Corporate tax rate overhaul may be part of a 'fiscal cliff' deal

WASHINGTON — Amid the wrangling over the so-called fiscal cliff, President Obama and congressional Republicans can agree on something: They want to lower the corporate tax rate.

The U.S. has the highest overall rate of any of the world's developed economies. It took the top spot in March after Japan reduced its rate, mimicking other countries that have lowered taxes to lure new businesses and keep existing companies from leaving.

Negotiations to avert automatic income tax increases and federal spending cuts scheduled to kick in Jan. 1 could provide the impetus for U.S. policymakers to tackle an overhaul of the corporate tax code next year.

The White House wants to put a corporate tax overhaul, along with changes to the individual income tax system, on a fast track as part of any deal to avoid the "fiscal cliff."

The centerpiece of an overhaul would be slashing the 35% corporate tax rate, a goal long sought by corporate executives and lobbyists.

Quiz: How much do you know about the 'fiscal cliff'?

"In the name of global competitiveness, I think that has largely been agreed to," Jim McNerney, chief executive of Boeing Co., said about how both parties view the need for major corporate tax changes.

In February, Obama proposed lowering the federal rate to 25% for manufacturing companies and to 28% for other firms. Rep. Dave Camp (R-Mich.), chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, has been pushing a plan to lower the rate to 25% for all corporations.

In both cases, the rate cuts would be accompanied by the elimination of some of the numerous tax breaks that allow many companies to pay a much lower effective tax rate — and sometimes to avoid paying any corporate taxes at all.

"The administration's position on this is very much in sync with what Republicans say they want, which is a lower rate and a broader base," said Jared Bernstein, a senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and the former chief economist for Vice President Joe Biden.

But there still are some obstacles to a deal.

Some Democrats want to use an overhaul to increase the amount of tax revenue coming from corporations, while Republicans want to keep the amount the same. The White House and congressional Republicans also differ on how the U.S. should treat money earned abroad.

And the business community itself is divided. Many small companies file taxes as individuals. They're opposed to any "fiscal cliff" deal that would raise their rates while giving corporations a rate reduction.

Analysts said the obstacles could be overcome because there is consensus around the broader point that the U.S. needs to bring its corporate tax rate in line with other developed nations.

"Regardless of your political persuasion, it is unquestionably the case that the nominal U.S. corporate tax rate is much higher than that of peer countries," said Edward Kleinbard, a USC law professor and former chief of staff of Congress' Joint Committee on Taxation.

The case for corporate tax reform got a boost when the overall U.S. rate of 39.1%, which includes federal, state and local corporate taxes, became the highest this year among the 34 nations in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Two decades ago, the U.S. was 13th.

"At one time in the '80s, we had a competitive corporate tax rate," said Dorothy Coleman, vice president of tax and domestic economic policy for the National Assn. of Manufacturers. "We've fallen behind by standing still."

Quiz: The year in business

But the rate in the tax code isn't what many companies pay because of a host of deductions and tax credits. In 2011, the effective corporate tax rate in the U.S. was 29.2%, roughly in line with the 31.9% average of the six other largest developed economies, the Obama administration said.

The White House said that parity does not mean the statutory rate shouldn't be reduced. It simply means that many tax breaks should be eliminated, allowing the rate to be lowered without adding to the deficit.

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Bronzeville among city sites seeking to land Obama library

The site where Michael Reese Hospital once stood isn't much to look at, just a 37-acre swath of overgrown land in Bronzeville, behind a shoddy chain-link fence.

Developers are itching to build a casino or perhaps a sports entertainment complex on the city-owned property located in the shadows of downtown near the south lakefront. But residents of this historic African-American community have something grander in mind.

They envision a Barack Obama presidential library.

"This area tells the story of Chess Records, gospel music, blues and jazz, electrified by Willie Dixon, Buddy Guy and Muddy Waters," said Harold Lucas, president of the Black Metropolis Convention & Tourism Council in Bronzeville. "When people come to Chicago, that's what they want to see. They want to see the birthplace of Mr. Obama's political career."

Though Obama has not commented publicly about his plans for a library, every president since Herbert Hoover has established an archive in his home state to house papers from his White House tenure. That means the race could come down to Chicago — the city Obama most recently called home — and Honolulu — the city where he was born.

If Chicago is selected, the next hurdle would be to determine where the facility would be built. An Obama library likely would not open before the end of the decade, but already it is a hot commodity because of the prestige and economic vitality it would bring to the community.

Bronzeville would have to join other potential bidders, including the University of Chicago, the University of Hawaii and developers of the old U.S. Steel South Works site on the Southeast Side, all with decidedly more political clout, financial resources and name recognition.

Because Obama is the first African-American president, his library would have unique historical significance and likely would become one of the nation's most popular attractions, according to experts on presidential libraries. It also would provide a platform from which Obama could continue or expand the work he began as president.

"Every one of the libraries is different and has a different mission. For the presidents who are still alive, it's a sort of home base," said Christopher Mooney, professor of political studies at the University of Illinois' Institute of Government and Public Affairs. "These libraries have become really important for historical and political science research and sort of a centerpiece for their post-presidency."

The Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library, affiliated with the University of Texas in Austin, set the standard for research facilities when it opened in 1971, Mooney said. The library holds more than 45 million pages of presidential documents, an extensive audiovisual collection and 2,000 oral history interviews.

That pales, however, to the collection at the William J. Clinton Presidential Library and Museum in Little Rock, Ark. His library, which opened in 2004, has more than 78 million pages of official records, 2 million photographs and 12,500 videotapes.

Since the John F. Kennedy Library and Museum opened in 1979, every presidential library has had some affiliation with a major university.

The Kennedy library is adjacent to the Boston campus of the University of Massachusetts, while the Gerald Ford library is on the campus of his alma mater, the University of Michigan; the George H.W. Bush library is at Texas A&M University in College Station; and the George W. Bush library will open in April on the campus of Southern Methodist University in Dallas.

The University of Hawaii, where the president's parents attended school, has made no secret of its campaign to lure the library to Honolulu. The Hawaii Legislature passed a resolution calling on Obama to choose the state for the library and a committee of government and civic leaders has been put in place to lobby for it.

The U. of C., where Obama was a member of the law school faculty for 12 years, is widely considered the front-runner, though university officials have been tight-lipped about its efforts. However, officials at the National Archives and Records Administration, which administers 13 presidential libraries, confirmed that the U. of C. has expressed interest.

A U. of C. spokesman raised the possibility that a presidential library could be built off campus. That would open the door, some South Side community leaders said, to enter into a joint venture with the university to obtain the library. Others, however, said they see the university as competition.

"Why does the university feel they have a right to it?" said Leonard McGee, president of the Bronzeville Alliance, a group of residents and organizations seeking to revitalize Bronzeville. "I'm not saying it's owed to Bronzeville, either, but why not provide an economic boon to a community that is deprived?

"If the university gets it, it's the same old game as usual. Where money flows, things go," he said.

Other communities also are looking to snare the library as an economic engine.

Developers of a proposed 125-acre residential and business community on the site of the former U.S. Steel South Works also would like the library as the anchor for a $4 billion lakefront project known as Chicago Lakeside.

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Reaction to the death of actor Jack Klugman

Celebrities on Monday reacted to the death of “Odd Couple” star Jack Klugman, who died Monday at age 90. Here are samples of sentiments expressed on Twitter:

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“R.I.P. Jack Klugman, Oscar, Quincy a man whose career spanned almost 50 years. I first saw him on the Twilight Zone. Cool guy wonderful actor.” — Whoopi Goldberg.

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“You made my whole family laugh together.” — Actor Jon Favreau, of “Swingers,” ”Iron Man” and other films.

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“I worked with Jack Klugman several years ago. He was a wonderful man and supremely talented actor. He will be missed” — Actor Max Greenfield, of the “New Girl” on Fox.

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“So sorry to hear that Jack Klugman passed away. I learned a lot, watching him on television” — Dan Schneider, creator of Nickelodeon TV shows “iCarly,” ”Drake and Josh” ”Good Burger,” ”Drake & Josh.”

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Title Post: Reaction to the death of actor Jack Klugman
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Gifts That Keep Giving (if Not Exploding)

Gregory Tobias/Chemical Heritage Foundation Collections

A Chemcraft set from the mid-1950s. More Photos »

Ask scientists of a certain age about their childhood memories, and odds are they’ll start yarning about the stink bombs and gunpowder they concocted with their chemistry sets. Dangerous? Yes, but fun.

“Admittedly, I have blown some things up in my time,” said William L. Whittaker, 64, a robotics professor at Carnegie Mellon University who unearthed his first chemistry set, an A. C. Gilbert, in a junkyard around age 8. By 16, he was dabbling in advanced explosives. “There’s no question that I burned some skin off my face,” he recalled.

Under today’s Christmas tree, girls and boys will unwrap science toys of a very different ilk: slime-making kits and perfume labs, vials of a fluff-making polymer called Insta-Snow, “no-chem” chemistry sets (chemical free!), plus a dazzling array of modern telescopes, microscopes and D.I.Y. volcanoes. Nothing in these gifts will set the curtains on fire.

“Basically, you have to be able to eat everything in the science kit,” said Jim Becker, president of SmartLab Toys, who recalled learning the names of chemicals from his childhood chemistry set, which contained substances that have long since been banned from toys.

Some scientists lament the passing of the trial-and-error days that inspired so many careers. “Science kits are a lot less open-ended these days,” said Kimberly Gerson, a science blogger who lives outside Toronto. “Everything is packaged. It’s either ‘yes’ or ‘no.’ If you don’t get the right result, you’ve done it wrong and you’re out of chemicals.”

Others, though, say the new crop of science toys — even with their cartoonish packaging and heavy emphasis on neon goo — actually represent progress. More entertaining, educational and accessible than earlier products, which relied heavily on a child’s inner motivation, these toys may actually help democratize the learning of science and introduce children to scientific methods and concepts at an earlier age.

“I grew up in the 1960s, and a lot of the chemistry sets were kind of boring,” said William Gurstelle, a science and technology writer. “You’d go through the book, and at the end of the experiment you’d get some light precipitate at the bottom of the beaker. Maybe at most it changes color or something.”

Mr. Gurstelle’s books, which include “Whoosh Boom Splat” and “Backyard Ballistics,” teach people how to make dangerous projectiles, like a potato cannon that uses hair spray as launching fluid. But he had high praise for commercial science kits, which show children (among other things) how to make slime.

Jeff Swensen for The New York Times

William L. Whittaker at the Planetary Robotics Lab at Carnegie Mellon University surrounded by the robots he has created.

“Well, that’s a pretty cool thing to have when you’re done,” Mr. Gurstelle said. “You’re not going to really learn to be a chemist from a chemistry set when you’re in seventh grade; you’re just going to be inspired. The point is that new chemistry sets and new toys are just better, because the manufacturers have figured out how to make them more fun.”

Some toy makers, like SmartLab, Mr. Becker’s company, have used this philosophy to give classic toys a makeover. One of SmartLab’s takes on a chemistry set, for instance, is the Extreme Secret Formula Lab, which comes with “squishy-lidded bubble test tubes” and “an abundance of glow-in-the-dark powder.” The game of Mousetrap has been re-envisioned as the Weird and Wacky Contraption Lab, meant to bring out children’s Rube Goldberg talents. And the slot car tracks that Mr. Becker recalls snapping together in his youth have been translated into a robot called ReCon 6.0, which children can program to roam around.

Mike Kane for The New York Times

Jim Becker of SmartLab Toys.

“What we do is give kids the opportunity to learn through problem solving,” Mr. Becker said.

Of course, technology has also remade the experience of learning science. Children may be more likely to click on a science app than to go play outside.

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Rumored iPad 5 to be thinner

By Chris O'Brien

1:03 p.m. CST, December 24, 2012

That iPad 3 you got last March? Forget it. It's like the eight-track tape  of tablets. (Kids: Ask your parents what that means.) Even that iPad 4 you're about to unwrap Christmas morning that you think is so darn new is about to become yesterday's news. 

At least, that is, if the latest iPad rumors are true. According to the Japanese blog Macotakara, the next iPad is due to hit in March. At which time, all previous versions of the iPad will feel like bricks.

QUIZ: What set the Internet on fire in 2012? 

The site reports that the fifth version of the iPad will be thinner and lighter than the last iPad. For those of you hoping that Apple's next version of the iPad would be heavier and clunkier, this is no doubt crushing news.

For the rest of the planet, however, this is pretty much what you'd expect from Apple. Macotakara says its sources say the next iPad will be 2 millimeters thinner and 17 millimeters narrower. 

If true, it marks a continuation of the accelerated product update cycle that kicked into gear this past year under Apple CEO Tim Cook. 

According to 9to5Mac.com, if the dimensions are correct, "The new supposed thinness would mean the next iPad is nearly as thin as the 7.2mm thin iPad mini."

Speaking of the Mini, Macotakara reports that Apple is cooking up a retina screen for the next iPad mini. 

Here's the real thing iPad owners need to fear: How long will Apple continue to support those older iPads? It already doesn't let owners of the first iPad download new versions of iOS. 

ALSO: 

Yelp's new weapon against fake reviews: User alerts

Google Maps returns to iPhone; iPad app coming soon

Scam watch: Fake news sites, smartphone viruses, BBB scam stopper

Follow me on Twitter @obrien.

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Bears alive heading into final Sunday

The defensive end after the Bears beat the Cardinals 28-13 on Sunday.

GLENDALE, Ariz. — They're alive.

Only because they faced an offense far more disjointed than their own were the Bears able to withstand another lethargic start. Jump-started by two defensive touchdowns — their first since Week 9 — the Bears trounced the woeful Cardinals on Sunday at University of Phoenix Stadium.

The 28-13 victory improved the Bears to 9-6 and kept them in the NFC playoff race. They need to win the regular-season finale against the Lions in Detroit on Sunday and have the Packers defeat the Vikings at the Metrodome to claim a wild-card spot. The Bears have won eight of their last nine vs. the Lions, who will look to be a spoiler while trying to get wide receiver Calvin Johnson 2,000 yards on the season. He needs 108.

The Packers will be motivated against the Vikings with a first-round bye and the No. 2 seed in the NFC on the line.

"I've always been a big Packers fan," Bears coach Lovie Smith said. "It's not hard at all for me. We have a tough division, but as we said this week, we can't do much about that. All we can do is get a win against Detroit."

Reserve cornerback Zack Bowman, playing against the Cardinals' heavy package, recovered a fumble by Beanie Wells for the first score of the game and Charles Tillman returned an interception 10 yards for a touchdown in the third quarter, the Bears' ninth defensive touchdown of the season, leaving them one behind the 1998 Seahawks for the most in NFL history.

Those plotting an end to the Smith era have to hold on now. Most consider it unlikely the Bears will have a housecleaning project under general manager Phil Emery if the club reaches the playoffs. Emery has spoken publicly only once since the season began, during the off week.

But the Bears are not going to go anywhere in the postseason if the offense doesn't find a level of consistency. Running back Matt Forte once again is nursing a right ankle injury as he was knocked out of the game in the third quarter after carrying 12 times for 88 yards, including a 4-yard touchdown. Wearing a walking boot afterward, he declared he would play against the Lions, but it is too early to know.

"With running lanes like that, you can make moves in the open field and get extra yards," Forte said. "It is unfortunate I had to leave the game, but I felt like we were really starting to roll in the running game."

Quarterback Jay Cutler missed on 10 of his first 11 passes, yet the Bears took a 14-3 lead while he was misfiring. Cutler put together a nice drive at the end of the second quarter, firing an 11-yard touchdown pass to Brandon Marshall, but that was about it for rhythm in the passing game. He finished 12 of 26 for 146 yards, but he didn't turn the ball over.

"It wasn't pretty," Cutler said. "I thought the offensive line did a great job. I missed a lot of throws."

Cardinals quarterback Ryan Lindley was benched for Brian Hoyer after the Tillman interception and the Cardinals struggled moving the ball at all, converting only three of 15 third downs. Julius Peppers had a season-high three sacks to give him 111/2, his most in three seasons with the Bears. The biggest play for the Cardinals was Justin Bethel's 82-yard return of a blocked Olindo Mare field-goal attempt.

So, the Bears, thanks in part to the Ravens' victory against the Giants on Sunday, have a chance as they prepare for the Lions. No one knew how they would respond after losing five of their previous six games. Their mantra has been that the playoffs already have started. That is why it wasn't surprising to hear the hollering through the cinder-block walls of the locker room afterward.

"We feel like we have new life," said cornerback Tim Jennings, who returned after missing two games with a dislocated right shoulder. "We forgot what it felt like to be in the win column."

The last time the Bears won in Arizona during the regular season, then-Cardinals coach Denny Green said to "crown their ass!" No one is going to crown these Bears, but they can't be written off either.

"We need some help," Marshall said. "But the only thing we can control is going out there and playing against the Lions."

bmbiggs@tribune.com

Twitter @BradBiggs

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How to Get Free Last-Minute Shipping

First, the bad news: the cut off for free shipping on most online sites was Tuesday, Dec 18^th. But the good news – we’ve got some sneaky ways to finagle free rush shipping and a list of sites still offering free shipping guaranteed to arrive before December 25^th.

Free Rush Shipping
Some of the biggest online retailers are still offering free last minute shipping:

• Barnes & Noble – free shipping on Nook HD through Dec. 22


• MacMall – free 2-day shipping on orders over $ 299 and under 25lbs – through 6 p.m. PST Dec. 22.


• Macy’s – free shipping on orders over $ 99. Place order 11:59 p.m. EST Dec. 20.


• The Northface – free 2-day shipping on everything through 11:59 p.m. Dec. 19.


• Walmart.com has extended free shipping through December 19^th on some items (check product page for eligibility)


• Overstock.com – free shipping on select gifts. Place order by Dec. 22 to receive by Christmas.


• Newegg   Free 2-Day shipping on over 200 items


• Target – free shipping on Daily Deals


• Victoria’s Secret – free shipping on orders over $ 100 using code “SHIP12.” Order by 5 p.m. EST on Dec. 20.


• Zappos – free shipping for all items with guaranteed Christmas delivery if ordered by 11:59 p.m. PST Dec. 22.

And the biggest of the big online retailers, Amazon, has a limited set of items available for free expedited shipping. These include jewelry, watches, clothing, video games, laptops, headphones, and kitchen items.

[Related: Great Gifts for Under $ 25]

But since many of the above deals are limited to select items, take a look at…

How to Get Free 2-Day Shipping on Just About Everything
Amazon Prime is a yearly subscription service. In exchange for a $ 79 fee, you get free 2 day shipping all year long. And yes, that also applies at Christmas (must order by 3 p.m. EST Dec. 22 to receive on time). Best deal is that you can get a free 6-month trial.

And here’s the real sneaky surprise: Do you have a family member who already belongs to Prime? They can nominate up to four people for the same free shipping benefits. Prime members nominate someone by going to their account, clicking “Settings” and “Manage Prime Membership.”

Also, Amazon Student is a free 6-month membership to Prime with all the benefits, providing you have an email address that ends in .edu.

But you don’t have to limit yourself to Amazon. Shoprunner.com also offers free 2-day shipping, though the membership service costs $ 8.95 a month – so not entirely free, but if you have numerous items still to buy, you could save a bundle.  And Shoprunner has tons of participating online retailers like Toys R Us, Sports Authority, Claire’s, PetSmart and EMS. Say you want to buy something from PetSmart.com, if you sign in with Shoprunner, many of the items on the site will be eligible for free 2-day shipping. One more thing to try: I was able to sign up for a free 1-year membership to Shoprunner using the promo code RUNNER. The site implied I had to be an American Express member, but it never asked for my details about the credit card, and now I have a membership. Good luck.

Ship to Store
Finally, the best last-minute option for many is to ship to store. You peruse all the options from home, pay online, and then pick up your selection at your local store. Tons of big retailers offer this service, and it guarantees your item will be in stock and waiting for you at customer service. Major retailers offering free Ship to Store include:

• Best Buy


• Target


• Toys R Us


• Walmart


• Sears

[Related: Best E-Reader for Under $ 100]

Brad Marshland contributed to this story.

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Reality TV star Bethenny Frankel and husband to separate

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Reality TV star Bethenny Frankel and her husband Jason Hoppy are separating, Frankel announced on Sunday.

“It brings me great sadness to say that Jason and I are separating. This was an extremely difficult decision that, as a woman and a mother, I have to accept as the best choice for our family,” Frankel said in a statement confirmed by her representative.

“We have love and respect for one another and will continue to amicably co-parent our daughter who is and will always remain our first priority. This is an immensely painful and heartbreaking time for us.”

Frankel, 42, and Hoppy married in March of 2010. They have a daughter, Bryn, who was born in May of 2010.

On Sunday, Frankel tweeted, “I am heartbroken. I am sad. We will work through this as a family.”

Frankel first attracted attention in 2008 on the reality show “The Real Housewives of New York City,” which chronicles the exploits of wealthy New York women. She went on to star in two other reality TV shows, “Bethenny Getting Married?” and “Bethenny Ever After…,” both of which centered on the couple’s marriage and child-rearing.

Frankel also founded the Skinnygirl line of cocktails, and has written several diet and self-help books. In 2012 she launched a talk show, “Bethenny,” which is set to air nationally in 2013.

(Reporting By Andrea Burzynski; Editing by Stacey Joyce)

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N.Y.U. and Others Offer Shorter Courses Through Medical School

Training to become a doctor takes so long that just the time invested has become, to many, emblematic of the gravity and prestige of the profession.

But now one of the nation’s premier medical schools, New York University, and a few others around the United States are challenging that equation by offering a small percentage of students the chance to finish early, in three years instead of the traditional four.

Administrators at N.Y.U. say they can make the change without compromising quality, by eliminating redundancies in their science curriculum, getting students into clinical training more quickly and adding some extra class time in the summer.

Not only, they say, will those doctors be able to hang out their shingles to practice earlier, but they will save a quarter of the cost of medical school — $49,560 a year in tuition and fees at N.Y.U., and even more when room, board, books, supplies and other expenses are added in.

“We’re confident that our three-year students are going to get the same depth and core knowledge, that we’re not going to turn it into a trade school,” said Dr. Steven Abramson, vice dean for education, faculty and academic affairs at N.Y.U. School of Medicine.

At this point, the effort involves a small number of students at three medical schools: about 16 incoming students at N.Y.U., or about 10 percent of next year’s entering class; 9 at Texas Tech Health Science Center School of Medicine; and even fewer, for now, at Mercer University School of Medicine’s campus in Savannah, Ga. A similar trial at Louisiana State University has been delayed because of budget constraints.

But Dr. Steven Berk, the dean at Texas Tech, said that 10 or 15 other schools across the country had expressed interest in what his university was doing, and the deans of all three schools say that if the approach works, they will extend the option to larger numbers of students.

“You’re going to see this kind of three-year pathway become very prominent across the country,” Dr. Abramson predicted.

The deans say that getting students out the door more quickly will accomplish several goals. By speeding up production of physicians, they say, it could eventually dampen a looming doctor shortage, although the number of doctors would not increase unless the schools enrolled more students in the future.

The three-year program would also curtail student debt, which now averages $150,000 by graduation, and by doing so, persuade more students to go into shortage areas like pediatrics and internal medicine, rather than more lucrative specialties like dermatology.

The idea was supported by Dr. Ezekiel J. Emanuel, a former health adviser to President Obama, and a colleague, Victor R. Fuchs. In an editorial in the Journal of the American Medical Association in March, they said there was “substantial waste” in the nation’s medical education. “Years of training have been added without evidence that they enhance clinical skills or the quality of care,” they wrote. They suggested that the 14 years of college, medical school, residency and fellowship that it now takes to train a subspecialty physician could be reduced by 30 percent, to 10 years.

That opinion, however, is not universally held. Other experts say that a three-year medical program would deprive students of the time they need to delve deeply into their subjects, to consolidate their learning and to reach the level of maturity they need to begin practicing, while adding even more pressure to a stressful academic environment.

“The downside is that you are really tired,” said Dr. Dan Hunt, co-secretary of the Liaison Committee on Medical Education, the accrediting agency for medical schools in the United States and Canada. But because accreditation standards do not dictate the fine points of curriculum, the committee has approved N.Y.U.’s proposal, which exceeds by five weeks its requirement that schools provide at least 130 weeks of medical education.

The medical school is going ahead with its three-year program despite the damage from Hurricane Sandy, which forced NYU Langone Medical Center to evacuate more than 300 patients at the height of the storm and temporarily shut down three of its four main teaching hospitals.

Dr. Abramson of N.Y.U. said that postgraduate training, which typically includes three years in a hospital residency, and often fellowships after that, made it unnecessary to try to cram everything into the medical school years. Students in the three-year program will have to take eight weeks of class before entering medical school, and stay in the top half of their class academically. Those who do not meet the standards will revert to the four-year program.

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Kraft targets men, millennials

The pot pie kit comes with pouches of Velveeta cheese, biscuit topping, vegetables and seasoning. The cook sautes chicken until done, then adds milk, vegetables and seasoning, and cooks for another minute. The chicken mixture goes into a baking dish and gets topped with the cheese. Finally, the biscuit mix, to which more milk has been added, goes on the very top. The Velveeta Cheesy Casserole is ready in about 18 minutes at 425 degrees.

Then there's Oscar Mayer's pulled pork that's sold in a clear plastic tub. It's precooked, shredded and seasoned. Kraft is selling the meat without the sauce so cooks can choose their own and add as much as desired.

These and other new products are part of Kraft Foods Group's efforts to attract new customers: millennials and men. The recession disproportionately affected men, who are now doing about 40 percent of the cooking, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Northfield-based Kraft has found that both groups are cooking more and looking for flexible recipes, ways to customize their food and have fun in the kitchen. So Kraft is updating its stable of mature brands in ways that appeal to them.

Millennials, age 18 to early 30s, are beginning to cook and don't want to do things like their parents did. So Kraft is offering more products that require some effort. Just not too much effort.

A Kraft study showed younger men cooking even more than their older counterparts — 42 percent of millennial men do all the cooking in the household, while 76 percent do at least some cooking. They also like to experiment with their dishes.

"Now they'll talk about cooking like guys would talk about a hobby 20 years ago," said Barry Calpino, vice president of breakthrough innovation at Kraft. "It's an adventure, it's an experience, it's fun, they talk about 'their signature.'"

Men feel they have more latitude as cooks, according to Robin Ross, associate director of culinary at Kraft. "Women want to please their families and for everyone to like what they make,'' she said. Men, she said, tend not to feel the same pressure. "Men have more of a free hand."

Kraft Foods, a $19 billion a year packaged North American grocery business, was spun off in October from Deerfield-based Mondelez International. Kraft CEO Tony Vernon promised mid-single-digit operating income growth rates for the company, and acknowledged it needs to develop new, more modern products for its brands and increase advertising support to make customers aware of them.

While Vernon hasn't released targets for his ad budget, Kraft has lagged competitors, investing the equivalent of 3 percent of sales toward advertising and marketing, compared with 4.5 percent of sales at competitors, according to the company.

During the company's most recent earnings call, Vernon underscored double-digit sales growth for Lunchables, Velveeta, and MiO, a liquid concentrate used to flavor water, citing new products and subsequent advertising. However, he acknowledged work to do with Jell-O, to capitalize on "yogurt's explosive growth," and with Planters "to re-establish category leadership and profitable growth."

On Friday, Kraft shares closed at $45.53, up 2 percent from the Oct. 1 spinoff.

Simply being a smaller company, Calpino said, means Kraft can lavish attention on brands like Velveeta, which hadn't seen much attention in decades.

"Five or six years ago, I'm not sure we'd do innovation reviews" on Velveeta, Calpino said. "It wasn't even on the list."

Phil Lempert, a supermarket industry expert, said the millennial generation poses challenges for big food companies, which are not known for rapid change. Companies like Kraft, he said, have to "keep it fresh, keep it changing." Young people, he said, "never want to wake up and have the same meal in an entire lifetime.'' He also said that unlike their predecessors, millennials are more interested in "ethnic foods and adventure than ever before."

Lempert said a lot of millennials' tastes are "being driven by food trucks,'' serving products like tacos with a few different meats with a level of high quality and bold flavors. In turn, that has raised millennials' expectations on everything from a restaurant meal to a box of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese.

Lynn Dornblaser, director of innovation and insight at Mintel International, said the fact that Kraft offers some of its new products like easy-to-use, three-pack sauce packets should be a hit because millennials love to cook, but hate to clean.

"Cleaning is a barrier to cooking from scratch," she said. It's the same for male cooks. Even making a white sauce for pasta, Dornblaser said, "you've got dishes to wash, measuring to do, steps to follow."

So products like Kraft's new Velveeta casseroles, pulled pork, Fresh Take cheese and bread crumb mixtures and Velveeta Toppers cheese sauce pouches "offer the ability for consumer to be a little creative with what they're cooking but without too much bother," she said.

Last year, Velveeta launched Cheesy Skillets dinner kits, the brand's biggest launch in more than 20 years. It's a stark departure for a brand best known for Shells & Cheese and its ability to melt over nachos. Consumers saute beef, add cheese sauce from a pouch, cook the pasta, mix, and add hamburger toppings such as shredded lettuce and diced tomato.

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