Spending Well

MANAGING YOUR MONEY,

WORK AND SUCCESS

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 2015

Copyright 2015 The New York Times

Talking Points

The Security of Saying I Do

That European Vacation
Is More Affordable Now
The falling euro is good news for Americans with plans to visit Europe as the
spring and summer travel season arrives,
said Ian Shepherdson, chief economist at
Pantheon Macroeconomics. But dont buy
euros now wait for the trip, he said. It
wouldnt surprise me in the least if the euro
was even with the dollar by April.

Real-World Experience
Demand for internships abroad has surged
as students and their parents grow ever
more worried about their job prospects
in a world that values global experience.
According to the Institute of International
Education, almost 20,500 Americans participated in for-credit internships in 2012-13,
while about 15,000 interned, worked or
volunteered abroad for no credit.

Money to Spend,
And Art to Spend It On
The wealthiest Americans have grown
wealthier since the Great Recession, and
many are investing their wealth in art.
Christie's and Sothebys combined to
sell roughly $14 billion worth of art last
year, in record-setting amounts for both
auction houses.

Movie Tie-Ins for Adults

The novel Fifty Shades of Grey spurred
a 7.5 percent jump in sales of sex-themed
products, including toys, videos and
books, in 2013, according to the research
firm IBISWorld. With the opening of
the film version this weekend, sex-toy
retailers are stocking up again.

Snapping and Chatting

Cisco Systems predicts that by 2019, 5.2
billion people 69 percent of the worlds
population will have mobile phones. It
predicts there will be 4.6 billion smartphones among that crowd.

TAYLOR GOAD

GOING IT ALONE The percentage of married households in the United States has been slipping steadily since 1960, which contributes to economic inequality.

YOUR MONEY

ANDREW L. YARROW

Some see a link

in marriage rates
and inequality.
Valentines Day has long been a popular moment for popping the question,
but proposing marriage has been slipping as the ultimate romantic move.
The percentage of married households
in the United States has fallen to a historic low.
Census data cited in a 2014 study by
the Pew Research Center show that
the percentage of married households
fell to 50.5 in 2012 from a high of about
72 percent in 1960. Among the less
well educated, married households
have fallen even more. A 2011 study
by Pew found that although 64 percent of college-educated Americans
were married, fewer than 48 percent
of those without college degrees were
married. In 1960, the report found, the
two groups were about equally likely
to be married.
This trend has opened up a yawning
economic divide. Studies have shown
that married women and men tend
to be much better off financially than
those who are unmarried, and that
those who have fewer assets and more
debt early on are less likely to marry or

have stable marriages than those who

are more financially secure.
There are relatively few relationships that are more fully documented
than those between economic well-being and marriage, said Ron Haskins,
the author of many scholarly papers on
marriage.
A 2012 study by the National Bureau
of Economic Research found that the
median 65-to-69-year-old married
household had almost 10 times as
much in savings as the typical single-person household: $111,600 compared with $12,500. Its a plain fact
that people who are married have
more income, wealth and savings
that last into their retirement, Mr.
Haskins said.
Jonathan Rauch, a leader of the
Marriage Opportunity Council, a new
multi-institution project, said, Marriage is thriving among people with
four-year college diplomas, but the
further down you go on the educational and economic totem pole, the worse
its doing.
Theres a growing danger that
marriage, with all its advantages for
stability, income and child well-being, will look like a gated community
for the baccalaureate class, with ever-shrinking working-class participation, he said.
Marriage is about as good a predictor of economic success as are education, race and ethnicity, according to
a 2014 study by Robert Lerman of the
Urban Institute and W. Bradford Wilcox, director of the National Marriage

Project at the University of Virginia.

In their analysis of census and Bureau
of Labor
As united as social scientists appear
to be about the strong correlation between marriage and higher net worth,
a good many of them part company
over whether greater marital wealth
results from having the skills and propensity to work hard, save, stay out
of debt, and also seek out and marry
those with the same attributes versus those who start down the same
road having low wages, little in savings and less education and as such

It's a plain fact that

people who are married
have more income,
wealth and savings.
may find it harder to find and maintain
stable marriages.
For women coming of age in an era
when their own educational and career prospects are brighter than ever,
marrying someone with high debts or
negligible savings or both seems
to have become unappealing.
In 2013, the economist David H. Autor and Melanie Wasserman, a graduate student at M.I.T., found that sharp
declines in the earning power of
non-college males combined with the
economic self-sufficiency of women
rising educational attainment, falling
gender gap and greater female control
over fertility choices have reduced

the economic value of marriage for

women.
Married same-sex couples tend to
be more financially secure than single
gay Americans, said Ineke Mushovic,
the executive director of the Movement Advancement Project in Denver, a policy research organization
focusing on lesbian, gay, bisexual and
transgender issues. Poverty rates for
gay men and lesbians living alone are
more than 20 percent, compared with
4.3 percent for partnered gay men and
7.6 percent for partnered lesbians, the
organization reports.
I see the clear connection between
marriage and savings, said Doug
Sutherland, a 94-year-old minister
from Raymore, Mo., whose wife of
nearly 69 years, Twila, 92, has resided
in an Alzheimers center since 2010.
Way back when, we started a savings
account and we prided ourselves on
saving regularly, he said. Im thankful we did most notably, he added,
because of the $8,000 a month in bills
for his wifes inpatient care.
Insufficient savings and other financial matters are the most common
cause of discord among American
couples, said Ernie Almonte of the National C.P.A. Financial Literacy Commission.
Divorce causes a decrease in
wealth that is larger than just splitting
a couples assets in half, said Jay Zagorsky, an Ohio State University economist. If you really want to increase
your wealth, get married and stay
married.

Unions and Inequality

Secrets of a Cheap Getaway

DATAPOINTS

LIFESTYLE

ANNA BERNASEK
A generation ago, labor unions were often a familiar feature of the American
workplace, but in private businesses
across the country, unions have been
shrinking. Today, fewer than one in
15 private sector workers belongs to
a union, compared with almost one in
four back in 1973.
But dwindling union participation
in the private sector stands in stark
contrast with union membership
among public sector workers, which
rose sharply in the 1970s and has been
relatively steady since 1980, around 35
percent. Overall union membership
has fallen by about a half since 1983,
according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The causes of falling union participation are hard to pinpoint but may
include the pressures of global trade,
technological change, the shift away
from domestic manufacturing and a
tougher stance against unions from
government and corporate leaders.
It is probably no accident that
the drop in union membership has
occurred as the incomes of many
working Americans have stagnated.
The decline in unions is a huge factor explaining whats happened to
middle-class wages, said Lawrence
Mishel, president of the Economic Pol-

24.2%

Private sector union

membership rate, 1973

6.6%

Private sector union

membership rate, 2014
SOURCE: BARRY T. HIRSCH AND DAVID A. MACPHERSON

icy Institute, a liberal think tank. He

said it could account for one-third of
the growth in wage inequality for men
and one-fifth of that for women from
1973 to 2007.
Shrinking union participation affects the broader work force, since
unions tend to provide spillover benefits to nonunion members. According
to an article written by Mr. Mishel and
David Cooper, an analyst at the Economic Policy Institute, employee compensation declined most in states like
Michigan and Ohio where collective
bargaining also declined sharply.
When collective bargaining is
strong in an industry, what you find is
that it raises nonunion employee wages
too, Mr. Mishel said.

REBECCA R. RUIZ

To usher in 2015, Tim Ratliff, an air traffic

controller in Ann Arbor, Mich., booked a
four-star hotel in Boston for half its typical price. But he did not know which one
it was.

Adventurous travelers
follow online clues to
high-end hotels.
Mr. Ratliff paid in full for a three-night
stay at an unspecified hotel, advertised as
having Frette bathrobes, an indoor pool, a
private balcony and proximity to Boston
Common. He bought it through a site that
sells so-called secret stays at high-end
hotels, introduced with clues about their
location, amenities and design.
While blind bookings have been
around since the late 1990s, a growing
number of sites that have focused exclusively on high-end properties. Consumers are increasingly willing to take
what they see as a limited risk in return
for a lower price. And for hotels, the sites
offer the chance to recruit new customers while increasing occupancy rates
without broadcasting discounts to
others.
Brands including Ritz-Carlton and

JOSHUA LOTT FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

LANDING BARGAINS When he booked a hotel for a visit to Boston, Tim Ratliff made an

educated guess about where he would be staying.

Four Seasons have sold rooms at discounted rates through sites like Jetsetter,
Secret Escapes and Tablet Hotels. Mr.
Ratliff wound up staying at the Revere
in Boston, paying $130 a night about
half the rate of the least expensive rooms
listed on the hotels site. I had a two-bed
suite with a great view of the city, he said.
Though he had never been to Boston,
he said, he researched hotels near the
park with indoor pools and balconies and
narrowed the candidates before buying.
Some consumers are using such educated guesses for higher-stakes occasions.

Megan Feffer, a publicist from Washington, reserved a hotel room for her honeymoon from Jetsetter in 2013, buying five
nights at an unidentified resort on Maui;
it turned out to be the Ritz-Carlton. She
paid 50 to 70 percent less than the advertised rates.
We figured out which hotel it was before we bought, she said, based on the
mileage given from the airport.
Sean Murphy of Jetsetter said such
travelers see it as part of the adventure.
Everybody wants a unique story that nobody has.

SPENDING WELL | THE NEW YORK TIMES

A Smorgasbord
Of G.M.O. Labels
SHOPPING

STEPHANIE STROM

1: Which of these foods does not have

a genetically modified version on the
market?
A: Corn
B: Soy
C: Papaya
D: Wheat
2: Which of these ingredients, used in a
wide variety of processed foods, comes
from a genetically altered source?
A: Riboflavin
B: Xanthan gum
C: Caramel color
D: Baking powder
E: High-fructose corn syrup
F: MSG
G: Phenylalanine
H: All of the above
3: How many countries in the world
by law require foods containing
genetically modified ingredients to be
labeled?
A: 15
B: 103
C: 64
D: 80
4: What state currently has no laws or
regulation requiring G.M.O. labeling?
A: Connecticut
B: California
C: Maine
D: Vermont
5: Which of these countries does not
currently require G.M.O. labeling?
A: Mali
B: China
C: Belarus
D: India
E: England
F: North Korea
G: Greece
6: Which of these labels or seals is a
federally regulated guarantee that
foods contain virtually no G.M.O.
ingredients?
A: Organic seal
B: "Natural"
C: Non G.M.O. Project seal
D: Fair trade seals
E: Gluten-free seal
Answers: 1-D; 2-H; 3-C; 4-B; 5-F; 6-A

Few industry debates are as heated

these days as the one about labeling
foods that containgeneticallymodifiedingredients. And while interest
groups and advocates wage war in
state legislatures, on ballots and in
Congress over what should be disclosed on productlabels, products
certified as containing nogeneticallymodifiedorganisms are proliferating on grocery shelves without any nationwide mandatory regulations.
Moreover, many manufacturers are
nodding to the public debate, adding
the phrase non-G.M.O. to their packaging without a verification process.
Weve put it on ourlabelsbecause it
was something our customers wanted
to know, said Hitesh Hajarnavis, chief
executive of Popcorn Indiana.
The shift toward voluntary labeling
has led to a lot of consumer confusion,
as differentlabels, organizations and
agencies issue seals or stamps that
attest to compliance with few,
if any, uniform standards.
In addition,foodcompanies are tacking the words
non-G.M.O. on items
that would never be con-

Without national
rules, consumers get
scattershot guidance on
natural foods.
sidered in need of such labeling.
TheNon-GMO Project, the leading certification group in the United
States, has verified more than 24,500
products. Even more products have
packaging that simply contains language stating that they are G.M.O.free.
Nielsen, which conducts consumer
research and analysis, said sales of
non-G.M.O. products exceeded $10 billion last year and grew at a faster pace
than sales of gluten-free items over the
last four years.
In a recentNielsen study of 30,000
consumers, 80 percent of respondents
said they would pay more for foods
with labels like non-G.M.O."
Proponents of labeling note that
while sales of products certified by
the Non-GMO Project almost tripled
last year, to more than $8.5 billion, that
represents a small fraction of grocery
stores total sales of $620 billion in 2013.
Were still a long way from the
point at which voluntary labeling
tackles the problem, said Jean Halloran, director of food policy initiatives
at Consumers Union, which lobbies for
mandatory labeling.
Michael R. Gruber of theGrocery
Manufacturers Association said its
members wanted theFoodand Drug
Administrationto be the main regulator offoodlabeling. The industry spent
more than $100 million last year to narrowly defeat various ballot initiatives
to require more stringent labeling, and
it is backing a federal law that would

pre-empt state laws on the issue.

We are fighting the potential for a
multistate patchwork offood-labeling laws and regulations for G.M.O.,
Mr. Gruber said. We would like
theF.D.A.to provide the industry with
guidance.
Researchby the Hartman Group
found that 52 percent of consumers
said they knew what geneticallymodifiedorganisms were, but less than a
third could identify the crops that now
are grown usinggeneticallymodifiedseeds.
Most corn, soy, canola and sugar
beets, which are used to produce commonfoodingredients like high-fructose corn syrup, xanthan gum
andascorbic acid, are grown from
geneticallyaltered seeds, and papaya from Hawaii is largelygeneticallymodified.
Its hard for the average consumer to remember, Oh, I need to worry
about corn and soy but I dont have to
worry about blueberries, said Jared Simon, who heads the snack foods
business at the Hain Celestial Group,
which owns brands like Arrowhead
Mills and Earths Best. Theres
no easy way to navigate right
now.
Courtney Pineau, associate director of the NonGMO Project, said the backlog of products awaiting the
groups certification keeps
getting longer. Were still
verifying on average about 600
products a month, but demand is
intense, she said.
Were also having a lot of conversations with bigger, more conventional
retailers, grocery stores, about how to
get their private-label products verified, she said.
Trader Joes already takes steps to
ensure that its private-label inventory,
which accounts for most of its sales, is
free ofgeneticallyengineered products, and all products sold in Whole
Foods are to be labeled by 2018.
If a traditional grocery chain like
Kroger or Safeway were to begin labeling its private-label products, that
would be a game changer, said Carl
Jorgensen of Daymon Worldwide, a
consumer research firm.
Before the Non-GMO Project verified its first product in 2010, companies
like Bobs Red Mill Natural Foods and
Clif Bar & Company put their ingredients through what is known as identity verification to ensure they were
notgeneticallyaltered. Some of them
are now putting products through the
certification process because they
think consumers are beginning to look
for the projects butterfly seal.
Clif Bar, however, worries that the
Non-GMO Project seal has inadvertently created confusion among consumers about the meaning of another
seal, the Department of Agricultures
organic seal, which guarantees that a
product contains nogeneticallyengineered ingredients
While the intent of the Non-GMO
Project is good, said Matthew Dillon
of Clif Bar, they have inadvertently
caused more confusion in the marketplace.

So Little Set Aside for a Rainy Day

She set up a savings account at a
credit union and has 5 percent of her
paycheck automatically deposited
there. She declined an A.T.M. card
so that she couldnt easily get to the
money. She has saved $600 toward her
goal of $1,000. If you have to physically walk into a branch to withdraw the
money, she said, youll think twice.
Here are some questions about building emergency savings:

YOUR MONEY

BY ANN CARRNS
More than half of American households have less than one month of income available in readily accessible
savings to use in case of an emergency,
a new report from the Pew Charitable
Trusts finds.
Many financial advisers recommend
that families have a savings account
holding three to six months income, in
case of a job loss or an unexpected major expense. But regardless of income
level, the report found, most Americans lack the recommended level of
savings.
Even if they tapped all available resources, including assets that can be
costly to tap, like retirement accounts
and investments, the typical middle-income family can replace just four
months of income, the report found.
Lower-income households are in particularly precarious positions, with
less than two weeks income available
in savings and checking accounts and
cash. Most families, the report said,
feel vulnerable and stressed, and
could not withstand a serious financial
emergency.
Personal financial experts say there
are ways to build savings, even with
limited income. The hardest part is
the psychological side, said Daniel
Boylan, an instructor of finance at Ball
State University in Muncie, Ind. The
idea of saving six months of income
sounds impossible.
Mr. Boylan advises setting an initial
goal of one months pay, then moving
on to two months after the first goal is
attained, then three months, and so on.
J. Michael Collins, director of the

Where should emergency

savings be kept?

An emergency savings account

should be accessible since the
point is to be able to get the money
quickly if you need it but not too accessible. Using a bank separate from
where you have a checking account
helps. Enlisting a trusted friend or
family member as a money guard
can help you stay on track.

NICK BILTON/THE NEW YORK TIMES

Center for Financial Security at the

University of Wisconsin-Madison, advises automating savings by having a
fixed amount even if its a very small
amount regularly transferred from
your checking account to a savings
account. If its up to you to decide every month if you want to do it and how
much, he said, it wont happen.
For some people, getting started is
the biggest hurdle. Christina Mele, 50,
who works for a temp agency in Virginia Beach, Va., said she had never had a
savings account until she started saving for an emergency fund last year, after enrolling in the Bank On education
program sponsored by the City of Virginia Beach, local banks and community groups.

Should income tax refunds be put

in savings?

Putting at least part of a tax

refund, or a bonus, into a savings account can be a relatively painless way to start an emergency fund,
said Jonathan Morduch, a professor
at New York University. The Internal
Revenue Service lets taxpayers split
their refund for direct deposit into as
many as three different accounts; to
do so, youll need to file Form 8888 with
your return.

Are tools available that can help

promote savings?

The America Saves campaign encourages consumers to

sign a pledge, which helps them make
a commitment to save, and to sign up
on its website to receive texts with savings reminders and tips.

NICOLE BENGIVENO/THE NEW YORK TIMES

Technology Gives
The Tip Jar a Boost
TRENDS

HILARY STOUT
The flat white coffee drink was $4. The
cashier at Caf Grumpy, a New York
City coffeehouse, swiped the credit
card, then whirled the screen of her
iPad sales device around to face the
customer. Add a tip, the screen commanded, listing three options: $1, $2 or
$3.
In other words: 25 percent, 50 percent or 75 percent of the bill.
There was a no tip and a customize tip button, too, but neither seemed
particularly inviting as the cashier
looked on. Under that pressure, the
middle choice $2 seemed easiest.
American consumers are feeling a
bit of tip creep.
Leaving 15 percent for full service
(the former standard tip at a sitdown restaurant), and less for quick
transactions, is considered chintzy
by some people. We recommend 20
percent absolutely, said Peter Post,
managing director of the Emily Post
Institute, which offers guidelines in
etiquette.
And in many situations, merchants
as varied as cab companies and beauty salons rely on the ubiquitous touch
screen or mobile app to push higher
and higher gratuities. New York City
taxi riders paying with plastic are confronted with buttons for 20 percent, 25
percent or 30 percent tips. Anything
less has to be manually entered.
Other technological innovations are
making a difference for baristas and
other counter employees. A company,
DipJar, has created an electronic tip
jar patrons who pay for their coffee,
ice cream or bagel with a credit card
can dip the same card into a receptacle
by the register for a preset tip amount,
usually $1. Last fall, DipJar raised
$420,000 from investors to expand its
presence from about 20 test sites to 500
locations in the coming months.
The hints and prods come at a time
when the plight of low-wage workers is
increasingly in the national spotlight
and battles over raising the minimum
wage continue. Some states are considering lifting the subminimum wage
threshold pay for workers like waiters,
who are expected to earn a substantial
portion of their pay in tips.
But as expected gratuities edge up,
even conscientious and generous tippers wonder if there might be a better
way.
I would much prefer everybody get
a raise and do it the way the Europeans
do and include it in the price, said Helaine Olen, a personal finance blogger
and author of the book Pound Foolish:
Exploring the Dark Side of the Personal Finance Industry. But we dont live
that way.
Tipping as an American practice
stretches back centuries. There are
records of George Washington and
Thomas Jefferson giving tips to their
slaves, said Michael Lynn, a professor

of consumer behavior at Cornell. In the

1940s, he said, the average restaurant
tip was about 10 percent.
Some question whether expected
tips will edge up to a point where they
can no longer be counted on as addons, leading employers to rethink
pricing and salary structures. Patrons
of the fast-growing car service Uber
frequently cite its ban on tips as one of
the attractions, even if prices are higher than for taxi fares. A brew pub called
Public Option that is scheduled to open

NICOLE BENGIVENO/THE NEW YORK TIMES

At counter-service restaurants, where a

tip jar often sits by the register, DipJar
offers a way to tip when customers dont
have cash.

While some push for

higher wages, gratuities
for service workers get
a nudge too.

in Washington, D.C., will not allow tipping; its owner has said he plans to pay
his workers at least $15 an hour.
Still, the concept of tipping is spreading. In March, a Silicon Valley company opened ChangeTip, a platform that
allows people to send small Bitcoin
payments through social media, email,
Skype or text to show their appreciation for content creators (or anyone)
on the Internet. The service has been
growing about 30 percent a month and
now has about 60,000 users who have
collectively tipped over $250,000, said
Nick Sullivan, founder and chief executive.
The tips may be small, but Mr. Sullivans vision is grand: to disrupt the
advertising model on the Internet by
replacing it with a system of small altruistic micropayments. He even envisions a new concept: the viral tip.
One of the neat things with the way
ChangeTip works is all those tips are
public, he said. When I send you a tip
over Twitter, your followers can see it,
so theres an inherent potential for viral growth.

Help From the Crowd

During a Medical Crisis
HEALTH CARE

CONSTANCE GUSTKE
Norm Breyfogle, a comic book artist
known for his work on Batman, found
himself struggling after a stroke in December. He had no health insurance.
He was partly paralyzed on his left
side, unable to use his valuable drawing hand. And Mr. Breyfogle, 54, was
in a nursing home in Michigan, facing
months of physical therapy.
His brother, Kevin Breyfogle,
stepped in, starting a crowdfunding campaign on the site YouCaring.
His crowdfunding team set a goal of
$200,000, and raised $20,000 in the
first day.
More caregivers are turning to such
sites as they pay for loved ones unexpected out-of-pocket health care costs.
Sites like GiveForward, GoFundMe
and Fundly have devoted sections to
health expenses, including specific diseases like cancer. Even the crowdfunding powerhouse Indiegogo recently

DANIELLE S. PEMBLE FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Norm Breyfogle has no health insurance

as he recovers from a stroke.

stepped into the personal crowdfunding arena with Indiegogo Life, which
includes medical fund-raising.
Five years ago, no one would have
crowdfunded expenses, said Ethan
Austin, the president and co-founder of
GiveForward. But theres a tidal shift
coming as health care expenses rise.
He added: No one should have to go
through a difficult illness alone.