Here in Southwest Florida our workforce on average is paying over 60% of their annual household income on housing costs. According to this article by the Herald Tribune South and Southwest Florida have the highest rent costs in the nation when compared to household income. nt on average would be around $3,992 a month – or $48,000 a year.
It is advised based on best practices to spend about 30% of your annual income on housing. So in this environment – with the average rental price of $2,300 a month (not sure where they got this number – from everybody i talk to there isn’t much to rent below $3,000 a month) in Southwest Florida – a household should be making $92,000 a year in order to be in line with what they should be paying in rent. The average income for an individual in Southwest Florida is $52,000 a year. The average household income is roughly $80,000 a year.
Due to a lack of affordable housing our workforce is finding it hard to keep up – or they are all together leaving the area which means longer drive time to work and higher gas bills. We also experienced a mass exodus of immigrants without proper documentation earlier this year thanks to the passing of Senate Bill 1718 leading many companies to downsize. The labor market is tough right now and employers need to adopt creative measures to find, train and retain key talent.
On an annual basis doing a job review and giving a salary increase to at least match inflation should be a bare minimum for employee’s already on staff. If goods and services cost more money right now because of inflation then employee’s living paycheck to paycheck cannot survive on what they have been historically earning.
Offering health insurance, offering to pay an increased percentage of health insurance or 100% of health insurance premiums can be a way of alleviating financial stress for employee’s.
Giving employee profit sharing incentives, quarterly performance bonuses or safe driving bonuses can give them goals and financial incentives to look forward to.
Providing cash value life insurance policies to your employee’s is a way to give them an asset they can loan against – and if structured properly – can be deductible for the business owners as well.
Implementing 401k programs with profit sharing can be another way to give employee’s incentives and retain the top talent.
These structures mentioned above can also be structured to be tax advantageous to the owner of the business.
