Walmart Black Friday Protests Hit Major Cities With Calls For '$15 And Full Time'

WASHINGTON -- Dirk Rasmussen had Friday off and could have slept in if he wanted to. Instead, the Maryland resident and Teamster rose early and drove to downtown Washington, eager to join a post-Thanksgiving protest against Walmart.

"Our local [union] president encouraged us to take part," said Rasmussen, 58, who works in a lumber and building-supply warehouse. "I raised eight children on a Teamsters benefit package and Teamsters wage. I'm a firm believer in collective bargaining, and I'm very concerned about the security of this next generation."

Black Friday may be most famous for doorbuster shopping deals, but among progressives it's becoming a regular holiday for labor demonstrations. Friday marked the third consecutive year of scattered but highly visible protests against Walmart. Demonstrators, along with an unknown number of Walmart strikers, are calling for better pay and scheduling practices from the world's largest retailer.

On Thursday and Friday, photos on Twitter tagged with #walmartstrikers showed sizable protests in D.C., Pittsburgh, Northern New Jersey, Los Angeles, Long Beach, Calif., and St. Paul, Minn., among other areas. The protests were led by OUR Walmart, a union-backed worker group, alongside community and labor groups in different cities.

100+ stand in solidarity w #WalmartStrikers on thanksgiving in DC pic.twitter.com/Spqc8rsooQ

-- DC Jobs With Justice (@DCJWJ) November 28, 2014

Dan Schlademan, campaign director of Making Change at Walmart, a project of the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, said on a call with reporters Friday that he expects the number of strikers to be in the hundreds by the end of the day, though the group could not provide a specific number of workers who'd submitted strike notices to their bosses.

"All the signs that we're seeing is that this is going to be the biggest day ever," Schlademan said.

Brooke Buchanan, a spokeswoman for Walmart, told HuffPost that the retailer was more concerned with serving its customers than with protests it views as union stunts. According to Buchanan, more than 22 million shoppers came to Walmart stores on Thanksgiving alone this year.

"We're really focused on our customers," Buchanan said. "We've got millions of customers coming in [on Thanksgiving] and Friday, and we're making sure they have a safe and exciting shopping experience."

In D.C., a crowd estimated at 200 to 400 people assembled outside the Walmart store on H Street Northwest, calling on the retailer to commit to "$15 and full time" -- a wage of $15 per hour, the same rate demanded by fast-food strikers, and a full-time schedule for those who want it. One of OUR Walmart's top criticisms of the retailer is that part-time workers don't get enough hours.

The protest was large enough to draw the D.C. police, who stood at the store's doors and dispersed the crowd after about an hour.

Melinda Gaino, an employee at the store, said she would be missing three shifts this week while on strike. Gaino took part in a sit-down strike on Wednesday inside the H Street store, where she and other protesters sat on the floor with tape over their mouths, calling on Walmart to end what they called the silencing of workers.

Gaino, a 45-year-old mother of four, said she joined OUR Walmart in August out of concern with some of the challenges faced by her colleagues. Many workers, she said, don't get enough hours to support their families.

"This has given me more confidence," Gaino, who earns $9.90 per hour, said of going on strike. "I said I've come this far, so I may as well go all in."

Correction: This item originally misstated the number of Walmart shoppers on Thanksgiving.

Nice of @walmart to set up a lovely tableau for #WalmartStrikers! Roll back? Fight back! #BlackFridayWOA pic.twitter.com/XR0y85co5o

-- Jess Banks (@ProfBanks) November 28, 2014

Solving The Tech Worker 'Shortage' Is Easy: Just Pay Them More

American tech CEOs love to complain that they can't find enough skilled workers, and they want the U.S. government to change its immigration policies to fix the problem. But it's a problem that doesn’t exist.

The real problem is not that there aren’t enough qualified workers to do tech jobs, but that tech companies simply don’t want to pay people enough money to do them, Bloomberg Businessweek’s Josh Eidelson pointed out on Monday, citing academic research.

Specifically, Eidelson quoted Rutgers professor of public policy Hal Salzman saying that tech companies looking for new hires “may not be able to find them at the price they want. But I’m not sure that qualifies as a shortage, any more than my not being able to find a half-priced TV.”

Salzman’s research found that 50 percent of computer-science college students don’t enter the tech industry after graduation. Thirty-two percent of the students Salzman surveyed said there weren't enough tech jobs available -- countering any idea of a worker shortage. Fifty-three percent of students said they “found better job opportunities outside of IT occupations." That suggests the relative pay of tech is the real problem.

Tech companies do pay well compared to the median U.S. income of $53,000. A few years ago, Business Insider reported that starting median salaries at big companies ranged from $55,000 to $87,000. But these companies are not competing to employ the median U.S. worker; by their own admission, they want highly skilled workers. Those 53 percent of tech grads who found better offers elsewhere suggest that tech companies pay less than some companies they are competing against for talent.

Add to this Salzman's finding that inflation-adjusted tech pay hasn't risen since 1999, and you don't get a picture of an industry that is, overall, offering best-in-class pay.

Even if there were in fact a shortage of tech workers, tech CEOs could fix it by simply paying workers more. It’s the same solution The New York Times’ Neil Irwin called for when the trucking industry bemoaned a lack of truckers: Pay them more, and they will come.

Instead of taking a free-market approach to attracting workers -– raising pay to increase the supply of workers -– the tech industry has focused on lobbying politicians to increase the number of temporary H1-B visas for high-skilled workers, to let a greater number of workers enter the country. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg created an entire organization, called FWD, to push for immigration reform that included more H1-B visas.

It's no accident that these H1-B workers are cheaper. According to the Economic Policy Institute, 80 percent of H1-B visa workers make less than Americans in similar jobs.

In arguing to bring in more of these workers, tech CEOs claim their industry is unique. Tech workers are nothing like truckers, they would say. Tech jobs are specialized and talent-based, with top performers that are vastly more productive than other employees.

But the same can be said of many white-collar occupations. Technology companies are not unicorns. Other industries deal with the same issues tech companies are constantly decrying, including global competition for talent and a sub-standard U.S. education system, and seem to do just fine.

For instance, look at finance. Wages are high enough that there are plenty of people willing to do complicated, skilled work for more than 80 hours a week.

As a result, no one ever talks about a banker shortage. Quite the opposite: There are semi-regular columns imploring young and impressionable college graduates to ignore the allure of high pay in the financial sector -- and instead try working in tech, maybe. And some of those grads do. But you will never hear a bank or hedge fund complain that they just can’t hire enough people.

FWD, the group founded by Zuckerberg, did not respond to a request for comment. Nor did representatives from Apple, Google and Facebook.

Six Years Later, Walmart Still Hasn't Paid A $7,000 Fine For Black Friday Worker's Death

WASHINGTON -- This coming Black Friday will mark six years since a worker died beneath a throng of shoppers at a Walmart on Long Island. Although federal regulators faulted the retail giant in the tragedy, Walmart still hasn’t been compelled to pay the modest $7,000 fine that was levied against it.

The case, Department of Labor v. Walmart Stores, has not moved forward since HuffPost reported on it a year ago -- on appeal with a federal review commission that handles workplace safety fines. As of this writing, the commission lists the status of the case as “pending review.”

The case was first referred to the commission three and a half years ago. A spokeswoman for the commission said it does not comment on the timeline for pending cases.

It’s common for employers to appeal whatever penalties the Labor Department’s safety inspectors issue against them, including when workers are killed on the job. But the case of 34-year-old Jdimytai Damour, who had worked at Walmart for only a week when he was asphyxiated beneath the Black Friday crowd, underscores just how long those appeals can drag on, even in cases where the fines are comparably small.

Brooke Buchanan, a Walmart spokeswoman, said the retailer has made significant changes in recent years to minimize the frenzy among shoppers and make for a safer atmosphere, including spreading out merchandise that's on special and staggering sales times.

"After this horrible incident that happened six years ago, we took major steps working with crowd experts, law enforcement and people who do this for a living to see and help set up our stores," Buchanan said.

As HuffPost previously reported, Walmart, which had net sales of $473 billion last fiscal year, probably isn’t disputing the penalty in order to save $7,000, the maximum amount the Occupational Safety and Health Administration can fine a company for serious violations. Indeed, the company has already spent millions of dollars in legal costs just to fight the case. For Walmart, more significant than the nominal fine itself would be the ramifications if the fine were upheld.

OSHA used what’s known as the general duty clause as the foundation for its fine against Walmart. The clause holds that employers have a basic responsibility to provide a workplace that’s “free from recognized hazards that are causing or are likely to cause death or serious physical harm to [their] employees.”

In essence, the agency argues that Walmart should have foreseen the dangers presented by a mass of excited shoppers waiting at the store’s doors. An administrative law judge agreed back in 2011, though Walmart appealed that decision to the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission, where cases often wait years for review.

OSHA regulations tend to be very specific, and the agency doesn’t often reach for the general duty clause because it isn’t so easy to prove what should be a “recognizable” hazard. Employers, unsurprisingly, often criticize citations using the general duty clause as too vague. That's what happened when OSHA cited a poultry processor recently for violating the clause and putting workers in danger of ergonomic hazards. Before that, OSHA hadn’t tried to wield the clause in such a case in more than a decade.

In the Black Friday case, Walmart would be more eager to defeat OSHA's arguments than to avoid the $7,000 penalty. The company has argued that the dangers on Black Friday could not have been predicted. If regulators ultimately succeed in their case, OSHA would theoretically have an easier time putting Walmart and other retailers on the hook for Black Friday disasters in the future.

In a deal to avoid prosecution, Walmart agreed to develop a new crowd control plan the year after Damour's death. For its part, OSHA has started issuing guidance each year on how stores can handle their sales events safely. The agency recently sent letters to the major retailers urging them to adopt their own plans ahead of Black Friday.

“Retail workers should not be put at risk,” David Michaels, the head of OSHA, said last week.

Marijuana Industry Sets Its Sights On The Mainstream

Marijuana is growing up. As Colorado and Washington’s recreational marijuana industries blossom and new markets in Oregon and Alaska begin to take shape, so-called ganjapreneurs are looking for ways to take cannabis mainstream. Before long, they hope, marijuana products will be as widely available as alcohol -- and just as socially acceptable.

“Ideally, I would like to see the 21-to-35 year-old taking a four-pack of these to a barbecue,” Joe Hodas, chief marketing director for the marijuana product manufacturer Dixie, said earlier this year of the company's new watermelon cream-flavored "elixir," Dixie One. The drink contains five milligrams of THC -- just enough to produce a subtle buzz.

“This is a full experience in a bottle, much like beer," Hodas said. "Sometimes they’ll want a beer, sometimes they’ll want two or three beers. This sort of affords you that calibration."

Since starting in 2010, Colorado-based Dixie has developed a wide array of marijuana products, from THC-infused chocolates to concentrated cannabis for e-cigarettes. Many of its offerings are aimed at experienced marijuana users with high tolerances -- the company's top seller is a line of elixirs containing 75 milligrams of THC. Lower-dose products are proving increasingly popular, however.

“It’s been selling really surprisingly well,” Hodas told The Huffington Post recently of Dixie One. “In some of our stores, it had been outselling our 75 mg elixir. We were going to be happy if it sold decently well, but it was outselling in some cases. That said to us, we were correct, there is a market for that consumer.”

Encouraged by the success of Dixie One, the company is focusing on casual cannabis consumers. This week, Dixie released another low-dose product, a mint that releases THC directly into the bloodstream as it dissolves in the mouth.

“I think the low-dose consumer is an expansion demographic for us,” Hodas said. “It’s my belief that the core marijuana user is a small circle, and in a much larger surrounding circle is the casual user and a much larger market.”

At the moment, the recreational cannabis industry is limited to Colorado, Washington, Alaska and Oregon. Marijuana advocates and business owners say it's only a matter of time before more states follow, bringing cannabis products like Dixie One to store shelves and backyard barbecues across America. More than 20 states and the District of Columbia have legalized medical marijuana, and this month voters in Washington, D.C., approved a referendum to legalize recreational use in the nation's capital.

Already, Colorado and Washington state illustrate how cannabis is shedding its stoner image and entering mainstream culture. Marijuana products have been featured prominently in gourmet dinners and in cooking seminars in both states. The drug has become a fashionable substance to offer as a celebratory toast at weddings. Yoga enthusiasts can seek zen at marijuana-fueled classes.

Earlier this year, the Colorado Symphony Orchestra held a “Classically Cannabis” fundraiser, where well-heeled attendees sipped drinks, shook hands and smoked pot from joints, vaporizers and glass pipes, while a brass quintet played Debussy, Bach, Wagner and Puccini.

"Cannabis is being elevated into the pantheon of refined and urbane inebriants, no different than boutique rye or fine wine," said Matt Gray, the publisher of a new gourmet marijuana cookbook.

A number of worrying episodes have accompanied the legal high, however. In March, a 19-year-old college student leapt to his death from a hotel balcony in Denver after eating marijuana-infused cookies. In April, police said a Denver man shot his wife to death after he said he had eaten marijuana candy and prescription pills.

Hospital officials in Colorado have said that they have been treating a growing number of adults and children who have consumed marijuana products, whose potency can be hard to judge.

State laws in Colorado and Washington already require a “serving” of THC in an edible marijuana product to be limited to 10 milligrams -- about the amount in a medium-sized joint. (The rules in Alaska and Oregon have not yet been set.) Some products, such as candy bars, may contain multiple servings, however, and package labels do not always include serving size or dosage information.

To address these issues, Colorado and Washington officials, and representatives of the cannabis industry, are finalizing new regulations that will require clearer labeling and childproof packaging. And, much like the alcohol industry encourages consumers to "drink responsibly," the makers of marijuana products are taking steps to educate customers and encourage responsible consumption.

“I think the idea of being proactive with our messaging -- being safe and responsible with our messaging -- we’re trying to do that now early on, versus being told to do that after the fact,” Hodas said.

“We are concerned about the uneducated consumer who may have a bad experience with edibles, because that means they may not use our products in the future," Hodas added. "So educating that consumer and making sure they know how to use them is of great importance to Dixie and the rest of the industry."

To that end, Dixie, like most marijuana product companies, has detailed information its website about how to enjoy its products. Marijuana Policy Project launched an educational campaign, aptly named ”Consume Responsibly,” with advice about preventing and responding to over-consumption or accidental consumption, as well as other detailed information about cannabis products, their effects and the laws that govern their possession, sale and use.

Recognizing that Colorado's marijuana laws are luring tourists to the state, the inaugural billboard for the campaign in Denver encouraged moderation and patience. “Don’t let a candy bar ruin your vacation," the sign read. "With edibles, start low and go slow.”

"We are aiming to boost the industry's image by removing negative stereotypes and stigmas, while promoting education surrounding the many uses of cannabis,” said Olivia Mannix, co-founder of Cannabrand, an ad agency representing marijuana-related businesses. “We feel that the public image of cannabis ultimately influences policy makers and is crucial for widespread legalization.”

Still, getting the message -- and brands -- in front of the public has been a challenge for marijuana companies. State laws ban advertisements on television or billboards that directly market marijuana products. Google, Facebook and Twitter refuse to accept marijuana advertising on their websites.

While marijuana businesses may have dreams of mass market sales and global domination, for the moment, they seem to be taking the "go slow" approach.

“The eyes of the world are on us right now, and how we handle that spotlight will go a long way in shaping public opinion about legal marijuana,” Taylor West, deputy director of the National Cannabis Industry Association, told HuffPost. “Our businesses and our people are committed to building an industry we can be proud of. That means no shortcuts and none of the leeway that plenty of other industries out there get."

Her appeal to the marijuana industry is simple: “The future of this industry depends on the present -- don’t screw it up.”

CLARIFICATION: An earlier version of this story suggested that the "Consume Responsibly" campaign was launched by the industry, but it was launched by advocacy group Marijuana Policy Project. The story has been adjusted to reflect that. We regret the error.

A Quarter Of Uninsured Say They Can't Afford To Buy Coverage

This story was originally published by Kaiser Health News.

Just days before the health law’s marketplaces reopened, nearly a quarter of uninsured said they expect to remain without coverage because they did not think it would be affordable, according to a poll released Friday.

That was by far the most common reason given by people who expect to stay uninsured next year, according to the latest tracking poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation. (KHN is an editorially independent program of the foundation.) Forty-one percent of individuals without health insurance said they expected they would remain uninsured, while about half said they plan to get coverage in the coming months.

The law includes subsidies to reduce premium costs and cost-sharing assistance for those who qualify, although it was not clear if the uninsured knew that.

Despite heavy news coverage and marketing from insurers about the re-opening of enrollment, about 9 in 10 of the uninsured said they didn’t know when the health law’s open enrollment period began (Nov. 15). That was similar to the findings in last month’s Kaiser poll.

More than 8 in 10 of the uninsured said it is at least somewhat important to them to have health insurance, with 62 percent saying it’s very important. Seven in 10 said health insurance is something they need.

Other findings in Kaiser’s November poll include that most of the public reports their families have not been directly impacted by the health law, with more (24 percent) saying they have been hurt than helped (16 percent).

Forty-six percent of those surveyed hold an unfavorable view of the law and 37 percent view it favorably, a slight change from last month’s survey, where 43 percent of those questioned held an unfavorable view of the law and 36 percent a favorable one.

With the midterm elections giving Republicans control of the Senate and increasing the party’s majority in the House of Representatives, Americans were divided about whether the debate between the two parties over the health law would increase, the poll found. Forty-seven percent expected it, while 42 percent predicted it would stay at about the same level.

This KHN story can be republished for free (details).
There’s a variety of opinion about what Congress should do next with the health law. Twenty-nine percent of the public supports the law’s repeal, 17 percent favors scaling the law back, 20 percent wants the law to move ahead as is, while 22 percent chooses expanding the law.

Republicans are more likely to favor repeal (52 percent) or scaling it back (24 percent), while Democrats are more likely to favor moving ahead with the law in its current form (40 percent) or expansion (34 percent). Independents fall in between, but lean toward repeal or scaling back.

The poll was conducted from Nov. 5 through 13, using a telephone sample of 1,501 adults. The margin of error is +/- 3 percentage points for the full sample and +/- 9 percentage points for the uninsured.

maryagnesc@kff.org | @MaryAgnesCarey

Kaiser Health News (KHN) is a nonprofit national health policy news service.

New York City Could Kill Uber If It Wanted To

New York City taxi drivers want the city to revoke Uber’s license to operate. But there may be a simpler approach that might actually benefit New Yorkers: Just put more taxis on the street.

Uber is thriving in New York mainly because bad government policy limiting the number of available taxis created a huge business opportunity. Better government policy can take it away.

Neither Uber nor the NYC Taxi & Limousine Commission immediately responded to requests for comment.

Here’s a chart of the population of New York and the total number of licensed cabs in the city, going back to when its medallion system of taxi licensing was first introduced in 1937.

Astonishingly, there wasn’t a new medallion issued in New York for almost six decades: There were precisely 11,787 cabs in New York from 1937 to 1996, when the first modern medallion auction took place.

Between 1996 and 2010, more than 1,400 new cabs hit the streets. That’s better than nothing, but it didn’t do much to change the ratio of people to cabs:

That basically flat line up to 2013 was Uber’s business opportunity. In an increasingly wealthy city with a growing population, the number of people per cabs stayed at post-war levels for decades after that made any sense.

New York City doesn’t just need more cabs, it needs way more cabs per person. New York has about three cabs per 1000 residents. Washington, D.C., has twelve. Las Vegas has six.

The further this people-per-cab line drops, the worse it is for Uber. The real improvement in this ratio didn’t come until Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s green "borough cabs" hit the street. Green cabs are just like the city’s iconic yellow cabs, except they can only be hailed outside of Manhattan (though they can drop riders off in Manhattan). Twelve-thousand green cabs started operating between 2013 and 2014. Another 6,000 are due to be licensed in 2015, along with 2,000 new yellow cabs between 2015 and 2017 (those cabs, which are still subject to final city approval, are the dotted lines in the charts).

Uber all along has considered taxis to be the villains in its story. Uber is right that strictly limiting the number of cabs in New York is bad policy that enriches medallion owners and hurts riders. It also hurts the public as a whole –- even the non-taxi-riding public. Medallion sales are a solid source of revenue for New York City. Mayor Bill de Blasio's budget is counting on $1.5 billion in revenue from medallion sales over the next three years. For a city struggling to balance its budget, that's significant.

But if taxi owners are the villains, Uber is not necessarily the hero. Privatization doesn't have to be the only response to bad public policy. The best response to bad public policy is often just good public policy. New York City could prove that by continuing to massively increase the size of the city’s regulated cab fleet.

Mattel Apologizes For Depicting Barbie As An Incompetent Computer Engineer

Barbie is sorry. In a posting on Mattel's Barbie Facebook page Wednesday, the iconic doll apologized for a 2010 children's book that portrays her failed attempt at becoming a computer engineer.

In Barbie: I Can Be A Computer Engineer, Barbie is depicted as totally incompetent, dependent on the help of men and unable to even restart her computer.

"We believe girls should be empowered to understand that anything is possible and believe they live in a world without limits," Barbie's Facebook post says. 'We apologize that this book didn’t reflect that belief. All Barbie titles moving forward will be written to inspire girls imaginations and portray an empowered Barbie character.'

Customers have been posting negative reviews of the book on Amazon since 2013, but outrage on the Amazon listing and doll's Facebook page reached a critical mass after the book was flagged this week by the websites Pamie and Consumerist.

Mattel did not respond to The Huffington Post's request for further comment.

The book was still for sale Wednesday afternoon at major retailers, including Amazon and Barnes and Noble.

Barbie's critics have argued for decades that the doll is an unrealistic and misogynistic portrayal of women. They say this book is particularly degrading to women who work in science and technology.

From the book:

“I’m only creating the design ideas,” Barbie says, laughing. “I’ll need Steven and Brian’s help to turn it into a real game!”

Head to Gizmodo for a definitive breakdown of the book.

Read Mattel's apology here.

Post by Barbie.

Toys R Us To Open At 5 P.M. On Thanksgiving

Toys R Us announced Friday that it will open at 5 p.m. on Thanksgiving Day and stay open for 30 hours straight until 11 p.m. on Black Friday.

The kids toy store chain is one of a growing list of companies staying open on Thanksgiving in order to add an extra day to one of the biggest shopping weekends of the year. While shoppers tend to show up in droves for Black Friday kickoff events, many have criticized retailers for asking low-wage employees to come to work, instead of spending the holiday with family and friends.

A representative from Toys R Us told The Huffington Post Friday that the company asks workers to volunteer to staff Thanksgiving weekend shifts. If there aren't enough volunteers, workers are assigned the shifts.

"We have so much excitement leading up to Thanksgiving and Black Friday," Adrienne O’Hara, a spokesperson for Toys R Us, told HuffPost. "Employees are really excited, it's an event."

O’Hara said hourly workers receive time-and-a-half for working Thanksgiving Day, which is generally the case at many large retailers.

This year, Macy's, Kmart, Sears, J.C. Penney and Walmart, among others, will be open on Thanksgiving Day. Other stores like Costco and Sam's Club will close.

Are you working a retail job on Black Friday? We'd love to hear about your experience. Email our reporter Hunter Stuart at hunter@huffingtonpost.com

Why Obama And The Democrats Can't Get Any Love For The Economy

The U.S. economy is growing, unemployment is tumbling and stocks are at record highs. So why aren't President Barack Obama and the Democrats getting enough credit for that to avoid a big loss in Tuesday's midterm elections?

Maybe because, for way too many Americans, the economy might as well still be in recession.

Most of the benefits of the economic recovery that began in 2009 have accrued only to the wealthiest Americans. Middle-class Americans, meanwhile, have been left behind. Their wages and wealth have stagnated -- a key reason why polls show that most Americans think the economy is still in a recession, even though it technically started recovering five years ago.

Here's a chart, courtesy of Credit Suisse, that sums it up. It shows the ratio of wealth to household income, which has spiked during this recovery to levels not seen since just before the Great Depression:

This means the rich are getting richer at a much, much faster rate than the rest of us, who are not getting rich at all. The rich have benefited from a stock market that has more than doubled in value since 2009, while the average worker's wages have barely kept up with inflation:

Unfortunately for Obama and the Democrats, wealthier Americans tend to vote Republican, and merely getting richer in the past few years has not been enough to make them switch teams. Wealthy Americans also donate money to Republican candidatess, including the ones who are widely expected to take over the Senate and extend their control over the House of Representatives in Tuesday's elections.

Not all elections hinge on the economy, but it's not hard to draw a pretty straight line from the current economy to the gloomy outlook for Democrats in this election. Most Americans say the economy is their top issue, according to several recent polls, and only 38 percent of Americans think the economy is in OK shape, according to a recent CNN/ORC International poll. Just 35 percent of Americans approve of Obama's handling of the economy, according to Gallup.

Of course, midterm elections almost always go badly for the party that holds the White House. Going into the midterm election of 1986, President Ronald Reagan had a 60 percent approval rating and a decent economy on his side, and his party still lost control of the Senate and gave up a handful of seats in the House.

Aside from a one-off swoon in GDP in the first quarter, the economy has arguably been kinder to Obama in 2014 than it was to Reagan in 1986. GDP has bounced back sharply in the past two quarters. The unemployment rate has tumbled nearly a full percentage point this year, recently falling below 6 percent (compared with 7 percent for Reagan). The Dow and S&P 500 are constantly breaking records, and the Nasdaq is at levels not seen since the peak of the dot-com bubble in 2000.

But unemployment has fallen at least partly because workers are leaving the labor force, not because of a massive boom in hiring. Workers are giving up looking for work, either because of early retirement or because they've just lost hope, meaning they no longer count as "unemployed" in the eyes of the government.

Stock prices are at record highs, but most Americans don't own stocks. Middle-class workers who have managed to save a bit in 401(k) accounts don't have enough wealth to retire on for more than a year. Most stock gains have in fact gone to top earners, including CEOs, whose pay has skyrocketed to the point where they're making nearly 300 times as much as workers, as you can see in this chart from the Economic Policy Institute:

In thinking about 2014, a more telling comparison than 1986 is 1998, when President Bill Clinton enjoyed a great midterm election. The Republicans picked up no seats that year, the first such failure for a party out of the White House since 1934.

Clinton was lucky enough to be in office in the middle of the dot-com boom. That, of course, benefited the rich, just as the recent stock market rally has done. But in 1998, the middle class was getting a taste, too. Unemployment stayed below 5 percent all year -- close to what most economists would consider full employment. GDP was in the middle of a four-year growth boom of more than 4 percent annually, the strongest stretch since the 1960s.

Most importantly, hourly wage growth was more than twice the level of inflation that year, the biggest such gap since the early 1970s. In 1998, the middle class really felt like it was getting richer. That probably made it a lot easier to reward the party in power.

Meet The Working Mother Taking Her Pregnancy Discrimination Case To The Supreme Court

WASHINGTON -- When Peggy Young became pregnant in 2006, she had every intention of continuing to work delivering packages for UPS in Maryland. At the urging of the company's occupational health manager, Young visited her doctor to obtain a note detailing any work restrictions she might need. Her doctor recommended that she not lift more than 20 pounds for the first 20 weeks of her pregnancy.

Based on the doctor's note, UPS placed Young on unpaid leave, an all too common experience for women nationwide. Although UPS often put workers with other conditions on light duty, it told Young that such accommodations wouldn't apply to an "off-the-job" condition such as her pregnancy. Not only would she lose her income, she would have to suddenly switch to her husband's health insurance plan, changing the hospitals at which she could potentially give birth.

"I wanted to work," Young told The Huffington Post. "I all but begged for them to let me work."

The unborn child Young was carrying in 2006 is now a 7-year-old girl named Trinity. Young no longer works for UPS, but she's still fighting the shipping giant for denying her accommodations while she was pregnant. Young sued UPS alleging discrimination, and her case, Young v. UPS, is now before the Supreme Court, with oral arguments expected in December.

If the policy enforced on Young in 2006 doesn't seem particularly enlightened, UPS itself would seem to agree. In a memo sent to employees this week, the company announced that it will begin offering light duty to pregnant workers on Jan. 1, the Washington Post reported Wednesday. The turnaround puts UPS in the peculiar position of defending before the Supreme Court a policy that it is already walking away from.

In a brief filed last Friday, UPS maintains that its decision to deny Young an accommodation was "lawful at the time it was made," a position it reiterated to HuffPost. The company said it decided to alter the policy to respond in part to new guidelines from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which investigates workplace discrimination.

"Laws have been changing, and there's a growing consensus looking at best practices," said Kara Gerhardt Ross, a UPS spokeswoman. "We want to provide good benefits. We saw this as a good thing for our employees."

Even though it may now be moot for UPS's own workforce, Young's case could have far-reaching consequences for working women throughout the country. The underlying question is whether or not the Pregnancy Discrimination Act compels companies to offer light-duty options to pregnant workers if they already do so for non-pregnant workers in other situations. The 1978 law, which amended the Civil Rights Act, forbids companies from treating pregnant workers differently from workers who are "similar in their ability or inability to work."

UPS maintains that its leave policy was pregnancy "neutral," treating workers like Young no better or worse than their colleagues who aren't pregnant. The circumstances under which UPS drivers were entitled to light duty, the company notes in its argument, were laid out in a collective bargaining agreement with the Teamsters union. Under that agreement, the company didn't have to provide temporary accommodations to workers with "off-the-job injuries or conditions," unless it was a cognitive disability under the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Ultimately, the company argues, the policy "treats a lifting restriction resulting from pregnancy in exactly the same way" as, say, a "back injury sustained off the job."

Young's legal team says the policy violated the "plain language" of the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, deeming the company's off-the-job distinction irrelevant. They note that the law includes no exceptions for a "pregnancy-blind" reason to deny a pregnant worker accommodations. If the company is willing to provide light duty to other workers, then it has to grant them to pregnant workers, they argue.

"If a person wasn't pregnant but was injured on the job and had the same restrictions, UPS would have provided an accommodation," Sam Bagenstos, a lawyer for Young and a professor at the University of Michigan Law School, told HuffPost shortly before UPS announced its policy change. "UPS actually accommodates a very large swath of its drivers who have lifting restrictions, but not for workers whose restrictions result from pregnancy."

Bagenstos said the case is more likely to affect women in low-wage and manual-labor jobs than anything else. After all, women in higher-paying, white-collar positions generally don't have to worry about heavy lifting in the course of their job duties, and are therefore less likely to find themselves having to request light duty from their employer.

Given the stakes of the case, a broad and rather unusual coalition of stakeholders have lined up behind Young. Those filing briefs in her support include not only a host of women's rights organizations and the American Civil Liberties Union, but also the U.S. Women's Chamber of Commerce and 23 pro-life groups. The interest of the pro-life crowd is obvious. As the groups note in their brief, "economic pressure is a significant factor in many women’s decision to choose abortion over childbirth."

Ariela Migdal, a lawyer handling pregnancy discrimination cases at the ACLU, said the ideological diversity of Young's alliance is an asset for her.

"They kind of came together around this because it offends many people to think workplaces should be forcing pregnant workers to make horrible choices," Migdal said.

Now 42 years old and a mother of three, Young works for a government contractor outside of Washington, D.C. Eight years after becoming pregnant with Trinity, she still has the same lawyer, Sharon Fast Gustafson, who pressed UPS to accommodate her pregnancy in 2006.

Last year, Young and Gustafson celebrated Maryland's passage of the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, a law that requires the state's employers to make reasonable accommodations for their pregnant employees. Similar laws have been passed in other states since Young first filed her case, and a federal version has been championed by Democrats in Congress, though it hasn't passed either the House or Senate yet.

Despite the progress that has been made, Young said that both the law and corporate America have plenty more catching up to do.

"It's not just about me; it's about all women considering becoming pregnant," Young said. "You're not pregnant forever, and a lot of families these days need both their incomes. I think if hard-working women want to work and become pregnant, then we should let them."

Tim Cook Comes Out As Gay In Powerful Businessweek Essay

Apple CEO Tim Cook came out as gay in a powerful essay for Bloomberg Businessweek.

In the essay, published Thursday, Cook said that he has never denied being gay, but has not publicly discussed his sexuality until now: "So let me be clear: I’m proud to be gay, and I consider being gay among the greatest gifts God has given me."

He described how his sexuality has given him an acute social perspective.

Being gay has given me a deeper understanding of what it means to be in the minority and provided a window into the challenges that people in other minority groups deal with every day. It’s made me more empathetic, which has led to a richer life. It’s been tough and uncomfortable at times, but it has given me the confidence to be myself, to follow my own path, and to rise above adversity and bigotry. It’s also given me the skin of a rhinoceros, which comes in handy when you’re the CEO of Apple.

The revelation comes just days after Cook advocated on behalf of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights in his home state of Alabama.

"[Alabama is] still too slow on equality for the LGBT community," he said, per the Associated Press, while calling for laws protecting people based on sexual orientation and gender identity. "Under the law, citizens of Alabama can still be fired based on their sexual orientation. We can't change the past, but we can learn from it and we can create a different future."

Cook's sexuality has been a point of speculation for quite some time. Gawker reported that Cook was gay back in 2011 before he succeeded Steve Jobs.

Since then, Cook himself has seemingly dropped hints about his sexuality. Last year, during a speech about human rights at Auburn University Cook discussed the discrimination he faced as a young person, according to ValleyWag.

"Since these early days, I have seen and have experienced many types of discrimination and all of them were rooted in the fear of people that were different than the majority," he said.

However, since the 53-year-old had not publicly come out, the question still remained. In May, the New York Times ran a story titled "Where Are The Gay Chief Executives?" and had to subsequently clarify their definition of "openly gay." CNBC's Simon Hobbs made headlines for mistakenly saying Cook was "fairly open" about being gay during a live segment back in June.

Head over to Businessweek to read Cook's full essay.

If You Had A Verizon Family Plan In The 2000s, There's Some Cash Coming Your Way

Verizon agreed to a proposed settlement last week under which it would pay $64.2 million to settle claims that it overcharged customers who signed up for family plans.

Family SharePlan customers were allegedly billed for in-network calls that were supposed to be free, according to a class-action lawsuit filed in 2006 in a New Jersey federal court. Customers with that plan were also allegedly billed more than the advertised rate for additional minutes they used over their monthly allowance.

The alleged overcharges happened between 2002 and 2006, at the height of so-called "family share" plans' popularity with customers.

Under the terms of the settlement, which has yet to be approved by the court, Verizon would pay $36.7 million into a settlement fund, according to court filings obtained by Consumerist. Once lawyer fees and other expenses have been deducted -- $19.26 million alone will be paid to plaintiffs' attorneys, Law360 reports -- Verizon would pay the remaining amount in cash and bill credits to affected customers.

Verizon would then pay out another $27.5 million in the form of credits for free phone calls, the court documents state.

When asked whether Verizon had deliberately overcharged people with Family SharePlans, or whether it was merely a mistake, Peter Bezek, one of the attorneys who filed the class-action suit, said he believed it was “primarily an oversight.”

“I assume they legitimately believed in the billing practices they had,” Bezek told The Huffington Post. “Ultimately, when they were shown there were, in fact, billing problems, they acted responsibly and settled the case.”

Verizon declined to comment for this story.

Of course, we don’t make phone calls today nearly as much as we used to, opting instead to send text messages and emails. As a result, cell phone providers now offer plans with unlimited talk time, meaning this problem is unlikely to happen on a large scale again.

But just because charging for "minutes" isn't as common now doesn't mean that Verizon -- and companies like it -- won't overcharge you in other ways. Verizon and AT&T have both been accused of other types of improper billing, and have had to pay out substantial sums of money in order to make such cases go away.

Walmart To Kick Off Holiday Shopping Season Day After Halloween

NEW YORK (AP) — Wal-Mart is doing whatever it takes to rope in holiday shoppers however they want to buy.

For the first time, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is offering free shipping on what it considers the season's top 100 hottest gifts, from board games to items related to Disney's hit film "Frozen" items, starting Saturday. The move comes as rival Target Corp. began offering free shipping on all items, a program that started late October and will last through Dec. 20.

Wal-Mart is also planning to offer discounts, or what it refers to as "rollbacks," on more than 20,000 items on a broad range of products, from groceries to TVs, starting Saturday. The timing is similar to last year, but the discounter said the assortment is broader. It's also pulling forward by nearly a month 15 24-hour online deals originally reserved for the Thanksgiving weekend and so-called Cyber Monday, about double from last year. For the first time, Wal-Mart will allow shoppers to pick up those 24-hour online specials at the store. They include 40-inch Element TVs for $199, down from $298, and Crayola Paint Makers for $12, down from $18.88. Customers will be able to purchase the deals online starting shortly after midnight on Monday.

The online deals are in addition to several hundred online holiday specials that start Saturday.

"We're trying to offer the best deals when they want them," said Steve Bratspies, Wal-Mart's executive vice president and general merchandise manager for Wal-Mart's U.S. division.

Wal-Mart unveiled some of the details of its holiday strategy as it considers matching online prices from competitors such as Amazon.com, a move that could help grab more customers but could also hurt profit margins. The Bentonville, Arkansas-based discounter has matched prices of local store competitors but has not followed other retailers including Best Buy and Target in matching prices of online rivals. But last month, Wal-Mart started to test the strategy in five markets: Atlanta; Charlotte, North Carolina; Dallas; Phoenix; and northwest Arkansas.

Wal-Mart is trying to rev up sluggish sales in the U.S. as it battles competition from online retailers, dollar stores and drugstores. At the same time, it's also dealing with a slowly recovering economy that hasn't benefited its low-income shoppers. As a result, Wal-Mart's U.S. namesake stores, which account for 60 percent of its total business, haven't reported growth in a key sales measure in six straight quarters.

Wal-Mart's move underscores how stores are being forced to step up their game for the holiday shopping season, which accounts for about 20 percent of retail industry's annual sales. The National Retail Federation, the nation's largest retail trade group, forecasts a 4.1 percent sales increase to $616.9 billion for November and December from last year. But online sales, which are included in the forecast, are expected to increase anywhere from 8 percent to 11 percent.

Wal-Mart declined to say whether it was considering changing its price match policy for just the holidays or permanently. Deisha Barnett, a Wal-Mart spokeswoman, says many store managers have matched online prices for customers on a case-by-case basis.

"Taking care of the customers who shop our stores is what we always aim to do," she added.

As for its free shipping holiday program, Wal-Mart said that it had store executives pick the 100 items and that products are guaranteed to arrive before Christmas. Wal-Mart's current policy is that online shoppers have to spend at least $50.

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Follow Anne D'Innocenzio at http://www.Twitter.com/adinnocenzio