Shake Shack Soars In First Few Minutes Of Trading

Jan 30 (Reuters) - Shares of gourmet hamburger chain Shake Shack Inc soared 150 percent in their first few minutes of trading on Friday, valuing the company that grew out of a hotdog cart in New York's Madison Square Park at nearly $2 billion.

The sizzling debut follows the successful listing two months ago of Habit Restaurants Inc, highlighting strong appetite for shares of companies serving up premium burgers.

Shake Shack shares hit $52.49 in early trading on the New York Stock Exchange, way above their offer price of $21.

At the high, founder Daniel Meyer's 21 percent stake in the company was worth about $390 million.

Meyer, who also owns popular New York restaurants Blue Smoke, Gramercy Tavern and Union Square Cafe, opened the first Shake Shack in 2004. Since then, the chain has won a near-cult following for its rich milkshakes, crinkle fries and hormone- and antibiotic-free burgers.

Shake Shack raised $105 million from its initial public offering. Underwriters J.P. Morgan and Morgan Stanley had originally set an expected price range of $14-16 per share, but later raised this to $17-19 due to strong demand.

SCORCHING GROWTH

Premium chains have been outperforming in the overall burger category, driven by demand from young, affluent consumers.

Shake Shack's customers spend roughly $30 for a meal for two - considerably more than diners spend at struggling fast-food giant McDonald's Inc.

Sales at premium chains including Five Guys and Smashburger rose 9 percent in 2013, according to restaurant consultancy Technomic Inc, while overall sales at all burger chains including McDonald's fell 1 percent.

The burger market, the largest dine-out segment in the United States, generated more than $72 billion in sales in 2013.

Shake Shack has 63 restaurants, more than half outside the United States, many of these in the Middle East. The company has said it plans to open 10 U.S., company-operated restaurants each year and could eventually grow to at least 450 locations.

The IPO market has been fruitful for so-called fast-casual restaurant operators hoping to replicate the scorching growth of Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc. Chipotle's shares, which listed at $22 in 2006, closed at $714.53 on Thursday.

Private equity firm Leonard Green & Partners holds 26 percent of Shake Shack, while employee-owned hedge fund sponsor Select Equity Group holds 12.3 percent.

Shake Shack's net income fell 20 percent to $3.6 million in the 39 weeks ended Sept. 24. Revenue rose 41 percent to $83.8 million. (Editing by Ted Kerr)

This Map Reveals Just How Unequal The So-Called Recovery Is

In his State of the Union address last week, President Barack Obama cheered rising wages. What he didn't mention is that much of the income gained since the recession has gone into the pockets of the richest Americans.

In 39 U.S. states, the top 1 percent of earners gobbled up at least half of all of the income gains between 2009 and 2012. And in 17 of those states, the top earners got every bit of the income growth in those years. That's according to a new paper released Monday by the Economic Policy Institute, a think tank focused on labor issues.

In all states, the rebound in income in the three years after the recession pretty much all went to the richest of the rich, the EPI found.

"Over this period, the average income of the bottom 99 percent in the United States actually fell (by 0.4 percent)," the paper states. "In contrast, the average income of the top 1 percent climbed 36.8 percent."

The EPI paper, using state-level tax data from the IRS, builds on older research by economists Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez, who analyzed income gains captured by the top 1 percent to illustrate broader trends in economic inequality. The French economist Piketty got famous last year for his book, Capital In The Twenty-First Century, which warned that inequality was only going to get worse without government intervention.

The map below shows where the richest 1 percent captured the greatest percentage of the overall income gained between 2009 and 2012. The darker orange and red shades show where the largest share of income growth went to the 1 percent.

Among the states where the 1 percent got the biggest share of the income gains were Delaware -- where they got 301 percent of income growth -- and Florida, where they got about 260 percent.

Nevada was arguably one of the most-unequal states in the country during that stretch: The income of the top 1 percent jumped nearly 40 percent, while the income of the rest fell 16 percent. But because total state income fell -- the only state in which this happened -- it doesn't register on the map, which measures the 1 percent's share of income gains.

West Virginia was the least-unequal state in the country during that stretch: It's the only state in which the 1 percent suffered falling income while the 99 percent enjoyed rising income.

Since the recession ended more than five years ago, wages have been one of the slowest parts of the economy to recover. In his speech last week, Obama applauded the 11 million new private-sector jobs created since 2009 and claimed that "Wages are finally starting to rise again."

But wage growth is still a lot slower than it was before the recession. And it's still too slow to keep up with the growth enjoyed by the 1 percent, who typically don't have to beg employers for raises.

Infographic by Alissa Scheller

Cadbury's Chocolate Will No Longer Be Imported From The U.K. And Everyone Is Depressed

Craving a Toffee Crisp? That just got a lot harder if you live in the U.S.

In settling a lawsuit with The Hershey Company, Let's Buy British Imports (LBB) -- the company responsible for sending U.K.-made Cadbury chocolate overseas -- has agreed to halt shipments to the U.S.

Hershey owns the rights to make and sell any chocolate products with the Cadbury name in the U.S., and will still do so in many cases. Cadbury eggs will still be around, for example -- but now they'll taste slightly different because British-made Cadbury chocolate is produced under a different recipe (the first ingredient in U.K. Cadbury chocolate is milk, while the first in American-made Cadbury chocolate is sugar, according to the New York Times). LBB is also halting their imports of British-made Kit Kats, but the American-made version will still be around.

Sadly, some classic British Cadbury favorites won't be made available at all, because Hershey says they're too easily confused with the company's established U.S. products. CNN reports Cadbury's Toffee Crisps are on the outs because their packaging too closely resembles that of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, and Yorkie chocolate bars apparently sound a little too much like York Peppermint Patties.

Hershey's spokesman Jeff Beckman told The Huffington Post that the agreement was necessary, saying, "It is important for Hershey to protect its trademark rights and to prevent consumers from being confused or misled when they see a product name or product package that is confusingly similar to a Hershey name or trade dress... Given the immeasurable value of our brands, we work hard to protect these important intellectual assets and defend them against infringement."

Lovers of British-made Cadbury products are none too pleased with this new development, taking to Twitter to express their dismay:

Hey Hershey's great job blocking import of all British Cadbury's chocolate. Can't wait to gnaw on your chalky filth while my wife leaves me!

— Dan Telfer (@dantelfer) January 26, 2015

So hang on. There will be no more real actual Cadbury's chocolate allowed in the US? NOOOO! http://t.co/XSHfzlH7FQ

— Neil Gaiman (@neilhimself) January 26, 2015

Cadbury is no longer importing their chocolate across the pond to America?!! Unbelievable!! @CadburyUK #Hersheys #Cadbury

— Victoria Vartan (@Vsvartan) January 26, 2015

Because the deal was struck between The Hershey Company and LBB, Cadbury declined to comment.

H/T CNN

Workers Sue McDonald's For Discrimination, Opening New Front In Franchise Fight

A group of former McDonald's workers from Virginia are suing their stores for racial discrimination and sexual harassment -- and they're taking the rare step of naming the world's foremost fast-food company as a defendant in the suit.

The 10 plaintiffs -- nine of whom are African-American, and one of whom is Hispanic -- say they were wrongfully fired last year and replaced with mostly white workers because their managers believed there had been "too many black people [working] in the store." The lawsuit (viewable here) alleges that women were harassed and groped and that minorities were subjected to racist taunts. It also claims that managers referred to one restaurant as "the ghetto store."

Although it's usually just franchisees that are sued under discrimination claims, in this case the plaintiffs are arguing that McDonald's itself should be held responsible for the actions inside a franchised store. They say the fast-food giant should have to pay damages because it sets companywide policies and has the power to enforce them.

"In order to maximize its profit, McDonald's Corporate has control over nearly every aspect of its restaurants' operations," the lawsuit asserts. "Though nominally independent, franchised McDonald's restaurants are predominantly controlled by McDonald's."

The plaintiffs in the suit have received legal assistance from the NAACP and the group Fight for $15, which advocates on behalf of fast-food workers. According to the suit, the plaintiffs had a combined 50 years working at McDonald's restaurants, 25 of them accrued by a 53-year-old shift manager who lost her job in July. The rest of the workers lost their jobs in a mass termination in May.

As the South Boston (Virginia) News & Record reported at the time, a total of 17 workers were abruptly fired from three McDonald's restaurants in the area. All three locations were run by Michael Simon, owner of Soweva, the company that franchised the stores. At the time, workers told the paper they were informed they "didn't fit the profile" that the company was looking for in its restaurants.

"Most, though not all, of the terminated employees are African-American," the paper noted. "Most of the workers who remain on the job at the local McDonald’s also are black. So, too, is [Soweva owner] Simon."

In the lawsuit, the plaintiffs say that their white supervisors wanted to drop black workers from the payrolls because the stores were "too dark," in a phrase attributed to one manager.

"I had no idea what they meant by the right profile until I saw everyone else that they fired as well," Willie Betts, one of the plaintiffs, said in a statement Thursday. "They took away the only source of income I have to support my family."

Simon did not immediately respond to a request for comment. In a statement at the time of the firings, Simon denied that race was a factor, saying his company "has a strict policy of prohibiting any form of discrimination or harassment in hiring, termination or any other aspect of employment."

In the lawsuit, the workers allege that when they brought their concerns to McDonald's corporate, the company "took no actions to remedy" the firings. The workers are now seeking damages from the chain under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits employment discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion or sex.

"We asked McDonald’s corporate to help us get our jobs back, but the company told us to take our concerns to the franchisee -- the same franchisee that just fired us," Pamela Marable, another plaintiff, said in a statement this week.

“We have not seen the lawsuit, and cannot comment on its allegations, but will review the matter carefully," McDonald's said in a statement Thursday.

"McDonald’s has a long-standing history of embracing the diversity of employees, independent Franchisees, customers and suppliers, and discrimination is completely inconsistent with our values," the company's statement continued. "McDonald’s and our independent owner-operators share a commitment to the well-being and fair treatment of all people who work in McDonald’s restaurants.”

The lawsuit in Virginia is just the latest salvo in a broader fight against the franchise model. McDonald's franchises roughly 90 percent of its stores, leaving the day-to-day operations to individual franchisees like Soweva. Since the franchisees run the stores, they're the ones that tend to get sued when labor law is broken. That's a major upside of the franchise model for companies like McDonald's.

But unions and worker groups have been arguing in court and before agencies like the National Labor Relations Board that big chains such as McDonald's should be held accountable for the working conditions inside the stores that bear their names.

Until now, that generally hasn't been the case. But that could be changing on some fronts. The NLRB's general counsel, for instance, has named McDonald's as a "joint employer" alongside several of its franchisees accused of violating labor law during the fast-food strikes. If the agency were to view the workers as employed under one big umbrella -- rather than by hundreds or thousands of individual franchisees -- it would be much easier for the workers to unionize en masse. As it is, the fact that McDonald's workers are technically employed by different franchisees means they would have to be unionized store by individual store.

Several lawsuits currently seek to hold McDonald's responsible for wage theft allegedly committed by its franchisees. As with the discrimination complaint in Virginia, the plaintiffs in those suits argue that McDonald's ultimately exerts control over the operations inside individual stores, and that it should be held accountable when the law is broken.

Samsung In Talks With BlackBerry About $7.5 Billion Buyout: Source

By Jennifer Ablan and Liana B. Baker

NEW YORK (Reuters) - (Corrects Jan. 14 story, changes to representatives from the companies, from executives in paragraph 3)

Samsung Electronics recently offered to buy BlackBerry Ltd for as much as $7.5 billion, seeking its valuable patents as it battles Apple in the corporate market, according to a person familiar with the matter and documents seen by Reuters.

South Korea's Samsung <005930.KS> proposed an initial price range of $13.35 to $15.49 per share, representing a premium of 38 percent to 60 percent over BlackBerry's current trading price, the source said on Wednesday.

Representatives from the two companies, which are working with advisers, met last week to discuss a potential transaction, the source said, asking not to be identified because the conversations are private.

The Waterloo, Ontario-based company said in a statement that it "has not engaged in discussions with Samsung with respect to any possible offer to purchase BlackBerry. Shares of BlackBerry, which soared nearly 30 percent following the Reuters report, fell back about 15 percent in after-hours electronic trading following the statement.

Separately on Wednesday, Canadian newspaper Globe and Mail reported BlackBerry has shunned a handful of takeover overtures in recent months as its board and largest investor think its restructuring strategy will deliver greater shareholder value than current acquisition offers.

The board believes offering prices, some in excess of $7 billion, fall well below BlackBerry's potential asset value in the next few years, according to the Globe and Mail report.

Blackberry, a one-time investor darling that pioneered smartphones, has regained some of its lost swagger under Chief Executive John Chen, who is leading a bid to regain market share it has lost to Apple Inc, Google Inc and Samsung.

CORPORATE MARKET

"BlackBerry is in such transition today, so any investment has been a bet on the future, so at this point Samsung is cutting in before that full future becomes a reality," said Morningstar analyst Brian Colello.

Samsung’s strength as the No. 1 global smart phone marker has been built on making devices for the consumer market, which has become crowded in recent years. With a takeover of Blackberry, Samsung could make greater inroads into the corporate market, where it has trailed rivals.

“How many Samsung phones do you see in offices? This would be Samsung’s chance to get into the enterprise,” said BGC Partners analyst Colin Gillis.

Any tie-up with Samsung would require the blessing of Prem Watsa, whose Fairfax Financial Holdings Ltd is a major Blackberry shareholder. Fairfax helped bankroll a debt recapitalization that led to Chen's arrival in November 2013 as CEO. Paul Rivett, president of Watsa’s Fairfax Financial Holdings, declined to comment.

The bid would also face regulatory scrutiny in both Ottawa and Washington. Under Canadian law, any foreign takeover of BlackBerry would require government approval under the Industry Canada Act.

BlackBerry's secure networks manage the email traffic of thousands of large corporate customers, along with government and military agencies across the globe.

Samsung and its advisers also anticipate a complex approval process at the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), which reviews deals for national security implication, the documents reviewed by Reuters show.

PATENT PORTFOLIO

Samsung thinks that acquiring less than 100 percent of BlackBerry, perhaps keeping part of it as a publicly traded entity with an independent board, could help secure easier CFIUS approval. But it doubts whether it can accomplish its strategic objectives with less than 100 percent ownership, the documents show.

In 2013, the Canadian government had strongly hinted to BlackBerry that any sale to China’s Lenovo Group would be rejected due to security concerns, sources told Reuters at the time. Harper's office wouldn't comment on the report on Wednesday but sources familiar with the Canadian government's thinking said a Samsung buyout was unlikely to raise such concerns.

Ross Healy, a portfolio manager at MacNicol & Associates, which owns a small stake in Blackberry, said Samsung's reported offer undervalues the company.

“To get a hold of the BlackBerry network and all its secure features, that would be a real coup for Samsung, looking to differentiate themselves from Apple and from others," he said.

Blackberry's patent portfolio is composed of roughly 44,000 patents, worth more than $1.43 billion in net book value as of August last year, although many analysts think they could be worth much more.

Edward Snyder, managing director of Charter Equity Research, said it made sense for Samsung to target BlackBerry's patents in its outgoing battle with Apple and others, and that it likely would need to bid for the whole company because BlackBerry management did not want to only sell specific assets.

"Samsung will have to buy the whole thing and then and shutter what they don't need,” he said.

BlackBerry launched its long-awaited Classic model on Wednesday, hoping to help win back market share and woo customers still using older devices with a keyboard. The phone resembles its once popular Bold and Curve handsets.

In the third quarter, revenue at Blackberry, which is increasingly focusing on providing services like secure corporate networks, fell to $793 million from $1.19 billion a year earlier, falling short of analysts' expectations of $931.5 million.

Shares of Blackberry jumped as much as 30 percent on heavy volume in afternoon trading at $29.71 per share in New York.

The offer price would imply an enterprise value of $6 billion to $7.5 billion for BlackBerry, assuming conversion of $1.25 billion of convertible debt, according to the documents.

BlackBerry announced a high-profile security partnership with Samsung in November. The partnership will wed BlackBerry's security platform with the South Korean company's own security software for its Galaxy devices.

(Reporting by Jennifer Ablan and Liana Baker in New York, additional reporting by Alastair Sharp and Allison Martell in Toronto and Randall Palmer in Ottawa, Editing by Soyoung Kim and Christian Plumb)

How Uber Fails To Prove Its Drivers Make More Than Taxi Drivers

There’s a lot of uncertainty about how much money Uber drivers make and whether being an Uber driver is, as the company says, an ideal part-time job. Uber released a research paper on Thursday that claimed to give clear answers to those questions. It didn’t quite.

The paper’s biggest claim is simple, and headline-grabbing: Uber drivers make more money than regular taxi drivers. This, along with flexible hours, makes being an Uber driver a good part-time job, in the paper’s judgment.

On close reading, however, none of the data provided by the authors of the paper -- Uber Head of Research Jonathan Hall and Princeton economist Alan Krueger, working “under contract” with Uber -- support such claims.

Let’s start with the issue of how much Uber drivers make. Uber has a lot of good data on how much cash its drivers take in from customers. But that’s just gross pay: It does not take into account costs like gas, insurance, or car maintenance and ownership. Uber hasn’t provided pay data that nets out those costs, which are necessary for any driver.

In its marketing materials, Uber repeatedly presents gross pay data with language saying it shows how much drivers “take home (after deductions),” and then leaves it to a footnote to explain that those deductions do not include any of the most obvious costs of driving a car for money. As a result, Uber is blurring the line between gross and net pay.

And this study is no different. Here’s the chart that leads the authors to say Uber drivers make $6 more per hour, on average, than taxi drivers:

The problem is that these are all gross pay numbers, but the two sets of drivers pay out costs in different ways. Taxi drivers tend to pay leasing companies to use cabs maintained by medallion companies, and also pay for gas, while Uber drivers are responsible directly for paying and maintaining everything they need to keep their car on the road.

Simply comparing the gross pay of each set of drivers doesn’t tell you which set takes home more pay: You also need to know the costs of each set of drivers.

And this paper doesn’t address costs at all, aside from making this guess: “unless their after-tax costs average more than $6 per hour, the net hourly earnings of Uber’s driver-partners exceed the hourly wage of employed taxi drivers and chauffeurs, on average.” Krueger, who the report says had "full discretion" over the findings, told The Huffington Post that regarding gross wages, "The paper was careful to describe what data are available, and what was being compared to what."

The authors want to study driver costs, but just not yet: “A detailed quantification of driver-partner costs and net after-tax earnings is a topic of future research.” Fair, but without net earnings, the paper has no support for its most important claim -- that Uber drivers earn more money than taxi drivers.

Uber declined to respond to questions about why it did not include operating costs and fees in its examination of wages for the report.

Then there’s the thorny issue of just how good a part-time job driving for Uber is. The paper answers that question emphatically: It finds that average hourly earnings don’t change much based on how many hours per week drivers work. That would indeed make driving for Uber a good part-time job: It’s nice to be able to predict how much you’re going to make per hour and not be penalized for working fewer hours.

Here’s the table that claims to prove that part-time Uber driving is a good job:

In the bottom row, you’ll see that average hourly earnings stay roughly the same -- about $21 -- no matter how many hours you work.

The problem is that these are average gross earnings per hour. A different set of Uber data -- for drivers in New York -- shows that the fewer hours you work, the farther away from the average you are likely to fall.

Look at this chart. The little blue dots are individual Uber drivers in New York:

(In this set of data, Uber does deduct its fee from driver wages, but still does not take out much larger operating costs, like buying a car or gas.)

This is a chart of increasing predictability: The more hours you work, the more accurately you can estimate your gross pay. The less you work, the less you know. Extremely variable and unpredictable pay is not anyone’s idea of a good part-time job.

Another question is how realistic the figures are on a month-to-month basis. Krueger told The Huffington Post that the study does examine how drivers' hourly wages vary from month to month, and concluded they were "fairly steady across months.” However, the standard deviation in the study is 19 percent -- that means that assuming a normal distribution, 68 percent of drivers saw earnings swing somewhere between positive and negative 19 percent month to month. The rest of the drivers saw their earnings change even more dramatically.

All of this leaves us pretty much where we were before the paper was released. Uber's latest report offers plenty of information, without revealing anything important.

Google To Sell Wireless Service In Deals With Sprint, T-Mobile: Report

(Reuters) - Google Inc is preparing to sell mobile phone plans directly to customers and manage their calls and mobile data over a cellular network, The Information reported, citing people familiar with the matter.

Google is expected to reach deals to buy wholesale access to Sprint and T-Mobile mobile voice and data networks, making it a mobile virtual network operator, the technology news website said. (http://bit.ly/1L1cnDv)

The project, codenamed "Nova", is expected to be launched later this year, The Information said.

Google was considering launching mobile phone plans for markets where it sells Google Fiber Internet service, according to the report.

It was not clear how widely Google plans to offer the wireless service, how much it would cost or which mobile device manufacturers, if any, have already agreed to work with Google for its new service.

Google, T-Mobile and Sprint could not be immediately reached for comment.

(Reporting by Sai Sachin R and Sneha Banerjee in Bengaluru; Editing by Ken Wills)

Chipotle Doesn't Know When Carnitas Shortage Will End

The hottest fast food chain in the country has been out of a key menu item for four days at hundreds of its restaurants, and it's still not clear when it will come back.

Chipotle announced Tuesday that about one-third of its more than 1,600 stores would stop selling carnitas, a traditional Mexican dish made by slow-cooking pork until it becomes tender. The popular Mexican chain made the decision earlier this week, after discovering that one of its suppliers didn’t meet its standards for humanely raised pork.

Carnitas is one of just six burrito bases the chain offers.

Chris Arnold, a Chipotle spokesman, wrote in an email that the burrito joint is looking into several different ways to rebuild its supply, including getting more pork from current suppliers, using different cuts of pork (the dish is typically made from the shoulder) and looking for additional suppliers. Carnitas make up about 6 percent of entree orders, he said.

“We are working through those options now, but it’s too soon to say how long this might last,” Arnold said.

It's also too early to tell whether the shortage will hurt Chipotle's bottom line. The company's stock price was down slightly when the market opened the morning after the chain first announced the shortage. Still, at around $711 a share, the Friday stock price was up about 34 percent from the same time last year.

A sign declaring no carnitas at a Manhattan Chipotle Friday.

Despite a sign notifying customers there weren't carnitas, several customers at a Chipotle in Manhattan’s Union Square during Friday's lunch rush said they hadn’t heard about the shortage. Many said they typically order something else; others prioritized ethically treated animals over their tastebuds.

“It would make me not want to come here more if they did have the (carnitas) and (the pork) was mistreated,” 15-year-old carnitas fan Lincoln Barron said after being told the reason behind shortage.

Even if some carnitas lovers do turn elsewhere for their fix, the publicity over the shortage will more than make up for any sales hits. There’s marketing power in scarcity, according to Aaron Allen, the founder of Aaron Allen & Associates, a restaurant consulting firm. Though the pork shortage is unintentional, the fact that carnitas is limited makes it a little bit more special, he said.

More significant, in marketing terms, Chipotle’s decision reminds fans why they like the restaurant in the first place. The Mexican chain sells itself as a place that sells fresh, healthy food. That reputation is a big part of why it's been growing rapidly for the past several months, while places like McDonald's have stagnated.

“It’s not just buzz around some promotional activity,” Allen said. “It’s really reinforcing what the brand stands for.”

Of course, Chipotle will still lose some business while carnitas are gone.

“My desire to be there is significantly diminished if they’re not going to have carnitas or if it’s going to be spotty,” said Doug Ludemann, a 36-year-old who owns an aquarium cleaning business near Minneapolis. “It’s not going to draw me in and make me pay 10 bucks for lunch.”

Still, Ludemann said he respects Chipotle's decision, even it means they don't have the only thing he orders there.

“I wish it didn’t mean that I had to not shop there,” he said. “My hope is that it increases the demand for more humanely produced pork.”

Andrew Cuomo Will Propose Raising New York Minimum Wage

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) announced Sunday that he plans to submit a proposal to raise the minimum wage to $11.50 an hour in New York City and $10.50 an hour in the rest of the state.

The proposal is something of a reversal for Cuomo, who less than a year ago was opposed to allowing municipalities across the state to set different minimum wages. Having several different minimum wages throughout the state, Cuomo said last February, would create chaos by forcing communities to compete against one another. The current minimum wage in New York state is $8.75 per hour, a figure that's set to rise to $9 at the end of this year.

Cuomo's position reportedly began to shift this summer when he was courting the support of the progressive Working Families Party and backed a proposal to let different municipalities set different minimum wages. Under that proposal, New York City would have been able to set a minimum wage as high as $13.13 an hour.

While labor groups are praising Cuomo's decision to raise the wage, Bill Lipton, the state director of the Working Families Party, expressed disappointment that Cuomo, who was re-elected to a second four-year term in November, did not go further.

“We applaud Governor Cuomo’s proposed increase in the state minimum wage as an important first step in the right direction,” Lipton said in a statement Sunday. “But $11.50 is almost $2 less than what he endorsed last spring. And the truth is it’s nearly impossible to raise a family in this state on even $12 or $13 an hour.”

Cuomo will unveil his minimum wage plan in his proposal for the state budget on Wednesday, The New York Observer reported. It is likely to meet resistance in the GOP-controlled state Senate.

Where Scotch Costs $41 A Glass, And Everyone Can Afford It

Being rich just got a little more expensive.

Switzerland’s central bank on Thursday ended a three-year campaign to keep its highly coveted currency, the Swiss franc, cheap against the euro and other money. The franc immediately soared in value. This chart from Quartz’s Matt Phillips puts the size of the move in context. The straight line up at the very end of the chart shows the franc’s dizzying one-day move:

This sort of thing inevitably causes pain, particularly for bloodied currency traders.

Also bearing the immediate burden are the people holing up in the charming ski town of Davos, Switzerland, for the World Economic Forum’s annual exchange of buzzwords.

The jump in the Swiss franc means everything in Davos is going to be more expensive, from champagne to grilled sausages, Bloomberg reports. A glass of Johnnie Walker Blue is up $6 to $41 at the Belvedere Hotel, where many delegates stay and everyone wants to stay.

The thing about Davos, though, is that it was already incredibly expensive before the Swiss currency cap was lifted. The World Economic Forum’s 120 “strategic partners” pay 500,000 francs, or about $577,000, each year just for the privilege of sending five executives to the conference. Each executive then has to pay about $20,000 for a ticket to the conference. Then there are thousands of dollars per person in plane tickets and car bills and hotel rooms, and tens of thousands more to entertain clients in private dining rooms and big cocktail parties.

The result: A small group of wealthy people who had already agreed to be price-gouged will now face a bit more price-gouging.

And things will get even more expensive next year, when the price to be a strategic partner rises to 600,000 Swiss francs. Attendees are already complaining about that price increase, announced in October.

But they can, and will, continue to pay up.

They’ll keep paying because Davos is a good way to generate positive PR; see lots of clients in a really short time; and, above all, gossip and gather information in informal situations.

It doesn’t come cheap. But if you could afford it before the Swiss franc exploded, then you can probably still afford it.

Fewer People Are Having Trouble Paying Medical Bills, Thanks To Obamacare

The number of Americans struggling to pay medical bills fell last year for the first time in nearly a decade -- the latest sign that Obamacare is making health care more affordable.

Sixty-four million people, or approximately 35 percent of the U.S. population, said they had trouble paying bills or were stuck paying off medical debt in the past year, according to a new survey by the Commonwealth Fund released on Thursday. That was down from 75 million people, or 41 percent of the population, in 2012. This marks the first time that figure has fallen since 2005, when Commonwealth started keeping track.

Commonwealth attributed the drop partly to expanded access to affordable health insurance made possible by Obamacare. The survey found that the number of uninsured Americans dropped to 29 million people last year, or 16 percent of the population, from 37 million, or 20 percent, in 2010.

The Commonwealth survey, which polled 6,027 U.S. adults in the second half of 2014, is in line with several other studies finding that the uninsured rate is falling.

“These declines are remarkable and unprecedented in the survey’s more than decade-long history,” Sara Collins, the lead author, said in a press release. “They indicate that the Affordable Care Act is beginning to help people afford the health care they need."

As the chart from Commonwealth shows, the percentage of Americans reporting problems paying off medical bills or medical-related debt rose from 2005 to 2012. Rising health-care costs, stagnant income growth and the aggressiveness with which providers go after people who haven't paid their bills all contributed to this growth, according to Commonwealth Fund president David Blumenthal.

The Affordable Care Act has reversed what had been a "deterioration" of the American health-care system, according to Blumenthal.

The survey also found that, for the first time since 2003, there has been a decline in the number of people putting off health care because of the cost. In 2012, a record 80 million people said they didn't visit a doctor or clinic for a medical problem, didn't fill a prescription, skipped a follow-up, treatment or test, or did not get needed specialist care, in order to avoid paying for it. That number fell to 66 million in 2014.

Medical-bill debt, which is often expensive and unexpected, can significantly harm people's credit ratings, as a recent study from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau pointed out. Nearly 20 percent of credit reports are hurt by overdue medical bills.

10 Most Hated Companies In America

This story was originally published by 24/7 Wall St.

To be truly hated, a company must alienate a large number of people. It may irritate consumers with bad customer service, upset employees by paying low wages, and disappoint Wall Street with underwhelming returns. For a small number of companies, such failures are intertwined. These companies managed to antagonize more than just one group and have become widely disliked.

The most hated companies have millions of customers. With such a large customer base, it is critical to keep employees happy in order to promote high-quality customer service. Poor job satisfaction among employees can lead to unsatisfied customers. McDonald’s and Walmart have risked alienating workers, and therefore also customers, by not adequately addressing protests against their employees’ low wages. While pay may be low enough to put some workers below the poverty line, executives at these companies often make millions. The total compensation of McDonald’s CEO Donald Thompson, for example, was nearly $9.5 million in 2013 and nearly $13.8 million in 2012.

Layoffs, or even the prospect of layoffs, can also contribute to low employee morale. Sprint announced it would cut 2,000 jobs late last year. Workers at Comcast can reasonably expect layoffs should its planned merger with Time Warner Cable receives government approval.

Many of the most hated companies angered the public because of quality issues with their products.. Comcast has long been one of the worst companies in America in terms of customer service and satisfaction. Another example is the General Motors recall scandal. GM announced a recall in early 2014 due to faulty ignition switches in a number of its cars, now believed to have cost 42 people their lives. The company’s problems were compounded by the realization that it had known about the defect for over a decade.

Nothing harms the long-term reputation of a company in the eyes of investors more than a steep drop in its share price. In the past 12 months, shares of Sprint have fallen by more than 50%, as hopes for a tie-up with rival T-Mobile were dashed while the company had little success in retaining customers.

It is worth noting that some of the companies on the list may have performed very poorly by some measures but relatively well by others. A few of the most hated companies have had good stock performances. Others have relatively satisfied customers. All of these factors were taken into account in compiling the final list.

Click here to see America’s most hated companies

Several companies from last year list have improved their public perceptions enough to be removed from this year’s list. For example, J.C. Penney is in the midst of a modest turnaround. Abercrombie & Fitch’s controversial long-time CEO Michael Jeffries resigned last December. However, the retailer still has problems attracting teenage customers.

To identify the most hated companies in America, 24/7 Wall St. reviewed a variety of metrics on customer service, employee satisfaction, and share price performance. We considered consumer surveys from a number of sources, including the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) and Zogby Analytics. We also included employee satisfaction based on worker opinion scores recorded by Glassdoor.com. Finally, we reviewed management decisions and company policies that hurt a company’s public perception.

These are America’s most hated companies.

Chipotle Pork Shortage Is Proof Of A Larger Problem Facing The Food Industry

Americans increasingly want grocers and restaurants to carry meat they can feel good about eating. But that meat is scarce, as Chipotle's pork problem revealed this week.

Chipotle, which has won over diners partly for its commitment to sustainability and animal welfare, recently discovered that one of its pork suppliers wasn’t meeting its “Responsibly Raised” standards. Chris Arnold, a Chipotle spokesman, explained in an emailed statement that the chain refuses to sell pork that comes from conventional farms because such pigs “generally do not have access to the outdoors, [and] spend their lives in densely crowded buildings,” among other issues.

But there is so little quality pork on the market that, for now, Chipotle has stopped offering the meat in hundreds of its locations.

“We would rather not serve pork at all, than serve pork from animals that are raised in this way,” Arnold said. "Replacing the supply we have lost in these ways will take some time, but it is important to us to maintain our high standards for pork and we will continue to see some shortage while we work to increase the available supply. "

Chipotle’s predicament illustrates the challenge in running a big chain committed to humanely raised meat. Less than 5 percent of meat in the U.S. is raised according to humane standards even using the broadest definitions, according to Andrew Gunther, the program director of American Welfare Approved, which certifies farms as humane.

Chipotle occasionally runs into this issue with beef as well, substituting meat from conventional farms when there isn’t enough available from suppliers that meet its standards. But in the case of the pork, the chain won't budge on its requirements. In an email, Arnold said that the differences in animal welfare are greatest with pork.

Other big chains taking a stab at selling humanely raised meat are also struggling for supply. Carl’s Jr. launched its “All Natural Burger” in December, and the chain is sourcing its grass-fed, antibiotic- and steroid-free beef from Australia because there isn’t enough supply in the U.S., the company’s CEO told USAToday last month.

And the market for this meat is only getting more crowded. Smaller chains with a similar feel-good ethos -- Shake Shack, Sweet Green and Native Foods -- are growing increasingly popular as diners demand fresh, natural and ethically raised food.

The problem is that the mass meat market, particularly the segment that caters to fast-food restaurants, is driven largely by price, said Aaron Allen, the founder of Aaron Allen and Associates, a restaurant consulting firm. "That's really the way that the industry has been oriented for the last three to four decades: How do we get it cheaper? Quicker?" Allen said. In that kind of environment, there's little reward for suppliers to spend the time and money ramping up their quality standards.

In the case of pigs specifically, converting farms to raise animals more humanely is expensive and may not be financially feasible for many farmers, said Adele Douglass, the executive director of Humane Farm Animal Care, another program that certifies farms as humane. The most controversial pig farming practice is keeping pigs in "gestation crates," which leave them with barely enough room to do anything other than lie down.

Increasing standards would mean putting the pigs into group housing or larger group pens that give them more room to move, Douglass said. Chipotle's pork suppliers also have to give their pigs outdoor access or house them in deeply bedded pens, and keep them free of antibiotics

In Douglass’ ideal world, the government would step in and offer farmers loans or grants to convert their farms. But short of government intervention, companies can help speed up these changes. The bigger the restaurant chain, the more influence it has over suppliers and the whole system. Gunther noted that restaurants can make long-term commitments to suppliers that agree to overhaul farms and raise animals more humanely.

“These companies can build these supply chains if they think it’s a good idea,” Gunther said. “It can be done, it just requires commitment.”

The risk in this approach is that restaurants might not want to get locked into a specific supplier and a specific price for a long period of time, making them less flexible.

Still, there’s hope. McDonald’s announced in 2012 that it would stop using pork that came from farms using gestation crates by 2022. The announcement came after controversy over the crates became too loud to ignore -- several states had already banned or restricted their use.

At the time, McDonald’s said it would work to help U.S. suppliers comply with the directive, but it was impossible to make the switch immediately.

“There are not enough sows housed in non-gestation crates right now,” Bob Langert, McDonald's vice president of corporate social responsibility and sustainability, told Reuters.