Monthly Archives: March 2019

Steps to take to help boost your financial and overall mental health. People often talk about how debt negatively affects your financial health, but what about your mental health? A recent study found that “perceived financial well-being is a key predictor of overall well-being.” The likelihood of having a mental health issue is three times higher among those who are in debt.

So why does debt negatively affect our mental health?

“As a society, we don’t typically speak kindly of people in debt.” explains Mackenzie Kingdon as licensed mental health counselor. A lot of labels swirls around about people in debt:failure, immature, impulsive… the list goes on.” It is easy for a person in debt to internalize those feelings, creating a part of their overall identity based upon these self-imposed labels.

A vicious cycle: Mental illnesses also contribute to financial stress. To make matters worse, studies show that people who struggle with existing mental illnesses such as depression, anxiety or even addiction are more likely to struggle with debt. Depression and anxiety make it harder for them to take action to eliminate debt.

1. Take care of your mind -seek treatment
2. Set up a budget (and stick to it)
3. Build your credit score
4. Establish an emergency fund

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Here are 15 more reasons why you should start your own small business today:

1. You have time. Yes, even you.
2. You have the money,
3. You have the courage.
4. You have the right connections.
5. You are never late to any party.
6. You can get people to listen to your ideas.
7. You have the skills.
8. You have plenty of great ideas (or can get them).
9. You can afford the risk.
10. You don’t have to wait for perfection.
11. You can do things differently (and enjoy it).
12. Your success isn’t assured (and actually that’s a good thing).
13. It’s not too hard (long journeys are hard – individual steps are easy).
14. You’ll be proud of yourself even if you fail (this time).
15. You can start a business in just a few hours.

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Many aspiring entrepreneurs believe building a widely successful business will just happen with the snap of the fingers.

Time to wake up.

Building a successful business in theory is very simple.

1. care about the customer
2. connect with the customer
3. create new customers
4. convince new customers
5. coddle your current customers

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Want to cure income inequality? Promote entrepreneurship. One of the most pressing issues for our society today is income inequality: The rich get richer while the poor struggle to access meaningful opportunities. Income inequality as a growing concern for our economic well-being. A parallel concern is the sense that the primary path to generational advancement — access to quality education — is increasingly a product of privilege given the skyrocketing costs. The beauty of entrepreneurship: if a new company is formed it hires people and creates jobs in its community. As it grows, people’s opportunities multiplies and wages rise. Inequality diminishes because people get pulled into to good jobs.

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Make the most out of your 401(k) plan by contributing as much as you can each pay period and ensuring you get your employer match. If you contribute 1% of you paycheck to your 401(k) and you employer will match if you contribute 2% you are not taking advantage of your employer matching policy. This is the biggest mistake employees make, second only to using their 401(k) as a piggy bank. Be informed of what you employer offers every year, since tax policies and laws are subject to change.

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Any improvement in financial literacy will have a profound impact on consumers and their ability to provide for their future. Recent trends are making it all the more imperative that consumers understand basic finances, because they are being asked to  shoulder more of the burden of investment decisions in their retirement accounts – all while having to decipher more complex financial products and options. Learning how to read financially is not easy, but once mastered, it can ease life’s burdens tremendously.

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Financial literacy is crucial to help consumers save enough to provide adequate income in retirement, while avoiding high levels of debt that might result in bankruptcy, defaults and foreclosures. Those with financial literacy plan for retirement and, in essence, have double the wealth of people who do not plan for retirement. Conversely, those with low financial literacy borrow more, have less wealth and end up paying unnecessary fees for financial products. In other words, those with lower financial literacy tend to buy on credit, and are unable to pay their full balance each month and end up spending more in interest. This group also does not invest, has trouble with debt and a poor understanding of the terms of their mortgages or loans. Even more worrisome, many consumers believe that they are far more financially literate than they really are.

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Economic inequality and racial inequality are fundamentally intertwined. During the last 50 years, a fairly large improvement in the relative position of African Americans was entirely undone by national economic shifts with no superficial connection to race. Going forward, high levels of overall inequality will make it harder to achieve racial income parity, since any improvement in relative terms means less in terms of dollars.

In 2019, several states have passed laws to increase the minimum wage to at least $10 per hour. These states have made significant wage increases:

1. California – $11 per hour
2. Arizona – $11 per hour
3. Colorado – $11.10 per hour
4. Virginia – $10.10 per hour
5. Alaska – $9.89 per hour
6. Maryland, Prince George County $11.50 per hour
7. Alabama, Mississippi – $7.25 per hour

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The changes in income distribution meant that reaching the middle class didn’t mean the same thing for African Americans as it did for social groups that climbed the income ladder earlier in U.S. History.

Of course, rising income inequality has hurt Americans of all races: even whites, the median income has declined by 14%. But because African Americans remain overrepresented among the poorer segments of society, economic shifts that have harmed almost everyone has also increase the average gap between blacks and whites.

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Starting in the 1970’s, changes to the economy and to public policy began concentration a larger and larger share of national income in the pockets of the richest members of society. Incomes for the middle class and the poor have stagnated: after adjusting for inflation, average incomes of the poorer half of society actually shrunk from 1968 to 2014, while incomes for the richest 1% almost tripled.

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