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Posts by Paul Costello1
The congratulatory greeting cards are nice, but let’s face it: When new grads rip one open, they really hope there’s cash or a check inside.
But what we should be giving graduates is something that will endure — financial knowledge — that will help them build lasting wealth.I
Since a lot of personal finance advice doesn’t change — even when the nation is freaking out about the possibility of a government default — I like to revisit the guidance I often give to new high school and college graduates.
It goes back to the poet-philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson’s complaint about our failing to teach students basic life skills: “We are shut up in schools and college recitation rooms for 10 or 15 years and come out at last with a bellyful of words and do not know a thing.”
How true that statement is, especially as it relates to money.
Here are six basic yet vital tips to help young adults keep their debt burden down and their net worth climbing.
I’m sure you’ve heard someone say: “Well, they said you need to buy a home to build wealth.” Or maybe: “Paying rent is a waste of money.”
They may say: “Don’t worry about paying off your college debt right away because it’s good debt. Invest instead.”
Who are “they?”
I’ll tell you who. Most often, it’s people with a biased interest in how you spend your money.
They are frequently wrong. They will contribute to your financial stress, making you feel you’re not succeeding fast enough.
Lenders and real estate professionals need home buyers. But until you are ready for such an expensive move, rent.
In certain high-cost areas, you may never be able to afford a home. And for some of you, that’s okay. You are not throwing money away when paying to put a roof over your head.
And yes, eventually, you want to invest so that you have a chance of your money beating inflation. But if you are leaving college with debt, tackle that first. You still have time to invest.
Referring to debt with an adjective is unhelpful. It’s just debt, and it can be destructive and oppressive if overused.
At aBerkshire Hathaway shareholders meeting, billionaire Warren Buffett was asked by a 14-year-old what financial concepts he would give young people who still have time to implement them.
Buffett, one of the most successful investors in the world, didn’t talk about how to pick the right individual stock, as many might have thought he would.
His first tip was about avoiding debt.
“If I had one piece of advice to give to young people … it would be just don’t get in debt,” Buffett said.
Financial aid letters don’t reveal the real cost of college
If you’re graduating college with studentdebt, don’t wait until you have to start paying back the loans (for federal loans, typically six months after graduating) to figure out what you owe.
The grace period is a time to practice. You need to feel the pressure of how those payments will affect your monthly budget.Share this articleNo subscription required to readShare
For whatever time you have before the payments kick in, put that monthly amount in a savings account. Get used to how it feels to have less to spend because of the loans.
What to know ahead of Supreme Court ruling on student loan forgiveness
Always look at the totality of what you’re borrowing. And by that, I don’t just mean whether you can handle the monthly payment and the interest you’re being charged.
What will that loan cost you in the long run?
Consider what else you could do with that money if you weren’t servicing debt all the time.
If you borrow too much for a car, that’s money you can’t invest. If your mortgage is too high, overextending your budget, you can’t build an emergency fund for when life happens.
Car payments are $1,000 for a lot of consumers. Here’s why.
Ever been in love?
Treat your budget like a love interest. Stay connected to it. Change when necessary and appropriate to make things work out.
If you don’t know the song “And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going,” go find it on YouTube. I like Jennifer Hudson’s version from the movie “Dreamgirls.”
Here’s howit starts: “And I am telling you, I’m not going. You’re the best man I’ll ever know. There’s no way I can ever go. No, no, no there’s no way. No, no, no, no way I’m living without you.”
Now replace the words “best man” with “best budget.”
That’s how you should view your budget.
No, no, no, no way you should be living without it.
7 bad money habits to ditch in 2023
Me: What’s your total student loan debt?
Young adult: I don’t know.
Me: What is the difference between your gross pay and net income?
Young adult: I don’t know.
Me: What’s FICA?
Young adult: I don’t know?
Financial illiteracy will keep you broke or impede your ability to grow your wealth.
I’m going to need you to know some things.
There’s a point in your life when ignorance about your personal finances is a choice, and it’s one that will not serve you well.
Children can say theydon’t know because they typically have parents or guardians who are supposed to know for them. But by the time you graduate from high school or college, you have to take responsibility and learn as much as you can about budgeting, credit, saving and investing.
You can no longer afford to say “I don’t know.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/05/31/money-tips-new-graduates/
By Katie ShepherdAugust 9, 2023 at 5:26 p.m. EDT
The unemployment rate hit a 33-year low of 1.5 percent in Montgomery County in June, according to preliminary data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, reflecting an overall decline in joblessness.
Preliminary numbers show unemployment reached 1.7 percent in Maryland, 2.5 percent in the Washington metro area and 3.6 percent nationally in June, significantly lower than the peaks experienced in spring 2020 as the pandemic upended the economy and cost millions of workers their jobs.Fast, informative and written just for locals. Get The 7 DMV newsletter in your inbox every weekday morning.
Solid, if slowing, job growth accompanied by low unemployment at the national level has raised hopes that the United States could avoid an economic downturn this year. And wages are rising nationally, too. Montgomery County Executive Marc Elrich at a news briefing on Wednesday lauded the milestone and credited county efforts to recruit new business, particularly life-science-related enterprises, and programs to educate and retrain workers as well as connect jobseekers with employers.
Elrich said the county, which is the third-largest bioscience hub in the nation, has built more than 1 million square feet in lab space since he took office in 2018. The county is continuing to expand its bioscience footprint with a $40 million investment in a partnership with the University of Maryland to construct an Institute for Health Computing that will focus on research related to artificial intelligence and machine learning.
“Even in the face of the economic trials of the pandemic, we’re seeing indications that our local economy is faring well and doing better than five years ago,” Elrich said.
While overperforming some national trends, Montgomery County reported a rising rate of office vacancy, an issue that has been highly publicized in the downtown cores of American cities but has also increasingly bled into the suburbs. Montgomery’s office vacancy increased by 4.6 percent in the second quarter of 2023 to 16.7 percent — a vacancy rate that outstrips the state of Maryland, at 12.5 percent, and the D.C. metro area, at 15.9 percent, according to data shared by the county executive’s office.
D.C.’s suburbs, not just downtown, are feeling the crunch of remote work
Across the D.C. region, only Arlington County and Fairfax County had a higher office vacancy rate than Montgomery over the last quarter, with 22.1 percent and 18.5 percent, respectively. The office vacancy rate is rising faster in Montgomery than in any neighboring jurisdiction, according to an analysis shared by the executive’s office.
Elrich also noted that unemployment numbers do not reflect the complete economic health of the county, which will need to build tens of thousands of new housing units to meet the needs of its growing population over the next two decades. The figure does not capture anyone who has given up on finding a job. Nor does the unemployment rate capture the quality of employment — it does not reflect how many workers are in minimum-wage or low-wage jobs.Share this articleNo subscription required to readShare
“The other side of the housing crisis is actually a wage crisis,” Elrich said.
Several economic conditions, including strong income tax revenue and a rising minimum wage set by the county that hit $16.70 for businesses with more than 50 employees this year and $15 for most other employers, indicate that wages are also rising as unemployment is dropping, he said. But the median household income in the county is $117,345 — far out of reach for workers earning the newly raised minimum wage.
Elrich noted that county residents who may be working but only make minimum wage can hardly afford to live in an apartment with a $900 rent. “Good luck with finding that because they don’t exist,” he added.
In Maryland’s most populous county, a historically wealthy slice of the D.C. suburbs, about 8.5 percent of residents — nearly 90,000 people — live below the federal poverty line. Policymakers said Wednesday that they are focused on connecting people with programs to help.
“We want to make sure we’re engaging the [low-wage] population to make sure we keep moving the needle,” said Anthony Featherstone, executive director of WorkSource Montgomery, which connects jobseekers with new skills to make them more competitive in the employment market.
Bill Tompkins, president and CEO of the Montgomery County Economic Development Corporation, said efforts to continue improving the county’s economy cannot rest despite the positive signs that the worst impacts of the pandemic have now faded. He said his organization is targeting 5,000 companies for expansion into Montgomery County, with the hope of creating more jobs and filling office buildings.
“While things are looking good, and are looking better, we’re not letting up,” he said.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2023/08/09/montgomery-county-unemployment-low/
By Lauren Lumpkin, Karina Elwood and Nicole AsburyUpdated August 9, 2023 at 1:54 p.m. EDT|Published August 9, 2023 at 6:00 a.m. EDT
Dorothy Clowers arrived early at Dr. Henry A. Wise Jr. High School on a recent afternoon so that she could secure a good spot at the front of the gym. Around her, dozens of other elementary school administrators would also vie for recruits, hoping to fill about 1,500 teacher and 479 staff vacancies before the first day of school.F
Clowers, the principal of William Paca Elementary in Prince George’s County, Md., eagerly held on to a sign bearing her school’s name as prospective teachers walked by. She wanted them to know that her school was ready to hire a kindergarten teacher, two fourth-grade teachers and a part-time fifth-grade teacher, among other positions.
“Generally speaking, I don’t have to come to these looking for teachers. But when you have staff retiring, and you don’t have a plethora of candidates coming out of college, this summer has been different,” said Clowers, who has been to two other hiring fairs — or “paloozas” — hosted by the school district this year. “But we do have a few more weeks, and we have another palooza. And I’m hopeful that we will get the candidates that we need so that we will be fully staffed when students arrive at school.”
Clowers isn’t alone. Elsewhere in the D.C. region, other schools are trying to fill at least 800 teaching vacancies before students return to classrooms this month. The scramble comes after another year of climbing teacher resignations locally and across the country. While teachers nationwide reported that their well-being was better in January than in 2021 and 2022, 23 percent said they were likely to leave their jobs by the end of the 2022-2023 school year — citing factors including pay, stress and disappointment, according to a survey from the Rand Corp.
In most D.C.-area districts, more teachers resigned during the 2022-2023 school year than in the term prior, data shows. Alexandria saw 325 teachers leave last year, compared with 212 in 2021-2022. More than 500 teachers left Loudoun County Public Schools last year, up from 339 in the school year prior. In Prince George’s County, officials counted 1,126 resignations between July 2022 and this July — the district last year reported losing 989 teachers between June 2021 and July 2022.
D.C.-area schools see spike in teacher resignations
In Maryland’s largest school system — Montgomery County Public Schools — 625 teachers have resigned since the start of the 2022-2023school year, which is about 2.4 percent of the total workforce. In 2021-2022, 576 teachers resigned their positions, TheWashington Post previously reported.
“This is the problem that we run into each year, that we have vacancies that do not get filled and then we end up with classes that have to be combined,” said Jennifer Martin, president of the Montgomery County Education Association, the county’s teacher’s union. School district officials estimate that there are about 397 teacher and 591 support staff vacancies ahead of the upcoming school year.
Martin said she has heard of several teachers who are retiring earlier than they have to. She also said she has heard more often of younger teachers leaving for other professions with better work-life balance and pay. “There’s just a decision that people come to, that they’ve given all they can give, and they’re not getting the satisfaction from the work that they deserve for the effort they’re putting into it,” Martin said.
Elsewhere in the region, however, Arlington has reported a decrease in resignations — from 284 during the 2021-2022 school year to 164 last school year.
“I’m encouraged with the progress that we’re at a better place at this point than we had been in previous years, particularly given the situation nationally and even in our region with regards to very, very high vacancies for school systems around the country,” Arlington Superintendent Francisco Durán said at a recent school board meeting, adding that classrooms were 97.5 percent staffed with licensed teachers.
Fairfax County Public Schools, which has the largest public school enrollment in Virginia, lost 726 teachers last school year, a decline from 896 in 2021-2022.
Meanwhile, D.C.’s public school system reported 360 resignations last school year — an average of roughly 37 resignations per month, according to district officials. Between January and June 2022, 372 teachers quit their jobs, The Post previously reported, about 62 departures per month.
The trends in the D.C. area follow patterns in other parts of the country, with some districts faring better than others — producing a “mixed picture” of the teacher shortage crisis that has troubled schools in recent years, said Randi Weingarten, president of the 1.7 million-member American Federation of Teachers.
“We still have a huge shortage. We’re still hovering around 300,000 people leaving a year and not having enough people who want to come into the profession. We have retention problems. We have recruitment problems. We have respect issues all over the place,” Weingarten said.
But there are bright spots. “Places that have done contracts that focused on not just wages, as important as that is, but also [those focused on] working conditions and on the freedom for teachers to teach and have some input … those places are better,” Weingarten said.Share this articleNo subscription required to readShare
D.C. is one of the districts that reached a long-awaited labor contract with its educators this past year — an agreement that provided the city’s 5,000 traditional public school teachers with a 12 percent raise over four years, retention bonuses and other benefits.
“Teachers are so invested in the work they’re doing and they want to be teaching, they want to stay in the classroom,” said Scott Goldstein, a former teacher and the executive director of EmpowerEd, an advocacy group. “A lot of them just need a little bit of hope that things are going to improve.”
The D.C. Council also passed a budget this year that includes a provision for a flexible schedule pilot program, aimed to give teachers more freedom throughout the school day. And the city’s new “Grow Your Own” initiative is being designed to develop high school students and paraprofessionals into licensed teachers.
But there is still room for improvement, Goldstein said, from retaining more Black male teachers to providing educators with more mental health support. And citywide — across D.C.’s traditional school district and its charter campuses — teacher retention fell from 74 percent between the 2020-2021 and 2021-2022 school years to 70 percent between 2021-2022 and 2022-2023 — a figure that had not been seen in the city since before the coronavirus pandemic.
D.C. is also keeping a smaller share of its teachers in both sectors overall — 20 percent either left their jobs or changed roles between 2021-2022 and 2022-2023, compared with 15 percent the year prior and 13 percent after the pandemic started.
To fight teacher shortages, states send people to college for free
A former elementary teacher at a high-poverty elementary school in the city’s Ward 7 said students’ behavioral issues are, in part, driving teachers out of schools.
The former teacher, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because she still has friends in D.C. Public Schools and is worried about them facing possible scrutiny, said she was once bitten so hard by a student that she bled. When she sought help, however, she said leaders blamed her classroom management skills and offered little support.
“I do think kids have picked up on the fact that nothing is going to happen,” said the teacher, who now works in construction as a project manager. She noted that her new job has an environment of “support and teamwork.”
Jacqueline Pogue Lyons, president of the Washington Teachers’ Union, said she is concerned about the staffing gaps.
“I get nervous when I see large numbers of teachers leaving, in particular in Ward 7 and Ward 8 or in underserved schools and underserved communities,” she said. “It’s hardest to replace those leaders.”
School leaders elsewhere in the country are also struggling to fully staff their campuses. One Louisiana parish is short 200 teachers, a local news station reported. From Maine to California, officials are getting creative in the final days of summer to fill outstanding gaps.
At one Delaware elementary school, teachers have left in droves, said Christina Betts, who has been an educator for more than a decade. “People wouldn’t believe what happens in my classroom,” Betts said, referring to unchecked behavioral issues that teachers often have neither the time nor resources to adequately address.
Her school is also in need of bilingual educators. Many of her students speak Spanish, but she does not. “I just use a lot of pictures,” she said. “We’re just expected to do what every other teacher in the district is expected to do, which is kind of ridiculous.”
Other districts have fared better. Weingarten, of the national teacher’s union, pointed to Cincinnati Public Schools, where leaders have reduced the number of open positions by more than half, the local outlet Fox 19 reported.
The southwest Ohio school district holds recruitment events where educators can get hired on the spot and offer a starting salary for first-year teachers that is $15,000 more than what the state recommends.
“We’re still in a teacher shortage crisis, but it’s not the 10-alarm fire that it was last year or the year before,” Weingarten said, with the exception of political hot spots, such as Florida. If schools “work on pay, conditions and [giving teachers] some autonomy to address real student needs, they’re seeing both an increase in the number of certified people who are applying for jobs and they’re seeing people stay.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2023/08/09/dc-area-schools-teacher-resignations/
