• Blackstone is set to grant shares to workers at the businesses it buys, The Wall Street Journal reported.
• It's set to award stock to employees at Copeland, which it bought last year for $14 billion.
• Other private equity giants including KKR and Apollo also offer equity to portfolio companies' staff.

Blackstone is set to start granting stock to its portfolio companies' employees, The Wall Street Journal reported.

The private equity giant's plans to give equity to workers at most of the large US-based businesses it buys are expected to be announced at a conference this week.

Blackstone plans to start the initiative by giving shares to workers at Copeland, a climate-tech company it bought from Emerson Electric last year for $14 billion, per the Journal.

The investment firm employs about 700,000 people across the 230 companies it owns globally. Blackstone shares are down 3% this year, but have risen more than 50% over the past 12 months leaving it worth just over $150 billion at Tuesday's closing bell.

Other private equity titans have made similar moves in recent years.

KKR started awarding shares to employees at its industrial businesses in 2011 and later broadened the program to cover workers at all of its US-based portfolio companies.

In April 2022, KKR's global cohead of private equity Pete Stavros launched Ownership Works, a nonprofit that seeks to promote shared ownership. Apollo, Ares, and Silver Lake are among the 19 firms that have backed the program.

The private equity titans see granting shares to rank-and-file employees as part of an effort to reduce income inequality, at a time when the industry's massive profits have come under fire from lawmakers, including senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.

When Ownership Works launched two years ago, it set the goal of generating $20 billion in wealth for low and middle-income employees over the following decade.

• Target's comparable sales fell 3.7% last quarter, the fourth consecutive quarter of decline.
• Improvements in e-commerce weren't enough to cover a 4.8% slide for in-store comps.
• The company is pulling out a number of stops to avoid a fifth down quarter.

Target reported $24.5 billion in revenue last quarter, with comparable sales down 3.7%, marking the fourth consecutive quarter of decline. While e-commerce orders returned to growth and improved by 1.4%, it wasn't enough to cover a 4.8% slide for in-store comps.

Unlike total sales, comparable sales exclude new and closed stores, and analysts commonly use the measure to assess the underlying health of the business. In Target's case, the measure reflects only results from locations open for at least 13 months.

Although the company managed to improve profitability last quarter, CEO Brian Cornell told investors on Wednesday that "we won't be satisfied until we see positive comps in the second quarter and over the balance of the year."

Target is now pulling out a number of stops to affect that turnaround, the most recent of which are price cuts on thousands of items that Cornell says will collectively save shoppers millions of dollars this summer.

The company also revamped and expanded its membership program, Target Circle, adding over a million new shoppers during the quarter. It did not specify how many of those were in the paid tier, which offers unlimited free delivery like Walmart+ and Amazon Prime.

Target even tried on some new hats this quarter — wholesaler and exporter — as the company partnered with Canada's Hudson Bay chain to sell the wildly popular Cat and Jack children's clothing line.

While on the subject of private label (own brands, as Target likes to call them), the company expanded its assortment in the budget-minded Dealworthy brand of essentials and invested in improving the quality of its Up and Up line.

Unfortunately for Target, the moves over the past several months haven't resulted in people shopping more often or buying bigger baskets — something the company attributes in large part to inflation-weary consumers and stretched household finances.

Going into the summer, Target faces a tricky balancing act of growing top-line sales through deals and promotions while also keeping profitability in line with investor expectations.

"We're encouraged by the meaningful progress we've seen in recent quarters," Cornell said."These trends reinforce our confidence that we're on the right track and positioned to get back to growth in Q2."

• Large companies such as Bayer are seeking more real-time visibility for their global supply.
• With FourKites' AI-powered tracking systems, Bayer improved its ocean-shipment prediction quality by 48%.
• This article is part of "The Future of Supply-Chain Management," a series on companies' manufacturing and distribution strategies.

When the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapsed in Baltimore earlier this year, Bayer quickly received an alert that 168 of its shipments would be affected by the disruption in the port.

In March 2020, the German pharmaceutical and agricultural producer began working with FourKites, a supply-chain-intelligence platform that tracks shipments and provides real-time visibility for when goods will be delivered to ports, warehouses, manufacturing facilities, and stores.

As the COVID-19 pandemic unfolded and upended the international supply chain, the benefits of Bayer's partnership with FourKites became evident.

"Everything is about expectations," Johnny Ivanyi, the global head of logistics for Bayer Crop Science, told Business Insider. "Even if we don't deliver on time, your customer can say, 'At least I got the information to make my decision.'"

Bayer Crop Science uses FourKites for shipments across more than 65 countries, with FourKites tracking the majority of Bayer's containers as they move from port to port. FourKites can also track raw materials as they move along oceans, railways, roads, and air, from fields to ports to trucks and then from manufacturing facilities and warehouses to final delivery on a farm.

"It is a lot of complexity," Ivanyi said.

This information helps Bayer establish "one source of truth," Ivanyi said, in terms of the visibility of raw materials such as seeds and soybeans that need to be delivered at the right time to ensure a successful harvest.

How AI-powered tracking systems can boost customer satisfaction

FourKites taps into Bayer's transportation-management system, data that shows which goods are assigned to various carriers along the supply chain. By using machine-learning and artificial-intelligence algorithms, Bayer has seen an improvement in prediction quality of about 48% throughout an ocean journey, FourKites said.

More recently, FourKites has also used generative AI to allow customers such as Bayer to ask AI chatbots questions about their logistics and what disruptions like the Baltimore bridge collapse may mean for them. The bots can even make recommendations on how to respond.

Priya Rajagopalan, the president of product, technology, and operations at FourKites, said the company launched more than eight years ago to give shipping visibility to large shippers, similar to how customers can easily track their orders via Amazon.

FourKites tracks more than 3 million shipments daily across roads, rails, the ocean, and air, reaching over 200 countries and territories and giving companies like Walmart, Coca-Cola, and Kraft Heinz better visibility into when the goods they produce will be delivered to customers.

Monitoring complex ocean shipments to avoid supply-chain disruptions

The supply-chain disruptions from the pandemic led to great interest from large food and beverage companies to more closely track shipments, especially those moving across the ocean, which hadn't previously been as big of a focus.

"The scale of the disruption was so large that just the fact that nobody is monitoring it and they have no tech around it became such a point of vulnerability," Rajagopalan said. "I think almost every chief supply-chain officer received the mandate that we cannot have these sorts of blind spots and areas of vulnerability."

Initially, FourKites focused on providing real-time visibility for shipments on trucks, a highly fragmented system with over 3 million trucks handled by over half a million carriers on US roads alone.

The seas have seen more high-profile disruptions in recent years, including a container ship getting stuck in the Suez Canal in 2021 and the ongoing Yemen Houthi rebel attacks on ships in the Red Sea. These challenges have led more large multinational conglomerates to work with FourKites to predict more accurately when their shipments will arrive in ports. This information is of particular interest to industries such as farming and fashion, both reliant on specific windows of seasonality to achieve maximum sales success.

FourKites' machine-learning algorithms have helped Bayer predict the time of arrival of ocean shipments within two days over 90% of the time.

These insights can help influence decisions along the full supply-chain journey. For example, think of a storm brewing outside Japan that's disrupting shipments of raw agricultural materials meant for delivery to Los Angeles.

"I need to think a couple steps ahead," Ivanyi said.

Bayer would get an alert from FourKites, which would then help influence a few key decisions. Knowing that a shipment is delayed across the ocean, Bayer may need to plan for congestion at the port. Now, a delivery that was intended for the first week of June won't come until a week later. Knowing this, Bayer could have its manufacturing plant in Iowa readjust its production-line planning to account for the delayed deliveries, instead focusing on making products with the goods it has on hand from other vendors.

This tracking system also allows Bayer sales representatives to know when the seeds will be delivered to the farmer in Illinois. Previously, that representative would need to talk to someone in customer service, who would then call logistics and then call the carrier to get intel on disruptions. Now, all that information is available virtually.

"Every day, you are feeding into this kind of intelligence that I think is getting better and better," Ivanyi said.

• The US has long restricted Ukraine from using American weapons to strike targets inside Russia.
• Analysts and officials say this policy is interfering with Ukraine's ability to defend itself.
• But Kyiv is pushing the US to change its stance in the wake of the Russia's new Kharkiv assault.

The Biden administration's policy restricting Ukraine from using US-provided weapons to strike military targets inside Russia is hamstringing Kyiv's ability to defend itself, analysts and officials say.

The US has sent Ukraine billions of dollars in security assistance over the course of the war, but it has barred the country from using American weaponry, especially certain powerful long-range missiles, to carry out strikes across the border.

Washington has been unwavering in its stance on this matter, instead giving Kyiv approval to only hit targets within Russian-occupied territory in Ukraine.

But the Biden administration is facing increasing pressure to soften this long-held policy in the wake of a new Russian assault in Ukraine's northeastern Kharkiv region, which began earlier this month. Analysts and officials have argued in the days since that the US position has prevented Kyiv from stopping the onslaught, effectively hamstringing its defensive capabilities.

'Handcuffing' the Ukrainian defense

After massing tens of thousands of troops near the border, Russia on May 10 launched an assault into the Kharkiv region as part of a bid to stretch thin Ukrainian forces across the front line and pin down Kyiv's defenses in the region, and also carve out a buffer zone along the border.

The limited incursion appears to be setting the stage for what could be a multi-pronged summer offensive that would stress a Ukrainian military still facing shortages in both material and much-needed manpower.

Immediately after the initial assault, analysts and officials pointed to the Biden administration's policy preventing Ukraine from using US weapons to strike military targets inside Russia as the catalyst for the unfolding situation, in which Moscow has already managed to capture a small amount of territory along the border.

George Barros, the geospatial-intelligence team lead and a Russia analyst at the Institute for the Study of War think tank, said last week that the restriction is "severely compromising Ukraine's ability to defend itself" against the assault.

"US policy has effectively created a vast sanctuary in which Russia has been able to amass its ground invasion force and from which it is launching glide bombs and other long-range strike systems in support of its renewed invasion," Barros wrote in a May 13 analysis.

Glide bombs, in particular, have been a significant threat to Ukrainian forces. Really the only way to defend front-line forces and civilians from these highly destructive weapons is to intercept the Russian aircraft before they can launch the munitions, or attempt to take them out on the ground. But these aircraft are operating within the safety of their own airspace, out of reach of air-defense systems.

"Whatever the merits of this US policy before the Russian assault on Kharkiv Oblast began, it should be modified immediately to reflect the urgent realities of the current situation," Barros said.

Ukrainian officials told POLITICO last week that the country watched as Russian forces gathered across the border, but they could not do anything to blunt the assault because of the US policy. The officials had traveled to Washington as part of a new push from Kyiv to try and get the Biden administration to lift its ban.

After meeting with the delegation of Ukrainian officials, a group of Congressional lawmakers on Monday wrote to US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, urging the Biden administration to lift its restrictions and provide Kyiv with additional defensive capabilities that it badly needs.

In the bipartisan letter, more than a dozen lawmakers cited the POLITICO report, saying that the administration's current policy "is handcuffing Ukraine's ability to push back on Russian forces near Kharkiv" with US-provided weaponry. "Ukrainian officials have watched for weeks as Russian troops have attacked Ukrainian communities from Russian territory with impunity," they wrote.

"Ukrainians have been unable to defend themselves due to the Administration's current policy," the lawmakers continued. "It is essential the Biden Administration allows Ukraine's military leaders an ability to conduct a full spectrum of operations necessary to respond to Russia's unprovoked attack on their sovereign land."

Indeed, Ukrainian soldiers have highlighted this challenge in recent discussions with Western media.

"There were a lot of Russians gathering, and we could have destroyed them on the way in, but we don't have many ATACMS, and we have a ban on using them over there," a Ukrainian special forces commander who watched as Russia built up its forces on the Russian side of the border told The Times of London, referring to the US-provided MGM-140 Army Tactical Missile Systems. He told the outlet that having to wait for the enemy to cross into Ukrainian territory proved costly.

The US has long feared that a change in its policy could be seen by Russian President Vladimir Putin as an escalation. Washington has also held this attitude when considering whether to send high-profile weaponry to Ukraine.

Former Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland pushed back on this rationale during a Sunday interview on ABC News' "This Week." She said Russia has already taken steps to escalate the conflict, including by conducting its recent assault on Kharkiv, and argued that it's now time for the US to change its policy.

Bases in Russian territory that are facilitating Moscow's attacks should be "fair game" for Ukraine to go after, she said. "Russia has learned how to pull its forces back out of the range where we have allowed Ukraine to use our weapons and get our support."

Despite mounting support for the US to lift its ban, and the surprising loosening of similar restrictions by the UK government earlier this month, Washington seems unlikely to alter its position anytime soon.

"Our policy hasn't changed," Pentagon Press Secretary Air Force Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder told reporters at a Tuesday press briefing. "We are focused on providing Ukraine with capabilities that it needs to defend itself within Ukrainian sovereign territory."

Ukraine, meanwhile, has been forced to find innovative and alternative solutions to carry out long-range cross-border strikes. In lieu of Western missiles, for instance, Kyiv has relied heavily on homemade drones packed with explosives to attack strategic military and energy facilities hundreds of miles deep inside Russian territory.

• TikTok users are paying off each other's debts using views as a digital currency.
• The trend involves engaging with videos to boost views, acting as a new kind of crowdfunding.
• Despite some success stories, experts doubt the trend's long-term viability.

"We are paying off each other debt on TikTok," a creator recently declared.

The creator, named Yolanda, was gushing about the "pay off each other's debt" trend that seems to have become popular on the app.

The movement asks TikTok users to engage by liking and commenting on each other's videos and watching them for at least five to 10 seconds. TikTok then pays out for increased engagement.

Essentially, it's a way of transforming views into digital currency.

"Everyone is eligible," said Yolanda. "If we all do this, can you imagine how easy it would be if we all worked together?"

More than 4,000 videos have been posted under the #payoffdebttrend hashtag on TikTok, with creators asking for help for various reasons including medical bills, student debt, and unexpected costs.

Katya Varbanova, an influencer marketing consultant and the CEO of Viral Marketing Stars, told Business Insider it's like TikTok has become the new GoFundMe.

"But instead of money, the currency is attention," she said.

US citizens owe an average debt of $104,215 across mortgages, car payments, credit cards, student loans, and other personal debts, according to an analysis by BI using data from Experian and the New York Federal Reserve Bank. The analysis did not include medical debt, which can rack up quickly to hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Jake Heisenburg, a medical student and content creator, jumped on the views-for-debt trend on May 12. He said that for TikTok revenue to pay off all his student loans, he would need 247 million people to watch his video for five seconds.

"Which you've just done," he said. "So thank you. I appreciate it."

The requirements for earning money on TikTok are to have at least 10,000 followers and to have amassed 100,000 video views in the previous 30 days.

According to creators who previously spoke with BI in 2022, the amount TikTok pays creators varies widely from a few pennies to $17 per 1,000 views.

Many factors are taken into account to calculate the number, including the total playtime of the video, the percentage of videos watched in full, and follower engagement.

Videos have to be at least a minute long, so Heisenburg waited out the clock by talking about his mustache, eating a bowl of cereal, and asking viewers to comment with their "favorite seven-letter word."

People did just that. They commented underneath to boost engagement and liked and shared the video to try to get it onto more people's feeds. And it worked — it amassed 22 million views.

"I will ALWAYS respect the hustle for someone trying to pay off their student loans," one commenter wrote. Another said: "This is the crowd-sourcing I'm here for."

Others commented to say they had watched the whole thing.

"Honestly, everyone do this and engage," said one viewer. "Let's help him secure the bag."

A few days later, Heisenburg posted an update. He said the camaraderie that he'd seen as a result of the trend was "absolutely astounding."

He said he didn't hit the goal of earning enough to pay off all of his debts, which was in the "low six figures," partly because it would have been unrealistic.

Overall, he said he'd made $4,200 from that one video, which was "a little bit lower" than he had anticipated due to the Revenue Per Mille (RPM) — the amount of money earned per thousand views — "dropped pretty sharply" to $0.34.

"However, that is more than I used to make at my old job in two months for one video," he said.

"If that video was the catalyst for even one person to start making content or even just make a few dollars to help themselves or others out, then I'd say mission accomplished."

Markia Brown, a financial counselor and content creator known as The Money Plug, told BI she'd seen the trend growing increasingly popular since TikTok revamped its Creator Rewards Program in March.

"It's popular because people can support their favorite creators or other random strangers, and it doesn't cost them any money, just a few seconds of their time," she said.

Mark Tilbury, a TikTok content creator with seven million followers who makes videos about money and success, told BI Gen Zerz, in particular, are smart with money and have noticed that "helping each other is the key to financial success."

"It's also incredible to see how much TikTok has evolved as a platform and how much they're investing in rewarding their creators," he said.

"Although the RPMs aren't always ideal, they're better than many other apps. So anyone with a phone should jump on this opportunity to make extra money through TikTok."

Varbanova told BI it can be so effective thanks to the unique way TikTok pushes out videos.

"This would not be possible on Instagram, or Facebook, or YouTube," she said. "This is only something you can do on TikTok because of the unique TikTok algorithm. It prioritizes videos that have been proven to be watched all the way until the end by a group of people."

These aren't influencers trying to sell something or companies asking for money, she said. They are regular people encouraging each other to help by giving up a minute of their time.

However, tides on social media can turn quickly, Varbanova added, and while people tend to appreciate money struggle stories, sharing money wins can be met with calls of being out of touch, privileged, and tone deaf.

This trend seems to be different, though, Varbanova added, because it's TikTok who stands to lose out if people can pay off their debts with views.

"They're banding together against the big man, TikTok," she said. "TikTok is this big billion-dollar corporation; let's take its money."

Brown said that while it's effective now, she isn't convinced the trend will last or that the strategy will work as a long-term means of paying off debt.

There are also risks, such as people having to set aside a certain amount of earnings for taxes or having their content flagged by troll accounts.

"Additionally, too many community guideline violations will have you removed from the program with very little warning or communication," Brown said. "Do not pass go; do not collect $200."

• Interior designer Manuella Moreira shared home-decor mistakes she hates to see in a space.
• Boring powder rooms and blank ceilings are missed opportunities for home decor.
• Repeating too many of the same wood tones or metal finishes can make a room one-dimensional.

Decor trends come and go, but some will always be faux pas.

And with home prices rising more than double the pace of inflation since the 1960s, making the place you live look great is as important as ever, whether it's a rental or your expensive dream abode.

To learn about things you should avoid when decorating a space, Business Insider spoke to Manuella Moreira, Los Angeles-based interior designer with 14 years of experience and founder of Manuella Moreira Interiors,

Here are the 10 decor mistakes she hates to see in other people's homes.

Moreira said she always notices when a room has a rug that's too small

"Select a rug as big as possible for the space, allowing it to anchor the furniture in the room," Moreira said. "This will also make the space feel bigger and help with the acoustics."

Your rug should also be flat enough that it fits under the gap of doors as they swing open and closed, she added.

Nightstands should never be way taller or shorter than the bed they're next to

She also dislikes when nightstands are not the right size for the bed they're anchoring

"The height of the nightstand should be within 2 inches from the top of your mattress," Moreira told BI. "This allows for easier reach and looks more proportionate."

A blank ceiling is a missed opportunity

Always consider the ceiling when designing your space.

"Adding wallpaper or contrast paint to the ceiling allows you to add height, depth, and draw the eye up," she said.

The ceiling is also an opportunity to add another texture to the room.

By thinking of light fixtures only as functional, you're missing out on decor opportunities

According to Moreira, thinking of light fixtures strictly as functional is a big mistake.

"Light fixtures are a great way to add an artful element to a room," she told BI. Choose fixtures that are sculptural, but also complement the architecture.

By hanging drapery hardware too low, you're sabotaging your own space

Draperies should be at a height that allows them to just kiss the floor, the designer explained. This gives them a very custom look.

"The drapery rod should be hung as high up as possible, close to the ceiling," Moreira said. "This adds height to the window."

Repeating too many of the same wood tones can make the room look one-dimensional

It's not ideal to buy furniture in matching wood tones when decorating a room, Moreira told BI.

In fact, your furniture should never look like you purchased it all at once or that it's part of one set.

"Consider staying within the same hue but playing with the tone or texture of the woods to add dimension and look curated," the designer said.

A boring powder room is a missed opportunity to make a statement

"A powder room is a great place to get creative, take risks, and go bold," she told BI. "Use wallpaper, paint the millwork, and/or the ceiling."

Special details, like a really cool light fixture or an interesting mirror, can make a statement and be something that your guests will talk about.

A space with warm and cool light temperatures will look busy

The designer hates to see warm- and cool-toned light bulbs within a single space.

"It's important to make sure the color temperature of the light bulbs or architectural lights are all the same within the space," Moreira said. "Otherwise, it will look like the lights were an afterthought and look very busy."

Buying the wrong-sized furniture for a space can make it feel too empty or crowded

The scale of your furniture is so important. When shopping, she said, consider the floor space you're working with as well as the architecture of the room.

"You should have good traffic flow within the space, but it should never feel like it's missing a piece or feel empty," Moreira told BI.

Try to avoid completely matching metal finishes within a space

"Many people are very afraid of mixing metals and prefer all of the finishes to match exactly," she said. "I always encourage my clients to mix metals."

This allows the space to evolve over time and gives you more flexibility when introducing new items into the space.

• A trading mistake at Citigroup in 2022 has led to a $78 million fine against the bank.
• The "fat-finger" trade caused a brief flash crash in European stocks in May 2022.
• The brief flash crash caused by the mistaken trade briefly wiped out $322 billion in market value.

A trading mistake at Citigroup has resulted in a $78 million fine.

A trader in Citigroup's London unit entered one too many zeros in a trade in May 2022, sparking a short-lived flash crash in European stocks.

The trade itself was entered during early European market hours and caused a five-minute flash crash in the OMX Stockholm 30 Index, wiping out as much as $322 billion at one point.

According to Bloomberg, the trade was meant to hedge the bank's exposure to the MSCI World Index.

While the trader meant to execute a trade that would create a basket of stocks valued at $58 million, they accidentally entered 58 million into the quantity field, ultimately creating a massive trade worth $444 billion.

Citi's trading systems fired off warnings and prevented much of the trade from going through, but not all, with about $1.4 billion worth of the trade being executed, resulting in a cascade of sales of European stocks across various European exchanges.

UK regulators investigating the trading blunder leveled a $78 million penalty against Citigroup for the mistake on Wednesday. 

"The immediate cause of the trading error was a manual input error by the trader. The error was then not identified by either of the firm's risk functions dedicated to real-time monitoring of the firm's trades, but by the trader some 15 minutes after the trade was entered into the firm's systems," the Bank of England's Prudential Regulatory Authority said on Wednesday.

The $78 million fine from UK regulators is in addition to about $50 million Citigroup lost on the trade, bringing the total cost of the fat-finger trade to about $130 million.

• Many gig delivery workers say pay has fallen on the apps since the start of the pandemic in 2020.
• One Instacart shopper shared her tips for maximizing income.
• She recommends learning to parse orders quickly and buying bags and a wagon to carry large orders.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Bonnie Harada, a gig delivery worker in Las Vegas who has completed just over 3,600 orders for Instacart. Business Insider has verified her identity and employment for Instacart. The story has been edited for length and clarity.

I started working for Instacart four years ago when I was living in California.

Last year, I moved to Las Vegas. California has mandatory minimum payments under Proposition 22, but Nevada doesn't have those. I was shocked at how much lower the pay is here.

That difference has made it more important for me to work efficiently and take only orders that make sense for me. Here are my top tips if you want to make money on Instacart:

Shop at stores you already know well — or pick a few and learn their layouts

If you're starting out, take a store or two you're already familiar with or that you regularly shop at that's close to where you live. Know that store inside and out.

Some stores tell you in the app the aisle and the exact shelf where a product is. But otherwise, you need to know the store, especially since most places in the US just pay for the order, not for the time you spend. You need to know how to get in and out of there as fast as possible.

For me, two examples are Smith's, the local Kroger-owned supermarket, and Sprouts. I know those stores like the back of my hand. I won't take shops at stores I'm not good at.

Don't be afraid of Costco orders

For a long time, I didn't take those orders because I thought they were just too big.

But guess what? Costco is actually one of the easier stores to shop at.

Costco rarely runs out of anything that somebody has ordered. You usually don't have to find a replacement and spend time on that. If you learn the store's layout, you can do it quickly.

Secondly, if you separate your orders and have all the bar codes all face up, you can get through those lines really much quicker than you think you can.

Invest in some tools of the trade

Buy a good wagon to carry groceries to and from your car. I'm talking about those little granny cart things. Mine has a 300-pound capacity, good wheels, and can fold up to fit into my car.

Good cooler bags are also important. You need them to handle food safely, but they also come in handy for carrying bulkier or heavier items, whether it's a pack of water or carrying groceries up the stairs into an apartment.

I also buy S-hooks that I use to hang bags on the sides of shopping carts as I shop. That way, I extend the capacity of one cart instead of having to get two carts when I'm shopping large orders or multiple orders at once. I also color-code the bags with clips to keep items for different orders separate.

Figure out what the best times and places to shop are

In my area, I find first thing in the morning is when orders start coming in. There are larger orders that are usually bigger tips or better pay. So, if you're a morning person and that's the time you're available, get up, sign on, and make sure you're close to one of your favorite stores or one that is in a good neighborhood that typically has good tips.

The most affluent neighborhoods are not always the best tippers. Middle-class people are very grateful and often tip well.

Look at the details of an order and be quick to claim it

Sometimes, orders disappear quickly before you can even figure out whether you want it. You've got to be quick about figuring out how many miles it is, how much it pays, and how much the tip is.

Pick the orders that meet your needs and the time that you have available to shop.

You don't want to get caught up in something that you weren't prepared for. Some orders say they're just six items, but if you look closer, you'll see it's actually dozens of "units," which means the customer has ordered lots of the same item. If you don't have time to deliver hundreds of pounds of San Pellegrino water from Costco, don't take it.

Decide what you're trying to get out of shopping for Instacart

If you need the work to subsidize your income, you could deliver little orders a couple of times a week before you go to work.

But if this is going to be your main source of income, you need to recognize that and plan for it. The pay and tips for some batches are much lower than others, so you need to know how to leverage Instacart to meet your needs.

An Instacart spokesperson told BI that "shoppers may acquire whatever tools they would like to support their work." Shoppers can verify their insulated bags through the Instacart app to get access to more batches, the spokesperson added.

Do you work for Instacart, DoorDash, Walmart Spark, or another gig delivery service and have a story idea to share? Reach out to this reporter at abitter@businessinsider.com

• Lower-income Americans are already in a recession, according to JPMorgan's Matthew Boss.
• The analyst said the US was in a "selective" recession as some consumers .
• 67% of middle-class Americans said they believed their income wasn't keeping up with the cost of living.

The US economy is in a "selective recession," as lower-income Americans are struggling to get by while upper-income consumers are doing just fine, according to JPMorgan analyst Matthew Boss.

Speaking to CNBC on Tuesday, Boss pointed to the divergence in upper-income and middle-to-lower income Americans, the latter of whom are struggling to keep up with the rising cost of living as prices remain elevated and savings dwindle. 

"You have the consumer at the high end who is being more choiceful. The low-end I do think is a melting ice cube … What I'm calling it now is a selective recession," Boss said. "[B]y our survey, over 70% of low-income consumers right now are saying that they're struggling to make ends meet."  

Other market commentators have pointed to a coming slowdown in consumer spending, especially as middle-class Americans feel the pinch of inflation. 67% of middle-class households polled by Primerica in the first quarter said they believed their income was falling behind the cost of living. 

Inflation has cooled dramatically from its highs in 2022, but consumers are still feeling the pain of accumulated price increases over the years. Consumer prices overall are 22% higher than they were five years ago, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

"You focus on that low- to middle-income consumer, they're under pressure, and the pressure is really that the inflation … continues to last. Each month that we move forward, it doesn't matter that inflation is not worsening, it's just an incremental toll on that savings that they built," Boss said.

Most Americans have likely blown through the savings they accumulated during the pandemic. Excess savings from the COVID era were probably depleted in March of this year, according to a paper from San Francisco Fed economists. 38% of middle-class respondents in Primerica's survey added that they didn't have a $1,000 emergency fund. 

Recession fears have been on the rise as Americans survey a weakening job market and anticipate rates staying higher for longer. The US has a 50-50 chance of slipping into a downturn within the next 12 months, the New York Fed estimated in its latest recession forecast.

• A group of Democratic lawmakers and advocates called on the Education Department to end MOHELA's contract.
• They cited servicer failures, including inaccurate billing, as reasons the company should no longer service borrowers.
• The Education Department has already withheld pay from MOHELA for failing its obligations.

Less than a year into the return to student-loan repayment, some Democratic lawmakers and advocates have seen enough: They want the Education Department to fire servicer MOHELA.

One month after federal payments started back up again in October after an over three-year pause, MOHELA — which services about 8 million borrowers — was the first servicer to have its pay withheld after the Education Department found it failed to send on-time billing statements to over 2 million borrowers.

Since then, borrowers have continued to cite issues with the company, including hourslong hold times to reach customer service. Some borrowers have even been notified by MOHELA that the loan forgiveness they received last year was reversed due to the company's errors.

That's why, on Wednesday, a group of Democratic lawmakers — including Reps. Ayanna Pressley, Ilhan Omar, Greg Casar, and Sen. Ed Markey — joined advocates in calling for the Education Department to end MOHELA's federal contract.

"It is time to stop their contract. It is time to fire them. It is time to listen to the borrowers that have been speaking up about the struggles that they are facing and it is time for us to do the right thing," Omar said during a press conference. "We are asking the administration to take this step forward because it is past time that we listen to the borrowers that have been suffering under the incompetence of MOHELA."

Business Insider first reported in April that the Education Department was transferring over 1 million borrowers from MOHELA to new servicers, with Federal Student Aid saying that MOHELA "requested these transfers and FSA, as part of its work to ensure borrowers receive the best service and support, agreed to this"

Pressley said that she applauds those transfers, but millions of borrowers remain under MOHELA's contract, and that should not be the case.

"Enough is enough. Terminate MOHELA's contract and put loan services on notice: we will not tolerate your negligence and exploitation; we will not let you profiteer off vulnerable student borrowers," Pressley said.

The Education Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment from BI. A MOHELA spokesperson told BI that "borrowers are not better off when outside groups spread false and misleading information about our work as a federal contractor for FSA. We remain committed to continuing to provide the highest quality of customer service to the borrowers that we serve."

In April, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren held a hearing investigating MOHELA and its management of the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program. While she invited MOHELA's CEO Scott Giles to testify before the Senate, the company declined on his behalf, instead offering private briefings to address any lawmakers' concerns.

Prior to the April 10 hearing, MOHELA said it has already been "actively engaged in conversations with the Subcommittee and has offered its cooperation in addressing any questions and concerns by participating in a series of bipartisan briefings on the identified areas of interest about student loan servicing."

Meanwhile, the Education Department has vowed to oversee all servicers, and it withheld pay for the remaining servicers in January because they failed to fulfill some of their obligations.

But Democrats have focused in on MOHELA — and they want it to go.

"There's an old saying, 'Never attribute to malevolence what is merely due to incompetence.' Well, MOHELA is both incompetent and malevolent in the way in which they have been handling the responsibility of young people's lives and their ability to plan for their future," Markey said. "It is time to fire MOHELA."