This is a pretty cool idea. It's an online contest about work. There is one very simple catch. Your entry has to be six words.

Taking Twitter-like brevity to a new extreme of economy, the Mercer consulting firm and SMITH magazine have launched a global competition, seeking user-generated content about the world of work.

Each two-week phase of the contest will focus on a different aspect of your relationship to your job, including reflections on your best boss, what inspires you and what you have learned at work.

The first phase of the contest focuses on "why I do what I do," and already has resulted in some inspired entries:

• Began a cynic, became an idealist.
• Love my co-workers. (Don’t have any.)
• I get paid to have opinions.

But we think you can do better. Here are a couple of ideas from a colleague:

• When 5 comes, I am gone.
• At least I have a window.
• My boss sits far from me.

Five-year-old SMITH, which has made a franchise out of its six-word memoirs, including its website, T-shirts and books, plans to co-publish a book with Mercer featuring the winning entries from Britain, Canada and the United States. You can submit your six-word entry at their website, and in our comment section below.

Entries submitted to the contest website will be judged by Gretchen Rubin, author of "The Happiness Project," and are eligible for prizes including an iPad 2. Entries submitted in our comment section are eligible for all the the glory of appearing on TODAY.com.

TODAY Money expert Alexa von Tobel joined us for a live Web chat Wednesday morning after the show's Money 911 segment.

Here’s one of her answers to questions from the live chat. See below for the full Q&A and video of the Money 911 segment.

Shirley asked:

"Good Morning, I'm 47, with a 15yr old daughter and have lost everything with that I mean I have no savings, some debt, no child support, nothing for retirement. I’m a currently unemployed with small amount coming from unemployment but on the hunt. How can I start over and what would be my best option. I hear about Roth IRA but I have no clue what it is or where to get one. Please advise me how best to plan for a brighter future Thank you."

Alexa von Tobel replied:

"Hi Shirley! It sounds like the best thing for you to focus on is finding a new job that will pay the bills. I want you diligently hunting for a full-time or 2 part time jobs that can help you bring in more money. That's the most important thing you can do right now."

Here's the complete archive:

If you have a question for our TODAY Money experts, submit it here.

To sign up for an e-mail reminder for our next chat, click here.

First off, boss, if you are reading this, we NEVER do this.

Secondly, if you are among the more than one-third of the adult U.S. population that gets less than seven hours of sleep a night, you might want to read up.

Lifehacker offers up some tips on how to catch some shuteye at work (and a very pertinent video of George Costanza sleeping under his desk). Among the points covered:

• Use your private office.
• Make use of blinds.
• Wear sunglasses.
• Use your car.
• Use the bathroom.
• What to do if you get caught.
• Ask for permission.

We're not sure about all of them (our bathroom at work certainly isn't set up for naps). Especially the ask for permission.

Do you ever steal a nap at work?

(Thanks for fark.com's biz page for pointing it out.)

Here’s a sign of a slightly improving economy: It appears some companies are starting to worry that employees - many of whom have endured several years cutting budgets and perks while adding workload - will jump ship.

About 40 of the approximately 100 human resources executives recently polled by outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas said they are growing more concerned that competitors will poach their top workers as the economy improves.

About half said that’s always a concern, even in a recession. But you can’t necessarily do much about it when the economy is in the doldrums. About 60 of the 100 companies polled said they had to reduce or eliminate employee perks due to the recession.

Now, with the economy slowly improving, about 40 of the HR executives said they are bringing some perks back, and nearly 20 said they have reinstated all of them. About 25 have introduced new perks.

We hear a lot about low-cost ways to make employees happy, but HR professionals appear to know a new coffee machine isn’t going to make your best salesperson stick around. Nearly 80 of the 100 said performance bonuses – that’s right, cash – is the best way to keep the most talented workers from moving on. A 401(k) plan, vacation or personal time and flexible schedules also ranked high among ways to retain the most talented workers.

 Related content:

You're working harder, they're making money

Biggest loser for factory jobs? Not Detroit

Where the health insurance is

With the legalization of gay marriage in New York — which comes just in time for wedding season — you may be pondering what to get the happy newlyweds in your life. 

May we suggest a subscription to Netflix, a nice lunch at Subway or an Amazon.com gift card?

A new report from YouGov BrandIndex finds that those companies, along with Google and YouTube, are among those best perceived by lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender shoppers.

YouTube and Google ranked first — but you can’t exactly put those brands’ products on a wedding registry since most are already free. Netflix, Amazon.com and Subway were next, following by Whole Foods, Disneyland/Disney World and the iPhone.

YouGov BrandIndex daily surveys about 5,000 shoppers daily. To get this list, the company looked at positive and negative perceptions of various brands among people who identify themselves as gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender.

It got slightly different results when they ran the same test for the overall adult population. For the broader group, Subway ranked first, followed by Lowe’s, Ford, Amazon.com and Netflix. YouTube was No. 13 on the list, and Google was No. 7.

YouGot BrandIndex declined to disclose which companies LGBT shoppers perceived as being the worst.

Here's the full list of popular brands. 

YouGov BrandIndex

A big battle is brewing between the automotive industry and Washington.

The White House wants cars and trucks to average 56.2 MPG by 2025, but the leaders of the major automakers are not happy about the idea.

Watch the video above for more on the issue from CNBC’s Phil LeBeau.

Members of Generation X, especially those without college degrees, are increasingly spurning marriage in favor of cohabitation, according to a report published Monday.

Marriage is still far more common, with 58 percent of adults aged 30-44 married as of 2009, compared with 7 percent living with an opposite-sex partner, according to the study from the Pew Research Center.

But cohabitation rates have doubled over the past 15 years, and the marriage rate has plummeted among those without college degrees, according to the study. In 1995, 63 percent of adults in the 30-44 age bracket without degrees were married, but by last year that had fallen to 56 percent. Meanwhile the cohabitation rate doubled from 4 to 8 percent.

The cohabitation rate also doubled among those with college degrees, from 2 to 5 percent, but the marriage rate remained almost unchanged at 71 percent.

The report underscores the apparent economic advantages of marriage, especially for those with less formal education. Individuals who lacked a college degree but had a spouse had median household income of $65,800 in 2009, compared with less than $50,000 for those who were cohabiting or listed as living with “no partner.” The advantage held even when adjusted for household size. (The Pew report was based on Census data, which did not account for same-sex couples.)

College graduates, of course, had far higher median household incomes — $110,000 for those who were married and $95,400 for those cohabiting.  But when adjusted for a typical three-person household, the Pew Center figured that cohabiters actually had a higher median income than married couples.

Marriage still seems to confer some economic advantages on the college-educated, however. Only 2 percent of college-educated married adults aged 30-44 lived in poverty as of 2009, compared with 9 percent of those cohabiting and 7 percent of those living without partners.

Poverty rates were far higher for those without college degrees, but married couples enjoyed a significant advantage there, too.

The anemic economy has left millions of Americans out of a job, and often for long stretches at a time. A new survey from Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies takes a look at how they are getting by.

Transamerica enlisted polling firm Harris Interactive to survey 668 people who had been fully employed but are now unemployed or underemployed, meaning they are working part-time but would like to be working full-time.

Not surprisingly, the most common source of funds were savings and unemployment benefits, with half of those surveyed reporting that they rely on each of those. About one-third also reported relying on credit cards and/or a partners’ income.

More than 20 percent said they had withdrawn money from a retirement account, and 19 percent reported taking a loan from a friend or family member.

The respondents could choose more than one source of income.

People who had been out of work for a year or more were much more likely to have withdrawn money from a retirement account and/or started relying on credit cards.

It should go without saying that a big spell without work can leave a person feeling nervous about when – or if – they can retire. Two-thirds of those surveyed said the recession had left them less confident in their ability to achieve a financially secure retirement.

Retailers and financial institutions, take note: Tomorrow’s customers are wary of you.

A new poll finds that more than 7 in 10 teens believe businesses try to trick them into spending more than they should. In addition, 6 in 10 think credit card companies entice people into taking on more debt than they can handle.

They don’t seem to be big fans of Wall Street, either. Only about one-fourth of the teens polled disagreed with this statement: “The stock market is rigged mostly to benefit greedy Wall Street bankers.”

The University of Arizona commissioned The Financial Literacy Group to poll nearly 900 high school students in 18 high schools for the survey.

In an e-mail, the Financial Literacy Group said that although it had not previously polled teens on their perceptions of financial institutions, the fact that adults’ views of banks have declined in recent years leads them to believe the financial crisis and recession has had some effect on the teens’ attitudes as well.

The survey also showed that the kids could stand to learn a bit more about personal finance.

More than half of the students surveyed didn’t realize that a high credit score is better than a low credit score, and the vast majority also weren’t aware that owning company stock is riskier than government bonds.

If you want to make a team smarter, just add women -- that’s the key finding of new research by management professors Anita Woolley and Thomas Malone.

This month’s edition of Harvard Business Review (HBR) reports on a study by the two academics who aimed to find a reliable measurement of group intelligence.

Woolley and Malone randomly assembled 18 to 60-year-olds into teams and had them solve a complex problem. After team members brainstormed, made decisions and completed visual puzzles, they were given an intelligence score based on their performance.

The study’s findings showed that the difference between low scoring and high scoring teams had nothing to do with an individual's intelligence, but rather with an individual's gender.

“It’s a preliminary finding -- and not a conventional one,” Malone, who is the founding director of the MIT Center for Collective Intelligence, told HBR. “The standard argument is that diversity is good and you should have both men and women in a group. But so far, the data show, the more women, the better.”

While researchers have replicated their findings twice, another researcher who worked on the project was hesitant to flat out say that groups of women are smarter than men.

“It’s not that I don’t trust the data. I do,” Woolley, who is a professor at Carnegie Mellon University, told HBR. “It’s just that part of that finding can be explained by differences in social sensitivity, which we found is also important to group performance.”

She said studies have shown that women tend to score higher on tests of social sensitivity than men do, so what's really important is to have people who are high in social sensitivity, whether they are men or women.

Researchers also defined what makes a group intelligent: listening to one another, sharing constructive criticism and having open minds.

"And in our study we saw pretty clearly that groups that had smart people dominating the conversation were not very intelligent groups," Woolley said.

While it can be difficult to significantly change an individual's intelligence, it's possible to change a group's intelligence by changing members or incentives for collaboration, Malone told HBR. He hopes that as they continue their research, they will begin to unlock the secret of how to increase the collective intelligence of companies, countries or the whole world.

Until then, you may want to make sure you have more women, or more “socially sensitive people,” on your team.

TODAY

TODAY Money expert David Bach, author of the book "Debt Free for Life," joined us for a live Web chat Wednesday morning after the show's Money 911 segment.

Here are two of his answers to questions from the live chat. See below for the full Q&A and video of the Money 911 segment.

Jessica's question:
Hi David! My husband and I are both in our early 40's and have no real savings or retirement money set aside. Is it too late? What type of accounts should we have besides our employer's 401(k) plans? 

David's answer:
Of course it’s not too late! I wrote a book called Start Late Finish Rich, because this is the number one question I get every single day. It's only too late if you don't get started. 

The first thing you need to do is pay yourself the first 15 percent of your gross income into your 401(k) plans. This will help you catch up.

You also need to start building an emergency account, and then focus on saving for a home. Sounds like a lot but you can do this, and you can get started today.

Michelle's question:
Good Morning! I am a teacher who currently does not have a summer job. I have about $18,000 in credit card debt. Any suggestions on how to get my debt down? The interest is killing me. 

David's answer:
Michelle, my best advice is to work this summer -- go find that summer job. I know they are hard to find, but there has to be something out there you can do (even if it's babysitting). Your best bet to pay down debt is to earn more money and then use it to pay down your debt. 

I would try also and see if you can transfer high interest rate credit card debt to a lower interest rate card. Go to a website like CreditCard.com or Credit.com and review other offers, but read the fine print on transfer fees. You can also try and renegotiate with your current credit cards.

I cover all of this in detail in Debt Free For Life, which you can get details on at FinishRich.com. Good luck!

Complete archive:

If you have a question for our TODAY Money experts, submit it here.

To sign up for an e-mail reminder for our next chat, click here.

Watch this week's Money 911 segment:

We’ve written about how the recession has caused some to delay having kids and others to put off getting divorced. So it should come as no surprise that unemployment – a major factor in the current economic doldrums - also would play a role in whether people get married.

Two websites, yourtango.com and Forbes Woman, recently polled 625 of their readers and found that 75 percent of them would not marry a man who was unemployed.

The good news for lovelorn guys: Many of these women also appeared to be holding themselves to the same standard. The websites said 65 percent of the women surveyed also wouldn’t get married if they themselves were unemployed.

Although the reader survey may not reflect all women’s attitudes toward marriage, it fits with recent trends toward delaying major life events because of the long recession and weak recovery.

Last fall, U.S. Census researchers speculated that more people may be shacking up because of the high unemployment rate.

In addition, the Centers for Disease Control has reported a decline in the marriage rate between 2004 and 2009, the most recent data available.

Those who are putting off tying the knot may end up waiting a while. The unemployment rate stood at 9.1 percent in May, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and the median duration of unemployment was a hefty 22 weeks. 

From the “they needed a study for this?” dept.:  Undergrad biz majors need to get over themselves.

The Harvard Business Review reports on a recent study that showed business majors scored much higher than psychology students in an index that measured how narcissistic they are. No word on why they decided to compare them to the psych students.

Far be it from us to pass judgment on the kids. Maybe they’re just preparing for the real world.

"Our future business leaders appear to be even more self-absorbed and entitled" than other students not in business school, the researchers reported.

Sounds like our current business leaders.

The daily deal frenzy appeared to reach a crescendo a few weeks ago when Groupon – the company most associated with the group coupon model - announced plans for an initial public offering.

Now, a new study is raising concerns about some possible pitfalls of the daily deal model of offering steep discounts, mostly from local retailers and restaurants, for a limited time.

Utpal Dholakia, an associate professor of management at Rice University, surveyed 324 businesses in 23 markets who had participated in daily deals with Groupon, LivingSocial, OpenTable, Travelzoo and BuyWithMe.

He found that the good deals for consumers weren’t always good deals for businesses.

A little more than half of the businesses Dholakia surveyed made money on the deals, while a little more than one-fourth said they lost money and the rest said they broke even.

That might not be so bad for retailers, if they thought they’d gain a new customer or make money in other ways. But the retailers said about 36 percent of users spent beyond the deal's value, and only about 20 percent of customers returned for a full-price purchase.

About half of the retailers said they’d run a deal again, while around 20 percent said they would not, according to the study. About 30 percent were unsure.

The fact that some retailers aren’t clamoring to do another deal could be a red flag for the daily deal companies, whose business model depends on companies who are willing to provide the deals.

Another potential problem: Dholakia’s survey found that more than 20 percent of the people who bought the deals never actually used them.

Groupon has impressed retail industry watchers with its astounding growth – the company has more than 80 million users, and more than 7,000 employees, even though it has been in business less than three years.

But some also have worried about how well the company can sustain its success, and make money. Groupon has lost hundreds of millions of dollars since it was founded, which is one of the arguments against investing in Groupon’s stock.

Nevertheless, an intriguing mix of deep discounting, web-based marketing and local business support has clearly touched a nerve for many people. It’s also spawned a massive influx of daily deal companies, including Living Social, Google Offers, a Facebook deal site and countless other niche players.

The crowded field appears to have few loyalists. Dholakia noted that the vast majority of the businesses who responded to his survey said they would consider doing a deal with another daily deal site, rather than sticking with the one they’d already used.

“Overall, our findings lead us to conclude that there are relatively few points of differentiation between the daily deal sites, making it harder for any one site to stand out from the others,” Dholakia wrote.

TODAY Money writer John Schoen joined us for a live Web chat Friday afternoon about the state of the economy.

"The mood appears to be worsening, leading to a concern among economists and others of a self-fulfilling prophecy -- that worried consumers will slow spending, further hampering the recovery and perhaps raising the risk of a double-dip recession or at least yielding years of sluggish growth," John wrote in the intro of the chat. Read John's full article on the subject here: http://on.today.com/kcdptM

Here are two questions from his chat and the complete archive:

Barbara H.'s question:
It does seem to me that the quickest way to get the economy going again is to have a strong housing market. That seems very problematic at this time.

John's answer:
Housing is definitely a major roadblock. Since the 1930s, we haven't had an economic recovery without a housing revival. The problem is that the process of mortgage defaults and foreclosures is playing out in slow motion - until the large supply of foreclosed homes comes down, housing will remain stuck in recession. If we could figure out how to prevent those defaults and keep people in their homes, we could speed up that process.

Jacky Lai's question:
If the economy is not productive and if people do not have enough money in hands, what is the next step and solution?

John's answer:
The economy is growing - it's just not growing fast enough.

It's worth taking a minute to drill down on the word "recession." Many readers use the word loosely to describe a lousy economy - jobs are hard to get, house prices are falling, wages aren't rising. That's fine. But we use it more narrowly - if the economy is expanding quarter after quarter, that's not a recession. (The economy is not "receding.") Today we have both of those conditions - very slow growth that's not coming fast enough and can't put enough people back to work nor get the housing market off the bottom.

It's also important to recognize that the U.S. economy is a $15 trillion machine with a lot of moving parts. Some of those - like housing - are still in a deep recession. Many small businesses are still seeing business dry up. So when growth is this weak, parts of the economy - or regions of the country - can be in recession even though the entire economy is moving ahead slowly.

Complete archive:

If you have a question for our TODAY Money experts, click here.

To sign up for an e-mail reminder for our next chat, click here.

When you're doing well at work, your marriage suffers and when you're happy with your significant other, your career must be failing.

Many of us buy into this school of thought, but according to recent research, balancing work life and family life doesn't have to be a zero sum game.

Social psychologists studied 169 newlywed couples over the course of four years and measured their workload, work satisfaction and marital satisfaction.

For couples who didn't have children, the results were fairly predictable. When husbands had a higher workload, they were happier in their marriage, and so were their wives.

"A husband's hard work is part of being a good husband," said Benjamin Karney, one of the study's researchers and a professor of social psychology at UCLA.

Wives are happy when husbands are hardworking because this is consistent with "the husband role," he said. The couples were even more satisfied with their marriage when husbands were happy at their jobs.

But when couples became parents, the roles changed and so did the levels of marriage satisfaction.

When husbands became fathers and had a higher workload, their wives were less happy. Now that husbands are being asked to fulfill an extra role, work does interfere, Karney said. Work gives you an excuse not to be a dad, while the wives are left at home to take care of everything, he added.

"It's much more difficult to balance the roles of husband, father and employee," he said.

Another finding that came as a surprise was when the mothers' workload did affect the marriage, it added to a couple's marital satisfaction.

"We know that when moms are working hard, husbands have to step up and do more around the house," Karney said. "So we're thinking, when wives are working really hard, they're happier because husbands are contributing more to housework. Also it might be healing for moms to get away and have space from their kids."

The big takeaway is this: If your work is consistent with your gender role and you like the work you're doing, then there's no reason your career has to take away from your marriage, Karney said.

The advice Karney would give to couples is be aware of all the different roles you're trying to meet.

"And maybe cut each other a little slack when you're having difficulty," he said.

Pew Research Center

There’s been plenty of talk lately about the cost of college, and whether it’s worth it.  But here’s another interesting question: What’s the main purpose of a college?

It turns out, we’re pretty divided on this point.

The Pew Research Center surveyed about 2,000 Americans and found that 47 percent think the main purpose of college is to teach work-related skills and knowledge. But 39 percent say the main purpose of college is intellectual and personal growth. About 12 percent said the years we spend at an institute of higher learning should be devoted to both.

Interestingly, those with more education are more likely to view college as a place for personal and intellectual growth.

The average college student is stuck with about $3,200 in credit card debt while in school, a burden which can be heavier than a backpack full of science texts. So what's the best way for parents to keep kids' debt down before they reach age 21? The advice runs the spectrum from "just say no" to "get them a card as young as possible," and everywhere in between.

But there's little disagreement about this: Parents need to talk more to their kids about money, and about credit.  A new study published in April by the Junior Achievement Foundation found that 57 percent of 12- to 17-year-olds said their parents had never discussed money management with them. That's a recipe for disaster.

I hope this story will help eat into that terrible number. When do you think kids should get a credit card?  Before you have your say, here's what some experts think.

-----------------------------------------------------
Ongoing series: Red Tape Parenting Debates
-----------------------------------------------------

Financial guru Dave Ramsey offers one popular view: Credit cards are the root of all financial evil, and it's a terrible idea to give them to kids. 

"By giving a teenager a credit card, the parent — the one with supposed credibility — introduces a financially harmful substance and endorses its use, which is dumb but unfortunately very normal in today's families," Ramsey writes. "Parents must instead teach the teenager to just say NO."

Plenty of personal finance experts disagree, however.

"I view credit card usage as any other young adult's rite of passage, like driving,” said John Ulzheimer, president of consumer education at SmartCredit.com. “We all know eventually young people are going to use credit cards so instead of shying away from the issue I suggest hitting it head on. I think rather than waiting for your kid to get a card on their own, with little to no teaching on how to manage it, parents should consider giving them a card at 18, with strict usage rules and consequences for abuse. It's a lot more painless when your parents take corrective action than it is when a credit card issuer does the same."

Bill Hardekopf, who runs credit advice site LowCards.com, made sure all three of his children had credit cards before their senior year of high school.

"That way, we could sit down and talk to them about the ins and outs of the credit card industry … how the APR works, why paying by the due date is critical, how using a card correctly can help you build your credit score and how that can be beneficial down the road ... how you can use a credit card without paying any interest," he said. "In short, we wanted to observe them and train them on credit cards for a year while they were under our roof."

The argument against giving teenagers credit cards is obvious: If they don't have cards, they can't run up credit card debt. Today’s college graduates are saddled with devastating debt -- an average of $23,000 in student debt along with an average of $4,200 in credit card debt by the time they graduate.

Until recently, it was hard to keep cards out of college kids' hands, as many school allowed banks onto campus, where they would pitch young students hard on the benefits of plastic. The pitch usually included free pizza or some other enticing freebie.

But Congress heard the arguments against credit cards for kids during the financial reform debate, and now bans cards for those under 21 unless they prove a source of income or get an adult co-signer.

Ulzheimer thinks parents should seriously think about doing so, calling it a "credit card with training wheels."  Putting off the inevitable -- nearly all kids will grow up to be adults with credit cards -- will only makes things worse, he believes.

See previous story in this series, Should 10-year-olds use Facebook?

"Some people believe it's best to teach someone how to properly use something that they'll inevitably use rather than vilify it and force avoidance, which simply doesn't work," he said.

Many will find keeping their kids plastic-free is nearly impossible in the Internet age, where teen-agers increasing need credit, debit or gift cards to purchase clothes and music online.

Liz Weston, author of “The 10 Commandments of Money,” gave a more measured response, saying, "As with all things parental, it depends on the kid." But she thought it was important for parents to let their children start using a credit card while they still live at home, so parents can talk about all the important stuff: "How carrying a balance is idiotic, how much interest charges set you back, what a credit score is and how quickly you can trash it, that kind of stuff."              

Weston also favored a co-signed card, which gives parents control over how it's used and can be withdrawn at any time.

One thing all these experts agreed on: so-called "stored value" cards aimed at teenagers are a bad idea.  Products like VisaBuxx merely teach a kid the bad habit of swiping plastic to buy things without the corresponding pain of paying monthly bills. And these cards tend to have oppressive fees. The fee schedule for Wachovia's version of VisaBuxx, for example,  (you'll have to click three times to get to the fees declaration)  includes a 14-point service charge area describing $2 fees for each deposit onto the card, a $5 reissue fee every time the card expires, a $2 monthly inactivity fee and more. The card is marketed to kids 13 and older.

The only thing stored value cards accomplish is putting a hard stop on kids spending when the account runs out, something that parents should be able to enforce with a co-signed debit card.

"Prepaid debit cards stink," Weston said. "If they teach anything, it's how to get fleeced."

Hardekopf thinks the credit card discussion is part of a larger discussion that families need to have to help their kids become responsible adults.

"I think we do a great job training our kids,” he said. “We potty train them. We teach them how to ride a bike, to drive a car. But we do a bad job as parents training them how to handle money. And when you look at society, we don’t do a good job of talking about sex and money, two of biggest problems we all face."

What do you think is the right age to give a kid a credit card?

For a nice chart explaining the various plastic card options parents have, see this BankRate story. 

Follow Bob Sullivan on Facebook by clicking here. 

Comments begin below. Comment anonymously by sending an e-mail to BobSullivan@feedback.msnbc.com.    

We may not always like our family members, but many of us love them enough to make a major sacrifice: Working longer.

A new survey from TD Ameritrade found that more than half of all baby boomers – defined as those born between 1946 and 1964 - would be willing to financially support their adult children, even if it took away from their own savings goals, including retirement.

That’s not necessarily just a theoretical idea. The survey of about 1,000 adults found that 44 percent of boomer parents expect they will have to provide some financial support for their children, and most would feel obligated to help if they were asked. About half of the baby boomer parents also said they have had children 25 or over live with them for three months or longer.

The good news: The kids are more than happy to return the favor, even at their own expense. The survey found that 88 percent of Generation Y respondents and 91 percent of Gen X respondents would financially support their parents even if it took away from their savings and retirement goals.

Even if you aren’t helping out your kids or your parents, plenty of you will be working longer because of the recent recession.

The survey, conducted in March and April, found that around one-third of respondents have stopped or reduced their retirement savings as a result of the recent recession.

Plenty of us seem to be aware of the repercussions. About half of the approximately 1,000 adults surveyed said they plan to retire later than expected as a result of the current economic conditions.

We may not be saving enough, but we sure are fretting about it a lot.

A separate Gallup poll released Wednesday found that Americans’ biggest financial worry is retirement: 66 percent of us are worried we won’t have enough money for retirement.

We hear a lot about the difficulties moms face finding enough time for work and family life, but plenty of dads are struggling to juggle these obligations as well.

A new survey from Boston College’s Center for Work & Family – out just in time for Father’s Day – finds that working dads are dealing with many of the same issues working moms face – and a surprising number of them would consider chucking it all to stay home with kids.

The survey isn’t exactly representative of the population as a whole. It looked at 963 working fathers employed by four Fortune 500 companies. In addition, around three-fourths of those surveyed had at least a bachelor’s degree and earned more than $75,000 a year.

Still, the results were telling. Nearly six in 10 of the fathers surveyed said they had not been able to get everything done at home because of their job.

In addition, many of the dads surveyed seemed to want to be more equal parents than they actually are. Although 65 percent of dads surveyed said both parents should provide equal amounts of care, only 30 percent said they actually do divide care equally. In most cases, they said the other parent was the one providing more care.

Family clearly played a role in their work life decisions. More than nine in 10 said that if they were considering a new job, they would consider how much that job would interfere with their ability to care for their children.

Perhaps most surprising: Over half said they would consider being a stay-at-home dad if their spouse made enough for the family to live comfortably. 

Just in time for Father’s Day, we are told, and (somewhat) happy to report the perfect gift: Barbecue-scented perfume. Or cologne.

“We call it a fragrance, it’s for men and women,” Pork Barrel BBQ cofounder Heath Hall, says of "Que."

Hall and his partner are based in D.C. and are former Congressional staffers – Pork Barrel, get it? But they are serious about barbecue. After their boss lost his re-election bid, the “Missouri boys” stayed in the area and started marketing sauces and rubs.

It was slow going, but turns out that two veterans of political campaigns knew a bit about viral marketing. Pretty soon they were on reality TV (ABC’s “Shark Tank”) and winning regional competitions.

Yet when they attended a boutique foods exhibition in San Francisco, they had trouble getting their booth noticed. After the show they tried to come up with, for lack of a better term, a publicity stunt.

“We went back to the basics. Like the backyard barbecue that everyone goes to. You get out and you smell the barbecue. It’s inevitable someone gets out of the car and immediately goes ‘That smells good.’”

“Of course we had no experience in the fragrance world,” Hall says. And, working with an outside firm, they had some “early strikeouts.”

“Much less likely anyone would want them in their house, much less on their body,” he says.

But after a few months of research and a new fragrance contractor, they perfected the scent.

“And Ralph Lauren and Calvin Klein are beating our doors down trying to get the secret recipe,” Hall says. “Well, not maybe yet. But they will be!”

The company also has some would-be viral commercials for the scent on their site.

But the big question for Hall: What is barbecue? Carolina? Texas? Kansas City?

“Doesn’t matter,” Hall says.  “I don’t hold bias with barbecue.”

Spoken like a true politician.

John Makely / msnbc.com

Assembler Dennis Tabor at work at Viking Range Corp. in Greenwood, Miss.

Unless you live in Modesto, Calif., chances are there are fewer manufacturing jobs in your area than just a few years ago.

The Business Journals, a collection of local business journalism publications, recently crunched the numbers and found that 99 of the top 100 labor markets have lost manufacturing jobs over the past few years.

Want to see how bad things are in your area? The publication’s On Numbers column includes a sortable database of the major metropolitan areas, which shows how many jobs were lost in each area between 2008 and 2011.

Not surprisingly, the big losers are also some of the biggest markets, including Los Angeles, which was the biggest loser with a net loss of 89,900 manufacturing jobs since 2008. L.A. was followed by New York City, Chicago and Detroit.

The recession has exacerbated a long-term loss of manufacturing jobs in America, with more companies replacing workers with technology or moving production work overseas.

Overall in the United States, there were about 11.7 million people employed in manufacturing jobs in May, according to the most recent data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That’s about two million fewer than when the recession began in December of 2007, although it’s actually slightly more than a recent low at the end of 2009.

Related coverage:

Still Made in America

Spat over Boeing plant sparks political firestorm