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Quiet Quitting: The Work-Life Debate Is Having Another Viral Moment
Quiet Quitting: The Work-Life Debate Is Having Another Viral Moment
Months after "the Great Resignation" entered the collective vocabulary, the question of what, exactly, a person owes their employer is having yet another viral moment.
At the end of July, @zaidlepppelin posted on TikTok about a phrase called "quiet quitting." It's the idea of meeting the requirements of a job and stopping there. The video has since racked up more than 3.4 million views, while the hashtag has more than 21 million views from other TikTokers chiming in with their views on the broader idea, and even the term itself.
The concept is reigniting another debate over work-life balance, with proponents saying it's just a necessary call for boundaries while critics bemoan a perceived lack of initiative and slacker mentality.
As always, it's not clear cut. Here's what you need to know about quiet quitting.
What is quiet quitting?
Quiet quitting is the idea of doing your job and nothing more. In the original viral TikTok, @zaidlepppelin described it like this: "You're still performing your duties but you're no longer subscribing to the hustle culture mentality that work has to be your life. The reality is it's not, and your worth as a person is not defined by your labor."
@zaidleppelin On quiet quitting #workreform♬ original sound - ruby
Is quiet quitting new?
In a word, no.
"It's popular now because of the hashtag," said Jha'nee Carter, who goes by @_thehrqueen on TikTok where she talks about leadership and employee advocacy.
Although the phrase "quiet quitting" has only gained traction in the last few weeks, the struggle to find a balance between work and personal life is far older. The National Labor Union first (if unsuccessfully) asked Congress to establish the eight-hour work day in 1866.
A century later, American pop group The Vogues sang about the bliss of being off the clock in their 1965 song Five O'Clock World: "It's a five o'clock world when the whistle blows. No one owns a piece of my time."
These days, you're more apt to hear about achieving a healthy "work-life balance."
The trend shows up globally at times, too. In July 2021, Brookings wrote about the "lying-flat" movement in China, where a culture that prioritizes overwork started to clash with a feeling of stagnation among workers, particularly among younger people. In April of that year, the concept went viral.
"For some, 'lying flat' promises release from the crush of life and work in a fast-paced society and technology sector where competition is unrelenting. For China's leadership, however, this movement of passive resistance to the national drive for development is a worrying trend," the article said, also explaining that China has aimed to "end its reliance on imported technology," hence driving a particular pressure in the tech sector.
What's the controversy?
Some of the controversy around quiet quitting surrounds the question of whether this is a healthy approach to your job, or whether you're being a slacker.
"The tether to the workplace … the expectations and exploitation of employers is so extreme now, that just doing your job is considered quitting," said Leigh Henderson. You might have run into Henderson on TikTok as @hrmanifesto, where she uses her more than 15 years of experience in the corporate world to talk about everything from dealing with your toxic job to interviewing for a new one.
She was initially confused by the idea of quiet quitting, thinking how is that "different from just work life balance, creating boundaries, having priorities, and just having a life?" Henderson says it should the be responsibility of employers to keep their employees engaged.
And on TikTok, people have questioned whether anyone should be expected to put in more work than they're being compensated for.
Not everyone sees it that way. Kevin O'Leary from ABC's Shark Tank took to TikTok to say, "Quiet quitting is a really bad idea. If you're a quiet quitter, you're a loser." O'Leary did not immediately respond to a request for comment. In a video on CNBC, he said you're hired at a company to make the business work, and you should go above and beyond because you want to – and that's how to get ahead.
@kevinolearytv What are your thoughts on quiet quitting? #kevinoleary#quietquitting#entrepreneur#career#careeradvice♬ original sound - Mr. Wonderful
TikTokers have pointed out that to the ears of an employer, quiet quitting could sound like suddenly getting less out of their employees, regardless of whether those employees were getting paid to do the extra work anyway.
What's more, the term itself – quitting – has a negative connotation. Henderson thinks of it as "quiet survival," and it's something she's done in her own career. In a follow up TikTok, Henderson said, "I was saving myself from the toxic work environment and protecting myself from the toxic work environment that my employer not only established and facilitated but continually benefited from."
Why are people talking about quiet quitting now?
The easy answer is that this particular TikTok went viral at the end of July. But circumstances have been ripe for this for much longer, according to Matt Walden, managing partner at Infinity Consulting Solutions, who has been working in the recruiting space for more than two decades. He pins some of this moment to burnout.
For one, Walden looks to the pandemic – as employees shifted to remote work, often it could be more difficult to compartmentalize work and home life. It's easy to keep your laptop open and answer a few extra emails while cooking dinner, perhaps.
"Work from home was a blessing for many. And for others, it had people working more than they've ever worked, unknowingly, in isolation," Walden said.
Quiet quitting also comes in the wake of the Great Resignation, the term for the phenomenon of American workers quitting their jobs in record numbers, often to pursue better pay, benefits and flexibility, or even just to dodge going back to an office. A July report from McKinsey called it the "quitting trend that just won't quit." Although open jobs in the US fell to 10.7 million in June from 11.25 in May, the report said it's likely openings won't return to a more normal range for a while.
Another possible facet is a backlash to hustle culture – the mentality that calls for optimizing every minute of your life for productivity and glorifies non-stop work.
Henderson also pointed out that there's a whopping four generations in the workforce now, bringing with them different perspectives, attitudes and experiences which inform their relationship with work.
"Make no mistake that Gen Z employees watched those Gen X parents stick the finger right to corporate America," Henderson said.
Who is quiet quitting?
While there are no numbers on quiet quitting, Walden said he wouldn't characterize this as a tidal wave trend. Though Gen Z is being largely associated with quiet quitting, demographic breakdowns from the Great Resignation show they're not the only generation reappraising work.
And not everyone has the luxury of quiet quitting.
"In order to climb that corporate ladder as a person of color, I believe that it's a necessity to go above and beyond," Carter said, talking about how those in minority groups, like people of color, don't always have the same resources available to them, so upping their skills, getting in the right rooms with the right people to network, and the like takes more work. She also says it takes learning to advocate for yourself in order to not end up burned out and exploited.
@_thehrqueen Can quietly quitting destroy your career? ✨ #hrqueen#quietquitting#iquit#corporateamerica#mentorforu#youngprofessionals#hrlife#hrtok#careertips#careeradvice#careeradvicedaily#leadershipdevelopment#ReTokforNature♬ Level Up - Kwe the Artist
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Tinder-Parent Match Group Sues Google Over Play Store Billing
Tinder-Parent Match Group Sues Google Over Play Store Billing
Match Group, the company that operates dating apps such as Tinder, Hinge and OkCupid, has filed a lawsuit against Google, accusing the internet giant of forcing it to use the Google Play Store's billing system, paying royalties for subscription transactions. The lawsuit, which was filed Monday in federal court in California, accuses Google of violating federal and state antitrust laws.
"Ten years ago, Match Group was Google's partner. We are now its hostage," Match Group said in a press release.
Match Group said Google assured app developers that they would be able to choose alternative payment systems for their customers, only to do an about-face. The dating giant says that its users prefer Match's internal billing system and that Google's system is "lacking capabilities."
Google pushed back against the lawsuit.
"This is just a continuation of Match Group's self-interested campaign to avoid paying for the significant value they receive from the mobile platforms they've built their business on," a Google spokesperson said in a statement to CNET. "Like any business, we charge for our services, and like any responsible platform, we protect users against fraud and abuse in apps."
Google went on to point out that Match Group was sued by the Federal Trade Commission in 2019 for failing to filter out fake profiles that may have incentivized users into paying for subscriptions. The lawsuit was thrown out earlier this year. Last month, Match also won a lawsuit against Muslim dating app MuzMatch over trademark infringement.
App store fees have been at the center of a number of legal battles in recent months. In March, Google struck a deal that would allow Spotify to offer its own in-app payment option alongside Google's. This deal came after Epic Games, creators of Fortnite, sued both Apple and Google for not allowing its own in-app payment systems, meaning that every in-game costume purchase had Apple and Google taking a percentage off the top. Google and Epic Games have agreed to a trial in early 2023.
In this new lawsuit, Match says it attempted to resolve Google's concerns but was told that its apps would be removed from the Google Play Store by June 1 if it didn't comply. The dating app maker's lawsuit accuses Google of violating the Sherman Antitrust Act, the California Cartwright Act, the California Unfair Competition Law and California tort law by demanding companies exclusively use Play Billing.
"They control app distribution on Android devices, and pretend that developers could successfully reach consumers on Android elsewhere," Match Group CEO Shar Dubey said in a statement. "It's like saying, 'you don't have to take the elevator to get to the 60th floor of a building, you can always scale the outside wall.'"
Given that 90% of app downloads on Android occur on the Google Play Store, Match says Google's marketplace is the only viable app platform. Google said if Match didn't like its terms, it could distribute its apps elsewhere.
Match says fees can be as high as 30%, which is 10 times more than those charged by payment processors such as Visa and Mastercard. Google says its high fees are necessary to protect Android users from fraud and abuse and that Match Group is eligible to pay 15% on Google Play for digital subscriptions.
"While Google has claimed that 99% of the developers subject to the Google tax will qualify for the lower rate, hidden by this statistic is the fact that not all in-app purchases qualify and some of the most popular are still subject to the 30% tax," according to an FAQ created by Match Group regarding the lawsuit.
When asked about the high percentage rate of its fees compared with payment processors, Google said the Play Store does more than process payments, adding that the fees help keep the Android operating system free and fund development of platforms such as Android Auto and TV, security, app distribution, developer tools, and billing systems around the world.
If Match is forced to stop using its internal payment system, the company says it will suffer "irreparable damage to its customer relationships, reputation, business performance, and goodwill and its users will be harmed by increased prices and Google's monetization of their data."
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Sugar cravings during pregnancy: How much sugar is too much?
Sugar cravings during pregnancy: How much sugar is too much?
In large amounts, sugar isn't good for you -- and that may be especially true when you're pregnant.
What you eat during pregnancy fuels not only your body's arduous journey in growing a whole new human -- it can also set the stage for your child's health once they leave the womb. Too much sugar can affect a growing fetus and influence childbirth and beyond, especially if you're one of the many people diagnosed with gestational diabetes.
But before we get into the nitty-gritty of sugar, Dr. Gloria Bachmann, an OB-GYN and director of the Women's Health Institute at Rutgers University, says it's important to think about your general diet and overall health in pregnancy -- ideally before you're pregnant in the first place. Bachmann says that when you're contemplating pregnancy is the time to make sure you're eating the most nutritious diet you can, and that you're in the healthiest shape you can be in.
"There are so many various diets available," Bachmann says. "And I think the one that's most important is the one that's well balanced." Eating enough protein, fats and carbohydrates is important, but part of a well-rounded diet is limiting sugar intake.
So, what are the sugar rules in pregnancy? Read on for advice on how excessive sugar intake can affect your pregnancy and how to satisfy your sweet tooth while you're expecting.
Read more: Foods to avoid during pregnancy
How much sugar can I have?
Bachmann advises pregnant patients to keep their free sugar intake under 30 grams (a little over 7 teaspoons). Free sugar is added sugar, which includes the sweetness in fruit juices, desserts and other foods. Sugar that comes naturally in foods, including sugar in the cells of fruits and vegetables, doesn't count toward your intake because this type of sugar doesn't have a negative impact on health, according to the British Heart Foundation.
For scale, a packet of sugar you'd put in your coffee is typically 4 grams of free sugar. A pint of Ben & Jerry's "Cannoli" ice cream has 30 grams of sugar, or your total daily amount of free sugar. That's why it's especially important to make healthy swaps of your favorite foods -- say, a juicy orange for dessert instead of a cookie.
This is a general example of how much a person should eat in pregnancy, but your own limit may depend on other factors, including whether you've been diagnosed with gestational diabetes.
Gestational diabetes occurs in about 2 to 10% of pregnancies, and it's diagnosed only in people who are "gestating" (aka pregnant). It happens when your body can't make enough insulin during pregnancy, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. There usually aren't symptoms of gestational diabetes, and you'll need to be tested to see if you have it. It typically develops between the 24th and 28th weeks of pregnancy, Healthline reported.
Blood sugar levels usually return to normal after a person's baby is born, per the CDC, but about 50% of people who have gestational diabetes will go on to develop type 2 diabetes. Gestational diabetes also puts the pregnant person's child at increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes later in their own life and of being born early, which can lead to breathing difficulties according to the Mayo Clinic.
The high blood sugar levels that a pregnant person shares with the fetus can also cause the baby to get too big, Bachmann says, which can complicate pregnancy.
"The other problem with increased weight is that a vaginal birth may not be possible because the baby will be too big to get through the birth canal," Bachmann says, which will then make a C-section necessary.
Making sure you're healthy before getting pregnant can reduce your risk of gestational diabetes, as a lack of physical activity can increase your risk of developing it. People in larger bodies, people with Polycystic Ovary Syndrome, as well as Black, Hispanic, Native American and Asian American people are also at greater risk of gestational diabetes.
If you develop it, gestational diabetes can be managed by keeping your blood sugar levels low by following a low-sugar diet or meal plan prepared by your doctor or dietician. If eating healthy and staying active isn't enough, your doctor may prescribe insulin or other medication, per the CDC.
Can I have more sugar in the third trimester vs. the second, or vice versa?
Nope, Bachmann says -- you should monitor and limit your sugar intake throughout your pregnancy, no matter which of the three trimesters you're in.
Read more: Pregnancy timeline: What happens each month and trimester
What about fake sugar?
Bachmann says some artificial sweeteners are OK in moderation, including sucralose (Splenda) and aspartame. (People who have the hereditary disease phenylketonuria or PKU should avoid aspartame, because their bodies can't break down aspartame, according to Johns Hopkins Medicine.) However, people who're pregnant should avoid saccharin, Bachmann says, which can cross the placenta and stay in fetal tissue. Many different foods can contain saccharin, including diet sodas, chewing gum, canned fruit, baked goods, vitamins and more, according to the American Academy of Family Physicians.
Similar to sugar, the "moderation" element may be key in artificial sweeteners. While many health experts seem to agree that most sweeteners are fine for most people when consumed sparingly, one study links low-calorie sweeteners to childhood obesity. If you're trying to cut back on sugar and find yourself turning to artificial sweeteners, talk to your doctor about when to replace the real stuff with artificial or low-calorie sweeteners.
Just like you, every pregnancy is unique. And once you become pregnant, it's an unreasonable ask to expect change overnight. This may be complicated further if you experience nausea or vomiting as a symptom of pregnancy. In terms of diet when you're trying not to throw up, Bachmann says to work with yourself, but that it's important you continue to eat things that include protein, fiber, calcium, carbohydrates and other fuel your body needs.
"It's always easier said than done -- if you have really severe nausea and vomiting in pregnancy, you really have to modify and see what you can tolerate," Bachmann says. "Try to stick to as healthy a diet as possible."
The information contained in this article is for educational and informational purposes only and is not intended as health or medical advice. Always consult a physician or other qualified health provider regarding any questions you may have about a medical condition or health objectives.
What States Can and Can't Do When Banning Abortion
What States Can and Can't Do When Banning Abortion
For more information about your reproductive health rights and related federal resources, you can visit the US government's
Reproductive Rights
site.
Whether someone can get an abortion or related medical procedure mostly hinges on which state they live in after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last month and ended the constitutional right to abortion. But the switch from federal protection to state law isn't straightforward and has led to confusion and misinformation on what pregnant patients and physicians can do.
In this still developing landscape, how confident can people be that their treatment is still legal?
"The answer to all your questions is 'Who the heck knows,'" said Dr. Louise Perkins King, a surgeon and bioethicist at Harvard Medical School. "And that's the problem."
The US Department of Health and Human Services issued guidance on July 11 reminding physicians of their responsibilities under the existing Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, or EMTLA, which supports the need to treat and stabilize patients in an emergency, including pregnant patients who may require an abortion. Days later, Texas sued the Biden administration over the law, which allows for medical assistance to save the life of the mother, because, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said, it "seeks to transform every emergency room in the country into a walk-in abortion clinic."
On Tuesday, a judge in Texas blocked the EMTLA guidance, so physicians in that state may no longer be protected by federal law if they perform an abortion when they deem it medically necessary but it falls outside of Texas' interpretation of a life-endangering pregnancy. Physicians nationwide who are members of the American Association of Pro-Life Gynecologists and Obstetricians or the Christian Medical and Dental Association are also exempt -- a total of about 18,000 health care providers, according to the court document.
Texas' new trigger law -- which will be in effect on Aug. 25 -- bans all abortions except when the pregnancy puts the mother "at risk of death or poses a serious risk of substantial impairment of a major bodily function." Physicians who perform an illegal abortion will be committing a felony. It doesn't make exceptions for rape, incest or fetal abnormalities, and it also doesn't make an exception for when the pregnant person's risk of death would come from a "claim or diagnosis" that they'll be hurt or might die in the future. (This could be interpreted to mean a doctor can't provide an abortion if a woman threatens to die by suicide because she has depression.) All abortions are currently banned in Texas after the state's Supreme Court ruled that a law from the 1920s could stand.
Legal battles within some states will continue to shape post-Roe America, with the landscape changing by the day. And lawsuits like the one in Texas clarify the country's stance on whether state law preempts federal rule on abortion or reproductive health care. Basically, can federal regulations trump state law?
"There's going to be cases that are going to have to determine this question," I. Glenn Cohen, a professor and bioethicist at Harvard Law School, said.
The argument over medication abortion access -- which is banned or restricted in many states but still available to people if they order it (not without risk) online -- will likely also be one of the first big court cases post-Roe, Cohen said. Questions of whether federal regulations on medication abortion conflict directly enough with state restrictions will continue to be center stage.
Medication abortion, for use in early pregnancy, accounts for more than half of abortions in the US. Restricting the pills is the new frontier of abortion bans.
Robyn Beck/Getty Images
Other federal guidance issued by the Biden administration includes a reminder to pharmacists that they are required to fill medication and birth control prescriptions for patients. Failing to do so is discrimination based on pregnancy status. This was in response to the many reports of women having treatment delayed or prescriptions denied while health care workers try to navigate around new state laws.
Here's what we know today.
Can states ban abortion pills? Not completely, but some are trying.
Any state with a current total ban on abortion -- including Texas, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi, Missouri and Wisconsin -- also bans medication abortion. Heavy restrictions in other states, including Tennessee and South Carolina, which ban abortion after about six weeks, also extend to medication abortion. This means providers can't prescribe the medication in those states and patients can't fill prescriptions at pharmacies.
"If a state law bans abortion broadly, that includes medication abortions," Elisabeth Smith, director of state policy and advocacy at the Center for Reproductive Rights, told MedPage Today.
But abortion bans and state laws seek to punish abortion providers or people who assist them, not the person seeking the abortion (there's reason to believe this might change in the future). For now, people living in the most restrictive states can still order pills from an overseas pharmacy, including Aid Access. However, the pills could take awhile to arrive and potentially put the person past the point of pregnancy for which the medication is safe and effective (about 10 weeks).
Peter Dazeley/Getty Images
The fate of medication abortion pills in Republican-leaning states centers on mifepristone, the first pill given in the two-dose regimen of medication abortion. Because the US Food and Drug Administration approved mifepristone as a safe and effective way to end a pregnancy over 20 years ago, states shouldn't be able to restrict it, the US attorney general's office argued the same day Roe was overturned. (Misoprostol, the second pill, is used off-label for abortion and miscarriage treatment. It's also used to treat health conditions such as stomach ulcers.)
Whether this federal regulation (and the FDA's stamp of approval) supersedes state laws will need to be decided. Cohen said this is likely to be determined by the Supreme Court as "one of the first post-Dobbs cases."
"It's unclear whether that's going to be a winner of an argument, to be perfectly honest," Cohen said.
Last year, the FDA extended a pandemic-era rule that allowed patients to get medication abortion pills through the mail, instead of requiring them to be prescribed in person. This was seen as a victory for the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and other medical groups, which viewed the in-person requirement as unnecessary for a medication that's safe and effective in early pregnancy.
But states have their own requirements for medication abortion, and providers licensed in Montana can't prescribe pills to patients who travel over from a restrictive state like South Dakota, NPR reported.
Read more: Worries About Post-Roe Data Privacy Put Spotlight on Period Apps
Ectopic pregnancies can't result in a delivery and require medical treatment. Symptoms can start with typical pregnancy signs, including a missed period, but can progress to abdominal or pelvic pain, vaginal bleeding, weakness and more.
Svetlana Gustova/Getty Images
Can states ban treatment for high risk pregnancies? The HHS says no, but doctors say state laws are restricting care.
Even though the most restrictive states banning abortions leave room for some degree of medical emergency, practicing physicians need to decide where the medical emergency line is – and risk prosecution if a state sees it differently.
This month, the story of a 10-year-old girl who was raped and pregnant and who traveled to Indiana from Ohio, where abortion is banned around six weeks without exception for rape or incest, made headlines. Not only was the physician publicly questioned by Indiana's attorney general on whether she followed state law, but Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost said in the aftermath that the girl should've been able to legally get an abortion under the state law's medical emergency exemption. Ohio's OB-GYNs disagreed.
"It states specifically 'medically diagnosed condition,' and as far as I can tell, adolescent pregnancy is not a medically diagnosed condition that's listed," Dr. Jason Sayat, a Columbus OB-GYN, told the Ohio Capital Journal.
The Department of Health and Human Services reminded physicians and hospitals that if they want to keep their Medicare agreement and avoid "civil penalties," they must treat pregnant patients and provide abortions if necessary as required under the 1986 Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act. The EMTLA, now blocked in Texas, outlines certain life-endangering pregnancies that doctors must treat regardless of state law, including ectopic pregnancies, preeclampsia and complications of pregnancy loss.
But that narrow line of abortion exceptions for medical emergencies given by states like Wisconsin is what's troubling Dr. Jennifer McIntosh, a maternal-fetal medicine physician practicing in the state. While Wisconsin's attorney general said he wouldn't enforce a ban, physicians there stopped performing abortions because the state has a pre-Roe criminal statute that prohibits most abortions. The "save the life of the mother" abortion exception language in that law can leave out health conditions which may not be an immediate emergency but can become one down the line.
"Some of what we do is to prevent emergencies from happening," McIntosh said. "To have to wait for an emergency to actually appear puts your patient's life at risk."
The treatment for an ectopic pregnancy is termination, because terminating the pregnancy is the only safe outcome when an embryo grows outside of the uterus, typically in a fallopian tube. Without treatment, the fallopian tube is likely to rupture, which can lead to internal bleeding and death. But some laws, like one in Texas, specifically restrict medications including methotrexate, which has led to access problems for people who are pregnant as well as people who are taking methotrexate for another health reason.
Complicating confusion and risk over how abortion bans will affect treatments for ectopic pregnancies is the fact that more rare types of ectopic pregnancies exist, including ones where the pregnancy is growing inside a C-section scar or other area outside the safety of the main cavity of the uterus -- but still technically in the uterus. These rarer kinds of ectopic pregnancies are also life-threatening, and may be more difficult to diagnose and treat as such in a state that bans abortions with an emphasis on the pregnancy being in the uterus.
Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images
States are not prosecuting people who have abortions (yet)
Current state laws -- both those in effect and those in limbo in court -- prosecute other people involved in an abortion, not the person who's pregnant.
But the health impact may be already felt when a doctor is hesitant to treat patients, or pharmacists are reluctant to fill a prescription for mifepristone before interviewing a woman to ascertain whether her pregnancy is already ended and her situation is in line with state law.
"Even in these straightforward cases of basic OB/GYN practice, the laws leave providers questioning and afraid," Dr. Carley Zeal, an OB-GYN in Wisconsin, told The New York Times. "These laws are already hurting my patients."
Aside from hesitancy among health care providers, physicians also fear that worries people have about being prosecuted for having an abortion or miscarriage will stop patients experiencing complications from any kind of pregnancy loss from seeking care.
That's because it was already happening, before Roe was overturned. According to the National Advocates for Pregnant Women, there were over 1,700 arrests or prosecutions of women from 1973 (when Roe became law) to 2020 where their pregnancies were the focus of the case against them.
So will doctors report you if they suspect you had an abortion?
"The vast majority of health care professionals will not do that, because that's not caring for their patients," King said. But, she added, "I'm sure there's a very small, but unfortunately detrimental, minority who might."
Your current access to birth control shouldn't be impacted by the overturn of Roe v. Wade. However, there's reason to believe that could change in the future.
Carol Yepes/Getty Images
Birth control is still protected under the Affordable Care Act
Right now, IUDs, birth control pills and other birth control methods are legal in all 50 states. And they should also be covered at no out-of-pocket cost for those covered under the Affordable Care Act. The right to birth control is protected under two Supreme Court rulings: Griswold v. Connecticut (1965) and Eisenstadt v. Baird. (Another Supreme Court Case, Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, chipped away a little of that protection, however, finding that some corporations are exempt for religious reasons.)
Plan B or "morning after pill" brands are also not included in abortion bans, because they will not end an existing pregnancy. Most health plans should also cover them.
Legislators in Missouri last year voted to block taxpayer funding for IUDs and emergency contraception, casting doubt that all birth control devices will be protected indefinitely, at least in some states. The claims of legislators like Paul Wieland, a Republican state senator in Missouri, are that anything that has the potential to disrupt a fertilized egg's implantation into the uterus is an abortifacient.
The medical community has been clear that IUDs and emergency contraception do not cause abortions and will not end an existing pregnancy. Copper IUDs work mostly by causing a chemical change in the sperm and egg before they meet, according to the World Health Organization. Hormonal IUDs like Mirena work mostly by thickening cervical mucus so sperm can't reach the egg, and can also prevent ovulation. Plan B and similar pills likely won't work if a person has already ovulated, meaning the chances of it stopping implantation are currently understood to be slim.
Nevertheless, unlikely occurrences or instances where a fertilized egg may be prevented from implanting into a uterus could be called into question in future court cases.
Read more: Could a Post Roe v. Wade World Impact Your Access to Birth Control?
The information contained in this article is for educational and informational purposes only and is not intended as health or medical advice. Always consult a physician or other qualified health provider regarding any questions you may have about a medical condition or health objectives.
We Really Need to Stop Using These 8 Health Buzzwords
We Really Need to Stop Using These 8 Health Buzzwords
Superfood. Detox. All-natural. These are some of the health buzzwords you come across on social media or while chatting with friends. They might seem like a harmless quirk of our vernacular, but the truth is they can be misleading and even harmful.
Many of these terms are marketing tactics with no science to back up their claims. Research has proven how easily people believe they're eating healthier because they follow buzzwords on food packaging ("fat-free" and "all-natural," for example). The terminology makes you think you're eating something that's better or safer for you without any actual evidence.
Those ultra-common health buzzwords are just the tip of the iceberg. There are many others that are frequently used or misused. Keep reading to learn which ones you should drop for good.
Read more:10 Popular Fitness Myths Debunked
Clean eating
The term "clean eating" is often used in reference to a diet that has minimally processed foods and instead focuses on foods closest to their natural state. It sounds harmless, because aren't we constantly being told to eat more fruits and vegetables?
The problem with this term is that it places foods in "good" and "bad" categories (after all, the opposite of clean is dirty) and indicates that there is a right and wrong way to eat. It also disregards those who don't have access to fresh fruits and vegetables because of where they live and their income level.
Not to mention the vague term is completely made up since there isn't an actual scientific definition for clean eating. It can also lead to an obsession with healthy eating and put vulnerable populations (such as young adults) at risk for disordered eating. So let's reserve the term clean eating to refer to foods that have been thoroughly washed and cleaned before consumption.
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Superfoods
Growing up in a Latinx household, I was exposed to traditional foods that I didn't think much of until I was older. I later learned that some foods I was eating, such as quinoa and chia seeds, were suddenly being labeled "superfoods." Superfood is another term that has no real scientific basis, but is used to describe foods that are thought to have powerful healing properties, like preventing disease or aging.
You may have seen this term splashed across magazine covers, health segments on TV or in your social media timelines. While these foods may provide some health benefits linked to their nutritional content, there isn't enough research to back the claim that a single food can perform miracles like curing someone's illness.
Calling something the next "superfood" has become a popular marketing gimmick in a wellness industry that knows how to target people to make a quick buck. A better option is to make sure your diet includes a wide array of nutritional foods instead of focusing on the latest fad ingredient.
Detox and cleanse
People usually turn to detoxes and cleanses for a quick weight loss fix under the guise of flushing so-called "toxins" out of the body. These can come in the form of detox teas, meal replacement shakes, green juice fasting and other methods that require you to eliminate large food groups and consume very few calories. They may not use the word "diet," but that's exactly what they are, and not a healthy or effective one either.
There is no scientific evidence to prove that cleanses and detoxes work. Instead they're an unsustainable (and even dangerous) method to lose weight or "reset" your body. Isabel Vasquez, a licensed dietitian and nutritionist at Nutritiously Yours and Your Latina Nutritionist, says that most of these cleanses may make you feel good initially, but the feeling is short-lived. "These are not sustainable and when we consume excess amounts of certain vitamins, we just excrete them in our urine," she explains.
Instead of going on an extreme cleanse or diet, Vasquez suggests hydrating adequately and adding fruits and vegetables into your diet for digestion and your overall health.
Your body also doesn't need a detox, because your kidneys, liver and other organs help with cleansing on a regular basis. But if you think your organs aren't doing their cleansing duties correctly, it's best to see a doctor who can run tests and give you a proper diagnosis.
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Processed foods
Processed foods are products that have been changed (e.g. washed, cut, milled, frozen) or infused with additives to preserve freshness and improve taste. These foods can include a range of items you'd find in your local supermarket, such as cereal, canned beans, milk, fresh fruits and vegetables, olive oil and your favorite cookies.
The issue with the term "processed foods" is that it's generally used as an umbrella term implying everything you eat that's processed is bad for you. Most people, when they think of processed foods, think about fast foods that are higher in calories, fat, sugar and additives.
While it's true that these foods are processed and should be consumed mindfully, some foods need to be processed to preserve their freshness, boost their nutritional value and make them easily accessible. Some processed foods, like frozen fruit or oatmeal, are perfectly safe and healthy to eat in abundance. Being processed isn't inherently bad or good. Therefore you can ease your fears about processed foods and instead enjoy them all in a well-balanced diet.
Cheat day or cheat meal
The terms "cheat day" or "cheat meal" basically mean you're planning on breaking your diet by eating a highly caloric meal or meals that you normally wouldn't have. They sound like harmless terms, but they can ultimately affect your relationship with food. Gabriela Barreto, a registered sports dietitian, says, "This can set people up for a binge-restricted cycle where they restrict certain foods to only be eaten at a certain time and in a large amount."
Even more concerning is if an individual already has a history of food addiction since it can exacerbate those issues for them. Barreto adds, "This kind of restriction we know doesn't work and by setting unhealthy relationships with foods we are more likely to weight cycle when we can no longer uphold those restrictions."
Instead she recommends eating a balanced diet that includes foods that you enjoy as well as foods that promote health without restriction, learning to listen to your body's needs intuitively, and working on your relationship with food.
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'Good' and 'bad' foods
Putting foods into categories such as "good" or "bad" further contributes to diet culture and causes people to tie the way they eat to their self worth. These terms are also interchangeably used to describe an individual's eating behavior as being bad or good based on what they ate. "Assigning moral value to food only creates more guilt and shame around certain food choices," says Miriam Fried, a NYC-based personal trainer and founder of MF Strong. She elaborates, "Guilt leads to restriction and restriction often leads to unhealthy behaviors around eating and a negative relationship with food."
Although foods are made up of different caloric content, nutritional and flavor profiles, the body uses it all for energy. Some foods do have more nutritional value than others, but it doesn't mean you have to restrict yourself to just those foods. "Can we acknowledge that a piece of broccoli might have more nutrients than a cookie without making the cookie "bad"? Food isn't good or bad, it simply is," Fried points out. The more you understand that all of these foods can fit into your diet, the easier it will be to stop labeling them as good or bad.
All-natural
When the term "all-natural" is used, it suggests that the food you're eating has been minimally processed and is therefore safer. The truth is this word doesn't determine if a food is safer for us to eat (as we saw above, processing can be a good thing). In fact, the US Food and Drug Administration doesn't even regulate this term.
To date, the organization hasn't established a formal definition for all-natural or natural, though the basic understanding is that it means that nothing artificial or synthetic has been added to a food that normally would not be expected to be in that food, such as dye. The other issue with this term is that it doesn't account for the complex food production and manufacturing process. Importantly, "natural" doesn't equal "organic," which is a term regulated by the US Department of Agriculture. Foods with the USDA organic label must meet strict requirements surrounding the use of antibiotics, hormones, fertilizers and pesticides during the production process; natural foods do not.
According to the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health, natural products aren't automatically better or safer for you. In some cases, such as in medicine, it might cause greater risk or side effects to take a natural, unregulated product than a federally regulated medication. Therefore, take this buzzword with a grain of salt or get rid of it altogether.
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Chemical-free
"Chemical-free" is a buzzword that's commonly tied to the saying, "If you can't pronounce it, don't eat it." When the average person uses it regarding food (or other items), they're saying that all chemicals are synonymous with being toxic and unsafe. This is easily debunked because a basic science lesson will teach you that everything that exists around you, including the foods you eat are made up of chemicals.
That doesn't negate the fact that there are toxic chemicals that should be avoided, or that you might want to steer clear from out of caution, a food sensitivity or just personal preference. If you are concerned about ingesting pesticides, for example, you can stick to certified organic produce., But it's impossible to completely avoid chemicals in any food. Blueberries, for example, are made up of chemicals known as anthocyanins, chlorogenic acid, pterostilbene and flavonids.
Without context, these chemicals look like something the average person should fear. The truth is marketing plays a big role in fear-mongering when it comes to our food and it's helpful to have reputable resources at our fingertips to debunk these myths.
The information contained in this article is for educational and informational purposes only and is not intended as health or medical advice. Always consult a physician or other qualified health provider regarding any questions you may have about a medical condition or health objectives.
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How Russia has spent a decade crumbling online freedoms
How Russia has spent a decade crumbling online freedoms
Aleksandr Litreev was on a way to a business meeting last February when his life changed forever. En route to a hotel in Yakaterinburg, a day's drive east of Moscow, Litreev was pulled over by police. When they asked him to hand over his phone, the then-24-year-old knew it was no routine traffic stop.
"They took me to a police station," Litreev recalls, "and magically some drugs appear." Litreev said he was arrested by around 10 armed policemen, beaten into confessing to ecstasy possession, and then detained for a month. He managed to flee to Estonia after being released into house arrest.
Litreev is a member of Russia's liberal opposition. Rather than rousing people to the ballot box, he builds internet tools that help everyday Russians fight against an increasingly controlling state. As part of the tightest squeeze on freedoms in Russia this century, critical online media publications have been labeled foreign agents, and platforms like Twitter and Facebook are being pressured to purge their platforms of content the Kremlin disapproves of.
With Russia's parliamentary elections running on Sept. 17 through Sept. 19, the Kremlin has stepped up censorship. It's demanded keywords associated with the opposition be blocked from Google and Yandex, the domestic search giant, and that Google and Apple kick an opposition-made app from their app stores.
Litreev has been fighting back for years, creating an app that sends lawyers to defend arrested protesters and joining the "digital resistance" that countered the government's attempt to block encrypted-messenger Telegram.
"If I go back to Russia now, I will get something like lifetime imprisonment," Litreev said. "Not gonna happen."
Before fleeing to Estonia, Litreev also worked with Alexei Navalny, who, for the last 10 years, has been the face of Russia's opposition to President Vladimir Putin. Navalny was poisoned by Russian spies in August 2020 and has since been jailed. Navalny's case shows how the Kremlin has lost any of the patience it once had: He was tolerated for nearly a decade -- as a popular blogger, investigative journalist and later an opposition politician -- before authorities attempted to eliminate him altogether.
"The things that are happening now have never happened before," said Litreev, explaining that authorities poisoning an opposition candidate would have been inconceivable as recently as 2017. "And now we're here."
Aleksandr Litreev, a software developer who fled to to Estona amid Russia's opposition crackdown.
Aleksandr Litreev
Digital wargames
In 2017, Litreev made his first significant venture into opposition politics. A YouTube expose from Navalny alleged that then-Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev had embezzled over $1.2 billion, sparking protests in Moscow and St. Petersburg that turned into a general rebuke of widespread corruption and political repression.
Litreev's contribution was an app called Red Button. If protesters thought they were at risk of arrest, they could open the app and press the big red button it presented. That would automatically call a lawyer, who also receives the protester's emergency contact details and a GPS signal of their location.
"It's basically Uber, but for a lawyer," Litreev said. It was used extensively by demonstrators at the time, which got the attention of Kremlin authorities. "That's the point where pressure on me started," he added.
Litreev, then 21 and fresh out of university, was motivated to join the opposition movement as he watched the Kremlin ratchet up internet restrictions. A 2014 law allowed the telecommunications regulator, Roskomnadzor, to block access to online media that called for "unsanctioned mass public events." In 2016, Putin signed a bill requiring telecommunications companies to store their customers' text messages and phone calls for up to six months.
The law was used as a pretext to ban Telegram, a platform created by eccentric Russian-born developer Pavel Durov that doubles as an instant messenger and a social media platform. (Durov is now based in Dubai.) It allows for encrypted messages between people, like WhatsApp, but also for public figures and groups to create "channels" that can have millions of followers. Russian authorities wanted control over Telegram, and stopping them became Litreev's next project.
Thousands rallied for "internet freedom" in 2018 after Roskomnadzor banned Telegram. Many protested by bringing paper planes, Telegram's symbol.
Mikhail Tereshchenko/Getty
In 2018, the Kremlin ordered Durov to hand over keys that would allow the FSB, the successor to the Soviet KGB, to unscramble the app's encrypted messages. Roskomnadzor's stated goal was to fight terrorist attacks, like a 2017 train bombing in St. Petersburg, which it claimed were spreading thanks to Telegram and apps like it. Durov refused, calling the request both unconstitutional and technically untenable. What followed was a game of hide-and-seek that lasted for two years.
Roskomnadzor banned Telegram in April 2018, pulling down the app's servers. Scores of Russian internet users -- dubbed the Digital Resistance -- countered by hosting Telegram on proxy servers, which Roskomnadzor found and banned too. For his part, Litreev helped create software that deployed millions of proxy servers at once, making it impossible for Russian authorities to manually pull them down individually.
"They got tired of banning IP address by IP address, so they started to ban whole subnetworks, ranges of IP addresses," he said. "At some point, when we got our service hosted on Amazon and on Google Cloud, they accidentally banned a huge subnet which belongs to Google."
Those attempts to ban Telegram were unsuccessful. Not only did the service remain accessible, its Russian user base actually grew. Meanwhile, with authorities hastily banning up to 19 million IP addresses, Google and Amazon services were briefly unusable throughout Russia.
Roskomnadzor had a choice: either block a huge range of IP addresses and risk more catastrophic blackouts, or rescind the ban on Telegram. "It was a fight for all or nothing," Litreev said.
After two years, Roskomnadzor relented, lifting its Telegram ban last June on the grounds that the company would help it with terrorism inquiries in the future. The Digital Resistance won this battle, the latest in a war that had been going on since 2012.
Dmitry Medvedev and Vladimir Putin in 2012.
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The first ruling
Russia is often grouped with China as a troublesome autocracy. A common misconception related to this comparison is that Russia has always had a fiercely censored internet. But unlike China's internet, which was built from the ground up not to rely on Western companies or users, Russia's internet largely grew freely from the mid-'90s.
That began to change in 2012, when Putin became president for the second time.
Much like the US, Russian presidents were bound by the constitution to serve no more than two consecutive four-year terms. So in 2008, when Putin swapped places with Dmitry Medvedev, becoming prime minister while Medvedev assumed the presidency, many suspected it was a ploy to circumvent constitutional limits. Those suspicions were confirmed when he announced his intention to run as president again in 2011.
When Putin's United Russia party retained a majority in the parliamentary elections two months later -- elections local monitors and the EU said were fraudulent -- protests erupted. Tens of thousands demanded free elections and the release of political prisoners. But what concerned the Kremlin wasn't the demonstrators, but how they managed to organize themselves. These protests were the biggest the country had seen since the '90s, and they were powered by social media.
"The driving force back then was the internet -- social media, Facebook and Twitter," said Andrei Soldatov, a journalist and co-author of The Red Web, a book that details Russia's tightening grip on internet freedoms. "That was the moment the Kremlin started paying attention to this new threat, and it was absolutely clear that it was the big thing for years to come."
The "Snow Revolution" protests in Moscow, 2011.
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Online freedoms began unraveling a month after Putin took office in 2012. The Russian Duma (the lower house of the Federal Assembly) started drafting an internet restriction bill that lawmakers claimed was necessary to protect minors from child sexual abuse material, online drug markets and content that encouraged self harm. In practice, it allowed government authorities to create an internet blacklist.
Roskomnadzor now had legal cover to pull down websites it didn't like. Today, the internet in Russia is still markedly more open than it is in countries like China, Egypt and Vietnam. But Russia's strategy of censorship is more subtle, focused less on suppressing speech than on oppressing competition.
"The idea is not to prevent you from getting information," Soldatov said. "The idea is to discourage you from participating in political activities of any kind, online or offline."
The Kremlin's aversion to political opposition explains why political protests are often followed by a tightening of controls. The Moscow demonstrations of 2011 and 2012 led to the first internet restriction bill, and Telegram was targeted in 2018 after protests were organized on the platform.
Then, in 2019, the opposition began translating online engagement into electoral victories.
A new era
Activists, journalists and opposition politicians had proven adept at maneuvering around the digital barriers the Kremlin had been throwing up since 2012. Navalny continued to use his prominent online platform to trouble authorities. Though demonized on state TV, many of his YouTube documentaries on shadowy Kremlin activities racked up hundreds of millions of views. Older Russians who regularly watched Russian television thought Navalny was a menace. Many middle-class, internet-savvy Russians, however, were receptive to his cause.
Though the Kremlin punished Navalny in various ways, convicting him on trumped-up fraud charges and barring him from running for office, authorities showed some restraint in suppressing his movement.
"Navalny was tolerated for a decade," said William Partlett, a professor at Melbourne Law School who researches post-Soviet societies and is authoring a book on Navalny. "He was exposing high-level corruption among very important, powerful people in the inner circle of the Kremlin. And he was allowed to do that, and I think the idea was, 'we can manage this guy.'"
That changed in 2019. Navalny, unable to run for Moscow city council himself, encouraged his followers to adopt the "smart voting" doctrine. It meant voting for anyone other than the ruling United Russia party, be they liberals, avowed communists or hardcore nationalists. The plan worked: The "systemic opposition" won 20 of Moscow's 45 seats, reducing the United Russia Party's majority from 38 to 25.
The same system was used successfully in regional elections, ousting three United Russia governors. In a world where freedom of expression is fine up until the point where it infringes on Kremlin control, this was all unacceptable. Navalny's opposition movement was powered by online platforms, from Telegram to Twitter, and now it was producing tangible offline results.
"Now the question for Putin becomes, is the internet manageable?" Partlett said.
The Kremlin cracked down hard. An online libel law was enacted last December, allowing sites to be blocked and people to be jailed for "defaming" public figures. Specific activists and journalists have been targeted: one journalist was jailed for 25 days for retweeting a photo that carried the date and time of a planned protest, while a video of police violently interrogating blogger Gennady Shulga was leaked by the police themselves, Shulga said, "to show people what the authorities can do."
Navalny's treatment played out in front of the world. He was poisoned in an airport in August 2020, then flown to Berlin, where he recuperated. After returning to Russia, he was immediately imprisoned. Meanwhile, Putin amended the constitution in April to allow him to rule as president until 2036.
Alexei Navalny, the face of Russia's liberal opposition, is currently jailed in Russia.
Dmitry Serebryakov/Getty
Taking on big tech
Litreev talks about his exploits like a nimble David outmaneuvering a lumbering, sluggish Goliath. He knows the battle will be perilous but expects he and his fellow activists will ultimately prevail.
"The level of expertise and level of professionalism on the government side is much lower than our side," he said.
Litreev points to a spat between Twitter and Kremlin as evidence. In March, Roskomnadzor demanded Twitter take down thousands of tweets dating back to 2017 that encouraged illegal activity -- which includes child porn, drug markets and, of course, news stories related to opposition candidates. To motivate Twitter to fulfill the request, the telecoms regulator throttled Twitter's speed for months.
But, in a flashback to the Roskomnadzor inadvertently blocking Google amid a clumsy attempt to ban Telegram, sites like Reddit.com and Microsoft.com went down too. People realized that authorities had targeted the "t.co" link-shortening formation Twitter uses, which clobbered any website that ended with the letter "t."
It was a conspicuous fumble on the part of Roskomnadzor, but authorities did manage to isolate and slow down Twitter. The initial missteps masked the use of a concerning new suite of powers that had been signed into law in 2019, called "the sovereign internet," or RuNet.
The law requires ISPs to connect a new range of state hardware to internet exchange points. These "big red boxes" all direct to a control center in Moscow and allow the Kremlin to manage the flow of traffic from one region of the country to another. The system has been called a "digital Iron Curtain," akin to China's Great Firewall that separates its internet from the rest of the world.
Soldatov says this comparison is inaccurate. The Kremlin isn't interested in isolating itself from the rest of the internet, he says, since that would prove economically ruinous. Rather, it's a tool to control the flow of information from one region of the country to the next.
"The sovereign internet was never about the West. It's about what's going on inside the country," he said. "The most sensitive content is generated inside the country."
Moscovites protesting the jailing of Navalny in April.
Anadolu Agency/Getty
Roskomnadzor was able to pair the new sovereign internet hardware with existing data surveillance technology to selectively slow Twitter traffic. In the future, the Kremlin could use the same technology to, for example, throttle certain apps to prevent livestreams from a protest in Moscow from reaching other parts of the country.
It was the government's first known experiment with its newest online tools -- and it worked.
Twitter has removed over 6,000 tweets, according to Roskomnadzor. In the months since, Russian authorities have demanded Facebook take down content, fined Google $81,000 for not taking down content, and told Facebook and Twitter to store all data of Russian users within the country. On Aug. 26, Twitter and Facebook were both fined for not storing such data quickly enough.
Facebook, Google and Twitter declined to comment. Roskomnadzor was contacted but didn't respond.
Just as the Kremlin pressures Facebook, Google and Twitter, it fosters local substitutes like RuTube, a YouTube alternative owned by the state gas company. Law requires Android phones to come preloaded with 16 Russian-made apps, including the VK social media app and the Yandex search engine, while Apple is required to prompt Russians to download the apps during the setup process of new iPhones. It's part of a plan meant to better allow authorities to control online platforms so that anti-Kremlin content can't go viral.
"The tools the Russian government uses are evolving with time. They are much more advanced if we compare them to, say, 2018," Litreev acknowledged. "But modern problems require modern solutions."
The modern problems
Litreev's latest project is Solar Labs, a decentralized VPN that's based on blockchain and incentivized with cryptocurrency. The Solar Labs platform will allow people around the world to host their own VPN servers, for which they'll be paid with Solar Labs cryptocurrency tokens. If enough people from a variety of countries host their own VPN servers, it'll be impossible for all servers to be taken down at once.
"Even if the government will do whatever it takes to block our service, they will not succeed unless they just shut the whole internet for the whole country," he said. Solar Labs is designed to be useful not just for Russians, but also Iranians, Chinese and Belarussians, all of whom face strict internet censorship.
Litreev says the Kremlin's crackdowns on activists, journalists and dissidents are acts of hysteria. The more extreme the measure, the more desperation it reflects.
And the measures have gotten extreme. It's not just in Russia, either. In May, Belarus' ruler, who's closely aligned with Putin, used military force to ground a RyanAir plane midflight to detain a dissident journalist. The whole region's rules are being rewritten.
Litreev wants to go home to see old faces and places, but says people like him need to work to create a safe Russia. He hopes that Solar Labs' VPN, which launches in September, will be part of that process. Meanwhile, Litreev feels safe in Estonia -- though he makes sure any flights he takes avoid both Russian and Belarusian airspace.
Soldatov, living in London, is less hopeful. He said he was optimistic five years ago, when he co-authored The Red Web, but that the events since then have sapped his confidence.
"We use this word, 'unprecedented,'" he said. "The problem when something is unprecedented is you cannot calculate your risks, because you do not know where they are going to stop."
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The Worst Credit Card Mistakes You Should Stop Making
The Worst Credit Card Mistakes You Should Stop Making
There are several important benefits of using a credit card to shop. You can earn rewards, build your credit and take advantage of travel points and perks. But while shopping with a credit card can be convenient, there are also certain risks you need to be aware of.
If you pay a card late or don't pay your balance in full, you can incur fees and extra interest charges that make your purchases more expensive in the long run, especially considering today's rising interest rates, fueled by skyrocketing inflation. You could also wind up jeopardizing your credit score, which could make it harder to buy a house or get a loan.
So what are the biggest mistakes well-meaning people commonly make with their credit cards -- and what can you do to avoid financial pitfalls? I spoke with experts for their suggestions, and identified some of the most dangerous credit card behaviors. For more, learn how to get out of credit card debt and why now is the right time to pay off your credit cards.
Paying your credit card bill late
Missing a payment or making a late payment on a credit card is a major no-no. Colleen McCreary, a consumer financial advocate at Credit Karma, says this is the most common mistake people make with credit cards. Your payment history is a major factor of your credit rating and accounts for more than 30% of your overall score, McCreary said in an email.
A late payment is a one-way ticket to ruining your credit, and the ding on your report won't go away for seven years. Even worse, if your credit card bill remains unpaid, your creditor could sell your debt to a collection agency, which could tank your credit rating.
The best way to avoid late fees is to set a monthly reminder to pay your bill, and at least make the minimum payment. Most credit card companies will also let you set up monthly auto-payments, so you won't skip a beat. If you're worried you may not have enough each month to cover an autopayment, remember you can always set it to pay out the minimum, the full balance or a specified amount.
The credit bureau Experian notes that some credit card issuers may provide a short grace period for late payments, while others will mark your payment late as soon as you miss your due date.
If you do pay your credit card bill on time regularly and accidentally miss one payment, call your bank as soon as possible to see if it will offer one-time forgiveness, provided you pay in full at the time of your call. Your bank might refund your late fee and interest, but it isn't required to do anything.
While some credit card companies may mark your payment late after one day, those late payments are not reported to credit bureaus for 30 days, according to credit reporting company Equifax, If you act quickly to change your issuer's decision to mark your payment late, you could avoid damaging your credit score. If you're unable to pay your bill, you can also ask your issuer if it can create a payment plan for you.
Stop paying your credit card bill late
Sarah Tew/CNET
Maxing out your credit cards
After payment history, the second biggest factor in determining your credit score is the percentage of available credit that you are currently using. Called the "credit utilization ratio," this factor is calculated by dividing the amount you currently owe by your total credit limit, or your maximum borrowing potential.
Maintaining a high balance on your credit card compared to your total credit limit will increase your total percentage of credit used and hurt your credit score.
You usually want to keep your credit utilization ratio under 30% for a good credit score, though less is better. A good rule of thumb is to use 10% of your total credit limit and pay it off each month so you're not carrying a balance. For example, if your credit limit is $5,000, you wouldn't want to borrow more than $1,500 and ideally $500 or less.
If you find your credit card limit is too low -- for example, the amount you want to charge to your card exceeds the total you can charge on a given card -- you can always ask your credit card issuer for an increase.
Maxing out credit cards could also cost you big money if you can't pay off the total by the payment deadline. "The higher your outstanding balance (the amount of money you owe), the more interest you'll pay, which can make it even more difficult to climb out of debt," McCreary said.
Making only the minimum payment on your credit card
Your minimum payment is the lowest amount that your credit card issuer will allow you to pay toward your credit card bill for any given month -- for example, $50. The minimum monthly payment is determined by the balance on your credit card (what you owe at the end of the pay period) and your interest rate. It's generally calculated as either 2 to 4% of your balance, a flat fee or the higher amount between the two.
Making only minimum payments is one of the most common credit card mistakes, according to Katie Bossler, a quality assurance specialist at GreenPath financial wellness.
Although making minimum payments on time is still far better than paying late or ignoring your bill, paying only the minimum can cause interest to build, making it much more difficult to pay off your balance completely.
For example, if you have a $2,000 balance with a minimum payment of $50 on a credit card with an APR (annual percentage rate) of 14.55%, it will take 56 months (or almost five years) to pay off your debt, and you'll end up paying a total of $753 in interest. However, if you make a plan to pay the balance off in a year, your payments would be $180, and you'd only pay $161 in interest.
It only gets worse as the APR goes up -- at a relatively high but not unreasonable rate of 25%, a minimum payment of $50 would take 87 months (or a little more than seven years) to pay off a $2,000 debt, with a sizable $2,344 in interest payments. Meanwhile, upping the monthly payments to the same $180 would pay off your debt in 13 months, and cost only $281 in interest.
Here's an example of how making more than minimum payments can save you significant money in interest.
How minimum payments lead to higher interest
Credit card balance
Annual percentage rate
Monthly payment
Time needed to pay balance
Additional interest paid
$2,000
14.55%
$50
4.7 years
$753
$2,000
14.55%
$180
1 year
$161
$2,000
25%
$50
7.3 years
$2,344
$2,000
25%
$180
1.1 years
$281
The best way to avoid paying any interest at all on your credit cards is to pay off your full balance each month. If you can't do that, Bossler, the quality expert from GreenPath financial advisors, suggests pausing use of the credit card while you're paying it off, and paying more than the minimum to do so.
Taking out a cash advance on your credit card
Withdrawing a cash advance with a credit card is a big mistake. "It's the most expensive way to pay for things," Bossler said. Cash advances are a method of borrowing money from your credit line to put cash in your pocket "now."
Convenient as it may be, a cash advance uses an interest rate that is typically significantly higher than your standard APR. Most cards will also include a transaction fee of 3 to 5%. "This is not the way to go," Bossler said.
If you receive a "convenience check" in the mail from a credit card company, be careful. It could be a cash advance offer that's best tossed in the recycle bin. If you need some extra cash, it might be better to think about starting a side hustle or taking out a personal loan with a lower interest rate. Budgeting apps can also help track your spending, so you can pull back on expenses that can wait.
Chasing credit card rewards with abandon
If you're thinking of opening a new credit card account to get money back on your purchases, you can best manage rewards by considering your lifestyle. Heavy travelers should look for a card with frequent flyer rewards. If you spend a lot of money on groceries or drive your car often, look for cash back rewards for spending at gas stations and grocery stores.
However, you shouldn't make spending decisions based on receiving rewards. "Credit cards shouldn't be used as a strategy for buying things," Bossler said. Many cards will require a minimum amount of purchases for special rewards, or a welcome bonus to tempt you into spending more than you can afford.
Credit cards with lucrative rewards can also charge higher annual fees, for example, $100 or even $500 a year. If you're not spending enough to earn that annual cost back in rewards, you might consider a card with no annual fee.
Credit card rewards can be a powerful financial tool when used wisely, but you'll need to be careful to avoid running up your balance. Thomas Nitzsche, senior director of Media and Brand at MMI, says he often sees people making the mistake of using credit cards for rewards while ignoring the growing interest on their balance. If you're chasing rewards at the expense of your budget, consider coming up with a plan to pay your balance down instead.
Your credit score can drop when you cancel your credit cards.
Sarah Tew/CNET
Not paying off big purchases during a 0% APR period
Whether you just opened a 0% APR credit card -- which offers interest-free debt for a specific promotional period -- or a balance transfer card -- a credit card designed to accept debt from other cards -- make sure you read the fine print. Oftentimes, there's a fee to transfer your existing balance, commonly 3% of the balances transferred. Also, the introductory 0% rate only lasts for so long, typically between six and 18 months. That means you've got a limited time to pay off your balance before a higher APR kicks in. (When it does, your monthly interest gets a lot more expensive.)
To create a simple repayment plan, take the amount you owe and divide it by the number of months in your 0% APR promo period. Then pay that amount monthly to completely pay off your balance while you are borrowing without interest. For example, if you buy a $300 TV using a credit card with 0% APR for six months, making $50 monthly payments will eliminate your debt before the no-interest period expires.
Using a 0% intro APR credit card can be a good strategy to pay off your debt or finance a large purchase, but it can be risky, too. While disciplined borrowers can effectively roll balances into new accounts with 0% intro APR, Nitzche says that many people who transfer their credit card balances only make minimum payments, which can result in spiraling debt and damaged credit, leading to a point when they can no longer get approval for new accounts.
Canceling your credit cards
Even if you have paid down your balance on a credit card, there are two big reasons why you shouldn't cancel your account. Closing your account would affect your length of credit history and credit utilization ratio, two important components of your credit score. (Remember, your credit utilization ratio is the percentage of your total available credit lines across all cards you're using.)
If you close an account you're not using, your total available credit line shrinks, making your credit utilization ratio higher.
Canceling older credit cards will also shorten your credit history, leading to a significant drop in your credit score. If you do decide to cancel some of your credit cards, it's best to leave the oldest account open, as well as the one with the highest credit limit to maintain your credit utilization ratio and prevent any damage to your credit score.
It's important to note that with inactivity, credit card issuers may automatically close your account. To avoid this, Nitzche says that it's best to use each of your credit cards once in a while for small purchases.
Applying for too many credit cards
You may have heard this advice before: Don't apply for too many credit cards at once. Each time you apply for a new credit card, your credit score can drop slightly due to a "hard" credit check.
Hard credit checks require your consent and involve a full credit summary from a credit bureau. "Soft" credit checks occur when you view your credit report or a financial company requests a summary without your consent, and they don't affect your credit score. They're used for purposes such as preapproved credit card offers.
When you authorize lenders to pull your credit history, you'll see a "hard" inquiry on your credit report. According to credit score company MyFICO, a hard pull will lower your credit score by about 5 points. While it will stay on your report for two years, the deduction to your score will usually be eliminated within a year.
Too many hard pulls on your credit in a short amount of time -- for example, applying for five store credit cards in one weekend -- could affect your credit rating more, as multiple inquiries indicate higher risks of insolvency or bankruptcy. Experian suggests waiting at least six months between applying for new lines of credit to avoid lowering your credit score.
Applying for too many credit cards at once can drop your credit score.
Sarah Tew/CNET
Not checking your billing statements regularly
How often do you check your monthly billing statement? It can be an eye opener to see how much money you really charge your credit card, especially if it's routinely more than you bring home each month.
Spending $20 here and there may not seem like a huge amount, but it can add up quickly. Remember that increasing your credit utilization ratio (your percentage of credit used) will lower your credit score and high balances will cost you more in interest. Plus, how do you know how much you've charged if you aren't tracking your spending?
Tracking your credit card spending isn't the only reason to check your billing statement. You should thoroughly comb through your transactions to make sure there aren't any potentially fraudulent charges you didn't make. The sooner you discover you're a victim of identity fraud, the sooner you can contact your card issuer to dispute the charges and take the necessary steps to secure your credit card account.
For more tips on using credit cards wisely, learn six ways to get the most from your credit card and how to pick the right credit card.
