NEW YORK – The number of vacationing Americans will be down this summer, according to a new AP-Gfk Poll, and a third of Americans surveyed said they have already canceled at least one trip this year because of financial concerns.

Overall, the survey found only 42 percent of Americans plan a leisure trip this summer, down from the 49 percent who said they planned to take a summer trip in an AP-Ipsos poll conducted in May 2005.

Not surprisingly, the less money you make, the less likely you are to take a vacation. More than two-thirds of those in the $100,000-plus bracket will take some type of leisure trip this summer, compared to 48 percent of those earning $50,000-$100,000 and just one-third of those with family incomes under $50,000.

In terms of destinations, 12 percent of those planning a trip said they would stay in their home state, 67 percent will go to another state and 19 percent will travel outside the U.S. The poll also found that 20 percent of those planning a trip this summer will stay closer to home this year due to economic worries, while 23 percent will save money by staying with friends or family instead of a hotel.

Despite the downturn, travel bargains are tempting a small number of people — mostly upper-income — to take bigger and better trips. Seven percent of all Americans and 18 percent of those earning more than $100,000 said they would take more elaborate trips than usual because of lower prices.

The poll was conducted by GfK Roper Public Affairs & Media from April 16-20 by landline and cell phone telephone interviews with a nationally representative random sample of 1,000 adults. The margin of error was plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.

Arch Woodside, a professor of marketing at Boston College who specializes in tourism, described the overall decrease in summer travel as “a substantial drop” that will have a significant impact on the industry, especially in places like Florida and New York City where tourism is big business.

Woodside said travel could shrink even more next year as new economic realities sink in. “Most people unconsciously maintain their lifestyles immediately after a big drop in their economic well-being: an ‘I’m going to be all right’ response,” Woodside said. “The impact of their new lower economic reality becomes conscious reality in the second year following a big change.”

Age-wise, 30-49-year-olds were most likely to travel, with 48 percent planning a trip. Among those ages 18-29, 43 percent said they would travel, and among those ages 50-64, 41 percent plan a trip. The real drop-off is among older folks: Just 34 percent of those 65 or older plan to travel this summer.

Among those saying the economy is keeping them home, Tonya Severine of Bladenboro, N.C., said her husband “works construction and there’s nothing going on right now.” With three children, a vacation is not feasible, but she hopes to spend time outside with the kids, even if it means “staying in the backyard.”

Jon-Paul Juette, a 2008 graduate of Pepperdine University living in Los Angeles, says he has to “keep looking for a job in order to stay afloat. Taking a vacation isn’t possible.” He has a degree in advertising and art history, and his dream is to work in entertainment advertising, but he says he’ll “do anything from graphic design to granding to media planning.” He’s doing odd jobs meanwhile to avoid moving back home.

Nancy Saaranen of Saginaw, Mich., and her husband are also staying home this summer, but they traveled to Arizona in March, visiting everything from the Grand Canyon to Sedona, “so we used up our vacation allotment for the year.” Besides, she added, “we’re both retired, and the grandkids have softball through July,” so they hope to enjoy watching lots of games outdoors.

Among those who will be traveling, Betsy Skipp, a children’s advocacy volunteer who lives in Miami, said she intends to get to the Caribbean. “We live in Miami and we need to get out every now and then,” she said.

Susan Jewell, who works as a personal assistant and studies business administration at Southwestern College in Paradise Valley, Ariz., said she’ll be vacationing in California. “Usually the summer is very busy for me, but I am going to San Diego to check it out and hang out with my sister,” she said. “It’s just something we decided to do, spur of the moment.”

Woodside, the marketing professor, said “actions by marketers” could counteract the drop in leisure travel with “innovative travel packaging.” One area where he predicts growth in 2010 and 2011 is in tours offering “must-do-in-this-lifetime-experiences with an unbeatable low price” designed to attract “independent travelers — many of whom hate (conventional) packaged tours.”

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POLL METHODOLOGY

The Associated Press-GfK Poll on summer travel was conducted by GfK Roper Public Affairs & Media, April 16-20. It is based on landline and cell phone telephone interviews with a nationally representative random sample of 1,000 adults. Interviews were conducted with 800 respondents on landline telephones and 200 on cellular phones.

Digits in the phone numbers dialed were generated randomly to reach households with unlisted and listed landline and cell phone numbers.

Interviews were conducted in both English and Spanish.

As is done routinely in surveys, results were weighted, or adjusted, to ensure that responses accurately reflect the population’s makeup by factors such as age, sex, education, and race. In addition, the weighting took into account patterns of phone use — landline only, cell only and both types — by region.

No more than one time in 20 should chance variations in the sample cause the results to vary by more than plus or minus 3.1 percentage points from the answers that would be obtained if all adults in the U.S. were polled.

There are other sources of potential error in polls, including the wording and order of questions.

The questions and results for this poll are available at http://www.ap-gfkpoll.com.

A growing number of Arizona job seekers are getting ripped off by mystery-shopper pitches, pyramid schemes, work-from-home offers and other scams that seem too good to be true. Blame the recession.

The sixth sense that usually gut-checks suspicious offers can get blocked when a person is growing desperate for work, said Judd Rousseau, chief fraud officer of Scottsdale-based Identity Theft 911, which helps victims clean up after their personal information is stolen.

The Arizona Attorney General’s Office reported an increase of more than a 275 percent in complaints about business opportunity scams, from about 225 during the first quarter of 2008 to about 850 in the first quarter of 2009, a spokeswoman said.

The Better Business Bureau of Central, Northern and Western Arizona has seen a spike, too.

“I think that people who run scams and these schemes follow the trends in the marketplace,” said Felicia Thompson, a BBB spokeswoman. Scam artists “know people are out of work and know that’s an opportunity to gain someone’s trust and violate that trust.”

There are ways to avoid getting duped, according to organizations such as the BBB, Identity Theft 911, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Federal Trade Commission. Here’s how:

Mystery shopping

Rip-off: There are variations on this scam, but in one instance the victim receives an official looking letter and a sizable check to conduct undercover market research.

First, he or she must deposit the check into a personal bank account within a few days.

A portion of those funds is the victim’s payment and shopping money. He or she is instructed to wire the rest to an address provided in the letter.

The money needs to be wired in order to test consumer experience with services like Western Union or MoneyGram, some scams claim.

Here’s the problem: The initial check was fake. By the time it bounces, the company is long gone with the victim’s own money that has been wired.

The victim could be on the hook for thousands of dollars.

Warning signs: The Mystery Shopping Providers Association in Dallas warns consumers that shoppers never pay up-front fees. Also, mystery shoppers typically earn roughly $10 on average for an evaluation – not hundreds or thousands.

“People should always look at mystery shopping purely as an opportunity to make a few extra bucks,” said John Swinburn, the group’s executive director. “They can’t depend on mystery shopping to keep them solvent.”

Other sophisticated scammers spoof the Web sites of legitimate mystery-shopping companies.

Swinburn advises people to go to his association’s Web site (www.mysteryshop.org) and double-check the Web site address of its list of legitimate companies.

Pyramid scheme

Rip-off: A victim pays hundreds or even thousands of dollars to become a “distributor” for a company that sells items like perfume, lotion or vitamins – often at an insanely high price.

The more friends and family recruited to this “multi- level marketing plan,” the more money is made, the pitch goes.

But only the scammers end up rolling in dough. The scheme eventually collapses under its own weight when there are no more recruits.

Warning signs: A pyramid scheme promises a get-rich-quick approach. New products on the market can take years to make money.

Also, be wary of initial membership fees. You never should have to spend money to get a job.

Work from home

Rip-off: Earn a handsome salary from the comfort of home by stuffing envelopes or processing medical billing claims.

Don’t take the bait. If it worked, everyone would apply for these positions.

Scammers, for example, may charge envelope stuffers to learn the “secrets” of the industry and provide help. But the victims are left to drum up their own business.

It’s worse for medical billing. Scammers can charge victims thousands of dollars to start a firm to help doctors with outsourced billing, accounts receivable, electronic insurance-claim processing and practice management, according to the FTC.

This rarely ever makes money. “Competition in the medical billing market is fierce and revolves around a number of large and well-established firms,” the agency reported.

Warning signs: Not all work-from-home offers are scams, but be wary. In writing, the company should provide information on duties, pay, when your first check will arrive and total cost for supplies, equipment and membership fees, according to the FTC.

Contact the local BBB or Attorney General’s Office and speak to as many references provided by the company as you can.

And research the company online.

Social-networking ads

Rip-off: There’s an advertisement circulating on Facebook and other social-networking sites that features a stay-at-home mom who claims she adds “$67,000 a year to my family’s income working 10 hours a week (that’s over $128 an hour!) by creating Web sites that host Google ads,” according to the BBB.

The advertisement takes the victim to a “blog” that urges signing up for a “risk-free trial” to learn how to get a site up and running. But read the fine print. Victims can be charged $60 to $70 every month if they don’t cancel the trial.

Warning signs: Just because a company uses the word “Google” doesn’t mean it’s a part of or sanctioned by the Internet search giant.

The company’s AdSense program is free and allows users to display targeted ads on pages and earn money from clicks.

A spokesman for the Mountain View, Calif.-based company recommended that “users exercise the same amount of caution they would when evaluating other types of get-rich-quick claims.”

Faraway interviews

Rip-off: Chandler resident Carrie Landry, who was furloughed from her job as a US Airways pilot, answered a classified advertisement in The Arizona Republic for a food and beverage server on a corporate jet.

A man called her back and said the firm had many rich and famous clients who took charter flights to cruise ships and private yachts. It paid $950 and $1,250 per week.

Landry also had nine years as a flight attendant and said she was interested. But the interviewer seemed nervous about her wide range of experience. He hung up on her.

However, the man offered to fly Landry’s friend, who had less experience, from her home in Ohio to San Diego for an interview. She had seen the same ad in a different newspaper.

She was told she would need to wire $300 to help cover the travel expenses. If she was hired, she’d be reimbursed. The woman wired the money, and it was gone before she and her husband learned they’d been taken.

Warning signs: Most companies will not make you pay up-front to travel to a job interview. Reimbursement never should depend on getting hired.

Most importantly, contact the publication where you saw the advertisement.

“We monitor all advertising for fraudulent activity; key is hearing from our readers about their experiences,” said Peter Ricker, senior vice president of advertising at The Republic. “Our staff is trained to handle matters like this with referrals to the proper agencies. Several notices are placed throughout our classified products alerting the consumer on what to look out for and how to direct their complaints.

“Unfortunately on occasion, we do experience advertisers who bypass our safeguards. Once we are informed, they are removed from our products.”

A group of Phoenix area homebuyers says builder KB Home and its exclusive lender Countrywide, now owned by Bank of America, developed a scheme to sell homes at peak market prices even after real-estate values began to decline.

A lawsuit filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Phoenix contends the builder and lender engaged in systematic appraisal-rigging to inflate by thousands of dollars the value of new homes sold since 2006. The plaintiffs, seven KB Home customers in Buckeye and Surprise, say the practice has cost customers millions of dollars and contributed to the recent flood of loan defaults and foreclosures.

KB Home and BofA representatives said they had not seen the complaint as of Thursday and could not comment.

The lawsuit arrives amid widespread resentment directed at lenders for practices perceived as predatory and at home buyers for taking on more debt than they could realistically afford. It is the latest in a series of lawsuits filed in Arizona and across the country to try to assess blame in the wake of the worst housing meltdown since the Great Depression.

In exchange for its participation with KB Home, Countrywide and its appraisal-management subsidiary, LandSafe, were made the exclusive providers of real-estate settlement services for KB Home, the suit says. They earned thousands of dollars per customer in loan-origination, title-insurance, appraisal and escrow fees.

The plaintiffs are seeking class-action status to add thousands more KB Home buyers nationwide. In the Southwest alone, at least 14,000 KB Home-built houses have been sold since 2006, the complaint says.

Inflated appraisals?

Many critics of the lending industry say inflated appraisals contributed to the nation’s economic crisis. The industry’s shift toward selling off mortgage loans as securities to investment brokers made lenders less concerned about the accuracy of appraisals, the critics contend, just as the rise of new incentives for mortgage brokers gave them more reasons to push risky loans on buyers.

Homebuilders sold their homes for higher prices, the banks profited from making and selling loans, and the mortgage brokers benefited from earning more commissions.

Some appraisers have said that they had to choose between playing along or losing the bulk of their business.

The Phoenix-area residents’ complaint, filed by their lawyer, Robert Carey, a former Arizona assistant attorney general, says the plaintiffs cannot be held responsible for their own lack of due diligence because participants in the homebuying transactions who presented themselves as disinterested third parties actually were in on the scheme.

That includes appraisers “who were under direct instruction to value homes at their contract price and were hand-fed inappropriate – if not outright false – comparable properties to use in completing their appraisals,” the complaint says. Reports written by different appraisers who should not have been communicating with each other or with KB Home relied upon the same “unverified information and patently faulty methodology,” the complaint says.

The complaint cites three common elements to the appraisals.

The first was “improper selection of distant, dissimilar properties” when there were “numerous available neighboring, identical comparable sales that would have revealed lower value.”

In addition, the complaint says, the appraisals contained identical “false and misleading statements regarding market factors and conditions” that ignored known facts about the housing market’s downward trajectory after 2005.

The third sign of a problem, the complaint says, was the use of pending KB Home sales as a basis for appraised value, “even when no sale was actually pending because the ostensible buyer had abandoned the transaction.”

On a more fundamental level, the complaint argues that the use of pending transactions raises a red flag because such information “would only have been known to KB Home” and the appraisers were not supposed to be conferring at all with the builder.

Other lawsuits

The lawsuit is the second filed against Countrywide and LandSafe this year by Carey’s law firm, Seattle-based Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro, which also filed a similar case in Phoenix against Wells Fargo and its appraisal-management firm, Rels Valuation, in February.

A Wells Fargo representative said at the time that the lender’s process for obtaining home-loan proposals is legitimate.

Appraisers in Idaho filed a still-pending lawsuit in October against Countrywide, claiming the lender had pressured them to manipulate appraisals. A Countrywide representative at the time said that the lawsuit was without merit.

And a recent investigation of appraisals by New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo prompted federally sponsored lending giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to adopt new standards this month for the way appraisals are conducted.

The newest lawsuit describes the financial impact of KB Home and Countrywide’s appraisal maneuvers as “staggering.”

It contends that price inflation by the builder and lender is an average of $20,000 per home, which would have cost consumers $280 million in the Southwest region alone.

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Transaction process for home sales under fire

Participants in home-sales transactions at all levels have faced accusations of manipulating the process. Here’s a look at how it should work and what can go wrong.

Appraisers

What they do: Establish a property’s fair market value, which is used by banks as the basis for issuing a mortgage loan.

The right way: Produce an independent property-value estimate based on recent similar-sale transactions.

The wrong way: Seek out recent transactions that justify a predetermined price and ignore transactions that conflict with the desired price.

Lenders

What they do: Approve or deny a mortgage loan based on a property’s assessed value and the anticipated ability of a borrower to repay the loan.

The right way: Rely on independent appraisals to determine a prudent loan amount for a given property.

The wrong way: Pressure appraisers to set the value of a property at an amount desired by the loan broker or property seller.

Home builders

What they do: Sell new homes based on current market value.

The right way: Establish a sale price based on an independent appraiser’s estimated valuation.

The wrong way: Pressure the lender or appraiser to set estimated property value at a predetermined amount.

Source: The Arizona Republic

PHOENIX — The latest AAA fuel gauge report show gasoline prices in Arizona are the lowest in the nation.

The AAA says drivers here paid an average of just $1.94 a gallon on Friday compared to a national average of $2.17.

Phoenix drivers have it best of all, paying just $1.87 a gallon. Tucson – and Pima County – drivers were paying $1.91 Friday.

The highest price in the nation, as usual, is paid by drivers in Alaska and Hawaii. Drivers in the Aloha State are forking over $2.50 for a gallon of regular, while those in Alaska are paying $2.60.

Kyle Lehew, an employee of Mrs. Tiggy Winkle's Toys, shows kids infant friendly robots. The store will open a location inside the Tucson Children's Museum later this month.

Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle’s Toys will open a downtown branch, replacing the gift shop at the Tucson Children’s Museum, 200 S. Sixth Ave.

The 32-year-old local toy merchant at Grant and Swan roads will open at the Children’s Museum on May 21, said Lisette DeMars, a store manager.

Shoppers will not have to pay museum admission to go to the store.

“I’m superexcited about people who work downtown being able to buy Christmas gifts during their lunch hour,” DeMars said.

This collaboration transforms a gift shop into a full-fledged toy store, said Michael Luria, the museum’s executive director.

“That is not our core competency,” Luria said. “Our primary focus is not for the gift shop. (Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle’s) puts us in a superior league” compared with other children’s museum gift shops.

DeMars will stock the downtown store with similar educational, wooden and European toys carried at the 4811 E. Grant Road store.

“We’re having tons of fun planning for all the parties we can throw once we have a permanent space downtown,” DeMars said.

She hopes to have activities on the museum lawn such as bubble blowing and kite flying. Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle’s is an activities-oriented toy shop, she said.

Luria said gift shop discounts to museum members will apply at both Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle’s shops.

“They have the opportunity to move products back and forth between the shops,” Luria said.

The museum gift shop orders from 25 vendors, while Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle’s does business with 6,000 vendors. DeMars plans to triple the inventory in the 300-square-foot space.

Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle’s has had event collaborations with the Rialto Theatre and the Loft Cinema, and managers DeMars and David Correa were eager to expand to downtown.

“To be really honest, we started a whisper rumor,” DeMars said. “We said, ‘The Children’s Museum, wouldn’t it be cool if we could be there?’

“We secretly visited the gift shop. It’s a good gift shop, but gift shops is not what they do. Within a month, the rumor had made it to Michael (Luria). He said, ‘Can we have lunch?’ ”

The museum gift shop will be closed May 18-20 to allow conversion to Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle’s, which plans to open May 21 before its grand opening event May 25.

Beginning May 25, museum and store hours will be 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Mondays, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesdays to Saturdays and noon to 5 p.m. Sundays.

Two full page ads placed by British largest clothing retailer Marks and Spencer in two British daily newspapers in London on Friday offering their apologies for charging extra for large size bras.

LONDON – The Battle of the Bust is over, and consumers have triumphed.

Britain’s largest clothing retailer, Marks & Spencer, has backed down on its incendiary policy of charging a 2 pound ($3) surcharge for bras that are DD or larger in the face of a spreading consumer revolt.

Think women don’t care about this issue? Then think again — that’s what M&S executives had to do after some 14,000 women gave their name to a Facebook campaign aimed at eliminating the big boob penalty.

“We always try to do the right thing by our customers and we thought we had, but it’s clear we’ve got it wrong this time,” said M&S chairman Stuart Rose. “From Saturday, no matter whether it’s large or small bras you need, the price will be the same.”

To get the message out, the company paid for an eye-catching full-page advertisement in several national newspapers Friday. It showed a full-figured woman in lacy green lingerie. In the ad, the company apologized for its mistake and offered a 25 percent reduction in all bras of all sizes for the next two weeks.

“We are just overwhelmed,” said Becky Mount, a co-founder of the Busts 4 Justice group that brought retailing icon M&S to its knees with a canny Internet and media-oriented campaign. “We’ve won, and we never thought it would happen so quickly.”

The group, which grew exponentially in the last few days, had vowed to challenge Rose and other M&S executives at the company’s annual meeting this summer. Mount said this threat, and growing media support for their crusade, made the company’s leaders realize they were losing the public relations battle.

“They didn’t want a lot of big-breasted women storming their meeting,” said Mount, 19. “I think they realized they were dealing with a much bigger force than they thought originally, and that we weren’t going to go away.”

She said the group’s members would be happy to shop at M&S now that the surcharge has been dropped.

The new policy brings M&S into line with other major retailers in Britain, who decline to pass the higher cost of designing and manufacturing large-size bras on to the consumer.

British lingerie specialists ranging from the pricey Agent Provocateur to the saucy Ann Summers line do not charge more for DD bras, despite the extra work that goes into producing them. In the United States, bra prices on the popular Victoria’s Secret Web site do not change as sizes get larger.

But policies change store by store and brand by brand.

At the upscale Rigby & Peller shops in London, which specialize in personalized fittings, the company’s own bras are priced the same regardless of the size, said buyer Nicky Clayton. But some outside brands the store sells do contain a markup for larger sizes.

“Some brands like the Italian company Prima Donna charge us more, so we pass that on,” she said. “But for Rigby and Peller bras the prices are exactly the same because we’ve got total control and can maintain pricing across all the sizes.”

She said M&S probably ran into trouble because its lingerie price policy differed from the strategy used for other items.

“If they charged more for larger sizes of all their items, like garments and outerwear, it would have been fine,” she said. “It was just that they took this policy only on the lingerie sector, that made it a problem.”

Scam alert: Dirty trick artists are hard at work.

States across the USA report an uptick in complaints about a range of consumer abuses, including pitches for extended auto warranties that offer little or no value to consumers. People on do-not-call lists are getting swamped with offers for all manner of bogus products, from swine-flu cures to debt-settlement plans.

Scammers especially target the most vulnerable consumers – the elderly and the poor, Indiana Attorney General Greg Zoeller says.

“Violations go up in a down economy,” Zoeller notes. During the first three months of the year, the Federal Trade Commission, the top U.S. troubleshooter for consumers, received 450,000 complaints about calls to people whose phone numbers are registered on the National Do Not Call Registry, spokeswoman Claudia Bourne Farrell says. At that rate, complaints this year will easily top last year’s 1.8 million.

Scammers are becoming more creative, Zoeller says. This week, he filed a lawsuit accusing two companies and one individual of violating Indiana’s do-not-call laws.

Zoeller says the accused were illegally placing automated, or robo, calls mainly to cellphones. Those blast calls, sent out thousands at a time, were aimed at getting people to sign up for extensions on expired dealer or manufacturer warranties.

Michelle Corey, president of the St. Louis Better Business Bureau, says scare tactics are common.

In some cases, telemarketers remind consumers that they need a car and play on fears of possible job loss to coax them into signing up for useless extended auto warranty plans.

“In this economy, every dollar counts,” she says.

Financial scams are also raging. New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo on Thursday announced a probe of a “rogue industry” of debt-settlement firms that advertise plans to renegotiate debts and pay off credit cards. Fourteen companies and one law firm in locations across the nation were subpoenaed.

Cuomo says many plans are flawed or misleading and leave consumers worse off financially.

Not even swine flu is off-limits for scammers. Zoeller’s office issued a statewide alert after telemarketers started calling consumers and urging them to buy “mandatory swine-flu kits” they said were required by the government. Such claims are false.

Zoeller asks consumers who receive such calls to hold on to the numbers “so our office can investigate.”

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama has a message for the unemployed: More help is on the way.

The president was outlining steps Friday to help the jobless pursue education and training, and keep their unemployment benefits, too.

Currently, people who are out of work and want to go back to school have to give up their monthly unemployment check. And if they decide to return to school, they often don’t qualify for federal grants because eligibility is based upon the previous year’s income.

The president was announcing the new measures hours after the government reported that the economy shed 539,000 more jobs in April, driving the unemployment rate to 8.9 percent, the highest level since late 1983. Still, it was the fewest jobs lost in six months.

Under the measures Obama was scheduled to outline, according to the White House:

• The Labor Department will encourage states to update rules during economic downturns so that the unemployed can enroll in community colleges and other education or training programs without giving up their benefits. States generally require people who collect unemployment to be actively looking for work, which can make it difficult to sign up for school or job training. Going to school will satisfy the requirement that they be actively seeking new employment.

• The Education Department will encourage colleges to increase financial aid packages for the unemployed. Colleges can consider an unemployed worker’s situation and make them eligible for Pell Grants, which help low-income students afford college, and other aid. An unemployed person could get a Pell Grant and use it to pay for education or job training without giving up unemployment benefits. Beginning in July, the maximum Pell Grant will be boosted by $500, to $5,350.

“Our unemployment insurance system should no longer be a safety net, but a steppingstone to a new future,” Obama said in remarks prepared for delivery Friday. “It should offer folks educational opportunities they wouldn’t otherwise have” and give them skills they need to “get ahead when the economy comes back.”

Obama has directed Labor Secretary Hilda Solis and Education Secretary Arne Duncan to implement the changes. Both departments also have launched a new Web site, www.opportunity.gov, to help get the word out to the public.

States also will send letters to every unemployment recipient describing available training opportunities and financial support.

The $787 billion economic recovery package Obama signed into law in February gave states billions of dollars to provide extended benefits to the unemployed.

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ON THE WEB

Labor & Education site: www.opportunity.gov

Austin Calderon examines mobile phone accessories in Los Angeles in this 2008 file photo. For the first time, the number of U.S. households opting for only cell phones outnumber those that just have traditional landlines in a high-tech shift accelerated by the recession.

WASHINGTON – In a high-tech shift accelerated by the recession, the number of U.S. households opting for only cell phones has for the first time surpassed those that just have traditional landlines.

It is the freshest evidence of the growing appeal of wireless phones.

Twenty percent of households had only cells during the last half of 2008, according to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention survey released Wednesday. That was an increase of nearly 3 percentage points over the first half of the year, the largest six-month increase since the government started gathering such data in 2003.

The 20 percent of homes with only cell phones compared with 17 percent with landlines but no cells.

That ratio has changed starkly in recent years: In the first six months of 2003, just 3 percent of households were wireless only, while 43 percent stuck with only landlines.

Stephen Blumberg, senior scientist at the CDC and an author of the report, attributed the growing number of cell-only households in part to a recession that has forced many families to scour their budgets for savings. People who live in homes that have only wireless service tend to be disproportionately low-income, young, renters and Hispanics.

“We do expect that with the recession, we’d see an increase in the prevalence of wireless only households, above what we might have expected had there been no recession,” Blumberg said.

Six in 10 households have both landlines and cell phones. Even so, industry analysts emphasized the public’s growing love affair with the versatility of cell phones, which can perform functions like receiving text messages and are also mobile.

“The end game is consumers are paying two bills for the same service,” said John Fletcher, an analyst for the market research firm SNL Kagan, referring to cell and landline phones. “Which are they going to choose? They’ll choose the one they can take with them in their car.”

In one illustration of the impact these changes are having, Verizon Communications Inc. had 39 million landline telephone customers in March 2008 but 35 million a year later. Over the same period, its wireless customers grew from 67 million to 87 million, though 13 million of the added lines came from the firm’s acquisition of Alltell Corp., according to figures provided by Verizon spokesman Bill Kula.

Another Verizon spokesman, Eric Rabe, said he wasn’t sure the overall drop in landlines was directly related to the stalled economy, although he said the company has lost some landline business customers because companies are closing some of their locations.

“For somebody who’s mobile and not planning to be in the same apartment for more than a year, it’s very appealing to go with a cell,” Rabe said.

Further underscoring the public’s diminishing reliance on landline phones, the federal survey found that 15 percent of households have both landlines and cells but take few or no calls on their landlines, often because they are wired into computers. Combined with wireless only homes, that means that 35 percent of households — more than one in three — are basically reachable only on cells.

The changes are important for pollsters, who for years relied on reaching people on their landline telephones. Growing numbers of surveys now include calls to people on their cells, which is more expensive partly because federal laws prohibit pollsters from using computers to place calls to wireless phones.

About a third of people age 18 to 24 live in households with only cell phones, the federal figures showed, making them far likelier than older people to rely exclusively on cells. The same is true of four in 10 people age 25 to 29.

About three in 10 living in poverty are from wireless-only households, nearly double the proportion of those who are not poor. Also living in homes with only cell phones are one in four Hispanics, four in 10 renters and six in 10 people living with unrelated adults such as roommates or unmarried couples.

One in 50 households has no phones at all.

The data is compiled by the National Health Interview Survey, conducted by the CDC. The latest survey involved in-person interviews with members of 12,597 households conducted from last July through December.

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ON THE WEB

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: www.cdc.gov

Forecast calls for triple digits, 2 weeks early

City employee Mike Botkin talks about the heat as he works at Sunset Park Wednesday afternoon. On Thursday, the temperature is predicted to reach 100 degrees here for the first time this year.

Summer is still six weeks away, but the heat is already here.

The National Weather Service is predicting temperatures will hit 100 Thursday, which would tie for the sixth earliest date on record for Tucson’s first 100-degree day. The last time it was 100 on May 7 was in 1895.

Tucson’s earliest 100-degree day was April 19, 1989. The latest came on June 22, 1905. The average is May 26.

“I think we’ve got a really good shot at hitting it. I want to say about a 95 percent chance,” said Steven Reedy, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service. “Usually at this time of year, temperatures average about 86 degrees in the first week of May.”

But, Reedy said, “We’re running about 10 degrees above average now.”

A high-pressure ridge stretching across the western United States has brought the heat, said meteorologist Mic Sherwood of the National Weather Service.

Now that we know it’s getting hot – what do people do?

“I stay in air conditioning,” Reedy said.

That’s good news for Louise Ayers’ business, A & D Air Conditioning & Refrigeration.

“It (hot weather) speeds it (business) up a little bit,” said Ayers who co-owns the business with her husband and son.

Despite the grim economy, Ayers said her business already has started to pick up because of the heat.

While many customers call for seasonal service as early as March, others don’t call until it gets hot, they turn on their air conditioner and find that it doesn’t work right, Ayers said.

Ayers agrees with Reedy – when it gets hot, stay indoors.

“I stay in the house. We have air conditioning and . . . I stay where it’s nice and cool,” she said.

It’s also expensive.

As air conditioners kick on across the city, homeowners’ electrical use jumps from an average of about 600 kilowatt hours in March to about 1,400 kilowatt hours in July, at a cost of some $140 a month for the average Tucson homeowner, said Joe Salkowski, a Tucson Electric Power Co. spokesman.

Water bills also increase.

In January, Tucsonans pay an average $17.04 for water, said Vikki Hibberd, a Tucson Water spokeswoman.

But in July, the average home water bill rises to $24.72 she said.

And if you own a pool. . .

“Pool business picks up,” said Tim Fellhauer, owner of Presidio Pool & Spa. “It (higher temperatures) does help my business.”

Jose Herrera, owner of Umbrella Roofing, definitely is not looking forward to, if it occurs, 100 degrees in Tucson on Thursday.

“When it’s real warm, for roofers, it’s real warm, real hot. It’s terrible,” said Herrera, who has been in the roofing business 23 years. “We have to have a lot of water. I know how it feels to be up on that roof.”

As the run-up to 100 degrees inched along, Mike Botkin, a groundskeeper with the city’s Parks & Recreation Department, cleared leaves and branches from Sunset Park in front of City Hall on Wednesday.

When the temperature reaches 100, Botkin said, “You stay cool as much as you can, drink plenty of water, take your breaks.”

Botkin, 47, was working in the sun at 1:30 p.m. Wednesday at the tiny park. He wore blue denim shorts, a light blue T-shirt and a wide-brimmed straw hat. The high Wednesday was 98, according to the National Weather Service.

“I don’t mind it, you get used to it,” Botkin said. But “I prefer for it to be back in the 80s.”

After work, Botkin said he will go home, “jump in the pool and turn the air conditioner on.”

Timothy Pease, an unemployed tool maker, said 100-degree weather is “a fact of life here in Tucson.”

As Pease, 58, sat and read a book in the shade of a downtown bus stop, he said that when the temperature hits 100, he will avoid being outside as much as possible.

“It’s a little brutal” when it gets that hot, Pease said. “I find the shade, stay in air conditioning.”

Because he’s unemployed, Pease said, he uses his air conditioner less than he used to so as he can save money.

George Ballesteros, 49, a clerk at the Pima County Public Defenders Office, said of the predicted heat for Thursday,”It just makes it seem that summer drags on and on.

Ballesteros said that on Thursday he will avoid doing yard work after 10 or 11 a.m.

And take cold showers “for sure,” he said.

Liz Brown walks through El Presidio Park Wednesday afternoon while trying to avoid the sun.

Timothy Pease, 58, finds some shade as he waits at a bus stop in front of the Old Pima County Courthouse, 115 N. Church Ave.

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Saving energy

Tucson Electric Power’s tips on how to save energy and money:

• Use ceiling or oscillating fans to keep air moving, so you feel cooler without increasing air conditioner use.

• Caulking around door frames and installing weatherstripping around door openings are inexpensive and highly effective means of saving energy.

• Replace traditional incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescent lights (CFLs) that carry the Energy Star label. Energy Star-qualified CFLs use about 75 percent less energy than standard incandescent bulbs and last up to 10 times longer. They also generate about 75 percent less heat, so they can cut energy costs associated with home cooling.

• Don’t block vents or ducts inside the house. Maintaining clear air paths allows your cooling and heating systems to work more efficiently.

• About 80 to 85 percent of the energy involved in washing clothes is used to heat the water. There are two good ways to reduce the amount of energy used for washing clothes – use less water and lower the temperature. Switching your temperature setting from hot to warm can cut energy use in half.

• The U.S. Department of Energy recommends thermostat settings of 78 degrees in the summer and 68 degrees in the winter.

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Water-saving tips

• Use gray water from your washer, bathtubs, showers and bath sinks to irrigate your landscape.

• Put new washers in faucets to stop drips and save up to 50 gallons a day.

• Replace the faulty flapper on the toilet. A running toilet can waste up to 100 gallons of water a day.

• A little soil can make the rain work for you. Build a berm or dig a shallow channel to direct rainwater to your plants. Also, a tree well helps keep water where the tree can use it.

• Gutters, downspouts and cisterns can help store rainwater for use over a longer period of time.

• Water yards early in the morning or in the late evening when it is cooler and more water will soak into the ground instead of evaporating.

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On the Web

For more information on the weather, Tucson Water or Tucson Electric Co., visit the following Web sites:

National Weather Service at: www.wrh.noaa.gov/total_forecast

Tucson Electric Power at: www.tucsonelectric.com

Tucson Water at: www.tucsonaz.gov/water

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EARLIEST DATES TO HIT 100 DEGREES

1. April 19, 1989

2. April 27, 1992

April 27, 1910

4. April 30, 1943

5. May 2, 1947

6.* May 7, 1895

7. May 8, 2001

8. May 9, 1984

May 9, 1934

May 9, 1923

May 9, 1900

* The National Weather Service predicts the 100 mark could be hit Thursday, tying for sixth-earliest on record.

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LATEST DATES TO HIT 100 DEGREES

1. June 22, 1905

2. June 19, 1962

3. June 17, 1967

4. June 16, 1972

5. June 15, 1971

6. June 14, 1931

7. June 13, 1945

8. June 12, 1979

9. June 11, 1953

10. June 10, 1982

June 10 1961

June 10, 1950

Average first occurrence of 100 degrees in Tucson from 1895-2008 is May 26.

Bette Publicker, 58, entered the blogosphere last week.

The event planner, who was laid off last year, created her blog at a workshop hosted by the Scottsdale Job Network. The Valley-wide group hosts meetings that focus on job-transition training and connects job seekers with employers and business leaders.

“I’m being dragged kicking and screaming into the technological world,” read her very first post at bettepublicker.wordpress.com. “It is like running with a broken leg after a fast-moving train.”

Publicker was joking, but it’s an apt comparison for how many laid-off Baby Boomers feel.

The recession is dropping a growing number into a job market that requires everyone to market themselves through newer and newer Web technology in order to get hired.

Résumés are posted on blogs. Contacts are made on LinkedIn and Facebook. Reputations are built and broken instantly on Twitter.

It can be particularly daunting for those who’ve held the same job for years and are used to searching classifieds and handing out a paper résumé.

“It is a whole new world with regard to looking for a job,” said Brad Taft, Arizona workforce-policy adviser for AARP and a career consultant.

“In the old days it was, ‘Hurry up, send me your paper résumé and wait.’ Then in the 1980s it was, ‘Hurry up, fax me your résumé and wait.’ And now it’s either, ‘E-mail or attach résumé online . . . and wait.’ ”

Changes in job-search technology, combined with the severe recession, have prompted Valley groups like Scottsdale Job Network and Boomerz to help job seekers gain an online edge.

Boomerz plans to start holding workshops across the Valley on social networking and the Web.

“Many, many employers will Google you,” said Cindy Cooke, executive director of Boomerz, a non-profit group that specializes in career and entrepreneur development. “And if you don’t exist on Google, you don’t exist as far as they’re concerned.”

Angelo Fernando, communications and outreach manager for ASU’s Decision Theater, told last week’s audience that blogs allow them to quickly showcase a résumé, network and publish ideas.

That strategy gives hiring managers a much better picture of skills, interests and opinions before the interview.

The sooner that people become familiar with blogging and other social-networking applications, the better, Fernando added. Technologies are only going to get more sophisticated. Candidates who can stand out on the Web have a much better chance of getting noticed and hired.

Phoenix resident Martin Piraino, 43, is younger than members of the Baby Boom generation – those who are between the ages of 45 and 63 in 2009 – and started his blog in January (martinpiraino.com).

The IT professional was laid off last year and has made connections through his blog and has gone on a few interviews.

He continues to chronicle his job search, offer tips and showcase his experience.

“It has offered a way for employers to find me online,” he said. “It has afforded me some opportunities that may not have come along otherwise.”

Publicker, who is also on LinkedIn, plans to post her résumé on her blog and chronicle her experience learning new technology.

“Now that I am looking for new job and business opportunities, ‘social-networking skills’ seem to be as necessary as a résumé, business cards and gumption,” she wrote on her second post. “In every networking event I am asked about Web sites, LinkedIn and my Facebook. Now perhaps my eyes won’t glaze over and I won’t have to fake cough an answer.”

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From zero to blog in 15 minutes

1. Decide how you’ll use your blog to brand yourself. Will you write daily musings? How will it help you connect?

2. Click on WordPress at www.wordpress.com to create a free blog.

3. Click on the “sign up now” button. Register yourself. You must already have a personal e-mail address through a provider such as AOL or Hotmail. Create a username and password.

4. Create a blog name, such as wordpress.com/yournamehere. This is the URL address you’ll give to people who might be interested in your blog.

5. Design your blog. Choose from one of the premade templates.

6. Give your blog a title. It doesn’t have to be your name. But if you’re using it for professional reasons, don’t be too cute.

7. Set up the basic categories, called content buckets.

8. Learn the meaning of and how to use the following: tags, blog roll, trackbacks, RSS and widgets.

9. Start posting your messages. Keep your posts simple and short. Write catchy headlines. Be topical and creative. Reward your visitors by giving them new information or your expert analysis.

10. More help: Check other Web sites, including David Meerman Scott’s blog (www.davidmeermanscott.com), John Cass (pr.typepad.com) and Daily Blog Tips (www.dailyblogtips.com).

Source: Angelo Fernando, communications and outreach manager for ASU’s Decision Theater

WASHINGTON – Health insurance firms, facing the threat of a government health plan, offered Tuesday to reduce rates for millions of women and accept close federal regulation of their industry.

The higher premiums now affect 5.7 million women, many of them self-employed people who must buy their own coverage.

The industry is trying to head off creation of a government health plan that would compete with it to enroll middle-class workers and their families. President Obama and many Democrats favor such a plan, but the companies say it would drive them out of business.

“We are not asking people to trust us, we are asking people to trust government,” Karen Ignagni, president of America’s Health Insurance Plans, told a Senate panel crafting bills to overhaul the nation’s $2.5 trillion health care system.

Although the bill won’t be written for weeks, insurers and other interest groups are trying to shape it now.

Instead of a government plan as a check on their industry, insurers are offering to accept a series of consumer protections they contend would add up to a fairer marketplace and cut into the ranks of the 50 million uninsured.

Finance Committee leaders want to bring a bill to the Senate floor this summer. The outlines will follow Obama’s campaign proposal, which builds on the current system of shared responsibility among employers, government and individuals.

Most Americans are covered through employer plans, which are prohibited from charging higher premiums because of gender, poor health or other similar factors. Only about 9 percent purchase their own health insurance.

It’s in this group that women face higher rates. That’s because health care costs for women tend to go up during childbearing years. Also, some policies don’t cover maternity care.

BOSTON – The Boston Globe and its largest employees union reached a tentative agreement early Wednesday on concessions that will keep the 137-year-old newspaper publishing, the union president said.

The breakthrough came about 4 a.m. after nearly 11 hours of negotiations, said Dan Totten, president of the Boston Newspaper Guild. Both sides agreed not to release details, pending a meeting of Guild members scheduled for Thursday.

The agreement is subject to approval by members of the Guild, which represents about 700 editorial, business and advertising staff.

The Globe, owned by The New York Times Co. had set a deadline of midnight Sunday to reach an agreement with its unions on $20 million in cuts to annual expenses. The company had threatened to close the Globe.

The Times Co. struck agreements with six of seven unions before the deadline, then resumed talks Tuesday evening with the Guild. In those talks, the Globe had proposed to slash Guild wages by as much as 23 percent to gain concessions of $10 million from that union.

An employee familiar with the tentative agreement said the proposed pay cut is significantly less than 23 percent, but higher than the total 5 percent the Guild proposed on Sunday. The employee was not authorized to release details and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Employees were guarded in their response.

“I think everybody is breathing a sigh of relief that there’s at least a tentative agreement to keep the Globe publishing, which we all recognize was our top priority,” said Scott Allen, a reporter who has been with the Globe for 16 years.

“But it’s really hard for any of us to draw conclusions about the agreement until we know how deep is the pay cut, how many benefits are we going to lose, how much seniority protection have we lost. I can’t tell you as I sit here whether I support it or not.”

The Times Co. also sought to change provisions granting some employees lifetime job guarantees, a key sticking point. At least one of the smaller unions agreed to modify the guarantees for its members, but the Guild resisted, at least initially.

Nearly 470 employees across six unions have the guarantees, including about 190 Newspaper Guild members. Most got the promises in a contract ratified in 1994, shortly after the Times Co. bought the Globe for $1.1 billion, in exchange for other concessions at the time. Workers can still be fired for cause, but the newspaper says the guarantees hamper its ability to pare its operations.

The Times Co., which overall lost $74.5 million in the first quarter, has said that of all its newspaper properties, the Globe has been the most dramatically affected by the recession, the advertising downturn and the migration of readers online. The Globe had $50 million in operating losses in 2008 and had been projected to lose $85 million this year.

WASHINGTON – The post office was $1.9 billion in the red for the second quarter of the fiscal year and continues to face the possibility of running out of money before year’s end.

The agency cited the recession and movement of mail to electronic communications in announcing the loss on Wednesday.

Postal rates go up on Monday, but the increase — to 44 cents for first-class mail — is unlikely to cover the entire shortfall.

The second quarter loss brings the total loss for the fiscal year — which began Oct. 1 — to $2.3 billion.

“We are aggressively reducing work hours and other costs to limit losses, preserve cash and improve productivity,” said Joseph Corbett, chief financial officer and executive vice president.

Work hours have been cut by 58 million hours so far this year, the equivalent of a reduction of 33,000 full-time employees, the agency said.

In addition, the post office has been seeking savings by consolidating excess capacity in mail processing and transportation networks, realigning carrier routes, halting construction of new postal facilities, freezing officer and executive salaries at 2008 pay levels and reducing travel budgets.

Mail volume in the second quarter totaled 43.8 billion pieces, down 7.5 billion pieces, or 14.7 percent, compared with a year ago.

In an effort to increase mail volume the Postal Service has recently developed incentive programs for high-volume mailers.

Overall in the second-quarter — January through March — the post office had revenue of $16.9 billion, a decrease of nearly $2 billion, or 10.5 percent, from the same period last year, and expenses of $18.8 billion, a reduction of $782 million, or 4.0 percent, from the second quarter of last year.

The postage increase was limited to 2 cents on first class mail because under the law the change in rates cannot exceed the amount of inflation that occurred the year before.

WASHINGTON – The health insurance industry offered Tuesday to end its practice of charging higher premiums to women.

It was the latest concession from health insurers as Congress works to overhaul the nation’s $2.5 trillion health care system.

Insurers are trying to head off creation of a government insurance plan that would compete with them — something many Democrats favor but which private insurers say would drive them out of business.

Instead health insurers have offered to submit to a series of restrictions they contend would add up to a fairer marketplace and cut into the ranks of the 50 million uninsured.

The latest came Tuesday as the head of the leading private insurance group told senators that women should no longer be charged more than men in the individual market, as long as all Americans are required to get insurance coverage. Health care costs for women tend to be higher during childbearing years.

“We don’t believe gender should be a subject of rating,” Karen Ignagni, president of America’s Health Insurance Plans, said as the Senate Finance Committee convened a roundtable on covering the uninsured.

“We are ready to be accountable to those rules,” she said.

“I do not accept the premise that to keep the plans honest you need a public program.”

Insurers last year offered to end the practice of denying coverage to sick people, and earlier this year they went still farther by offering to stop charging sick people more.

They still haven’t done enough to convince many Democrats.

“The bottom line is you need somebody who is not a private insurance company to be in the mix and there are many of us who feel very strongly about that,” Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., told Ignagni and a panel of witnesses from the insurance industry, labor unions, business groups and others. “It would be giving all of you in the insurance industry an unfair advantage not to have a public plan.”

For some Democrats, particularly liberals in the House, support for a public plan is already a compromise because their real preference is for a “single-payer” plan — an entirely government-run program like some European countries have.

Underscoring the strong feelings about that, Tuesday’s meeting began with Capitol Police ejecting protesters who interrupted senators by shouting in favor of a single-payer plan. Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., has said that’s not on the table.

“We want a seat at the table,” shouted one protester.

“We want police,” Baucus responded.

Capitol Police removed eight people.

Baucus and many others, including President Barack Obama, say single-payer is not practical or politically feasible. They want to build on the current setup of employer-based care, which is how most Americans under age 65 get their health care.

Associated Press writer Erica Werner contributed to this report.