Moving and Retirement
The Growing Outdoor Recreation Economy: Conservation of Public Lands Helps Small Businesses Thrive
A key element of the growing outdoor recreation economy — which accounts for $887 billion in annual consumer spending and supports 7.6 million jobs, according to the Outdoor Industry Association — are small businesses, especially those that operate in the gateway communities around public lands. Sure, online shopping is convenient, but it’s to a local business that most visitors turn when they need a replacement tent or last-minute supplies before heading out to camp, fish, hunt, or find solace in the outdoors. more »
A UK Law Requires Companies Employing More Than 250 to Report Their Gender Pay Gap: What Does the US Have?
From 2017, any organisation that has 250 or more employees must publish and report specific figures about their gender pay gap. The gender pay gap is the difference between the average earnings of men and women, expressed relative to men’s earnings. For example, ‘women earn 15% less than men per hour'. Employers must both: publish their gender pay gap data and a written statement on their public-facing website report their data to government online - using the gender pay gap reporting service. If your organisation has fewer than 250 employees, it can publish and report voluntarily but is not obliged to do so. more »
Stateline: Why Most States Are Struggling to Regulate Airbnb
About 15 states debated bills to regulate the short-term rental industry this year. Only one, Indiana’s, was signed into law. Nebraska’s governor vetoed a bill approved by that state’s Legislature. A bill to regulate the industry also died in Hawaii. Home-owners and hotels have different business models, different perspectives and different agendas. These competing constituencies help account for the difficulty states have had in regulating and taxing the short-term rental industry, even as some cities have taken action to regulate short-term rentals. more »
Outdoor Recreation Driving Population Boom in Rural Areas; Land is Cheaper and Recreation is Right Out the Back Door
The trend is part of what drove the overall slight growth of the rural population in the United States from 2016 to 2017, for the first time since 2010, according to a Stateline analysis of census data. (Rural counties are those defined by the US Office of Management and Budget as outside cities and their suburbs.) The population in rural counties grew by only about 33,000 during that time, to about 46 million. While counties with large mining and farming industries shrank, counties with large recreation industries grew the most, by about 42,000, to about 6.3 million. more »