What keeps business owners up at night?It’s probably no surprise that inflation tops the list for Washington employers. That’s according to an Association of Washington Business members survey conducted in late December and early January. Sixty-nine percent of survey participants saw it as a major challenge.But a close second, at...
If ever there was a time for building up Washington’s rainy-day reserves, this is it.Warning signs continue to flash on an economy that has endured unprecedented stress during the last three years. Inflation remains stubbornly high after months of interest rate hikes. Concern about a potential recession is growing stronger...
In the race to “electrify everything,” there are glitches that may derail the plan over the next 20 years. One is a shortage of skilled electrical workers needed to rewire homes, make grid modifications, and install new electrical capacity.President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, signed in August, contains billions of...
Viewed from the perspective of one year to another, very little changes in a community’s demographics. Viewed from the perch of a decade or two, demographic change is usually easy to spot. So it is with race and ethnicity in the greater Tri-Cities.Consider the size of population of people of...
Diversity comes in many forms and many related ways of accommodating different needs. When parents are planning for the needs of children with disabilities, a product that should be considered in the parent’s will is the so-called special needs trust.What kind of disability?A disability can be defined in different ways...
Washington’s housing affordability crisis hurts every corner of the state. We’ve all heard stories. Nurses and grocery store employees can’t afford to live where they work. Young people are priced out of their hometowns. First-time homebuyers can’t afford a down payment. Seniors struggle to downsize in retirement.We need solutions at...
There is no substitute for person-to-person connections – people talking with, listening to and understanding one another. It is called “customer service,” and it is the best way to resolve problems and retain customers.Those employed and embedded in business are more likely to be located on-site, frequently see fellow workers...
Transferring wealth to children will become a touch easier in 2024.Buried in the estimated 4,000-page Consolidated Appropriation Act of 2023 that passed at the end of 2022 was the Secure 2.0 Act of 2022.It heralded many changes for the retirement system in the United States.One provision dealing with 529 accounts...
You don’t need to be a numbers geek to know that the pandemic wreaked havoc on the hospitality industry, here and elsewhere. Travel stopped, dining in became a dare and the workforce disappeared. None of the 19 large groupings, or sectors, of the local economy took so much of the...
A few weeks ago, I had a chance to meet Michael Landry, head of LIGO Hanford Observatory. He was part of the discovery team that detected gravitational waves that were created when two black holes collided 1.3 billion light years from earth. No one had ever “heard” the sound of...
