Shrien Alshabasy came out with new lottery winner stats. You can read the entire article here. Here are a few snippets:
44% of winners spend their entire winnings in five years!
2% say that they are less happy with all that cash.
95% of people remained married after they won the lottery and those with unmarried partners are 100% still in that relationship
Only 17% of families ask for winnings from winners of $100,000 to $500,000 while 29% ask for money from winners of $4+ million.
WalletHub.com recently did a study titled “2015’s Best & Worst Cities to Start a Career”. The study looked at 150 U.S. cities and used 19 key metrics to find out how cities ranked for young people starting a career.
One stat that popped out was Fort Wayne, Indiana being in the Top Five for housing affordability.
One being the best and 150 being the worst, Indianapolis graded out at 92 and Fort Wayne was 103.
Tattoo popularity has exploded among Americans in the last decade and StastiticBrain.com has some recent financial data to explore this small segment of our economy. Here’s some notes from their research:
Annual amount of U.S. spending on tattoos:
$1,650,500,000
Number of tattoo parlors in the U.S.
21,000
Average cost of a small tattoo
$ 45
Average cost of a large tattoo
$150 / hour
Forty five million people have tattoos with 32% of them “addicted” to getting ink done. On the flip side, 17% have some regret getting one done. Eleven percent of respondents are “getting or have had one removed” which shows the tattoo removal business growing in the next decade.
H/T Pew Research Center, Tattoo Finder, Vanishing Tattoo
Banks are enjoying borrowers paying on their car loans.
With fast food workers demanding equality and $15/hr wages being enacted by some major cities, franchisees are now unveiling what their new workers look like:
H/T Economic Policy Journal
Sometimes you have to wonder what goes on in marketing board rooms…..via New York Daily News and read whole story here.
The federal government has decided regulating Christmas lights is a top priority for the citizens of this country. Here is more from The Washington Free Beacon:
The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) issued a regulation for Christmas lights on Monday, deeming some holiday decorations a “substantial product hazard.”
The ruling applies to a variety of Christmas decorations, including “stars, wreathes, candles without shades, light sculptures, blow-molded (plastic) figures, and animated figures.”
The CPSC said the regulation is necessary because Christmas lights can be dangerous.
What caused this ruling?
The CPSC said there have been 258 deaths associated with Christmas lights between 1980 and 2013. However, fatal incidents have been on the decline, with an average of less than one fatal (0.9) incident a year since 2008. The number of people who die of alcohol poisoning in California every year is greater than the number of Americans who have been killed by Christmas lights in the past three decades.
The City of Terre Haute owes a lot of money on bills….a lot of money. Recent digging by the Tribune Star shows a rough financial picture.
As of Friday, the city owed $730,281 in bills that were more than 60 days overdue, according to information compiled by the city controller. Ellis says she monitors cash flow each day to determine which checks can be released for payment.
Some utilities, including Duke and Vectren, have sent disconnect notices to the city in recent months, records show. The city attributes some of those disconnect notices to mistakes. In the case of Vectren, a bill was misplaced, and for Duke Energy, checks for the right amount were sent — one was for $15,000 — but remittance forms were not correct, and so the checks were returned to the city. The matter was cleared up and those bills have been paid, Ellis said.
You can read the rest here via Indiana Economic Digest
Mark J. Perry of Carpe Diem Blog provides data showing the slow business death of newspaper revenue. Their digital revenue does not add much growth either.
Chipotle Mexcican Grill recently made headlines by going “GMO Free” on certain ingredients. I believe this announcement was more of a marketing ploy against the news in their recent financial statements. I’m not a big investor of restaurants in this day and age of the Federal Reserve printing money at a high rate and American beef in demand world wide. (Some investment advice, put your money not in the restaurant but with the beef farmer) Chipotle is hiking prices again on its customers. Within a one year time period prices on certain items will have increased 11-13%.
This write up came from TheStreet.com a week before their GMO announcement –
Chipotle stands to receive another jolt to the top line from another round of price increases. The company, which has historically been reluctant to lift prices, confirmed it will hike prices on steak and barbacoa in the third quarter by 4% to 6% in order to compensate for persistent beef inflation.
In the second quarter last year, Chipotle implemented an across-the-board menu price increase of about 7%, as it dealt with beef, dairy and avocado inflation. Same-restaurant sales growth accelerated soon after the menu price increases went into effect — after rising by 13.1% in the first quarter of last year, same-restaurant sales increased averaged 17.7% in the remaining three quarters.
Hoosier Econ 