? Here's the how that adds up.

The WordPress.org CMS software (that's the one we're talking about here) is free, but you need to pay for hosting.

To be clear, prices and features of some of the top WordPress hosting providers all vary, but let's just say you choose a hosting platform like Siteground.

Using them will run you an initial cost at $59.40 for that first year including the domain and domain privacy.

Keep in mind that this is only for the first year. Next year, the price will go up.

And now that you have hosting and WordPress installed, you need a theme. You could go the cheap route and only use a free theme. But eventually, you're going to want a new theme with more features that suit you.

You could find a popular theme like the ones on FancyThemes or CreativeMarket which will run you a cost between $35-$100+ or you may decide to choose a popular framework like Genesis which will cost you around $129 for both the Genesis Theme and a Child Theme.

After this, you need to spend time setting up the theme. And if you've never done this before and have no idea how to use WordPress, then you can count on a weekend full of troubleshooting. (More on this in a bit.)

But even after you have that done, you still need premium plugins like SumoMe to do things like collect emails, and you'll want a good email marketing platform like MailChimp or ConvertKit that allows for easier email automation.

And let's not forget the SSL Certificate.

Google has recently released that HTTPS (using an SSL Certificate which gives that little green security as seen above) would be a new ranking signal and if you're thinking that it's something you'll ignore for now, don't.

Google has stated that "over time, we may decide to strengthen it because we'd like to encourage all website owners to switch from HTTP to HTTPS to keep everyone safe on the web."

WordPress.org sites and most hosting don't come with SSL, but you have a few options when adding it to your site:

• Try to add a free SSL certificate from Let's Encrypt to your site.
• Buy an SSL certificate through your host provider and have them install it.

The first option will save you money since it's free, but it's an absolute nightmare to try and do it yourself so I wouldn't advise it.

The best option is to have you host provider install it, but that also means that you'll be out a bit more money. Most hosts sell SSL certificates from anywhere between $80 to $150 depending on your needs -- and that's an annual rate.

While it can be costly, it's something that Google is pushing, so you should really consider this move now before they push it harder.

Now, let's add that up the cost:

• $59.40 for hosting (first year's price)
• $82 SSL Certificate (annual cost)
• $129 for Genesis Framework (one-time fee)
• $240 for SumoMe (annual cost)
• $348 for ConvertKit (annual cost)

Rough total = $858.40 for first-year costs

Obviously, you could shop this down, but these aren't the sort of things to scrimp on when you're trying to run an online business.

WordPress Is Free, And That Means Support Is Hard To Come By

Like anything tech related, WordPress is going to have its glitches. Something as simple as updating WordPress, or themes and plugins, can wipe an entire site or end in what we in the WP community call "The White Screen of Death."

When that happens, you're going to want help fixing it 'cause that ain't easy to do alone.

But since WordPress is free, you won't find much support for fixing these issues except via the online forum. For real help, you'll need either really good hosting support or to go in search of someone who can fix the issue for you, and those people are even harder to find if you don't know where to look.

It's frustrating and has left many people with no choice but to start from scratch again.

Comes With A Learning Curve

While those who are considered more tech savvy can pick up WordPress rather quickly, there are some of us out there who just don't get it right away. If you've hit a little snag when trying to learn how to use it, don't feel bad.

There is a lot to learn when you've never touched it before. And I'm not just talking about how to create a new page or blog post, but the other things that go into it like:

• How to care and maintain a site that runs on WordPress
• If and when to update Plugins and Themes so that you don't break something
• Learning and using features within a Theme, and so on

Whether we like it or not, WordPress does come with a learning curve and it may take you quite a bit longer to learn how to use it than you previously thought.

Designing A Website Is Not That Easy

Learning curve aside, the biggest issue that most people gripe about with WordPress is that designing a site with it is tough.

And while there are page builders out there that make this easier, if you're not a web designer, adding those little touches that take a website to the next level is not going to be easy.

If you do decide to go the route of using a page-builder, just know that these also come with a learning curve. So no matter what, you'll have to learn a lot before you can design anything.

Wrapping It Up

These are just four of the main reasons why WordPress may not be the right choice for you. There are a lot of other choices out there that could be an even better fit. And if you're worried that WordPress is the only platform you can build a business on, don't fret.

There are a ton of people out there who have million dollar businesses on platforms other than WordPress and reaped the benefits.

For example, rockstar blogger Mariah Coz runs a $100K a month blog and has done six figure course launches with her SquareSpace powered site. Millionaire blogger Chris Ducker runs his blog on the RainMaker Platform as it offers a lot of marketing tools that suit him.

And the digital agency, WebAct uses the responsive website builder by Duda to create small business sites and high converting landing pages all the time. This list is obviously not exhaustive, but the point I want to drive home is this:

You don't need WordPress to run a profitable website or business.

There are a lot of great choices out there for building a website. And while many decide that WordPress is the way to go, others may want and need something else, and that's okay.

WordPress is just a tool for your business, and sometimes, it's the wrong tool for the job at hand.

Now it's just up to your own due diligence in figuring out if you should hop on the WordPress wagon or not. Either way, you know your business and goals best so whatever choice you make is the one you can rest easy with.

Businesswoman Leaves Corporate World to Start Concierge Company

When to Jump, an independent media partner of The Huffington Post, is a curated community featuring the ideas and stories of people who have made the decision to leave something comfortable and chase a passion.

For Kara Candler, owner of Tick Tock Concierge, owning a business was always the end goal. “My grandfather was a big part of why I wanted to start my own company, carrying on his legacy is important.”

Candler’s grandfather, Hilliard Ward purchased the first lumberyard in Asheville, NC in the late 70’s. He later went on to finance a grocery store chain named “Ingles.” Fast forward to 2016, it’s one of the largest grocery store chains in the United States.

“Both my parents are entrepreneurs so telling my parents that I was going to leave a really secure corporate job was hard. They know how hard it is to run your own business and wanted me to think twice about it to make sure.” Candler weighed the pros and cons and decided to take the jump.

“It’s a serious decision. Leaving benefits and security behind is hard and because of my background there is pressure to succeed in my community as well.” Kara’s grandfather was a beloved well-known figure in Western North Carolina, respected by everyone who met him. He paid college tuitions and donated large amounts anonymously to the community. “I’m proud of him,” Candler says.

In 2013 Kara began her luxury concierge service which caters to businesses and individuals, errand running and organizing on their behalf so that her clients have more time to spend however they’d like.

Within three years, her business has expanded to four cities and two states. “Having great friends, mentors and family surround me has helped. People are starting their own businesses all over the world, so why can’t I?”

The concept of personal concierges has grown in the past five years as individual’s work hours have increased. Candler first heard about the concept in 2012 and began to do market research to see if it would be successful in Asheville, North Carolina. She studied websites, talked to other businesses and read articles on the upcoming trend. She says Asheville was getting great press nationally and realized if she didn’t seize this opportunity, someone else would.

After creating her business model, she approached family friends and asked them what she could do that day to save them time. “I would ask for business straight up. What’s at the bottom of your to-do list? I’ll handle it.”

Candler’s favorite part of her business is the opportunities she has had to work with Sony and Warner Brothers helping run errands for team members while they’re in the middle of their shoots. She’s learned team-building and communication skills and how to deal with customers and clients on a daily basis and resolve conflict and tension professionally. “My clients are all ages and working with each generation is very different.”

Her advice to those thinking of taking the jump is to listen to that “nudge” or inner- feeling and moonlight to test out if this is what you truly want to do. “I felt restless in my corporate job. It made the feeling more strong. I really just put it out there and was moonlighting. People don’t talk about it enough but it’s okay to moonlight. I recommend it. Get your website done, get your ducks in a row so you’re all set when you’re ready to take the jump, you have a plan in place.”

When to Jump, an independent media partner of The Huffington Post, is a curated community featuring the ideas and stories of people who have made the decision to leave something comfortable and chase a passion. You can follow When to Jump on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. For more stories like this one, sign up for the When to Jump newsletter here. (Note: The When to Jump newsletter is not managed by The Huffington Post.)

The 'Chilling' Moment This Father Realized Where His Kids' Clothes Come From

This article is part of HuffPost’s “Reclaim” campaign, an ongoing project spotlighting the world’s waste crisis and how we can begin to solve it.

Andrew Morgan never gave a second thought to the hidden cost of the clothes he bought well into adulthood.

The Los Angeles filmmaker and father of four made a habit of often shopping for cheap garments. When the items he bought wore out or fell apart after a year, he bought more. Morgan admits he simply didn’t take into account the possibility that his choices at the cash register might have unseen or unintended consequences.

“I very much grew up as a product of a modern world where I was taught to not think much about where the stuff that came into my life came from,” Morgan told The Huffington Post.

All that changed on the day he walked into a Starbucks store in Culver City, California, in 2013. As Morgan waited in line for his coffee, he glanced down at the newspaper rack. Eight thousand miles away in Bangladesh, a garment factory that produced clothes for Western brands had collapsed, killing more than 1,100 people. The photo on the cover of The New York Times showed two young boys, close in age to Morgan’s own sons, beside a wall plastered with missing persons signs.

“It did something to me instantly,” he said. “It was that chilling feeling where you realize you’ve been a part of something that you’ve never stopped to consider, and there are actually real people on the other end of it.”

Morgan had finished his latest film the day before the tragedy. He was on the lookout for a new project. Haunted by the image of the Rana Plaza building collapse, and appalled at his complicity in a system that had made it possible, he began contacting people around the world to learn more. He wanted to find out what was happening and to understand the stakes. Most of all, he wanted an answer to “why it was a story I had never been confronted with.”

Last year Morgan released “The True Cost,” a documentary about the fashion industry’s disastrous human and environmental consequences, including the staggering waste that results from an industry increasingly bent on producing cheap, low-quality, disposable clothes.

Courtesy of Andrew Morgan

Filmmaker Andrew Morgan in Shenzhen, China, during the production of "The True Cost" in summer 2014.

Fashion is a trillion-dollar global industry and the reasons for its wastefulness are varied and complex. But by any measure, the situation has reached crisis levels.

Each year, 80 billion pieces of clothing are bought around the world. Fifteen percent of fabric is wasted during the manufacturing process, before clothes even make their way to consumers. In the United States, where 97 percent of clothing sold is manufactured overseas, the average person throws away at least 60 pounds of clothing every year, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, though other estimates put this figure closer to 80 pounds. Eighty-five percent of that ends up in landfills, where chemically processed textiles can contaminate groundwater if not properly contained.

In June, HuffPost launched Reclaim, a campaign to raise awareness around America’s waste problem and highlight potential solutions, beginning with a focus on food waste. Now, we’re adding fashion waste to the mix. In the coming months, we’ll explore the issue from many angles. We’ll spotlight the efforts of upstart designers and established companies as they strive to improve their practices and reporting on what impact, if any, those efforts are having on the global fashion waste crisis. We’ll also share tips on how to reduce clothing waste in our own lives and open up the conversation using the hashtag #ReclaimFashion.”

Critics of the clothing industry’s wastefulness point to “fast fashion,” a retail method of constantly updating a store’s inventory. Fast fashion brands like H&M, Zara and Forever 21 are not only outpacing competitors, but also redefining fashion cycles, as more and more retailers aim to satisfy customers who expect an ever-replenishing selection of cheap, trendy clothes. Elizabeth L. Cline notes in her 2012 book Overdressed: The Shockingly High Cost of Cheap Fashion that new shipments arrive daily at Forever 21 and H&M, for example, and 400 new styles debut online every week at Topshop, the London-based retailer with more than 500 locations worldwide.

With so much cheap clothing available, so much more eventually gets thrown away. “The relationship between fast fashion and increasing textile waste is now unmistakable,” according to the International Journal of Consumer Studies.

Still, within the fashion industry, a certain amount of waste has long been accepted as the cost of doing business.

“There’s waste at every stage of the textile supply chain,” Sass Brown, interim dean of the Fashion Institute of Technology’s School of Art and Design in New York, told HuffPost. “And part of the problem is the textile supply chain is a very complex logistical nightmare.”  

We have these faster cycles, we have more disposable fashion. But we don’t have a sense of where all that is going.

As food campaigns like farm-to-table and Slow Food gain traction, public awareness lags when it comes to the origins and consequences of what we wear, activists say. Sure, we know most of our clothes are no longer made in America. Even GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump gets it – sort of. But as Brown put it, “the average consumer has no idea” about the bigger picture: the chemicals in the fabrics we wear on our skin each day, the waste, the pollution, the lives of those actually making our clothes.

If clothing, like cigarettes, came with a warning label alerting us to these effects, Brown said, “I think we’d end fast fashion in an instant.”

Fashion is built on the idea of planned obsolescence. Much of what’s exciting about a piece of clothing being in style is knowing it may someday go out of style. But fast fashion’s critics say the breakneck speed of production and low prices have blinded us to the consequences of our purchases. The other side of the equation, as Morgan’s film shows, is an ugly mess of environmental damage, low-wage work and waste.

Tasha Lewis, an assistant professor of fashion design management at Cornell University, explained how fast fashion brings more clothes into our lives in a way that often leads to future waste.

“We have these faster cycles,” Lewis told HuffPost. “We have more disposable fashion. But we don’t have a sense of where all that is going. And a lot of consumers may tend to throw this clothing away because they don’t think anyone else would want to wear it. Because it just wasn’t made in the best way.”

The deadly Rana Plaza factory collapse, along with other similar tragedies in a short span, served as a wakeup call of sorts, for Morgan and countless others. To the delight and relief of activists who have worked for years to bring more attention to waste, injustice and abuse in the system, these issues are at last getting a more public airing.

In addition to “The True Cost,” which can be viewed on Netflix, there’s “Slowing Down Fast Fashion,” a documentary out later this year from the British musician Alex James. “It’s staggering how little most of us know about what our clothes are made from, where they come from or who made them,” James told WWD.

Fashion waste has found its way into the cultural conversation in other ways. A segment last year on “Last Week Tonight” with John Oliver took aim at fast fashion. “Saturday Night Live” has skewered H&M’s low prices and disposability. From Lena Dunham’s Lenny Letter to Anne Hathaway’s Instagram account, celebrities have shared tips for socially responsible shopping in a world ruled by fast fashion. Reformed shopaholics who once boasted of their extravagant “hauls” now preach conscious consumption inYouTube videos known as “haulternatives.”

More tangibly, businesses and designers are experimenting with take-back programs and other methods to give clothes a second life. Cities are introducing curbside textile recycling programs that take the time, effort and mystery out of donating used clothing. 

Fast fashion companies themselves are taking steps to reduce waste, with varying degrees of commitment and success, activists say. H&M, for example, touts a range of sustainability efforts, from the waste reduction campaign World Recycle Week to an annual Conscious Exclusive collection that features eco-friendly pieces. “Our ambition is to have a circular approach in how our products are made and used, to utilize only recycled or other sustainably sourced materials and to implement only renewable energy in our value chain,” an H&M spokesperson told HuffPost. “To achieve this goal we know we need innovation.” The spokesperson cited the company’s annual award encouraging participants to reinvent the fashion industry and a recent pledge to develop new recycling technology. Forever 21 and Zara likewise outline their own sustainability policies, but they did not respond to requests for comment.

Cline, the author of Overdressed, told HuffPost she’s now at work on a documentary about clothing waste and other impacts of fast fashion. She also works in the secondhand clothing industry, which has deepened her understanding of America’s clothing waste problem. She is amazed by the number of clothes that are donated, and wonders where they can all possibly go. Meanwhile, fast fashion brands are churning out more, more, more ― “far in excess,” Cline says, “of what could ever be worn to the end of its useful life.”

But she sees at least one reason to be hopeful. The idea of fashion being more sustainable and thoughtful isn’t yet mainstream, she says. “But the conversation is at least happening now.”

Preparing To Become a Caregiver

Becoming a caregiver for an aging relative is a profound expression of love. You may find that you will begin to take on many of the responsibilities they might have had while raising you. Like raising a family, being a caretaker can be physically, emotionally and financially challenging but it is also extremely rewarding. It's a responsibility that millions of people take on each year out of love for their families.

There's a lot to consider as the caretaker for a loved one and finances can play a major role in many of those decisions. A 2014 Caring.com survey found that 46 percent of caregivers spend $5,000 or more annually in caregiving costs. According to the 2015 Caregiving in the U.S. report from the AARP and National Alliance for Caregiving (NAC), about one in five caregivers report experiencing financial strain as a result of providing care, while higher-hour caregivers are more likely to indicate they experience financial strain than lower-hour caregivers.

The AARP and NAC report also estimates over 43 million adults in the U.S. provided unpaid caregiving services in the prior 12 months with about half of them helping a parent or parent-in-law. Caregiving can extend beyond parents, including providing care for spouses, grandparents or siblings. Whether you are preparing to care for a parent or another relative, understanding and preparing for the financial implications can help you provide the best care possible.

Start the discussion with your family

Whether you think you'll provide direct care, decide to hire a caregiver, or both, you can work with your family members, including the relative in question, to create a plan. This may be an uncomfortable topic for your family, but it's an important discussion to have. Starting the conversation early can help you all reach conclusions while your parents are in good health, and there isn't pressure to make a quick decision.

You may want to cover the different types of care that are available and learn which your parent prefers. For example, does he or she want to stay at home for as long as possible or prefer to live in an assisted-living home or elderly community?

You should discuss who'll be responsible for managing personal, financial and medical affairs if your parent can't handle those responsibilities anymore. Beyond making a verbal agreement, a parent can give someone legal authority by signing durable power of attorney agreements, which keep the delegation of decision-making authority intact even if your parent becomes incapacitated. There are two durable powers of attorneys, one for medical-related decisions, and a second for legal, personal and financial decisions.

Your parents might also want to execute a living will, also known as an advance directive. It has instructions for the medical treatments they want, or don't want, if they are unable to communicate.

Determine what resources are available to your parent

Your financial situation may depend in part on your parent's finances and the assistance that's available to him or her from outside sources. Creating a list of these resources ahead of time can help you all plan for the future.

•Your parent's finances. Together with your parent, and possibly with the assistance of a financial planner, you can create a list of your parent's current financial assets and future income. You can include all savings, retirement accounts, insurance policies, pensions, Social Security benefits and tangible assets, such as a home or car.

•Government programs. Medicare and Veteran Affairs benefits may be available for those that are 65 or older. There's also Medicaid, a joint federal and state program that often provides more benefits than Medicare. But, Medicare is only available to those with limited income and benefits may vary depending on where you live.

•Non-profit programs. There are also non-profit organizations that provide helpful services. Meals on Wheels delivers meals with a sliding-scale fee and the AARP has a volunteer companionship program.

•Family assistance. Whether it's unpaid care or financial assistance, also take into account the family's contribution to your parent's care. Call a family meeting with your parent, siblings and even aunts and uncles to discuss how you'll work together to take care of each other.

•Professional support. If you still feel overwhelmed or if you just feel that an expert would be helpful, there are resources available. The Association for Financial Counseling and Planning Education is a good example, and a quick internet search may turn up other organizations in your area that specialize in helping you work with elderly family members to plan for the future.

After gathering this information, you'll have a better understanding of where the caregiving funds will come from and how you or your parent can use them in the future. You may also discover gaps in coverage that you may want to fill in on your own. Consider these expenses as you create your budget.

Look for tax savings while paying for care

As an adult child and caregiver, there may be ways to structure an arrangement to improve your parent's, and your own, financial situation.

For example, if you pay more than 50 percent of your parent's support costs, and they have a gross income (not counting social security) below the personal exemption--$4,050 in 2016--you may be able to claim your parent as a dependent on your tax return. You might also be able to claim medical expenses you paid on behalf of your parent, which could include supplies and at-home caretaking, as an itemized deduction.

Working with a tax professional, you may find there are ways to use the tax laws to maximize your parent's money. For example, if your mother has gifted you money, you could then use it to pay for her medical expenses. If you're able to claim the expenses as a deduction, you could put your tax savings back into her "medical care" fund.

Find the best services you can afford

There are many different types of programs available, and someone might move back and forth from one facility or service to another as their health and preferences change.

•Home care. Non-healthcare related assistance, such as buying groceries, preparing meals, cleaning the home, helping with bathing and other day-to-day tasks.

•Home health care. At-home health-related support, including services from a physical therapist, nurse or doctor.

•Assisted living. Assisted living homes are non-healthcare providing facilities that may provide supervision, a social environment and personal care services.

•Skilled nursing home. A care facility designed to deliver nursing or rehabilitation services.

Finances can sometimes dictate the quality and availability of different types of caretaking. Medicare doesn't cover non-medical home care for instance, but it might pay for home health care or a nursing facility.

Your parent's location can also impact which option makes the most sense. If you'll be living with your parent, or nearby, you may be able to share responsibilities with a part-time caretaker or home health care provider. If you live several states away, that likely won't be an option.

Research the potential benefits of moving to a different state and discuss the pros and cons with your parent and family. Some states have Medicaid waiver programs that allow Medicaid recipients to receive care at their home or in their community rather than in a nursing home or long-term care facility. Understanding the differences between states could play an important role in the decision.

Bottom line: As you prepare to take care of aging parents, work with them to understand their wishes, needs and financial situation. Together you can explore the family's ability to provide physical and financial support and learn about the help available from government, non-profit or other programs. Discussing which options fulfill their needs will help you feel confident about giving your loved ones the best care possible.

Nathaniel Sillin directs Visa's financial education programs. To follow Practical Money Skills on Twitter: www.twitter.com/PracticalMoney

This article is intended to provide general information and should not be considered legal, tax or financial advice. It's always a good idea to consult a legal, tax or financial advisor for specific information on how certain laws apply to you and about your individual financial situation.

More water for the world

Today's an important day. A milestone day. Today, we, in cooperation with the American NGO World Vision, can celebrate having reached 300,000 people with water. 300,000 new people, for whom water haven't been easily accessible - if accessible at all. People living in developing societies south of the Sahara . Until now, many of these people have had to travel vast distances to collect water. Often on foot. And it goes without saying, this consumes plenty of time and effort. Now those days are over. And the people can now use their new-gained access to water to improve their lives, building sustainable business around their water points.

World Vision has played a tremendous part in making this reality. They have the knowledge of the societies and the connections to help build sustainable sources for water. We are happy to be part of that equation through our innovative water technology and fruitful partnerships. In the collaboration with World Vision, our solar powered submersible pumps, which are used in for instance wells, are becoming the "tool of choice" to make water flow in rural, off-grid areas. That makes me proud.

However, this significant milestone we and World Vision can feel proud about, is not where our journey stops. Our joint ambitions reach further. Towards 2020, we want to reach two million people with water.

Adding to that, I personally feel very good about the fact that this partnership puts further thrust to the UN's immensely important and ambitious Sustainable Development Goals. Here, I'm specifically thinking about SDG 6, clean water and sanitation for all by 2030 and SDG 13, take action against climate change. Because if we are to reach that target, it takes exactly innovative partnerships spanning the political, private and civil spheres to succeed. Today, we have come a bit of the way.

Towards more milestones.