Tampa Bay Times (July 11)
“On Tuesday, Farmers Insurance informed the state it was dropping home, auto and umbrella policies across Florida, potentially affecting tens of thousands of people. It’s the fourth company to leave the Florida market in the last year — most citing rising risks from hurricanes. Farmers, a large company with a national presence, also has reduced new business in California, citing extreme weather and wildfire threats.”
Tags: Auto, California, Dropping, Extreme weather, Farmers Insurance, Florida, Home, Hurricanes, New business, Policies, Rising risks
The Economist (July 10)
“Remote work has a target on its back.” Many CEOs “are intent on making working from home a relic of the pandemic…. With bosses clamping down on the practice, the pandemic-era days of mutual agreement on the desirability of remote work seem to be over.” Around the globe, “plans for remote working by employers fall short of what workers want.”
Tags: Agreement, CEOs, Clamping down, Desirability, Employers, Home, Pandemic, Remote work, Target, Workers
San Francisco Chronical (May 27)
“State Farm, California’s largest property and casualty insurer as of 2021, stopped issuing home, business and casualty insurance policies in the state Saturday, citing wildfire risks and rising construction costs…. The state has suffered increasingly massive and destructive wildfires in recent years, leading to scarcer and more expensive insurance policies in wildfire-prone zones.”
Tags: Business, California, Casualty, Construction costs, Destructive, Home, Insurer, Massive, Policies, Property, Rising, Risks, State Farm, Wildfires
Washington Post (March 4)
“Cities across the nation face a dilemma: Downtown office buildings are empty as workers prefer to stay home.” Office-to-apartment conversion is an essential “part of the solution,” but “city leaders aren’t doing enough…. The longer cities wait to get conversions underway, the more tax values drop and crime goes up, and the more people see no value in living in the heart of the city — or even visiting.”
Tags: Apartment, Cities, Conversion, Dilemma, Downtown, Empty, Home, Leaders, Office buildings, Solution, Tax values, Workers
Washington Post (January 19)
“The nation is in the midst of one of the biggest workforce shifts in generations.” Many prefer working at home or at least “want a ‘hybrid’ situation of working two or three days remotely. Cities must adapt to this new reality or risk a downward spiral of falling commercial property values, lower taxes on those buildings and ghost downtowns that could lead to increased crime and homelessness.”
Tags: Adapt, Buildings, Cities, Commercial property values, Crime, Downward spiral, Home, Homelessness, Hybrid, Lower taxes, Reality, Remotely, Risk, Shifts, Workforce
BBC (September 12)
China “is the world’s last major economy attempting to entirely stamp out Covid outbreaks, claiming this is necessary to prevent wider surges of the virus which could overwhelm hospitals.” At present, “tens of millions of people in at least 30 regions have been ordered to stay at home under partial or full lockdowns,” with some of the impacted residents “complaining of shortages of food and essential items.”
Tags: China, Complaining, Covid outbreaks, Food, Home, Hospitals, Last, Lockdowns, Major economy, Overwhelm, Prevent, Residents, Shortages, Stamp out, Surges, Virus
New York Times (February 13)
“Covid has made us reconsider everything, the meaning of home and work, the value of public space, the magnitude and immediacy of death, what it truly means to be a member of a society. We are still finding the answers to those questions, but the America we knew ended in 2019.”
Tags: 2019, Answers, Covid, Death, Home, Immediacy, Magnitude, Meaning, Public, Questions, Reconsider, Society, Space, U.S., Value, Work
The Street (November 11)
“Amid record low inventory and sky-high demand, the average American home now sits on the market for only seven days — a phenomenon that is pushing many homeowners into moving quickly.” The National Association of Realtors found “the time that a home spent on the market before going into contract” hit a record low of “seven days between July 2020 and June 2021.”
Fortune (June 13)
“Before the pandemic, Japan’s workforce faced longstanding problems, like chronic overwork, low productivity, and too few women. Letting employees work from home may have helped ease all three, in addition to preventing the spread of COVID. But Japan’s failure to more fully adapt means it will likely miss out on the carry-on benefits of remote work that some corporations elsewhere are warming to.”
Tags: Adapt, Benefits, Covid, Employees, Failure, Home, Japan, Longstanding, Overwork, Pandemic, Productivity, Remote work, Women, Work, Workforce
Philadelphia Inquirer (June 1)
“After a year stuck at home, consumers who can afford it are ‘revenge spending’ – splurging on items and experiences they were deprived of during the pandemic…. More than half of U.S. consumers expect to spend extra by treating themselves, with higher-income millennials intending to spend the most.” It already shows. “Consumer spending is above pre-pandemic levels across the Philadelphia region and nation.”
Tags: Afford, Consumers, Deprived, Experiences, Home, Income, Millennials, Pandemic, Revenge spending, Splurging, U.S.
