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　　There’s One Upside For Unemployed Older Workers: Happiness

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　　As silver linings go, this might not make anyone jump for joy. But it might make a few hop a little — especially those concerned about the growing army of aging “discouraged workers” who’ve given up looking for a job. A recent study suggests that there’s at least one upside for the millions of beleaguered older Americans among the nation’s long-term unemployed: Unlike their working peers, retirement — officially calling it quits –actually makes jobless workers happier.

　　To be clear: This study offers little comfort for those who need to work because they can’t make ends meet. But the findings do have practical significance for folks in the 55+ set whose search for employment is as much about staying engaged and happy as it is about economics. For them, surprisingly, the best way to cope with a long and fruitless job search may be to simply give it up. Likewise, the study has contrarian implications for policy makers, economists and other interested parties — especially those in the Obama and Romney campaign — who are weighing the importance of discouraged workers on the labor force participation rate, which has been in long decline. As the economy heats up, some observers wonder whether many discouraged workers will start hunting for jobs again, thus raising the unemployment rate. But some of that concern may be misplaced if, as this study suggests, a portion of the long-term unemployed (out of work for 27 weeks or more) have found that giving up the job search altogether has improved their outlook and overall happiness.

　　To see why that might be — why early retirement may be the wisest course for some out-of-work older people — it’s crucial to understand why unemployed people typically experience a decline in “subjective well-being.” (That’s how researchers describe measured happiness levels.) The obvious reasons — a lack of money and the stresses and frustrations that come along with it — are not the complete story. Rather than fretting simply because they can’t keep up with the Joneses, unemployed workers are also grumpy because they’re not keeping up with the Joneses’ … expectations.

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　　That is, the jobless are unhappy in part because of the feeling that they’re not conforming to societal standards. They should be working, they believe, and they’re not. This explains in large part why most unemployed people do not experience significant boosts in reported well-being when they start getting unemployment benefits, or why all those “days off” don’t give them even a little lift in spirits. (It’s also true that people with jobs who voluntarily retire are generally no happier in retirement than they were when they were working.)

　　By contrast, older workers who retire after a long stretch of unemployment actually get happier when they officially give up the job hunt. That’s according to the findings of a team of economics researchers, led by Clemens Hetschko of Freie University in Berlin, who looked at 15 years of socio-economic data in Germany, following people from working age into retirement. And while it’s impossible to know for sure why the switch from “I’m unemployed” to “I’m retired” makes people happier, Hetschko and friends have a theory. (“Identity theory,” to be exact.)

　　As the researchers wrote, “Retiring is associated with a switch in social categories and an increase in identity utility for the formerly unemployed.” In other words, a large chunk of our self-image is constructed from our sense of belonging to a group or groups and adhering to the rules, standards and values of the group. So when we switch from unemployment (standards-violation) to retirement (standards-upholding) we remove a powerful source of self-criticism and loathing. We feel better about ourselves because we’ve gone from being social outcasts to being more “normal.”

　　Now, to be sure, Germany is not America, but given the similarities in both cultures’ work ethics — those Protestants referenced in the phrase “Protestant work ethic” were mostly German Lutherans — there’s good reason to think Hetschko’s findings apply to U.S. workers as well. This is a country where one of the first questions we ask someone we’ve just met is, “What do you do for a living?” Which means that, for all the self-esteem people get from working with others and contributing to society, the happy-making course of action for at least some unemployed older workers is to hang it up and file for Social Security. To paraphrase a classic imperative: Don’t just stand there in the unemployment line, retire.

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　　Smartphone Shoppers Actually Increase In-Store Sales

　　By Gary Belsky | @garybelsky | July 3, 2012 | +

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　　They call it “showrooming,” and to hear the nation’s retailers and other experts fret about consumers using smartphones to buy online while shopping in stores, it’s the worst thing to happen to brick-and-mortar sales since Jeff Bezos started a website to sell books. Except it’s not. Turns out, consumers who use smartphones when out shopping are 14% more likely to make a purchase in the store than those without.

　　That’s according to a new study from Deloitte, an in-depth survey that might have drawn more attention when it was released if Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts hadn’t had an out-of-body experience when deciding the fate of Obamacare.

　　The consulting firm’s study, “The Mobile Influence Factor in Retail Sales,” is important for two reasons. First, it reframes the idea that consumers are increasingly going to stores, getting up close and personal with whatever items they’re shopping for, then turning to their smartphones to buy said items from competitors, online or otherwise.

　　This happens, to be sure, aided in part by a raft of third-party smartphone apps that make showrooming easier; nearly four in 10 (37%) of the folks surveyed by Deloitte who used a smartphone on their last shopping trip did so through a third-party app. But other things happen, too, many to the benefit of brick-and-mortar retailers. “Mobile devices’ influence on retail store sales has passed the rate at which consumers purchase through their devices today,” Deloitte’s Alison Paul commented in the firm’s press release. “Consumers’ store-related mobile activities are contributing to, not taking away from, in-store sales.” According to Deloitte, for example, roughly half (48%) of all smartphone users surveyed say their phones have influenced their decision to buy an item in a physical store. Overall, the consultant estimates, smartphones will influence 19% ($689 million) of U.S. retail sales by 2016.

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　　That’s why, as my Time.com colleague Brad Tuttle has written, forward-thinking brick-and-mortar retailers have aggressively entered the shopping app game themselves rather than bemoaning the effects of third-party apps. And, clearly, that strategy is the right one: More than one third (34%) of smartphone owners surveyed who used their device on their most recent shopping trip employed a retailer’s app to make the purchase. And this habit is only likely to increase as smartphone adoption becomes more widespread, because the longer people have smartphones, the more likely they are to use them when shopping: According to Deloitte, smartphone use for store-related shopping increases 40% after the first six months of ownership.

　　“Retailers that do not engage shoppers through specialized mobile applications or targeted smartphone-based promotions leave the door open for competitors to reach a customer who is standing in the retailer’s store and at the point of purchase,” Deloitte’s Kasey Lobaugh is quoted as saying. And, doubtless, Deloitte’s digital and retail consultants would be more than happy to help any and all retailers get up to speed in the shopping app game!

　　Which is fine; that’s why consultant firms commission these kinds of studies — to build their businesses. And it’s why all such reports, especially those based on surveys, should be read with caution. What people do vs. what they tell survey takers they do are often different. (See any survey about infidelity.) But the general tone and conclusions of the study pass the smell test, which leads us to the second reason why it’s important.

　　If it turns out that shopping apps actually enhance rather than diminish in-store sales, it will only be the latest example of a new technology helping an established business model despite the sky-is-falling forecasts of supposed experts in a field. From concerns that the telegraph would kill the newspaper business to worries that TVS and VCRs would ruin Hollywood, established competitors in a longstanding business are notoriously poor at understanding or predicting the effect of so-called disruptive technologies. More often than not, they benefit rather than damage an industry, and even more frequently they’re a boon for consumers.

　　As a wise philosopher once said, “Everyone is conservative about their own thing.” And that’s especially true about business leaders.

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　　Consumers Prefer to Get More Rather than Pay Less – Because They’re Bad at Math

　　By Brad Tuttle | @bradrtuttle | July 3, 2012 | 36TweetinShare12

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　　Is it better to get more or pay less? If you think they’re basically the same, you’re like most consumers. And, like most consumers, you’re wrong.

　　When offered the possibility of 33% off a product or the same product with 33% more quantity, which would you choose?

　　The Economist sums up the results of a new study published in the Journal of Marketing, which reveals that most consumers view these options as essentially the same proposition. But they’re not. The discount is by far the better deal. As the Economist puts it, because most shoppers are “useless at fractions,” they don’t realize that, for instance, a “50% increase in quantity is the same as a 33% discount in price.”

　　In one part of the study, Akshay Rao, the General Mills Chair in Marketing at the University of Minnesota’s Carlson School of Management, asked undergraduate students to evaluate two deals on loose coffee beans — one with 33% more beans for free, the other at 33% off the price. The students viewed the offers as six of one, half a dozen of the other.

　　But let’s do the math, using some easy round numbers for the sake of simplicity. Say the initial price is $10 for 10 oz. of coffee beans. Hopefully, it’s obvious that the unit price is therefore $1 per oz. An extra 33% more “free” beans would bring the total up to 13.3 oz. for $10. That $10 divided by 13.3 oz. give us a unit price of $0.75 per oz. With a 33% discount off the initial offer, though, the proposition becomes $6.67 for 10 oz., for a unit price of $0.67 per oz.

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