Frida, a mother and baby company, has struggled to find ways of advertising its products without being censored for nuditiy.
Prisma by Dukas/Getty
Mother and baby company, Frida, has opted to use a porn actress in its product explainer videos.
It wants customers to have an uncensored view of how to use its pregnancy and postpartum care products.
The company has previously had social media posts and TV adverts rejected due to nudity.
A mother and baby company, Frida, has given up on working around censorship on social media and is turning to a porn actress to showcase its products instead.
After it released its perineum massager, a device designed to stretch the area between the vagina and the rectum during pregnancy, the company was flooded with messages and Amazon reviews asking how to use it, Chelsea Hirschhorn, CEO of Frida, told The New York Times.
But the company struggled to find ways to share how to use Frida products without TV networks and social media censoring them.
"Our brand is no stranger to censorship when it comes to women's health. Almost all the mainstream media we've tried to advertise on: censored, censored, censored," Hirschhorn said in an Instagram post.
Instead of working around nudity rules on social media, it doubled down and hired porn actress, Asa Akira, to demonstrate the products on its new website, Frida Uncovered.
The age-gated website shares uncensored 'how-to" videos like: how to do an at-home insemination, how to do a prenatal perineal massage, and how to soothe engorged breasts.
Akira, a mother of two, was chosen to take part in the videos as her career in porn meant that she was comfortable showing her body and face on camera, the Times reported.
''We deserve to know about our bodies," Akira told the outlet.
Instagram users have expressed gratitude for the new website. One user commented on a post by Frida: "I wish I had this sooner! Could've saved me from many dead-end Google searches."
Another commented: "We need these kind of educational videos because it shows us how it's really done."
The website offers a way for users to learn about the products in explicit detail instead of the company using euphemistic props to bypass nudity guidelines.
In 2020, Frida was set to air an ad during the Oscars featuring a visibly pained mother using the bathroom after having a baby. But the network ABC rejected the ad from airing as it said it was"too graphic with partial nudity."
Likewise, Frida had posts taken down from Instagram for showing female breasts, despite the post pertaining to women's health.
An oversight board told Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, last year that: "The restrictions and exceptions to the rules on female nipples are extensive and confusing, particularly as they apply to transgender and non-binary people."
The board is an advisory group of journalists, academics, and lawyers funded by Meta but which operates independently.
The board said that moderating internet nudity is "convoluted" and effectively "unworkable." Meta employs a mixture of human moderators and AI moderation to monitor posts, which can often get things wrong.
Elon Musk's mega pay packet will be taken back to Tesla shareholders for another vote.
The $47 billion package, first approved in 2018, was voided by a Delaware court in January.
A statement filed with the SEC Wednesday says Musk hasn't been paid for his work at Tesla in six years.
Tesla will ask shareholders to vote again on Elon Musk's enormous pay package, which was previously overturned by a court.
The carmaker announced its plans for another vote in a proxy statement filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday.
"Because the Delaware Court second-guessed your decision, Elon has not been paid for any of his work for Tesla for the past six years that has helped to generate significant growth and stockholder value," the proxy statement reads.
It adds: "That strikes us — and the many stockholders from whom we already have heard — as fundamentally unfair, and inconsistent with the will of the stockholders who voted for it."
Tesla said that when 73% of shareholders voted for the pay package in 2018, it was a "big risk" targeting "unprecedented growth."
But in January, a Delaware judge sided with a Tesla shareholder who argued in a lawsuit that Musk's pay package was excessive.
The compensation involved Musk receiving stock options based on financial targets. It played a major role in the Tesla CEO's rise to becoming the world's richest person. He is now ranked third by the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, behind Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, and luxury tycoon Bernard Arnault.
When the package was voided in court, it was worth $55 billion — but The New York Times reports it is now valued at $47 billion.
The second shareholder vote is set to occur at the firm's annual meeting in June, per the proxy filing.
Ukrainian soldiers in Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine, April 7, 2024.
Wolfgang Schwan/Anadolu via Getty Images
Russia is firing 10 times more artillery than Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said.
Russia also has 30 times more aircraft, he said, in a worrying sign for the country.
Ukraine is suffering critical shortages with US aid stalled, and has warned it may need to retreat.
Ukraine's president said that Russia is now firing 10 times more artillery shells than his country is able to, and has 30 times more aircraft, in a worrying sign for Ukraine's ability to sustain its military efforts.
"You need to be much stronger than your enemy. Today, our artillery shell ratio is 1-10. Can we hold our ground? No," President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told PBS this week. "With these statistics, they will be pushing us back every day," he added.
Zelenskyy also said that Russian aircraft outnumber Ukraine's by 30:1. "How can you wage a war against Russia like this?"
He added that unless aid from the US resumes, "we will have no chance of winning."
The US is the single biggest donor to Ukraine, but billions in further aid to Ukraine is stalled in Congress. Republicans have pushed back against giving more, even though much of the money would go back into the US economy, via US defense manufacturers.
Zelenskyy made it clear that it was ammo that his country needed the most.
"We're not asking for missiles for 2,000 or 3,000 kilometers, nothing like that," he said. "And nobody is asking for 500 aircraft or 300, like Russia."
Ukraine is suffering from a critical shortage of ammunition and weaponry that soldiers and experts say is having a major impact on the battlefield.
While many European countries have increased their help for Ukraine, and total aid from EU countries has been higher than that of the US, it is still not enough to make up the deficit from stalled US support.
Many European countries have also warned that they don't have enough supplies in their arsenals to give Ukraine and that not enough new munitions are being produced to resolve this.
Soldiers in Ukraine have told BI that shortages mean they have to ration ammunition and not go after some of the same types of targets they would earlier in the war.
"Ukraine has already defied the odds and beat the expectations within the first couple of months of the invasion. They've shown what they're capable of with limited resources," Jonathan Poquette said.
"How much more do they need to prove? Don't tie one of their hands behind their back. Support Ukraine, help us win this war," he added.
Whistleblower Sam Salehpour's concerns about the Boeing 787 and 777 were first made public last week.
Salehpour, a quality engineer, told NBC on Tuesday he believes all 787 Dreamliners should be grounded.
He added that he wouldn't put his own family on the planemaker's flagship widebody jet.
A Boeing whistleblower told NBC he believes all 787 Dreamliners should be grounded in an interview that aired Tuesday.
It was Sam Salehpour's first on-camera interview since his allegations were made public last week. He says that parts of the Boeing 787 and 777 were misaligned during production, posing safety threats.
Sam Salehpour, who has for Boeing for over a decade as a quality engineer, said he observed "shortcuts employed by Boeing to reduce bottlenecks during the 787 assembly process."
This could "significantly" reduce the lifespan of the plane due to metal fatigue and cause an accident, he added.
The 787 is Boeing's flagship widebody jet, which first entered service in 2011. About 1,100 have since been delivered to airlines around the world.
Asked by NBC whether Boeing should ground all the Dreamliners, Salehpour said: "I would say they need to."
"The entire fleet worldwide, as far as I'm concerned, right now, needs attention," he added.
He also told NBC that he wouldn't put his own family on a Boeing 787.
Salehpour is expected to testify in front of the Senate on Wednesday.
When contacted by Business Insider about Salehpour's comments, Boeing said it was "fully confident in the 787 Dreamliner."
"These claims about the structural integrity of the 787 are inaccurate and do not represent the comprehensive work Boeing has done to ensure the quality and long-term safety of the aircraft," it said.
"The issues raised have been subject to rigorous engineering examination under FAA oversight. This analysis has validated that these issues do not present any safety concerns and the aircraft will maintain its service life over several decades. We continue to monitor these issues under established regulatory protocols and encourage all employees to speak up when issues arise. Retaliation is strictly prohibited at Boeing."
Salehpour's comments come after another Boeing whistleblower raised his concerns about the 787. John Barnett was found dead with a "self-inflicted wound" last month, days after he started giving a deposition in a legal case against Boeing.
Ed Pierson, a former Boeing manager who worked on the narrowbody 737, told Business Insider he urged Alaska Airlines to ground its jets months before January's blowout.
Tesla laid off more than 10% of its workforce, a memo sent by CEO Elon Musk showed.
One worker who lost his job a month after joining Tesla told KVUE he couldn't pay his rent.
The layoffs follow a difficult first quarter for Tesla, which saw a 20% sales drop.
An employee who'd been working at Tesla for about a month learned he'd been laid off on Monday, local news station KVUE reported.
Ezekiel Love told the Texas-based station that he joined the EV maker a month ago to help assemble Model Y cars at its headquarters, but then received a termination letter on Monday, which KVUE included in its news segment.
Love said, "Wow, no warning at all. I don't have a job. I can't pay my rent."
He added, "They're supposed to be leading in innovation, I feel like that would have been the best opportunity for me to learn manufacturing."
Tesla CEO Elon Musk sent a company-wide email close to midnight on Sunday announcing the company was laying off "more than 10%" of the workforce, globally. He said in the memo that the job cuts were to prepare the firm for its "next phase of growth."
But some Tesla employees only found out when they arrived at work on Monday. As Business Insider's Grace Kay reported, security told some of the workers that if their ID badges didn't work, they were no longer employed.
The layoffs come after a difficult first quarter, which saw its sales drop 20% from the previous quarter.
Musk appears to be taking strategic actions to correct course. This includes quietly removing inventory discounts for its EVs in the US, as Tesla investor Sawyer Merritt noted on X.
Musk responded, "We are simplifying and streamlining the whole Tesla sales and delivery system. It has become complex and inefficient."
The Tesla chief is under pressure from investors as Wall Street "wants and NEEDS answers" next week on Tesla's investor conference call, Wedbush analyst Dan Ives said in a note Monday.
Ives said in the investors' call that Musk must present his "rationale for the cost-cutting, the strategy going forward, product roadmap, and an overall vision."
Musk announced his latest moonshot on X earlier this month and said Tesla would launch a self-driving taxi called "Robotaxi," which it would reveal on August 8.
In an X post on Tuesday night, he said he was "not quite betting the company" on autonomous driving, but that "going balls to the wall for autonomy is a blindingly obvious move."
Tesla didn't immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment made outside of normal working hours.
A millennial who moved from the South to Montreal says the quality of life is great but that he wants to return to his home state of Texas.
Dexter Linton
A millennial moved from the South to Montreal in 2015 to "get cultured" and attend graduate school.
He said food, safety, healthcare, and quality of life are the biggest perks of living in Montreal.
But he said he wants to move back to Texas for the weather, lower cost of living, and his family.
If you ask Dexter Linton, there aren't many downsides to living in Montreal. But it might not be enough to keep him there.
The 33-year-old sales professional grew up in Arlington, Texas, attended college in Kansas, and then landed a post-graduate internship in Georgia, he told Business Insider via email. In 2015, he decided to move to Montreal on a student visa to pursue a Master's degree in sports business management.
In addition to attending graduate school, Linton said one of the main reasons he moved to Montreal was to "get cultured" and experience something different. The city didn't disappoint him in this regard.
"It's extremely cultural, great food scene, safe, bilingualism is an asset," he said.
But Linton always planned to move back to Texas someday, and he said his feelings haven't changed.
In recent years, millions of Americans have moved south. Between July 2022 and 2023, South Carolina, Florida, and Texas were the three fastest-growing states by population in the nation. Business Insider has spoken with several people who've relocated to the South in recent years, both from other regions of the US and Canada. Weather, lower cost of living, and job opportunities were among the reasons they made their moves.
To Linton, both Montreal and Texas have their pros and cons.
Montreal has better healthcare and quality of life, but Texas has nicer weather and a lower cost of living
While Montreal's culture initially drew him to the city, Linton said there are several more reasons he and his wife might want to raise their family there rather than in Texas.
While lower housing costs, for example, have drawn some people to the Lone Star State, the demand uptick associated with a booming population has caused home prices to spike in recent years. Texas still has the perk of no state income tax.
Ultimately, Linton said being closer to his family — many of them still live in Texas — is a big reason he wants to move back someday. However, some of his wife's family lives in Montreal.
"You make your money in the US, and you get out before it's too late"
The timing of Linton's move back to the US is very uncertain. He said it would be difficult to relocate his family given his children are young, but that he hopes to move back sometime over the next decade.
In hindsight, Linton said he regrets moving to Montreal as early in his life as he did.
"If I knew what I knew today, I would have established myself in Texas, while making frequent trips to Montreal to visit my wife's family instead of vice versa," he said.
Linton recalled the advice of a friend, who told him, "You make your money in the US, and you get out before it's too late." Linton said the friend was alluding to strong economic opportunities in the US but insufficient support for older Americans — compared to some other countries — to help pay for healthcare costs in retirement.
"I wish we lived in Texas now and moved to Canada later in life," Linton said.
Have you recently moved to a new state or country and are willing to share your story? If so, reach out to this reporter at jzinkula@businessinsider.com.
Viewership for this year's NCAA basketball championship tournaments paints a clear picture of this evolving trend as the audience for the women's final game surpassed the men's final for the first time. There is also evidence of this shift in other areas, including merchandise sales and even the WNBA.
The 2024 women's NCAA championship game between the University of Iowa and the University of South Carolina drew 18.9 million viewers, according to the media audience measurement firm Nielsen. That was 28% more than the 14.8 million viewers for the men's matchup between Purdue University and the University of Connecticut.
The year-to-year ratings can be influenced by which teams and players are participating. However, using data from Nielsen and Sports Media Watch, we can see that the shift in popularity has been building for years — starting slowly in the late 2010s, right before COVID-19, and picking up speed this decade.
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In 2015 and 2016, the men's championship game averaged 23 million viewers, nearly eight times the size of the women's final, with an average of 3 million. Over the next three years, the TV audience for the women's final grew by 23% to an average of 3.7 million.
In the first two years following the cancellation of the 2020 NCAA basketball championships due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the women's final kept up momentum, growing by an average of 27%.
In 2023 and 2024, the women's game reached new levels, surpassing the men's championships thanks to the surging star power of some of the biggest names in the sport. That includes players likeIowa's Caitlin Clark — who appeared in both finals — and Louisiana State University's Angel Reese in 2023. Additionally, the University of South Carolina coach Dawn Staley this season.
Women's basketball popularity goes beyond championship game ratings
We have seen other evidence of women's college basketball's emerging dominance in the sports landscape.
According to data provided to Business Insider by ticket marketplace StubHub, there was more demand for the women's three Final Four games than the men's, with sales surging 20% faster for the women's games than the men's once the teams were determined.
In some cases, sale prices for the women's tickets were twice the cost of men's games.
On the eve of the Final Four matchups, tickets to the women's championship game had an average sale price of $370, compared to $180 for the men's final, according to StubHub. The cost for a ticket that admitted a fan to the Final Four and the championship was $700 for the women and $540 for the men.
Meanwhile, merchandise sales related to women's college basketball are also soaring.
And, in November, when Nike announceditwould be selling the college basketball jerseys of active players for the first time, three of the four inaugural athletes were women, including Clark, the University of Connecticut's Paige Bueckers, and freshman Juju Watkins of the University of Southern California. The only men's player was Bronny James from the University of Southern California, the son of LeBron James.
JuJu Watkins celebrates with USC fans following a win during the 2024 NCAA Women's Basketball Tournament.
Wally Skalij/Getty Images
We are also seeing evidence that the surge in the popularity of women's college basketball is also being felt at the next level, the WNBA.
The league announced record levels of popularity for the 2023 season in terms of TV viewership, attendance, and digital engagement. The growth of the TV audience was especially notable, as the WNBA's regular season saw a 21% increase compared to 2022.
After Clark was drafted with the first pick in the WNBA draft on April 15 by the Indiana Fever, her jersey was sold out in most sizes on Fanatics in the first hour following the announcement, according to Darren Rovell, founder of collectible media site Cllct.
The influence of NIL is being felt in women's sports
However, another factor could be the emergence of name, image, and likeness (NIL) deals, in which college athletes can be compensated for endorsements and merchandise sales.
In addition to the increased exposure of star athletes to a broader audience, many women college stars may be enticed to stay in college longer and grow their star power, saidBruce B. Siegal, a partner in the entertainment and sports practice group at the law firm Greenspoon Marder. The firm also counsels and represents the Anchor Impact Fund, a NIL collective that works with athletes at Vanderbilt University.
"I think that for a lot of athletes, it may take the pressure off to feel like you've got to go pro early," Siegal told Business Insider. "Why not continue in college knowing that you can earn revenue and help support yourself, help support your family, and most importantly, graduate and get the education."
While the men's tournament still commands significant viewership, the rise in popularity of the women's tournament signals a promising future for women's basketball at all levels. As more fans tune in to watch the women's game, it creates a platform for female athletes to shine on a national stage and inspires future generations of young women to pursue their athletic dreams.
Have you recently spent a lot of money to attend a women's sports event? Reach out to this reporter at cgaines@businessinsider.com.
A combination of wage and labor inflation pushed fast-food prices up during the pandemic.
Jonathan Knowles/Getty Images
Some diners now think fast food is a "luxury" as prices creep up, a California franchisee said.
A combination of wage and labor inflation increased fast-food prices during the pandemic.
Restaurants in California are raising their prices again to offset the state's $20 fast-food worker wage.
A California franchisee has warned that some of his customers think fast food is becoming a "luxury" as restaurants increase prices to cover the state's new $20 minimum wage for fast-food workers.
Brian Hom, who owns two branches of smoothie and Acai bowl chain Vitality Bowls in San Jose, told Business Insider that the price hikes could be scaring off diners.
"I've had some customers say: 'the cost of going out is so high now, I'm looking to buy my own ingredients and make my own food at home because going out to a fast food has become a luxury' versus 'hey, I want to go get something to eat now,'" Hom said.
"They have to think twice: 'Am I going to be able to afford it or not?'" he continued.
The new wage in California comes amid rising prices of fast food across the US more generally. A combination of wage and food inflation pushed prices up during the pandemic, and some diners say they're cutting down on how much fast food they eat because it's no longer affordable.
Hom said that his two stores had already changed their prices twice this year: He increased them by about 5% in January, when San Jose's minimum wage went up from $17 to $17.55 an hour, and then by between 5% and 10% on April 1, when California's fast-food worker wage came into force.
Other fast-food franchisees have also expressed concerns that raising prices to absorb California's new wage could push customers' willingness to pay to the limits.
"The appetite that my customers have for price increases is not unlimited," Scott Rodrick, a McDonald's franchisee with 18 restaurants in northern California, previously told BI.
Franchisees worry that some diners will turn to casual-dining chains like Chili's and Applebee's instead, some of which may offer a sit-down meal for only a few dollars more than fast-food restaurants. Some franchisees and analysts say they also expect people to buy more groceries, too.
"Fast food is generally supposed to be a less expensive alternative than going out … to a sit-down restaurant," Tony Nix, a 55-year-old cybersecurity consultant in California who says he typically eats out three times a week, told BI in March.
"But it's not becoming that at all. It's becoming as expensive, if not more," he said.
Is fast food no longer affordable? Email this reporter at gdean@insider.com.
On Wednesday, Gallup and the Lumina Foundation released a new report on the cost of college and how high education costs impact students' decisions to stay in school and make major life choices.
Based on surveys conducted from October andNovember 2023 with over 13,000 adults aged 18 to 59, the report found that cost is the "top reason" students currently enrolled in school consider dropping out. And 85% of respondentswho weren't enrolled in a programsaid the cost of a degree was the reason.
While six in 10 students currently enrolled in college said financial aid or scholarships are a "very important" factor in remaining in school, the student debt that often follows them post-graduation can significantly impact their ability to progress financially. For example, per the survey, 71% of currently and previously enrolled student-loan borrowers reported "delaying at least one significant life event because of their student debt," the report said.
Specifically, 29% of them delayed buying a home, 28% of them delayed buying a car, 15% of them delayed having children, and 13% of them delayed getting married.
And delaying life events didn't discriminate by student-loan balance, as the report found: 98% of overall respondents with balances of $75,000 or more reported pushing off those events, with 63% of respondents with balances less than $10,000 reporting the same.
"Especially given how many people have loans and how much [in] loans they have, it's really scary to me … that it will be hanging over a lot of people's heads for maybe their entire lives. I think it's cool that people are getting a college education, but I do worry about the financial repercussions," a currently enrolled student said in the report.
Business Insider has previously spoken to a range of borrowers who have struggled to pay off their student loans, having to make sacrifices in other parts of their lives. For example, one borrower told BI that he was unable to afford rent on top of his monthly student-loan payments, so he moved into a school bus to save money.
"While college was a great way for me to figure some things out, it was a really expensive way for me to do that," he said. "I wouldn't do that again. I would have gone into the trades. The student-loan debt is by far my biggest regret — it's too much money to let somebody borrow at 18 years old."
Many borrowers are also struggling to adjust to an additional monthly student-loan bill after the over three-year pause on payments during the pandemic ended in the fall. However, President Joe Biden's Education Department has implemented a range of targeted relief measures to ease the burden on borrowers, including a new income-driven repayment plan with a shortened timeline to loan forgiveness.
The Education Department is also in the process of crafting its broader version of student-loan forgiveness after the Supreme Court struck down Biden's first plan. The draft text of the rules was released on Tuesday, and the department expects to implement some of the relief as early as this fall.
Have you delayed a major life milestone because of your student debt? How has the burden impacted you? Share your story with this reporter at asheffey@insider.com.
Americans are discovering that their income can stretch much further in other countries, allowing them to save, pay down debts, and get ahead.
Juanjo Gasull for BI
Amelia Basista and JP Stonestreet call 2015 their "year from hell" — the final straw that sent them packing to South America. Stonestreet was 43 and working as a self-employed web developer when he began experiencing strange nerve pain in his hands, feet, and legs. After a frightening afternoon when he found himself struggling to walk, he got diagnoses of congenital spinal stenosis and degenerative disc disease, conditions that required two major spinal surgeries to correct.
During the nearly yearlong recovery that followed, Stonestreet was unable to work. Basista left her job as a regional sales manager to take a new sales role that allowed her more time at home while her partner recovered, but it came with a significant pay cut. As the couple's income plummeted, Stonestreet's insurance premiums soared to $1,200 a month.
"We realized we couldn't afford the mortgage and the car payments and everything," Stonestreet told me. "The conventional American lifestyle just wasn't in our reach anymore." The couple sold their house in Denver, but that wasn't enough to break even. Over the next year and a half, they hatched an escape plan. In 2017, the pair relocated to Cuenca, Ecuador, and continued working their old jobs remotely. Their monthly expenses dropped by 70%.
Basista and Stonestreet are part of an emerging cohort of Americans who, fed up with the cost of living at home, are seeking a better quality of life elsewhere. They swap advice on Reddit boards like AmerExit (57,000 members) and I Want Out (2 million members), consult with concierge relocation-service providers that cost a few hundred to several thousand dollars a pop, and teach others how to follow in their footsteps. They toss around terms like "geoarbitrage" (the notion of saving money by moving somewhere cheaper) and acronyms like FIRE (short for "financial independence, retire early," which is equal parts target and mantra).
Some, like Basista and Stonestreet, envision the move as the first step in a long-term plan that ends in a leisurely retirement abroad. Others are drawn to a digital-nomad lifestyle that allows them the flexibility and extra income to travel the world indefinitely on a remote paycheck. Either way, they're moving to save money for the future, to pay off debts, or to afford more of what life has to offer — all while propping up a cottage industry of companies catering to their every need.
It's tricky to know exactly how many Americans have relocated to other countries, let alone the details of when or why. But as of 2023, there were almost 161 million US passports in circulation, one for nearly half of all Americans. (A generation ago, only 10% of Americans had a passport.) The State Department estimated in 2020 that a total of 9 million US citizens lived abroad, up from an estimated 5 million in 2010 — though those numbers include dual citizens born and raised abroad. The nonprofit advocacy group American Citizens Abroad puts the figure closer to 4 million.
Americans work more, vacation less, spend more on healthcare, and die sooner than people in other high-income economies.
We do know, however, that the yearning is there. In a recent poll from Monmouth University, one-third of Americans said they'd like to settle in another country, compared with just 12% who said the same in a 1995 Gallup poll. In InterNation's 2023 survey of 12,000 expats from 172 countries, the US was the country of origin for the largest share of the expats.
The longing to move abroad will likely be unsurprising to anyone who has recently gasped over their weekly grocery bill or chipped in on an acquaintance's medical GoFundMe with a six-figure goal. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the average US household's monthly expenses jumped from $5,111 in 2020 to $6,081 in 2022. In a new Financial Technology Association survey, 61% of American workers indicated they were living paycheck to paycheck.
And for what? Though there's no question that Americans enjoy a higher material standard of living than most of the world, the nation measures poorly against its wealthy Western peers on several quality-of-life indexes: Americans work more, vacation less, spend more on healthcare, and die sooner than people in other high-income economies.
These factors likely explain why some Americans are moving to countries that aren't generally considered low-cost-of-living locales. Data from the global recruitment firm Deel suggests the UK, Germany, Canada, and France are among the top seven international destinations for American job seekers. In places with universal healthcare, government-subsidized childcare, and cultures that encourage a better work-life balance, your dollar can stretch further.
Maliya Fale, a 22-year-old digital nomad and content creator from Minneapolis, had been traveling through Latin America off and on for nearly three years when, in February, she left the US for good. "I'm genuinely going crazy having to live in a toxic American capitalist society," she announced in a TikTok video titled "Moving out of America."
When we spoke in March, Fale was staying in the coastal town of Puerto Morelos, Mexico, and scoping out her next move. She said that living abroad afforded her a degree of flexibility and spontaneity that would be out of reach back home. She supports herself with remote content gigs and follows whichever adventures come her way. "The cost of America is not going to allow me to do that," she told me.
Others who have followed similar paths say they've never looked back. In November 2015, the writer Cristina Johnson packed three suitcases and boarded a one-way flight from Pennsylvania to Belize. Johnson, now 53, has a disability that makes it difficult to hold down enough work to make ends meet in the States. In Belize, where her monthly expenses are a mere $250, Johnson has been able to build a home and save thousands while earning about $1,200 a month as a content-marketing copywriter. "I could not even venture a guess on how much I've saved over the years," she told Business Insider last year, "but even if I saved a million dollars, it would not be as valuable as the mental, emotional, physical, and psychological things I have gained."
It has never been easier for Americans to test international waters — particularly in countries where greenbacks can stretch much further than they would in a typical US city. More than 50 countries offer digital-nomad visas to remote workers able to prove they have enough funds to support themselves. Combine a strong US dollar with the relative ease of obtaining remote and gig-based work through freelancing platforms such as Fiverr and Upwork, and it's no wonder that Americans of all ages are open to weighing their options abroad.
Retirement wasn't even on our radar when we were still in the US.
Among the numerous companies that have cropped up to meet the burgeoning demand is Mexico Relocation Guide, based in Austin. Founded in 2019 by the husband-and-wife duo of Mariana and Dustin Lange, the company sells relocation guidebooks geared toward Americans who are interested in retiring early or reducing their cost of living without compromising on lifestyle.
"We are very careful not to give the false idea that people are going to live like kings on pennies, because that's not the case," Mariana Lange told me. "But people do see that they can increase their quality of life for the same amount, or even a lower amount, of money." She said that while some farther-flung destinations offer greater bang per buck than Mexico, her clientele of mostly 40-plus Americans see the country's relative proximity to their family and friends back home as a fair trade-off. Some are even able to keep seeing their primary-care providers in the US after they move. Since the pandemic lockdowns have subsided, Lange's business has boomed.
Business owners in other arenas have similarly taken note of the expanding global expat population. Mark Zoril, the North Carolina-based founder of the financial-planning firm PlanVision, began working with expat clients eight or nine years ago, helping them manage cross-border assets and save for the future while living abroad. Today, thanks in part to a high-profile endorsement from Andrew Hallam, the author of "Millionaire Expat," these clients account for a significant proportion of his company's business.
Zoril said most of his clients planned to remain abroad indefinitely, largely because of the high cost of returning. "They just haven't accumulated a lot of assets during their working years," he told me. "And so for them to come back to the States would be a challenge." He identified Central America, Portugal, and Spain as particularly popular destinations because of their relatively low costs of living and mild climates.
Though he hasn't noticed a change in the demographic makeup of his expat clientele — people in their 30s and 40s who don't have large savings and are working to support themselves — Zoril said that in recent years these customers have generally become savvier about researching and weighing their options, learning online about "where they can live inexpensively, how they can access cash, and how they can invest." He added: "They can join social communities with other people that are also living this way. They have a better support network of people they can reach out to and learn from before they go."
Expat life does come with its share of potential downsides. A lower cost of living often means significantly reduced earnings, which can impede someone's financial ability to return home. Cultural differences and language barriers add a layer of complexity and a risk of alienation.
For the people whose towns and neighborhoods have recently transformed into expat hot spots, the dynamic is especially fraught. On a visit to Lisbon this February, I was shocked by the relatively few locals I saw in the city's center, where swaths of housing have been gobbled up by foreign investors and absorbed into a short-term-rental market catering to international tourists, expat settlers, and waves of digital nomads. With residential-property costs up by nearly 30% over the past five years, both old and new residents of the Portuguese capital are feeling the squeeze.
Other expat destinations pose challenges of their own. Amid political unrest in Ecuador, Stonestreet and Basista swapped their adopted home for a semi-nomadic "slow travel" lifestyle in Europe. They don't regret leaving America, though. From their temporary perch in Tirana, Albania, the couple told me via WhatsApp that their only regret about moving abroad was not doing it sooner. Within three years of leaving the US, they said, they were able to pay off $60,000 in consumer debt and double down on saving for retirement.
"Retirement wasn't even on our radar when we were still in the US," Stonestreet told me. "We just assumed we'd work till we dropped. But life is short. Tomorrow's not guaranteed."
Kelli María Korducki is a journalist whose work focuses on work, tech, and culture. She's based in New York City.