LifeSmarts launches 20th anniversary season with all new LifeSmarts.org, other exciting expansions – National Consumers League

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September 9, 2013

Contact: Ben Klein, NCL Communications, (202) 207-2832, benk@nclnet.org

Washington, DC—The 2013-2014 LifeSmarts season is officially underway this week, with a new competition year going live at the program’s revamped online home, LifeSmarts.org, along with a variety of new coaching and study resources, new opportunities for participants, and new state programs across the country. LifeSmarts is an educational competition run by the National Consumers League that tests middle school and high school students nationwide on real-life consumer issues through online quizzes and live competition. It culminates in the annual national LifeSmarts championship, taking place this season in Orlando, FL, where winning teams and individuals are awarded academic scholarships and prizes. 

“We’re thrilled to be launching this, our 20th year of LifeSmarts,” said Program Director Lisa Hertzberg. “LifeSmarts delivers life skills to students and allows them to shine in competitions where they demonstrate their knowledge of personal finance and consumer issues. It also provides thousands of teachers across the country with up-to-date, broad-based consumer education resources.”

Over the years, LifeSmarts has steadily grown in numbers of student and adult participants, state partnerships, and corporate sponsorships. In the most recent season, an estimated 100,000 students and teachers across the country answered more than 3.5 million LifeSmarts questions. This month, LifeSmarts has unveiled a new Web site with better navigation, usability, and social media integration.

“LifeSmarts content is keeping up with an increasingly challenging marketplace, providing the consumer literacy teens need to become the next generation of smart consumers and workers, and the materials are used both for competition and for classroom curriculum across the country,” said Sally Greenberg, NCL Executive Director. “The all-new LifeSmarts.org will help students and coaches use study materials more easily, excel at competition, and share their success with others. We are excited to see what new and returning LifeSmarts teens think of the new online home.”

LifeSmarts provides participants with practical advice and information on consumer issues ranging from personal finance and health and safety to the environment, technology, and consumer rights and responsibilities. Starting online each fall, the competition progresses to live state play-offs, and then builds to a high-spirited National Championship. At last year’s national competition held in Atlanta, the Florida team took home top honors after competing for four days against state champion teams from across the country.

Later this month, LifeSmarts will also roll out a major expansion to its LifeSmarts program in partnership with the global safety science company Underwriters Laboratories, UL, providing participants with a community service learning opportunity in their communities.

The National Consumers League partners with volunteer state coordinators in 30 states including Better Business Bureaus, credit unions, consumer protection agencies, and State FCCLA organizations. Interested students and adults can visit the LifeSmarts Web site to connect with the program in their state.

“The National Consumers League’s mission is to inspire confidence and safety in the marketplace,” said Greenberg. “The LifeSmarts program, our consumer education initiative for youth, fosters students’ understanding of consumer issues and provides them with real-world knowledge they will need to take charge of their lives.”

Major LifeSmarts contributors include Visa, Experian, Google, Western Union, UL, McNeil Consumer Healthcare, Bridgestone Retail Operations, LLC, American Express, CBM Credit Education Foundation, and others. 

Visit the new LifeSmarts.org. LifeSmarts: Learn it. Live it.

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About the National Consumers League and LifeSmarts

The National Consumers League, founded in 1899, is America’s pioneer consumer organization. Our mission is to protect and promote social and economic justice for consumers and workers in the United States and abroad. For more information, visit www.nclnet.org.

LifeSmarts is a program of the National Consumers League. State coordinators run the programs on a volunteer basis. For more information, visit: www.lifesmarts.org, email lifesmarts@nclnet.org, or call the National Consumers League’s communications department at 202-835-3323.

New study reveals disturbing price variation within chain retailers – National Consumers League

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Chain drugstores are convenient, but are their prices fair and transparent? While savvy consumers know comparison shopping between physical retailers and online outlets is essential to saving money, new research reveals that comparing in-store prices at different locations of the same chain is just as important.

With drugstores expanding their offerings and vying for more of our dollars, Change to Win Retail Initiatives in partnership with the National Consumers League surveyed 485 Walgreens, CVS and Rite Aid locations throughout the country to see how consistent in-store pricing is within each chain and how shoppers can get the best deals.

“Certainly consumers expect different chains to offer different deals,” said Sally Greenberg, Executive Director of NCL, the nation’s pioneering consumer advocacy organization. “But price variation within a single chain is a wake-up call for consumers, who don’t tend to shop around and compare within a chain. This is a reminder that caveat emptor – let the buyer beware – applies even within the same chain, where prices may vary depending on where you’re shopping.”

Key findings for all markets surveyed include:

  • Walgreens prices were all over the map. Walgreens stores in a single market were up to five times more likely than a competitor to charge different prices for the same item. This price variation was not limited to one or two items; researchers encountered storewide price differences at Walgreens at a rate several times higher than the other chains in most markets.
  • Price differences at Walgreens often meant consumers were paying more. In every market surveyed, Walgreens had the greatest percentage of products that cost at least 10 percent more than the market’s lowest price.
  • Walgreens had the biggest price differences between its stores. In all markets surveyed, Walgreens had twice the number of products with a 20 percent or greater price range than did CVS. Rite Aid had virtually no products with that big of a gap. Walgreens also had significantly more items with a price range of a dollar or greater.

The study includes several tips for how shoppers can get the best price at drugstore chains. Tips include avoiding Walgreens flagship stores and asking managers about price matching.

Tips for Getting the Best Price
In addition to searching for sales and coupons, here are some tips for getting the best price at your drugstore:
Ask about price matching.
While none of the chains will match their online prices at brick-and-mortar locations, managers often have the ability to match prices from other stores within their chain.

Watch your wallet.

Shoppers can’t count on the price on the shelf to be the best the chain offers—especially at Walgreens. Keep track of the prices of your drugstore staples and shop around to find the best ones.

Avoid Walgreens “flagship” stores.

Walgreens has said that flagship stores are more expensive, and the survey found proof of that. The basket of items in the survey cost nearly 20 percent more —or $38 extra—at a flagship store in New York than it typically did at other Walgreens in the city.

The gap between CEO and average worker pay continues to grow. Let’s #ShareTheWealth! – National Consumers League

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This week, in honor of Labor Day, let’s take some time to acknowledge the growing disparity between CEOs and the workers who make their companies succeed. Workers are the backbone of our nation. Thank you to America’s workforce, and this year let’s think about spreading the wealth.

Buyer Beware: Walgreens prices all over the map – National Consumers League

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September 5, 2013

Contact: Matt Painter, Change to Win Retail Initiatives, 646.705.3128,  matthew.painter@changetowin.org
Ben Klein, National Consumers League, 202.207.2832, benk@nclnet.org

New York, September 5, 2013 –Walgreens (NYSE, NASDAQ: WAG) shoppers could be paying too much depending on which location of the chain they choose, with stores in the same market offering the same products for up to 55 percent more.  A new study of several markets throughout the country finds that price variation across Walgreens locations was up to five times higher than at Rite Aid and two-and-a-half times higher than CVS. The report, released by Change to Win (CtW) Retail Initiatives in partnership with the National Consumers League (NCL), compiles data on a basket of 25 items at 485 CVS, Walgreens, and Rite Aid locations in Dallas-Fort Worth, Los Angeles, New York City, and Orange County, California.

(Download PDF survey factsheets: national overview, Dallas-Fort Worth, Los Angeles, New York City, and Orange County.)

“Certainly consumers expect different chains to offer different deals,” said Sally Greenberg, Executive Director of NCL, the nation’s pioneering consumer advocacy organization. “But price variation within a single chain is a wake-up call for consumers, who don’t tend to shop around and compare within a chain. This is a reminder that caveat emptor – let the buyer beware – applies even within the same chain, where prices may vary depending on where you’re shopping.”

Key findings for all markets surveyed include:

  • Walgreens prices were all over the map.  Walgreens stores in a single market were up to five times more likely than a competitor to charge different prices for the same item.  This price variation was not limited to one or two items; researchers encountered storewide price differences at Walgreens at a rate several times higher than the other chains in most markets.
  • Price differences at Walgreens often meant consumers were paying more.  In every market surveyed, Walgreens had the greatest percentage of products that cost at least 10 percent more than the market’s lowest price.
  • Walgreens had the biggest price differences between its stores.  In all markets surveyed, Walgreens had twice the number of products with a 20 percent or greater price range than did CVS.  Rite Aid had virtually no products with that big of a gap.  Walgreens also had significantly more items with a price range of a dollar or greater.

The study includes several tips for how shoppers can get the best price at drugstore chains. Tips include avoiding Walgreens flagship stores and asking managers about price matching.

“Price variation isn’t fair to consumers, who need their dollars to stretch in a tough economy and deserve to get the best price available, regardless of which Walgreens they happen to walk into,” said Nell Geiser, Research Director of CtW Retail Initiatives.

Since there are no Rite Aid stores in Dallas-Fort Worth, researchers only visited CVS and Walgreens locations in that market.

(Download PDF survey factsheets: national overview, Dallas-Fort Worth, Los Angeles, New York City, and Orange County.)

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About the National Consumers League

The National Consumers League, founded in 1899, is America’s pioneer consumer organization. Its mission is to protect and promote social and economic justice for consumers and workers in the United States and abroad. For more information, visit www.nclnet.org.

About Change to Win Retail Initiatives

Change to Win Retail Initiatives is committed to making retailers more accountable and transparent to all stakeholders.

Let’s celebrate this Labor Day by fighting for the country’s low-wage workers – National Consumers League

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By Sally Greenberg, NCL Executive Director

With Labor Day 2013 upon us, we have the opportunity to stand with low-income workers in the District of Columbia (DC) and by extension, all of the working poor. NCL has taken part in two recent campaigns in DC in an effort to lift up those who are often exploited and toil for unconscionably low wages. The first campaign supports the efforts of Good Jobs Nation.

NCL joined with this worker organization to help publicize the low wages federal contractors are permitted to pay those who serve food in the museums and tourist locales around the city. Twice in the past month our staff and our six summer interns hopped the DC Metro down to the National Mall to support walk-outs and rallies by hundreds of minimum wage employees. We’ve helped to publicize the fact that contractors who run fast food outlets like Subway and McDonalds, and who secure lucrative contracts with the federal government to provide meals at places like the Air and Space Museum and Union Station in Washington DC, often pay less than the DC minimum wage of $8.25 an hour, and sometimes even less than the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour.

We think tourists and taxpayers would be unhappy to learn that many of these federal contractors are not playing by the rules and are engaging in wage theft, which includes not paying the requisite time and a half for overtime or paying less than the required DC or federal minimum wage. All the while, these contractors are reaping millions in profits from tourists who have little choice but to eat in these establishments when they visit DC’s many wonderful sites. We, Good Jobs Nation, and many other groups are calling on President Obama to sign an Executive Order requiring federal contractors to pay a living wage to all workers. We urge everyone to go to the Good Jobs Nation website and sign the letter to the President.

We’re committed to supporting these workers in their efforts to earn not only the minimum wage but the DC living wage – which has been evaluated to be $12.50 an hour. If workers received a living wage they would make $26,000 annually working a 40-hour work-week. The second major DC-focused campaign is the DC City Council’s legislation, passed by an 8-5 tally, requiring that big box stores operating in DC, that have $1 billion in corporate sales and at least 75,000 square feet, pay a living wage of $12.50. Walmart has three stores operating in the District already, but because of the Council’s action, they are threatening to stop construction on the other three and take their business elsewhere. The bill now sits on DC Mayor Vincent Gray’s desk; NCL has written to the Mayor asking him to support the Council’s measure. Both campaigns have one thing in common: they are aimed at improving the wages and living conditions of the District’s working poor, who often are left to try and raise families on incomes of $15,000 or less in a very expensive city.

The argument from Walmart and its supporters is that these jobs, indeed, any jobs, are better than no jobs. A Washington Post article written by Jim Tankersley on August 8, debunks this claim showing raw statistics that demonstrate how Walmart affects a community and the number of jobs available. “Economic research suggests that the net job-creation benefits of a new Walmart usually prove minimal, at best. That is because when Walmart opens a store, it often drives other retailers out of business, forcing their employees out of work.

A 2004 paper from economist Emek Basker of the University of Missouri found that the introduction of a Walmart to a community usually raised retail employment by 100 jobs at first, but that number fell to a net gain of 50 jobs in the long run. A year later, a trio of economists from California and Massachusetts found that a Walmart entry reduces employment by 150 jobs in the long term. A 2008 study of Maryland Walmarts (sic) found the stores reduced overall retail employment in the areas where they were introduced but pushed up retail wages.” If Walmart effectively stalls job creation and then reduces the overall number of jobs in the long term, perhaps DC would be better without Walmart’s jobs. These parallel campaigns are front and center during this Labor Day.

We think both President Obama and the DC Mayor (with kudos to the DC City Council) have a unique opportunity to lift up the workers in DC and demand that that stores like Walmart and federal contractors who run the McDonalds and Subways provide a living wage to all workers. This seems like a reasonable request in light of the huge profits these companies make, and bringing these demands to fruition would be a very worthy way, indeed, to celebrate Labor Day 2013.