#immigration #prosperity #workforce
Believe it or not, to quote the first line of a newspaper editorial, “immigrants are not the enemy.”
The Tennessean newspaper in Nashville commented on reports compiled by the bipartisan Partnership for A New American Economy showing how immigrants are contributing to the workforce, tax rolls and the overall economy, the editorial reads. It was published in the Aug. 14, 2016, edition.
In Tennessee, the newspaper says, 300,000 residents are foreign-born, or nearly 5 percent of the state’s population. But, they make up 6 percent of the state’s workforce, the editorial says. In 1990, immigrants made up only 1.2 percent of Tennessee’s population.
The editorial cites some notable stats from the report:
• Immigrants annually earn $7.9 billion, pay $493 million in taxes and have the spending power of $5.9 billion.
• They make up 7.8 percent of entrepreneurs.
• They are 32 percent more likely to work than the native-born population (57.8 percent of employed immigrants vs. 43.7 percent of employed natives.)
• Immigrants make up 7 percent of jobs in science, technology, engineering and math (the STEM skills).
Meanwhile, in an article published in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Aug. 15, 2016, Tim Henderson of the Tribune News Service writes that many officials in small towns nationwide that have lost population in recent years are asking that refugees from the Middle East and elsewhere be relocated to their towns to take jobs they can’t fill, live in apartments and houses that are now vacant and to shop in local stores. The refugees will take the places of native-born residents who’ve moved elsewhere in large numbers.
Immigrants have basically gotten a bad reputation. Some see them as moochers, stealers of benefits and taking opportunities away from native-born Americans. The report, on which the Tennessean editorial was based, tells a different tale.
“(Undocumented workers) are demonized for their legal status, but overall they are giving back more to society than they are getting back,” the editorial says.
Undocumented workers, “though they don’t directly benefit from federal and state aid, but they annually earn $2.1 billion, pay $250 million in state and federal taxes and have $1.8 billion in spending power, “ the editorial says.
Immigrants do jobs native-born Americans won’t do. They are doing many highly technical jobs – not just manual labor – that relatively few native-born Americans are qualified for. Many get their training here, and overstay their visas.
The economic partnership that compiled the Tennessean report is aiming for sensible immigration reform.
It’s easy to blame immigrants, or something else, for one’s hard times.
It’s much more difficult to look for one’s own solutions to the hard times.
If you are looking for something to come into YOUR life that will change things for the betterment of you, there are many such vehicles out there. To check out one of the best, message me. You’ll see people from various races, and nearly all backgrounds, who have taken a step to turn their own lives around.
The economy is changing in ways that we can’t revert. One either has to accept that change and ensure that they can have what they want as the economy changes, or they can blame various people and institutions for their hardship.
If one thinks about it, one can only hope we all choose to accept and ensure. The next time you are working with, or being serviced by, someone who may not look or talk the way you do, know that the person is contributing greatly to the economy, and to the well-being of all of us.
Peter
Monthly Archives: October 2016
FRANCHISEE DRIVES FOR UBER AS HE WAITS FOR HIS FRANCHISE TO GROW
#Uber #franchisees #franchises
It appears Uber is more than a ride-sharing service.
It’s a good part-time job for those starting franchises and waiting for them to grow.
Lindsay Moore, reporter for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, discussed how one man, Erik Lingren, decided to go from unemployed, to a Menchie’s Frozen Yogurt franchise owner, while driving for Uber part-time.
The story was published in the August 7, 2016, edition of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
When one buys into a franchise, it can take a while before the franchise makes enough for the owner to make a decent living.
In Lingren’s case, he went from one store to two, employing 18 and planning to add another 12 to 15 employees, Moore writes.
Between working on his franchises and driving for Uber, Lingren works 60 to 65 hours a week, Moore writes.
Besides having to set up a franchise and wait for it to grow, there’s another rub. The average Menchie’s store costs between $229,557 and $425,310 in startup costs, Moore quotes from the company’s Web site.
Not everyone who suddenly loses a job has the ability to jump into a franchise.
If you’re at a crossroads in your life, or, as Lingren calls it, a bridge, but can’t just jump into a franchise, there are other ways out there to make money without having a traditional W-2 job, and without having to dump your life savings, or borrowed money, into startup costs. To check out one of the best, message me.
Here’s a bonus: you have the opportunity to build an income that could surpass that from a traditional franchise, without the employees, overhead, inventory and other headaches. The startup cost is nothing close to that for a Menchie’s franchise.
Lingren actually likes driving for Uber. Moore writes that he intends to keep his ride-sharing account active as his frozen yogurt empire expands.
As job security becomes elusive for many, it’s important, too, that while you are working you save as much money as you can.
Put the money you save into investments that are comfortable for you, and get good, trustworthy advice.
If you’re a fro-yo fan, or a fan of another type of franchise, the money you save could allow you to buy in, should your job go away.
Though it is admirable to help others by creating jobs for them, managing people can be difficult. Making sure your business has everything it needs can keep you up at night.
Working part time as a driver as you wait for your business to grow may not be ideal.
A better idea might be to participate in something you can do part time with little sweat while you still have a job, that could produce an income that would allow you to walk away with a smile if your job suddenly goes away.
Peter
DLEAYED RETIREMENTS DON’T HELP TROUBLED ECONOMY
#DelayedRetirement #retirement #OlderWorkers
In decades past, one worked in a job, or for a company for 30 to 40 years and retired with a pension, Social Security and, perhaps, a no-stress, part-time job.
Some fortunate ones retired earlier than the traditional age 65. A scant few worked past age 65.
Retirements opened positions for younger workers to move up, and the jobs they vacated were available for newer workers. That was helpful to the economy.
In the last few years, since the 2008 recession, that dynamic has changed. More people are delaying retirement, largely because the relatively generous retirement benefits of decades past have been cut, or have disappeared. Another reason is that more people are being forced out of good jobs ahead of when they wanted, or had planned to, retire. They end up taking jobs that pay a lot less, so they have to work longer and retire later.
Michael Molinski, a Paris-based economist and writer, discussed this topic in a column for USA Today. It was published July 24, 2016, in The Tennessean newspaper of Nashville.
“People in the U.S. are working longer and waiting longer to retire – often not by choice – and that could be bad news for our economy,” Molinski writes. He quotes a study done at the University of Paris-Sorbonne that says, in part, “the most productive group is the group of core workers (ages 25 to 54) right in the middle” of the barbell-shaped labor force, Molinski writes.
In other words, more older and younger workers, starting at age 15, are being pushed into the labor force, he says.
He adds that older workers can be, and often are, valuable mentors to younger workers. But the average age for retirement in the U.S. has jumped to 62 in 2014, up from 59 in 2010, he writes.
“As a result, our economy is less productive than it could be, and that trend is expected to continue for the next 35 years unless something is done to turn it around,” Molinski writes.
Actually, when the traditional work cycle was alive and well decades ago, life expectancy was a bit younger than it is now. So, more people have more energy and, at least in theory, get “old” much later in life.
That isn’t to say that everyone WANTS to keep working later in life. Most of us, unless we really love our jobs, want to retire as soon as we are able. Also, many of us do not want to be FORCED to retire before we are able.
The key to making the work cycle work for you is to be retirement-able as soon as possible. You might decide to keep working even if you can retire, or you may be forced to retire before you want to. The key here is to make whatever you do YOUR choice. Circumstances may hit you in the face, but if you have options, you can hit back.
One option is to save and invest wisely throughout your working years, starting at the youngest age possible. Another is to have a Plan B, at which you work part time during your working years that will help you save money and earn an income that could enhance your options. There are many ways to do that, for those willing to look for them. If you’d like to check out one of the best, message me.
Working longer because you want to is commendable. Working longer because you have to could be torturous. At the youngest age possible, everyone should be thinking about how to enhance his or her options as life, and the labor force, takes its turns.
If you are an older worker and are able to retire, perhaps you should think about the younger person who really needs your job. If you are a younger worker and see many people working past when you think they should retire, don’t resent them. Instead, learn from them.
Peter
THE MYSTERY OF PARADOX
#paradox #mystery #change
Want to jump past the competition?
Want to be a better you, so you can better help others?
Consider the mystery of paradox, which includes these five statements:
• We know how to work less and accomplish more
• We know how to go more slowly, and move more quickly.
• We know how to sell more with fewer salespeople and efforts.
• We know how to get customers to chase us.
• We know how to communicate more effectively, often without saying a word.
Authors Mac Anderson and John J. Murphy discussed this mystery, among other things, in their book, “Leapfrogging the Competition: 9 Proven Ways to Unleash Change and Innovation.”
Regardless of what you do, working hard can be a waste of time, if you are working hard at the wrong things. Effective people indentify the tasks they should spend the most time on, and focus on those tasks.
Working hard on “busy work” won’t get you where you want to go.
Sometimes it’s best, and more cost-effective, to have others handle some tasks while you focus on what will make you successful.
How do you determine that? What tasks, if you concentrate strictly on them, will put the most money in your pocket? Which tasks will help make you grow more as a person? As a leader, do you lead by empowering others, and helping them succeed? Or, are you a “boss,” who gives orders for others to carry out?
Are you stuck in old ways, that don’t seem to work anymore? Do you tell people, “we’ve always done it that way,” or “we’ve never done it that way?” In the long run, sameness is the fast track to mediocrity, Anderson and Murphy write.
“While we don’t have a choice about whether change happens, we do have a choice about how we react to it,” the authors write. “The choice really boils down to this – either we manage change, or it manages us.”
If you need your life to change, but don’t quite know how to go about it, be open to looking at different solutions. There are many ways out there to improve one’s chances of success, that may require one to look outside his comfort zone. To learn about one of the best, message me.
Perhaps you are a person whose life needs to change, but you don’t know it. If so, take stock of where you are and ask whether you are where you want to be. Chances are, you’ll discover that you are not where you want to be.
Anderson and Murphy offer this checklist for success:
• Determine which behaviors will drive your values forward, and communicate those to all your employees (or all concerned, if you have no employees).
• Make your core values the guideposts that shape your decisions.
• Take every opportunity to reinforce those core values every day.
• Lead by example, especially when the going gets tough.
Success awaits anyone who wants it, is willing to look for it and willing to do what he or she needs to do to achieve it.
Peter
BOOK THE UNREALISTIC
#dream #TheUnrealistic #ReturnTheRealYou
Book the unrealistic, and return as the real you.
This statement’s meaning may not be obvious on its face, so let’s break it down.
Book the unrealistic means to prepare for your dream as if you were booking a trip.
The unrealistic part comes from all those dreams your parents, teachers and other influences on you as a child told you were out of reach for you. After all, you had to think practically, aim for the secure and go for the known, tried and true, quantity.
You may have been told you were silly to think you could be, say, an actor, musician, star athlete etc., or even be wealthy. You had to think in terms of getting a good job, with good benefits and stay there until you retire. You were expected to eventually have a spouse, children and other obligations that such security will help take care of.
Today, much of that secure reality is gone. So, why not book the unrealistic? What have you got to lose?
It may take a while to get to your unrealistic goal, so take pleasure in the journey. You’ve booked it, but you may not know exactly when you’ll get on the dream vehicle. You can reserve a date, but you may have to cancel and rebook if your date arrives, but your dream has not yet.
The great motivator Jim Rohn defines success as “a progressive realization of a worthy goal.” Progressive may be the key word here. The journey may take you steps toward your goal, and may even force you to step backward away from your goal for a time. Those may be the failures you will encounter on your journey.
The second part of the statement calls for a return as the real you. That means you’ve taken the journey, after booking your unrealistic goal, reached your goal and now must return.
The variable here is that you may not return to the home, security etc. that you left. You may return to a different home. To borrow from a John Denver lyric, you might be coming home, to a place you’ve never been before.
Hence, we use the word “return” to mean to come back from the journey to the unrealistic that you’d booked a while ago. Some journeys are so good, you may never come back from them.
Bottom line is that it’s OK to dream. It’s OK to have goals that others did not wish for you. As long as your goals are worthwhile, as Rohn says, don’t let anyone stand in your way.
Perhaps you are looking for a method, or a vehicle, to get you to your goal. That might mean being open for something to come into your life that may be totally different from the kind of good things that your influencers may have wanted for you. If you are looking for such a vehicle, message me.
Life journeys are not always smooth, and not always pleasant. There can be rough roads, turbulent air, flat tires etc. If you understand that mishaps can befall you, but you can still have your eyes on the unrealistic goals you have booked, you are at least halfway there.
You can take pleasure in the journey, overcome the rough patches, and return with a sense of accomplishment. Remember, too, that such journeys are better when you take others with you. Trips are usually better when taken with friends or family.
So book the unrealistic, and return as the real you. Don’t go it alone, bring others. Return with the sense that the journey, however long, was worthy.
Peter