Are You Wealthy? The Net Worth You Need To Be Considered Poor, Middle-Class And Wealthy In America

Jeannine Mancini
Thu, December 21, 2023 at 12:00 PM MST·3 min read

In the United States, a person's net worth is a barometer of their financial standing, particularly as they approach retirement. This figure, calculated by subtracting liabilities from assets, varies considerably across the population, shaping the retirement lifestyle and economic security of millions.

Finance expert and author Geoff Schmidt evaluates retiree wealth using the most recent data from the Federal Reserve Board’s Survey of Consumer Finances.

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Poor: Households in the 20th percentile, with a net worth of around $10,000, are categorized as poor. This group likely doesn’t own a home and focuses financial resources on necessities​​.

Middle class: The middle class is in the 50th percentile, with a median household net worth of $281,000 for Americans aged 65 and up. This typically includes home equity, savings and a 401(k) account​​​​.

Wealthy: To be considered well off, a person must be in the 90th percentile, possessing a household net worth of $1.9 million. This level of wealth affords trips, charity donations and college funds for children. The 95th percentile, with a net worth of $3.2 million, is considered wealthy, facilitating estate planning and possibly owning multiple homes. The top 1%, or the 99th percentile, has a net worth of $16.7 million and represents the very wealthy, who enjoy considerable financial freedom and luxury​​.

Average And Median Net Worth By Age

Based on Zippia data for 2023:

Americans aged 55-64: This group has an estimated average net worth of $1.18 million. This figure is significant as it represents people who are typically nearing the end of their working years and are at the peak of their wealth accumulation phase​​​​​​.

Americans aged 65-74: This group has a higher average net worth than the 55-64 age group, at $1.22 million. The increase in average net worth for this age group is likely because of continued asset growth and possibly the beginning of drawing down retirement accounts​​​​​​.

75 and older: This demographic has an average net worth of $977,600, which is lower than the younger age groups. This decrease can be attributed to the fact that people in this age group are further into their retirement and may be drawing down their assets more significantly​
Wealth Perception In America

According to Schwab's 2023 Modern Wealth Survey, Americans perceive an average net worth of $2.2 million as wealthy​​​​.

Knight Frank’s research indicates that a net worth of $4.4 million is required to be in the top 1% in America, a figure much higher than in countries like Japan, the U.K. and Australia​​.
Economic Class Net Worth

A growing number of Americans are entering retirement with debt. The proportion of households led by people aged 65 and older with debt increased from 38% in 1989 to 61% in 2016. CNBC reports debt among those aged 70 and up surged by 614% from 1999 to 2021, with mortgages constituting the majority of the debt​​.

Texas man's photo of 'black panther' creates buzz. Wildlife experts say it's not possible

Saman Shafiq, USA TODAY
Updated Thu, December 21, 2023

A black jaguar stands next to a block of ice at the Rio de Janeiro BioPark Zoo in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on Sept. 22, 2023.


Panthers in Texas? One local man in Huntsville says it's true.

Jerel Hall, who lives in the city about 70 miles north of Houston, snapped a photo that has prompted a barrage of questions on social media and follow-up articles in national news outlets. The grainy photo, posted to Facebook on Saturday, appears to show a dark-colored feline that's larger than a house cat and has a long tail.

"Well we have officially spotted a panther on our property!" Hall wrote on the post.


While Hall did not immediately respond to USA TODAY's request for a comment on Wednesday, he told the Houston Chronicle that the photo was taken from around 120 to 150 yards away and that he estimates the animal to be between 80 and 100 pounds.

"Growing up, I've heard screams like a lady before but typically those are bobcats or lynx," Hall told the newspaper, adding that he previously saw a black panther nine years ago, chasing a herd of feral hogs.

Wildlife officials say there's 'no such thing' as black mountain lions

The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department is debunking Hall's claim, saying that there is "no such thing" as a black mountain lion, officially known as the Puma concolor species. The species has many different common names, including puma, cougar, or panther.

However, the department's mammal specialist told USA TODAY that melanistic (dark-skinned) jaguars and leopards do exist, "but of course neither of those are in Texas."

"To note though, there can also be melanistic bobcats. Jaguarundis, like jaguars, have not been confirmed in Texas for many decades," said Dana Karelus, adding that the last documented jaguar in Texas was in 1948.

Karelus believes the animal in the photo to be a house cat. The officer said that it is hard to confirm the animal's species given the image quality but it is "certainly not a mountain lion based on the tail length."

"Size can be tough to tell in photos and unless you have a good reference, 'apparent size' is often misleading," Karelus said.

Black panthers and jaguarundis in Texas


A Jaguarundi (herpailurus yagovaroundi) is seen in Guatemala's largest zoo, La Aurora, in Guatemala City on April 20, 2010. Numerous endangered species are held in captivity at La Aurora in an effort to preserve the species.

Black jaguars do not exist in North America, according to the wildlife department, and no one has ever captured or killed a black mountain lion.

Also called cougars, pumas, panthers, painters, and catamounts, mountain lions are found throughout the Trans-Pecos in Texas, as well as the brushlands of south Texas and portions of the Hill Country, according to the Texas Wildlife Department's website.

Mountain lions usually have light, tawny brown fur that can appear gray or almost black, depending on light conditions, the department says.

Meanwhile, jaguarundis are also extinct in Texas due to loss of habitat. The last confirmed sighting of a jaguarundi in Texas was in Brownsville in 1986, according to the the department's website. Slightly larger than a domestic cat, these endangered felines are mostly found in northern Mexico and central and south America. They weigh between 8 and 16 pounds and have a solid-colored coat, either rusty-brown or charcoal gray.

Saman Shafiq is a trending news reporter for USA TODAY. Reach her at sshafiq@gannett.com and follow her on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter @saman_shafiq7.

Sealed cave hiding centuries-old remains of humans and sea creatures found in Mexico

Brendan Rascius
Thu, December 21, 2023

Archaeologists recently made a discovery that has all the trappings of an “Indiana Jones” escapade: a cave, a large boulder, centuries-old artifacts and human remains.

While excavating Mayan ruins in Tulum, located on Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula, a team of archaeologists found a cave sealed by a boulder, according to a Dec. 18 news release from the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH).

As archaeologists removed the boulder, they noticed it was sitting on top of a human skeleton — its upper body lying inside the cave and its legs protruding outside.

Archaeologists then ventured into the cavern, which was poorly lit, covered with insects and extremely narrow, measuring an average of 20 inches high.

Once inside, they found two small chambers containing the remains of eight individuals, officials said.

Due to the environmental conditions of the cave, the remains were largely well-preserved, officials said. Intact bones and skulls were found embedded in the cave floor, photos show.

Archaeologists also found a virtual Noah’s Ark of deceased animals, which included the remains of dogs, deer, opossum, armadillo, frogs, sea turtles and sharks.

A variety of sea creatures have previously been discovered at Mayan burial sites, including the grave of an adult male, which was filled with over 100 snails, according to a study published in 2020 in the journal PLOS One.

“Such deposits may be a symbolic reference to the Maya belief in an aquatic afterlife,” according to the study.

A snail was also found at the Tulum site. It was glued to the entrance and was considered to be a Mayan decoration.

Additionally, a “significant” quantity of ceramic fragments, likely dated between 1200 and 1550, were discovered inside the cave.

Research on the site, including through the generation of three-dimensional models, will continue, officials said.

Parasitic Black Holes Could Be Eating Some Stars (Including the Sun) from the Inside

Cassidy Ward
Wed, December 20, 2023

When John Crichton (Ben Browder) accidentally launched himself to the other side of the cosmos in Farscape (streaming now on Peacock) he encountered all manner of weird places and even weirder creatures. But even his problems, large as they sometimes were, paled in comparison to something which could consume a star from the inside.

Astronomers, including Stephen Hawking, have suggested that a large number of low-mass black holes may have been created in the first moments after the birth of the universe. If that’s true, some of those tiny black holes might set up shop inside of stars and other celestial objects and consume them. A new study published in The Astrophysical Journal ran the models to see what it might look like if a star like the Sun had a low-mass black hole hiding in its heart

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The Universe Might Be Filled with Tiny Parasitic Black Holes

A black hole destroying a star.

A disk of hot gas swirls around a black hole in this illustration. The stream of gas stretching to the right is what remains of a star that was pulled apart by the black hole. A cloud of hot plasma (gas atoms with their electrons stripped away) above the black hole is known as a corona. Photo: NASA/JPL-Caltech

When we think of black holes, we usually think of incredibly massive objects, like humongous stars, collapsing in on themselves at the end of their lives. As a result, conventional black holes have high masses and an outsized influence on the surrounding spacetime.

RELATED: There Might Be Stealth Black Holes Hiding in Our Cosmic Backyard

Low-mass black holes would be much harder to spot, and scientists suggest they could be an explanation for the ongoing mystery of dark matter. They’re also a lot harder to make. Mathematically, a singularity could form at any mass, but you’d have to compress matter to a degree it isn’t usually found in. Put simply, low-mass black holes probably don’t form naturally today, but they might have in the early universe.

In those first instances, less than a second after the Big Bang kicked off, spacetime would have been compressed so tightly that black holes roughly the mass of the Moon or an asteroid might have formed in huge numbers. Some of those might have combined with one another or gobbled up enough stuff to become stellar mass black holes, but some of them could still be out there, in the process of growing. We haven’t found any direct evidence of any parasitic primordial black holes, but the recent study demonstrates that they could exist and tells us what signs to look out for.

What Are the Symptoms of Black Hole Infection?

Star merging with Black Hole
Artwork of massive star merging with a black hole. The compact object draws material off the star and flings some away into space, creating a spiral as it orbits. 

Credit: Caltech / Chuck Carter


Having a black hole, even a relatively small one inside of the Sun sounds like a doomsday scenario, but scientists say it might not be anything to worry about. Of course, that depends on the size of your parent star and the size of the black hole inside it.

Simulations showed that some black holes, particularly those on the lower end of the scale, can persist for billions of years inside of a star. If the mass relationship is dramatic enough, the star could even get through its entire natural life cycle relatively unscathed. If that’s the case, we’re going to have a hard time finding them; such a star-black-hole system would look totally normal from the outside. If the internal black hole is more massive though, then things can get interesting.

RELATED: Small Black Holes Near Big Black Holes May Tear Apart and Eat Stars

The models suggested that a black hole about 0.000001 solar masses could exist inside the Sun right now and it would be consistent with what we see. That’s a pretty small decimal, tiny by stellar standards, but don’t let all those zeroes fool you. If you cut the Earth into even thirds (we don’t recommend this) each one of them would be about 0.000001 solar masses.

If such a black hole does exist inside of the Sun or inside of another Sun-like star, we might be able to tell by what happens to it as it ages. Researchers say that the star would rapidly dim to about half of its current luminosity over the next 100 million years as the black hole gobbles up material and stifles fusion reactions.

After that, the star might become fully convective and increase in brightness dramatically. It could stay in this state, announcing its parasitic infection, for billions of years. Then it could become a sub-subgiant star and then a rad straggler, both unusual and rare classes of stars. They are redder and fainter than their peers and we don’t know precisely why they form. A parasitic black hole might be the answer. Finally, the black hole will consume the star in its entirety and only the black hole will remain.

Now that we know what these cosmic parasites might look like, astronomers can design experiments and cue up telescope time to go on the hunt for them. Of course, if we discover that our own star is already infected, we're not sure there’s much we could do about it.

Chinese Spacecraft Emitting Strong Signal Over North America

Victor Tangermann
Thu, December 21, 2023 


Emitting Signals

Earlier this week, China's top-secret spaceplane, dubbed Shenlong released six mysterious objects after reaching the Earth's orbit for the third time in three years.

We can only hazard a guess as to what these objects — which are being tracked by the US Space Force and designated the names OBJECT A through F by the US Department of Defense — are, or what their purpose is.

Amateur astronomer and satellite tracker Scott Tilley has been closely tracking the objects, examining the signals they've been emitting.

And, as he told the South China Morning Post, they appear to be sending the strongest signals while passing over North America.

"I’m seeing a pattern in its radio emissions while over me and it appears to favor low-elevation western passes," he told the newspaper. "This could indicate a clandestine ground station on the west coast of North America or on a ship off the coast."

To be clear, as Tilley points out, this is purely speculation — as we don't even know what these objects are, or how they relate to China's spaceplane.
Idle Filler

According to the amateur astronomer, objects designated D and E give off radio signals with "idle filler." Object B is "very bright," as he told the SCMP, and could be the upper stage of the Long March 2F rocket that lifted the plane into orbit, according to an update by Switzerland-based space domain awareness group S2a Systems.

Per Tilley, objects C and F could be pieces of jettisoned rocket debris as they are relatively dim and tumbling.

It's the third time China's secretive spaceplane has released objects in orbit over its three missions. During its first mission in 2020, it released one object during its two-day journey. During its second voyage last year, the US Space Force tracked another object that was released by spacecraft.

We're still none the wiser as to what China is trying to achieve during its latest spaceplane mission beyond testing reusable spaceplane technologies and carrying out science experiments, per state-run news agency Xinhua.

But considering China has pulled off three missions in just three years, it's a tech demo that's certainly worth following closely.

More on the spaceplane: Chinese Spaceplane Releases Six Mysterious Objects That Are Emitting Signals

NASA's Martian Helicopter Photographed Spaceship Wreckage on Mars

Cassidy Ward
Thu, December 21, 2023 

Whether we’re talking about real life or fiction, space travel is hard. When Harry Vanderspeigle (real name unpronounceable) visited our pale blue dot, a stray bolt of lightning brought down his craft and stranded him on Earth. Even the intelligent extraterrestrials of Resident Alien (streaming now on Peacock) couldn’t manage visiting another world without leaving a little wreckage.

If there’s any alien spacecraft wreckage on our planet, we haven’t found it (or it’s being hidden), but we have found the wreckage of an alien spacecraft on Mars, and the aliens are us. During the 26th flight of Ingenuity, NASA’s tiny Martian quadcopter, scientists snapped photos of shattered landing equipment, crashed into the Martian regolith.
Perseverance and Ingenuity Littered Mars with Wreckage

Ingenuity was looking at some of the landing equipment responsible for delivering it and the Perseverance rover safely to the ground. It was all part of the complicated Seven Minutes of Terror which began the rover’s time on the Red Planet.

RELATED: Video of Mars helicopter Ingenuity's 25th flight

It takes seven minutes to get from the top of the Martian atmosphere to the ground, but it takes at least twice that long for any signals to get from Mars to Earth. Everything that happens during descent and landing has to happen automatically, with no real-time human intervention.

When Perseverance first touched the atmosphere, it was moving between 12,000 and 13,000 miles per hour. The heat shield slammed into the thin alien air, heating up in the friction and slowing the craft down to a more manageable but still breakneck 1,000 miles per hour. Next, a supersonic parachute deployed, and the heat shield dropped, revealing instruments for mapping the ground beneath it. The parachute got it down to about 200 miles per hour, but the Martian air wasn’t thick enough to slow it down more than that. No longer useful, the parachute and the backshell it was anchored to were jettisoned. Retrorockets slowed the craft to a standstill, but they couldn’t touch the ground. Instead, they stopped about 20 meters above the ground, and a device called the Skycrane lowered the rover the rest of the way.

Then the crane blasted back off and crashed a safe distance away. Between the heat shield, the parachute and backshell, and the Skycrane, there is plenty of wreckage to go around.
Ingenuity Photographs Part of the Perseverance Landing Wreckage

It wasn’t a certainty that Ingenuity would even work on Mars, but it has quickly become one of the mission’s valuable elements. Not only is it endlessly cool to have a tiny helicopter bopping around on Mars – Ingenuity is, so far, the only craft to have ever achieved controlled flight on another world – but it also provides a novel point of view to the Martian landscape.

Ingenuity was initially planned to do only five flights, but it has performed so well that scientists have just kept going. At the time of writing, it has flown the red skies more than 60 times and counting. It was during one of those bonus flights that Ingenuity chased down some of its own wreckage and photographed the crime scene.

Wrecked landing equipment used to lower Perseverance to the Martian surface

The Mars Ingenuity Helicopter captured images of the wrecked landing equipment used to lower Perseverance to the Martian surface Photo: NASA/JPL-Caltech

“NASA extended Ingenuity flight operations to perform pioneering flights such as this. Every time we’re airborne, Ingenuity covers new ground and offers a perspective no previous planetary mission could achieve. Mars Sample Return’s reconnaissance request is a perfect example of the utility of aerial platforms on Mars,” said Teddy Tzanetos, Ingenuity’s team lead at JPL, in a statement.

RELATED: See Mars’ Jezero Crater for yourself in this stunning video tour

The Mars Sample Return program team asked for the images in order to inform future landing missions. Any sample return mission requires landing on Mars and lifting back up again, so understanding the performance of previous landing equipment could inform the design of that and other future missions.

Wrecked Perserverance landing equipment on the surface of Mars

An alternate angle of the parachute and backshell wreckage near the Perseverance landing site. Photo: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Ingenuity lifted off at 11:37 A.M. local Mars time and flew for 159 seconds. It rose to an altitude of about 8 meters (26 feet) and flew around the area snapping pictures from multiple angles. The images show both the supersonic parachute and the attached backshell. Scientists estimate the backshell smashed into the ground at 126 kilometers (78 miles) per hour. That’s fast and hard enough to cause some obvious damage, but the equipment is relatively unscathed. Engineers noted that the protective coating, parachute, and many of the suspension lines appear to be intact after both descent and crash-landing.

The potential engineering value of the images is difficult to quantify, but the value to humanity’s scrapbook of Cool Stuff is infinite. We are looking at part of a crashed spaceship on another planet, and we are the aliens responsible

Philippines' US ties risk more than links with China, expert warns

South China Morning Post
Thu, December 21, 2023

The Philippines may have underestimated China's ability to hit back in the South China Sea, a Chinese maritime expert warned on Wednesday.

Addressing a closed-door meeting on the China-Philippines relationship, Wu Shicun, chairman of the Huayang Centre for Maritime Cooperation and Ocean Governance, also cautioned that Manila's "unprecedented" security cooperation with the US would risk not just ties with China but also the Philippines' own interests.

"An important prerequisite for stable China-Philippine relations in the future is that the US-Philippine alliance and security cooperation must not target China," Wu said, according to a transcript published by the Hainan-based think tank.

Do you have questions about the biggest topics and trends from around the world? Get the answers with SCMP Knowledge, our new platform of curated content with explainers, FAQs, analyses and infographics brought to you by our award-winning team.

"But if their cooperation in, for example, the use of military bases, joint exercises, information gathering and logistical supplies infringe the core and important interests of China such as Taiwan, the South China Sea and ...[China's] national security, then not only will China-Philippines relations bear the brunt, and the peace and stability of the South China Sea become untenable, the Philippines' own interests will also be undermined."

Ties between Beijing and Manila have been strained over repeated face-offs between Chinese and Philippine ships in the South China Sea, including collisions that have raised fears of the waterway becoming a flashpoint.

Beijing and Manila have accused each other of provocation.

In an interview after arriving in Japan last Friday, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr, who has strengthened Manila's alliance with Washington, said his country needed a "paradigm shift" in its approach to the South China Sea because diplomatic efforts with Beijing were heading "in a poor direction".

Marcos said the Philippines would work with partners in the Indo-Pacific region to come up with a joint position on their responsibilities in the waters.

During the meeting on Wednesday, Wu, the former president of the government-backed National Institute for South China Sea Studies, said US support was partly to blame for recent "risky behaviours" by the Philippines.

Despite blockades by Beijing, Manila has sent regular resupply missions to shore up a World War II-era navy ship that was deliberately grounded in 1999 as an outpost at the Second Thomas Shoal.

"[The US support was also] linked to the underestimation made by the Philippines' strategic community and policymakers of China's likely resolve and ability to counterbalance it," he added.

Beijing has long labelled the US as an "external force" escalating tensions in the strategically important waterway that connects Northeast and Southeast Asia, and the Pacific and the Indian Ocean.

It was frustrated when Manila announced in April that it would allow US troops access to four more military bases, including one about 400km (250 miles) from Taiwan and another one that is only 200km from a Chinese base on Mischief Reef in the Spratly Islands.

In another move that may upset Beijing, Japan, another US treaty ally, announced on Wednesday that it had formally handed over an air surveillance radar system to the Philippines.

The system can detect approaching fighter jets and missiles and help bolster the Southeast Asian country's defences, according to Philippine Defence Secretary Gilberto Teodoro.

Wu said that a stronger US-Philippine alliance would bring more uncertainties to Manila's ties with Beijing.

This is especially so given the US has steadily increased its military presence around China, including sailing of naval vessels and surveillance planes in the South China Sea and through the Taiwan Strait, according to Wu.

Marcos has said the US cannot use its military bases for offensives against China but Wu warned that such situations would be "out of the Philippines' control".

"A likely consequence is that the Philippines not only becomes a casualty of the US-China military game in the South China Sea, but also becomes militarily involved in the US-China conflict in the Taiwan Strait," Wu said.

The two sides should find a way out of the "South China Sea dilemma" to avoid spillover damage on bilateral cooperation, Wu said.

And the only way to do that, according to Wu, is to set aside a ruling from a tribunal in The Hague that dismissed much of Beijing's claim to the disputed waters.

Chinese structures and buildings are seen on a man-made island on Mischief Reef in March, 2023 

 Photo: AP 

"The only way is to set aside the South China Sea tribunal ruling and not take it as an additional condition when dealing with bilateral relations and the South China Sea disputes," he said.

"Otherwise ... the South China Sea dilemma will never be resolved and the comprehensive cooperation in trade, culture ... tourism and investment would inevitably be interrupted."

He also said the two sides should resume the hotline between their respective coastguards, which started in January but was suspended in August after Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Jay Tarriela complained that the line "never really gave us a positive chance to talk".

Wu said the hotlines as well as the joint committee between the two coastguards since 2017 had "played some role" in managing disputes at the sea, including in the waters around the Scarborough Shoal, the Second Thomas Shoal and Sand Cay, a China-controlled high-tide sandbar located about two nautical miles from the Philippines' Pagasa Island.

"There is no reason for us to set aside these effective mechanisms ... and allow conflicts to widen, conflicts to escalate and crises to spiral out of control, and watch relations between our two countries reach the point of no return," Wu said.


Copyright (c) 2023. South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.

California sues Kroger unit for rejecting job seekers with criminal records

Daniel Wiessner
Thu, December 21, 2023

An employee walks back towards a Ralphs grocery store, which is owned by Kroger Co, ahead of company results in Pasadena


By Daniel Wiessner

(Reuters) - California filed a lawsuit against Kroger Co subsidiary Ralph's Grocery Co on Thursday, accusing it of violating state law by screening out hundreds of job applicants based on their criminal history.

The lawsuit, filed in state court by the California Civil Rights Department (CRD), accuses Ralph's of flouting a 2018 law that bars most employers from asking applicants about their criminal record prior to offering them a job.

The lawsuit seeks compensatory damages for affected job applicants, for lost wages and benefits and mental and emotional distress, and punitive damages.

Ralph's, which operates more than 180 grocery stores in California, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Kevin Kish, the agency's director, said in a statement that the law provides crucial protections to millions of people with criminal records.

"We can’t expect people to magically gain the economic and housing stability needed to reintegrate into their communities and stay out of the criminal legal system without a fair chance at steady employment," he said.

The agency said the lawsuit is the first-ever filed under the law, known as the Fair Chance Act. The law also provides that employers can only reject prospective employees based on their criminal history when their convictions have a direct relationship to a job.

The agency said it has investigated hundreds of complaints alleging violations of the Fair Chance Act since the law was adopted and has secured about 70 settlements, including separate $100,000 settlements with a fire protection district and a construction company.

The agency said it could not reach a settlement with Ralph's, prompting it to sue.

(Reporting by Daniel Wiessner in Albany, New York; Editing by Alexia Garamfalvi and Leslie Adler)

California lawsuit says Ralphs broke the law by asking job-seekers about their criminal histories

Associated Press
Thu, December 21, 2023 

FILE -Francisco Luna collects shopping carts outside of a Ralphs grocery store in Los Angeles on Monday, Dec. 5, 2005. California sued the Ralphs supermarket chain on Thursday, Ded. 21, 2023, alleging that it violated state law by asking job-seekers whether they had criminal records and illegally rejecting hundreds of applicants (AP Photo/Kevork Djansezian, File)


LOS ANGELES (AP) — California sued the Ralphs supermarket chain on Thursday, alleging that it violated state law by asking job-seekers whether they had criminal records and illegally rejecting hundreds of applicants.

The California Civil Rights Department contends that Ralphs Grocery Co. “has ignored and continues to ignore” the Fair Chance Act “by screening out otherwise qualified applicants on the basis of criminal histories that do not have any adverse relationship with the duties of the job for which they were applying,” according to a departmental press statement.

The law, which took effect in 2018, was designed to reduce the chance of ex-convicts reoffending by giving them opportunities to earn a living.

In general, employers with five or more workers can't ask applicants about their criminal histories before making job offers, and must follow specific procedures for rejecting them. The law says employers can't rescind a job offer if the applicant's conviction, which could be for a misdemeanor, wouldn't directly affect job responsibilities.

Instead, Ralphs job-seekers were given what the suit calls a “confusing and misleading” application form that included questions seeking disclosure of their criminal histories. Most candidates who had their job offers revoked weren't given any way to contact Ralphs to challenge the decision as the law requires, the statement said.

"The instructions provide detailed, superfluous instructions concerning how to report convictions, after telling applicants that they do not need to answer the question. Additionally, by suggesting specific convictions that should not be reported in California, the instructions necessarily suggest that other convictions should be reported," the lawsuit contends.

Between 2018 and 2022, more than 70% of California applicants answered the question anyway, according to the suit.

Some candidates “lost their job offers based on convictions for a single misdemeanor count of excessive noise. Other applicants who had convictions from other states for simple cannabis possession were also disqualified,” the department's statement said.

“When roughly 70 million Americans have some sort of record, policies like those employed by Ralphs aren’t just discriminatory and against California law, they don’t make sense,” the department’s director, Kevin Kish, said in the statement. “Ralphs has continued to unlawfully deny jobs to qualified candidates and that’s why we’re taking them to court.”

An email seeking comment from Ralphs’ corporate owner, The Kroger Co., wasn’t immediately returned.

Ralphs has 185 stores in California with about 25,000 employees, according to the lawsuit.

It’s the first lawsuit filed over the law, although the Civil Rights Department has reached settlements with other employers in about 70 other cases alleging violations. They include a $100,000 settlement last year on behalf of applicants who were denied jobs at a construction company.

Ralphs Grocery sued by California for allegedly revoking job offers from ex-convicts

Samantha Delouya, CNN
Thu, December 21, 2023 



The state of California has sued Ralphs Grocery for allegedly rescinding job offers from hundreds of job applicants with a criminal history, accusing the company of violating state law.

California’s Civil Rights Department alleges that Ralphs violated a 2018 law that bans most employers from asking job candidates about their criminal histories before making them an offer.

The department accuses Ralphs of canceling hundreds of offers due to applicants’ prior convictions, including for a single misdemeanor count like excessive noise or cannabis possession, according to the lawsuit filed in state court Thursday. The suit is the first of its kind in California, according to the department.

Neither Ralphs nor its parent company Kroger immediately responded to CNN’s request for comment.

“We can’t expect people to magically gain the economic and housing stability needed to reintegrate into their communities and stay out of the criminal legal system without a fair chance at steady employment,” CRD director Kevin Kish said in a statement, “particularly when the job has nothing to do with a past offense.”

California’s Fair Chance law states employers must first extend a conditional job offer before making a criminal background check—and the offer can be revoked only if the conviction has a direct relationship to the job responsibilities.

The lawsuit alleges that Ralphs not only disqualified candidates based on unrelated convictions, but that the company also failed to provide adequate notice as required by the law. “Applicants would not know they were in danger of losing a job they had been offered, or in some cases, a job they had already started,” the lawsuit said.

The state did not specify financial details, but it is seeking compensatory damages for affected applicants, punitive damages and an injunction.

The suit comes after California attempted several mediation sessions with Ralphs after the state received an initial complaint alleging discriminatory practices in 2020, which sparked an investigation that Ralphs was made aware of in 2021.


Ralphs illegally denied jobs to formerly incarcerated people, civil rights lawsuit alleges

Suhauna Hussain
Thu, December 21, 2023 

The Ralphs store on Sunset Blvd. in Los Angeles. The chain is accused of illegally denying employment to formerly incarcerated applicants in violation of the state's Fair Chance Act. (Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times)

Grocery company Ralphs illegally denied jobs to hundreds of people based on their criminal history, California’s Civil Rights Department alleges in a new lawsuit.

The lawsuit, filed Thursday in Los Angeles County Superior Court, is the first of its kind under California's Fair Chance Act, which went into effect in 2018 and limits the use of conviction history in hiring decisions in an effort to reduce barriers and combat discrimination that formerly incarcerated people face when looking for work.

Ralphs included questions about applicants’ conviction histories on its job application in violation of the law and failed to individually assess whether each applicant's conviction history justified denying them a job under standards set by the Fair Chance Act, the complaint alleges.

As a result, Ralphs “refused to hire hundreds of applicants whose conviction histories do not justify denying them positions,” according to the lawsuit. These violations are ongoing, according to the complaint.

The Civil Rights Department is seeking monetary damages for the workers who were denied jobs or lost jobs as a result of Ralphs’ screening practices and a court order to require Ralphs to come into compliance with the law.

“When roughly 70 million Americans have some sort of record, policies like those employed by Ralphs aren’t just discriminatory and against California law, they don’t make sense,” said Kevin Kish, director of the Civil Rights Department, according to a Thursday news release about the lawsuit. “We can’t expect people to magically gain the economic and housing stability needed to reintegrate into their communities and stay out of the criminal legal system without a fair chance at steady employment.”

Salvador Ramirez, a spokesperson for Kroger, the parent company of Ralphs, did not respond to a request for comment.

The Fair Chance Act prohibits employers with five or more employees from asking about a job applicant’s criminal history before making a conditional job offer, and sets in place specific procedures for considering an applicant’s criminal history after a job offer is made. Under the law, employers can decide against hiring an applicant only because of a conviction that has a direct relationship with job responsibilities.

The law also requires that companies provide notice of decisions to deny applicants positions on the basis of their conviction histories, and gives applicants the ability to respond to these preliminary decisions.

Ralph did not do this, according to the Civil Rights Department. More than 75% of job applicants who were told their job offer would be withdrawn were not provided any way to contact Ralphs to contest the decision, as legally required by the Fair Chance Act, the department said.

“Ralphs has continued to unlawfully deny jobs to qualified candidates and that’s why we’re taking them to court,” Kish said in his Thursday statement.

The Civil Rights Department said that since the law went into effect in 2018, it has investigated hundreds of complaints alleging discrimination in employment decisions based on criminal history information and secured roughly 70 settlements on behalf of affected individuals. Settlements include a nearly $100,000 mediated settlement with the Moraga-Orinda Fire Protection District earlier this year as well as a $100,000 settlement last year with a construction company that allegedly unlawfully denied a group of applicants positions between 2018 and 2019.

The department said it also has made efforts to identify and correct online job advertisements that violate the Fair Chance Act, sending notices to businesses to address hundreds of violations.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

DeSantis spread false information while pushing trans health care ban and restrictions, a judge says

BRENDAN FARRINGTON

Updated Fri, December 22, 2023 

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — A federal judge hearing a challenge to a transgender health care ban for minors and restrictions for adults noted Thursday that Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis repeatedly spread false information about doctors mutilating children's genitals even though there's been no such documented cases.

The law was sold as defending children from mutilation when it is actually about preventing trans children from getting health care, Judge Robert Hinkle said to Mohammad Jazil, a lawyer for the state.

“When I'm analyzing the governor's motivation, what should I make of these statements?” Hinkle asked. “This seems to be more than just hyperbole.”

Hinkle said he will rule sometime in the new year on whether the Legislature, the Department of Health and presidential candidate DeSantis deliberately targeted transgender people through the new law. He raised some skepticism about the state’s motivation as lawyers gave their closing arguments.

The trial is challenging Florida’s ban on medical treatment for transgender children, such as hormone therapy or puberty blockers, a law DeSantis touted while seeking the presidency. The law also places restrictions on adult trans care.

Jazil said the motivation behind the law was simply public safety in an area that needs more oversight and can have permanent consequences.

“It's about treating a medical condition; it's not about targeting transgender individuals,” Jazil said.

Jazil added that if the state was targeting transgender people, it could have banned all treatment for adults and children. Hinkle quickly replied that Jazil would have trouble defending such a law.

Hinkle, who was appointed by former President Bill Clinton, has temporarily blocked enforcement of the law as it pertains to minors, pending the outcome of the trial. The lawsuit also challenges restrictions placed on adult trans care, which have been allowed to take effect during the trial.

At least 22 states have now enacted laws restricting or banning gender-affirming medical care for transgender minors, and many of those states face lawsuits. Courts have issued mixed rulings, with the nation’s first law, in Arkansas, struck down by a federal judge who said the ban on care violated the due process rights of transgender youth and their families.

Enforcement is blocked in two states besides Florida, and enforcement is currently allowed in or set to go into effect soon in seven other states.

Thomas Redburn, a lawyer representing trans adults and the families of trans children, said DeSantis and the Legislature have shown a pattern of targeting transgender people. He listed other recent laws that affect the community, including restrictions on pronoun use in schools, the teaching of gender identification in schools, restrictions on public bathrooms and the prohibition of trans girls from playing girls sports.

PIRATE TREASURE

Colombia will try to raise objects from a 1708 shipwreck believed to have a cargo worth billions

Associated Press
Thu, December 21, 2023

FILE - This undated image made from a mosaic of photos taken by an autonomous underwater vehicle, released by the Colombian Institute of Anthropology and History, shows the remains of the Spanish galleon San Jose, that went down off the Colombian Caribbean coast as it was trying to outrun a fleet of British warships on June 8, 1708. The Colombian government said Dec. 21, 2023 it will try to raise objects from the shipwreck, which is believed to contain a cargo worth billions of dollars. (Colombian Institute of Anthropology and History via AP, File)More


BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — The Colombian government said Thursday it will try to raise objects from the 1708 shipwreck of the galleon San Jose, which is believed to contain a cargo worth billions of dollars.

The 300-year-old wreck, often called the “holy grail of shipwrecks,” has been controversial, because it is both an archaeological and economic treasure.

Culture Minister Juan David Correa said the first attempts will be made between April and May, depending on ocean conditions in the Caribbean. Correa pledged it would be a scientific expedition.

“This is an archaeological wreck, not a treasure," Correa said following a meeting with President Gustavo Petro. “This is an opportunity for us to become a country at the forefront of underwater archaeological research.”

But the ship is believed to hold 11 million gold and silver coins, emeralds and other precious cargo from Spanish-controlled colonies, which could be worth billions of dollars if ever recovered.

Correa said the material extracted from the wreck, probably by robotic or submersible craft, would be taken aboard a navy ship for analysis. Based on the results, a second effort might be scheduled.

The San Jose galleon sank in battle with British ships more than 300 years ago. It was located in 2015 but has been mired in legal and diplomatic disputes.

In 2018, the Colombia government abandoned plans to excavate the wreck, amid disputes with a private firm that claims some salvage rights based on a 1980s agreement with Colombian government.

In 2018, the United Nations cultural agency called on Colombia not to commercially exploit the wreck.

A UNESCO experts’ body protecting underwater cultural heritage sent a letter to Colombia expressing concern that recovering the treasure for sale rather than for its historical value “would cause the irretrievable loss of significant heritage.”

“Allowing the commercial exploitation of Colombia’s cultural heritage goes against the best scientific standards and international ethical principles as laid down especially in the UNESCO Underwater Cultural Heritage Convention,” the letter said.

Colombia has not signed the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, which would subject it to international standards and require it to inform UNESCO of its plans for the wreck.

The wreck was discovered three years ago with the help of an international team of experts and autonomous underwater vehicles, and its exact location is a state secret. The ship sank somewhere in the wide area off Colombia’s Baru peninsula, south of Cartagena, in the Caribbean Sea.

The ship has been the subject of a legal battle in the U.S., Colombia and Spain over who owns the rights to the sunken treasure.

The three-decked San Jose was reportedly 150 feet (45 meters) long, with a beam of 45 feet (14 meters) and armed with 64 guns.

Colombia has said that researchers found bronze cannons that are in good condition, along with ceramic and porcelain vases and personal weapons.

The researchers say that the specifications of the cannons leave no doubt that the wreck is that of the San Jose.