Tag: Jobs

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Rep .Scott Garrett Sponsors Bills to Assure Due Process with the SEC and give Main Street businesses new tools to to Access Capital Markets

scott garrett

Happy 75th anniversary to M&M’s! I’m proud to represent such an iconic American candy that is made right in Hackettstown! Such a source of New Jersey pride.

Financial Services Committee Passes Two Garrett-Sponsored Bills  

Bills would enforce Constitutional rights and give Main Street businesses new tools to succeed
Mar 2, 2016

the staff of the Ridgewood blog

Ridgewood NJ,  Today the Financial Services Committee passed two bills introduced by Congressman Scott Garrett (NJ-05), Chairman of the Financial Services Subcommittee on Capital Markets and Government-Sponsored Enterprises. The bills were H.R. 4638, The Main Street Growth Act, and H.R. 3798, The Due Process Restoration Act.

“One of the biggest concerns I hear from my constituents that the executive branch has run wild and Congress needs to regain control to protect the Constitutional rights of all Americans. For that reason, I’m pleased that today the Financial Services Committee passed my bill to restore the due process rights of all Americans by allowing them to have their case before the SEC heard by a federal court. I’m also happy to announce that my bill to allow Main Street businesses to raise capital by accessing public markets passed the committee. Because if we want to revive America’s economy, we need to give Main Street businesses the tools they needs to innovate and succeed.”

H.R. 3798, The Due Process Restoration Act Would:

Provide a mandatory right of removal allowing the defendant to request that the case be moved to a district court
Grant a right of removal to defendants who are subject to a cease and desist order and monetary penalty that the commission is seeking
Raise the burden of proof for cases that remain in the ALJ to a higher “clear and convincing evidence” standard

The Main Street Growth Act Would:

Authorize the creation of “venture exchanges” which would be registered as a national securities exchange with the SEC and be specifically tailored to list the shares of emerging growth companies and companies that issue shares under the newly finalized “Reg A+”
Exempt venture exchanges from Regulation NMS, Regulation ATS, and would be exempt from extending unlisted trading privileges to companies that list on them;
Subject venture exchanges to all of the existing anti-fraud and investor protection statutes administered by the SEC
Permit all investors— not just Silicon Valley billionaires or the well-connected—to invest in companies that list on venture exchanges.

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2016 Off To a Dreadful Start for Small Businesses in New Jersey

Senate President Sweeney_theridgewoodblog

Posted by Laurie Ehlbeck On March 01, 2016 2 Comments

By Laurie Ehlbeck

We haven’t even made it out of the first quarter of 2016 but there is already plenty for small businesses in New Jersey to be concerned about on the upcoming legislative calendar. Senator Sweeney and Speaker Prieto seem determined to continue to challenge the economic stability of our state by introducing bills to nearly double minimum wage, mandate all employers provide sick leave and attempt to convince the voters that a pension payment must be constitutionally required. Sweeney and Prieto are creating what may ultimately amount to the most hostile session in state history in terms of damage caused to the small business community.

When it comes to minimum wage it is imperative that as a society we are honest about what it truly is. Minimum wage is not now, nor has it ever been, a vehicle in which to feed a family 4. It is an entry level wage that is earned almost exclusively by teens and young adults seeking work experience and a smooth transition into a career. Raising the minimum wage again, especially to the rate of $15 will have one direct effect. It will result in a loss of job opportunities for those seeking to expand their skill sets. It will not alleviate poverty. It will not empower the middle class. It will leave teenagers wondering what to do after school.

According to a recent study, 63 percent of workers who earn less than $9.50 per hour are the second or third earner in their family and 43 percent of these workers live in households that earn over $50,000 per year. In spite of what the proponents would have you believe, minimum wage earners are not an impoverished, disenfranchised group of struggling single mothers just trying to make ends meet. Most are teenagers from middle class families and many more are sharing the responsibility of providing for their families, not breaking under the burden of putting food on the table.

https://savejersey.com/2016/03/small-business-new-jersey-paid-leave-minimum-wage/

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Congressman Garrett Visits Local Bergen County Tech Company Crestron

scott garrett creston

By Paul Nichols
Monday, Feb 22, 2016

Congressman Scott Garrett, the U.S. Representative for New Jersey’s 5th congressional district, met with employees of Crestron on Monday to tour it’s the company’s Experience Center located at its headquarters in Rockleigh, New Jersey.

Crestron, a global organization with more than 90 offices around the world, employs 1,500 employees from Bergen County and the surrounding area at its worldwide headquarters and campus in Rockleigh, New Jersey.

The campus includes the Experience Center, Research Center, manufacturing plant, pre-production facility, and distribution center.

The tour provided Garrett with an in-depth look into the world of Crestron and its award-winning, advanced control and automation technology. Crestron’s solutions have led the way for over four decades, supporting Fortune 500 companies, government organizations, leading hospitals, universities and prestigious homes.

The Crestron Experience Center combines the finest design with cutting-edge technology, for the ultimate immersive demonstration of its innovative solutions. Congressman Garrett saw firsthand how the company has evolved from a pioneer in A/V and control systems, to the world-class enterprise management company it is today.

https://bergendispatch.com/articles/37754650/Congressman-Garrett-Visits-Local-Bergen-County-Tech-Company-Crestron-.aspx

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More Americans than residents of Georgia draw income from gig economy

cell phones

BY TATIANA DARIE
BLOOMBERG NEWS |
WIRE SERVICE

It’s a job market revolution: an estimated 10.3 million Americans earned income through Web-based platforms like Uber and Airbnb between 2012 and 2015. That’s more people than reside in the entire state of Georgia and amounts to 6.5 percent of the total U.S. workforce.

So-called gig jobs, in which a person performs a task for another individual often through Web-based platforms, are often easier to land, and help generate additional income when regular earnings aren’t sufficient, according to a new study by the JPMorgan Chase Institute.

Participants in this economy are typically younger, with the 25 to 34 age group accounting for the largest part of the gig workforce. They are more likely to be male, live in the West and have an average median income of about $2,800 per month, according to the study.

The number of people earning income in the online economy over the three-year period of JPMorgan’s study increased 47-fold. Labor platforms, including ride-hailing service Uber, that connect customers with freelancers have grown more rapidly than capital platforms like Airbnb, which rent homes and assets or sell goods. Demand is also driving the growth as online service use becomes more common.

Now, “most people would know they can get their groceries picked up, they can get a ride from three or four different companies — things that only a year ago, only earlier adopters learned,” Diana Farrell, the institute’s founding president and chief executive officer, said in an interview. “It’s becoming more mainstream.”

https://www.northjersey.com/news/business/10-3-million-americans-worked-gig-jobs-1.1515503

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GROUP’S REPORT WARNS THAT NEW JERSEY IS IN MIDST OF MILLENNIAL OUTMIGRATION

moving-out

JOHN REITMEYER | FEBRUARY 16, 2016

Business-lobbying organization says brain drain makes it hard for state to attract cutting-edge companies that need younger, skilled employees

New Jersey loses a portion of its senior population every year to less-expensive — and less snowy — states like Florida and North Carolina. But a new study of outmigration trends issued by the New Jersey Business & Industry Association raises new alarms about the number of so-called millennials who have also been leaving the state.

Of all the age groups in New Jersey that experienced a net loss in population from 2007 to 2014, the highest rate was among people between the ages of 18 and 34, according to the business-lobbying organization.

That brain drain hurts the overall New Jersey economy and makes it harder for the state to attract the type of companies that rely on young, skilled workers, the association said.

The new data on millennials leaving New Jersey was included in NJBIA’s broader outmigration study, which concluded that the state had a net loss of 682,062 residents between 2005 and 2014. And from 2004 to 2013, New Jersey lost $18 billion in net adjusted gross income, the NJBIA said.

The organization blamed New Jersey’s high taxes and overregulation for that loss of wealth and residents, and it offered a list of recommendations that ranged from tax reform to better workforce development and making higher education more affordable as remedies.

https://www.njspotlight.com/stories/16/02/15/new-report-warns-that-new-jersey-is-in-midst-of-millennial-outmigration/#

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People Over 50 Carrying More Debt Than in the Past

piggyBank

The average 65-year-old borrower has 47% more mortgage debt than those in 2003

By
JOSH ZUMBRUN
Updated Feb. 12, 2016 4:17 p.m. ET

Older Americans are burdened with unprecedented debt loads as more and more baby boomers enter what are meant to be their retirement years owing far more on their houses, cars and even college loans than previous generations.

The average 65-year-old borrower has 47% more mortgage debt and 29% more auto debt than 65-year-olds had in 2003, after adjusting for inflation, according to data from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York released Friday.

Just over a decade ago, student debt was unheard-of among 65-year-olds. Today it is a growing debt category, though it remains smaller for them than autos, credit cards and mortgages. On top of that, there are far more people in this age group than a decade ago.

The result: The composition of U.S. household debt is vastly different than it was before the financial crisis, when many younger households took on large debts they could no longer afford when the bottom fell out of the economy.

The shift represents a “reallocation of debt from young [people], with historically weak repayment, to retirement-aged consumers, with historically strong repayment,” according to New York Fed economist Meta Brown in a presentation of the findings.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/new-york-fed-finds-large-increase-in-debts-held-by-those-over-age-50-1455289257

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Sluggish jobs report raises questions about the direction of U.S. economy

US President Obama waves from a golf cart in Kailua

Don LeeContact Reporter

For the last two years, America’s job-creation machine has been like “The Little Engine That Could,” chugging ahead with “I think I can, I think I can” regardless of headwinds at home or abroad.

The nation added 3 million jobs in 2014, making up all the ground lost in the Great Recession, and then piled on another 2.7 million jobs last year. All while the broader economy, as measured by the gross domestic product, grew at a relatively lackluster pace.

But the January jobs report, released Friday, suggests that the ever-dependable locomotive for the U.S. economy has encountered a hill that slowed it sharply.

The question now is whether it is just moving through an unusually steep patch or has finally met a hill it cannot conquer. The answer probably won’t be known for a couple of months, but Friday’s report has further clouded the outlook for investors and the Federal Reserve’s interest rate policy.

The Labor Department said that employers added just 151,000 jobs last month, down from an average monthly gain of 283,000 in the fourth quarter of last year.

Economists caution that one can’t make too much of a single month’s data, especially in the winter when weather can skew payroll statistics. Unseasonably warm temperatures in December probably inflated hiring that month in construction, for example.

https://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-jobs-report-20160205-story.html

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The NJBIZ Power 100: The state’s most influential people in business

The Celebrity Apprentice

 

What’s the definition of power? It’s the question we get most often at NJBIZ, when it comes time for the Power 100. Unfortunately, there’s not an easy explanation. The one we often give is this: “If you called the governor, how quickly would he call you back? If at all.” NJBIZ Staff, Read more

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Fewer community college students eventually attain four-year degree

Bergen-Community-College

JANUARY 19, 2016, 6:02 PM    LAST UPDATED: TUESDAY, JANUARY 19, 2016, 7:35 PM
BY PATRICIA ALEX
STAFF WRITER |
THE RECORD

The pipeline from community college to a bachelor’s degree needs some work, according to a national report released Tuesday.

New Jersey is three percentage points above the national average, but only 17 percent of students who start at a community college in the state wind up getting a bachelor’s degree within six years, according to a report from the Community College Research Center at Columbia University.

Among students who started at community college and successfully transferred to a four-year college, only 42 percent completed a bachelor’s degree, compared with the 60 percent degree attainment rate of students who started at public four-year colleges, according to the report.

All but one of the state’s 19 community colleges were surveyed in the report that included data from 43 states, according to the center. The statistics were not broken down by college and only a statewide figure was provided.

Community colleges have been promoted as providers of an affordable first step toward a bachelor’s degree, but graduation rates remain low, particularly among low-income and minority students.

https://www.northjersey.com/news/report-fewer-community-college-students-eventually-attain-four-year-degree-1.1494918

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Rise of the Robots Will Eliminate More Than 5 Million Jobs

The Robot from Lost In Space

January 18th 2016
Jill Ward

Over five million jobs will be lost by 2020 as a result of developments in genetics, artificial intelligence, robotics and other technological change, according to World Economic Forum research.

About 7 million jobs will be lost and 2 million gained as a result of technological change in 15 major developed and emerging economies, WEF founder Klaus Schwab and managing board member Richard Samans said in “The Future of Jobs.” The findings are taken from a survey of 15 economies covering about 1.9 billion workers, or about 65 percent of the world’s total workforce.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-01-18/rise-of-the-robots-will-eliminate-more-than-5-million-jobs

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Yellen’s Job Puzzle: Why Are 20-Somethings Retiring?

Millennials theridgewoodblg.net

January 4, 2016 — 8:00 AM EST
Americans are increasingly foregoing paychecks due to disability, school or retirement

Kasia Klimasinska kklimasinska

How come more people are retiring in their early 20s? Why are middle-age men becoming stay-at-home dads? What’s keeping women out of the workforce other than illness, kids or school?

Those are some of the questions raised in a new Bureau of Labor Statistics report that shows changes over the past decade in why people stay out of the labor

Here’s what the bureau found, broadly: Thirty-five percent of the U.S. population wasn’t in the labor force in 2014, up from 31.3 percent a decade earlier. (You’re considered out of the workforce if you don’t have a job and aren’t looking for one. That’s distinct from the official unemployment rate, which tracks those out of work who are actively job hunting.)

Drilling down into the numbers reveals more about the shifts in the reasons some people forego a paycheck. In all age groups, for instance, more people cited retirement as the reason for being out of the labor force, and it wasn’t just older people.

For Americans between the ages of 20 and 24, the share of those sidelined over the past decade because they were in school increased, unsurprisingly, during the decade that included the Great Recession. What’s more unusual is that the share of 20- to 24-year-olds who say they’re retired doubled from 2004 to 2014.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-01-04/yellen-s-job-puzzle-why-are-20-somethings-retiring-

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Lessons on New Jersey Corporate Welfare Schemes

New_Jersey_State_Senator_Stephen_Sweeney

Bill to restart BEIP payments angers some NJ businesses

DECEMBER 20, 2015    LAST UPDATED: SUNDAY, DECEMBER 20, 2015, 1:21 AM
BY HUGH R. MORLEY
STAFF WRITER |
THE RECORD

The passage last week of a bill that would restart incentive payments to about 270 New Jersey companies owed hundreds of millions of dollars for creating jobs in New Jersey sounds, at first glance, like good news for the companies.
Yet the legislation has upset some of the businesses by including a delayed payment schedule that means some won’t get their money for years.

The state stopped funding the Business Employment Incentive Program (BEIP) more than two years ago, after underfunding it and skipping payments for years because of budget constraints. The revived program changes the method of payment, from rebates needed to be provided for in the state budget, to tax credits, which are reductions in taxes the businesses have to pay.

But the new system’s delayed payment schedule has only renewed criticism from the companies affected, which are now owed $785 million.

Payments not made between 2008 and 2013, for example, will now be paid in five installments, beginning in 2017 and concluding in 2021 – more than a decade after some first became due. Payments not made in 2014 and 2015, won’t be paid until 2019, and all payments for the next five years will be paid at least three years after they are accrued.

Sponsors of the bill, which passed both houses of the Legislature on Thursday and is expected to be signed by Governor Christie, say the payment delays are needed to cope with an estimated total obligation of $1.267 billion once all the bills are paid by 2025. The estimate comes from the state Economic Development Authority, which manages the state economic development programs.

But the delays are too long for some companies already irate that they reshaped their business – in some cases moving into New Jersey from out of state – based on a commitment that the state hasn’t kept.

“That’s absolutely asinine, literally,” said Thomas Churchill, vice president for operations at Model Electronics in Ramsey, of the delayed payment schedule.

Churchill, whose company remanufacturers audio navigation and other auto parts, added, “If they are doing it over a period of time, it becomes monotonous, and idiotic. It becomes very, very hard to manage, and it’s probably not worth the cost.” He said spreading payments over several years makes calculating how much money the company receives, and the taxes owed on it, more complicated and burdensome.

Churchill’s company moved from Rockland County, N.Y., to Bergen County in 2005 with the help of a grant for $468,000 over 10 years, contingent on bringing 85 new jobs to the state. After he fulfilled that commitment, the state at first paid the annual rebate checks on schedule, but the company has not received a check since getting the company’s 2011 incentive payment.

Another business owner, who is owed payments but declined to be identified, welcomed the bill but added: “However, I cannot get excited for something that is four years away, and six years after the first payment was due initially.” In a reflection of how the BEIP history has damaged confidence in the state’s development efforts, the owner added: “I am sure anything can happen and change by then anyway, as it did two years ago.”

 

https://www.northjersey.com/news/business/n-j-trying-to-make-good-1.1477063

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Trenton Realizes They Need a Tax Base to Tax

Trenton_New_Jersey

N.J. Democratic, Republican lawmakers unveil competing economic plans

DECEMBER 14, 2015, 7:30 PM    LAST UPDATED: MONDAY, DECEMBER 14, 2015, 7:59 PM
BY SALVADOR RIZZO
STATE HOUSE BUREAU |
THE RECORD

Democrats and Republicans in the state Senate unveiled competing economic plans for New Jersey on Monday, with each side promising a lasting fix to the haphazard way the state has been funding major expenses such as pensions and road projects over the years.

The dueling plans are as ambitious as their details are hazy.

On the Democratic side, Senate President Stephen Sweeney outlined a plan to invest at least $1 billion over the next four years on transportation projects, school initiatives, new study commissions and a new “infrastructure bank.”

His plan calls for expanding pre-kindergarten to 17 school districts that do not now offer it; extending light rail service farther into Bergen County and widening the eligibility range for tax breaks on retiree income, raising the income limit for married couples from $10,000 to $100,000. Funding for higher-education scholarships also would grow.

But Senate Democrats did not include a funding mechanism; Sweeney said his proposal would spur enough economic activity to pay for itself, namely by enticing older residents to stay in-state instead of moving after they retire.

“This state has been starved of investment for too long, and we now need to refocus,” he said at a Statehouse news conference.

 

 

https://www.northjersey.com/news/n-j-democratic-republican-lawmakers-unveil-competing-economic-plans-1.1473593