A 5% property tax increase would annually raise about $50M and 10% increase would raise about $100M. A tax increase needs to be coupled with tax incentive reform and massive philanthropic ask of $500M paid upfront to change the trajectory of Memphis while bringing Memphis up to average with peer cities.
This analysis does not consider the much lower appraised property values enjoyed by Memphis/Shelby.
Please see analysis:
With 40% total wage growth since 2010 and away from the Nashville boomtown comparisons, perhaps Memphis can learn from Louisville, a similar border, river and distribution hub city.
But it must be known, by the broader community that what happens from the top of the ecosystem in Memphis, doesn’t happen as a matter of process in other cities. Some blame it on racism while others elitism. But it’s without question, institutionalized stupidity and decline. This topic was discussed, in part, last night in a North Memphis forum hosted by Pearl Walker while referencing Memphis Tomorrow.
Other cities, with challenges, are not saddled with corporate community leaders that create fake monsters, implement bogus accounting platforms to rip off a community in need, rip off small business ideas and give them to foreign and out of town entities while botching the workforce development system over five years, kick people out of the local Chamber without cause or harass small business with regulatory authorities. All the former occurring in Memphis with the institutional support of lacking measurement, university community thought leadership, legislative and press oversight. Its a bully hack complex, resulting in the unnecessary wrecking of the ecosystem within a decline by design framework.
Louisville/Jefferson County, a city similar to Memphis/Shelby in many ways, has had 40% wage growth since 2010 compared to that of Memphis/Shelby at 26%. Had Memphis/Shelby had 40% total wage growth, that would mean $3B more in annual wages and $90M more in local tax revenues. So are there any lessons for Memphis here? Sure, there are four lessons. Lets look at them.
1- Regionalism
Louisville leaders are not creating fake monsters in bordering communities to scare the taxpayer into awarding excessive incentives for corporate/real estate development. They are working together as an interstate region. Memphis is not regionally working together as it even seems at times to grapple with working together as a County. The Louisville Chamber website touts their collaborative approach with “15 Counties, 2 States and 1 Community- A Partnership for Regional Economic Growth”.
It’s ironic that Memphis has invested millions in developing the regional megasite in Stanton, TN, located 40 miles away, while at the same time, awarding excessive incentives in unnecessarily competing against, what could be, regional economic development partners in neighboring states, located 10 miles away. These potential regional economic development partners help provide shovel ready sites and a ready workforce in support of regional economic development efforts.
But unnecessary division persists everywhere in Memphis, for no good reason, with at times the persistence of fake activism. Its rather remarkable to see local social justice organizations load up the buses to go and protest some punk adolescent writing the “N word” on the bathroom wall but to say nothing regarding the punk elitist that systematically feed on and undermine a community in need. All the while, the same closed elitist establishment in Memphis benefits from persistent unnecessary division, while Memphis falls behind in the global economy.
But again, Memphis is anything but normal while other cities are working together to support small business and regional economic development efforts while competing in a global economy. As other cities evolve, some blame local history for backwards Memphis community leadership. But even a historical defense is inexcusable while everyone loses with institutionalized stupidity.
2. Small Business
Based on data from BLS QCEW, Louisville/Jefferson has 25,348 establishments with a 771k population resulting in 33 establishments per 1,000 people while Memphis has 20,764 with a 937k population resulting in 22 establishments per 1,000 people. Additionally, since 2010, Louisville/Jefferson has experienced 13% in establishment growth vs 9% for Memphis. Had Memphis experienced 13% establishment growth since 2010, there would be 690 more establishments in Memphis/Shelby, mostly small business.
3. Filling Jobs and Increasing Wages
Total wage growth comes from increased employment and wages. Since 2010 Louisville/Jefferson has increased total wages 40% and Memphis/Shelby 26% with average wages increases of 22% while Memphis/Shelby increased wages by 17.6%. And Louisville/Jefferson has increased employment by 14.9% while Memphis/Shelby employment increases lag at 7.4%. Had Memphis had 14.9% employment growth, Memphis/Shelby would have approximately 35k more filled jobs.
This lag can be largely attributed to the botched from the top Memphis workforce development system. Per the most recent release of Integrated Posy-Secondary Educated Data System (IPEDS), Louisville is producing 18 postsecondary awards per 100k of population vs. Memphis/Shelby at 13 per 100,000 population resulting in a significant gap with a real Louisville/Jefferson competitor and peer city in the global economy.
4. Responsible Incentives
While a comprehensive incentive database was not found, Louisville/Jefferson County incentives seem responsible based on a cursory review. Besides, the Louisville Chamber does not seem to make much of a competitive deal over incentives as regional interstate incentives are promoted on the Louisville Chamber website.
Conclusion
Community education is the challenge. The local citizenry is ignorant to the fact of how far Memphis is behind in a global economy due to a deficient bully hack corporate community leadership complex that fosters low expectations, a closed system and institutional stupidity through division while feeding on a community in need.
The primary solution involves getting out of hypnotic bubble of decline and rejecting deficient divisionary corporate community leadership while waking up to the fact that the Memphis decline has been imposed from the top of the ecosystem and occurred without an external event.
Living within a sheltered bubble, the establishment keeps its resident Memphis population ignorant, while protecting the closed ruling social construct from scrutiny. This involves institutional support from a non-investigative press, rigged legislative bodies and university community impotence. This is why Memphis lacks the vitality to grow.
Local educated leaders seem ignorant to evolution as community decline has become culturally normed. Instead, local leaders knowing nothing else, see the Memphis economic development establishment complex as “visionary” in their competition with bordering communities in a global economy.
With community education in mind, local community organizations should open all of their meetings, for the next year, with the following facts to educate the local Memphis citizenry regarding leadership behavior in other cities away from deficient community leadership behavior in Memphis:
The Memphis decline is fundamentally built on the following: 1) no measurement 2) botched implementation and 3) lacking legislative and press oversight. For example in 2016, after Mayor Strickland announced the local ACT WorkKeys initiative to support career readiness workforce development, implementation just did not occur. Below is a map that shows surrounding counties in gold having implemented and achieved their ACT Workready communities goals. But not Memphis. Memphis, for whatever reason, mistakes announcements and conferences for implementation with the support of lacking measurement and oversight.
Its little wonder, living in the bubble without measurement, that local leaders are ignorant to the fact that Shelby County is 20,000 filled jobs below the peer average since 2010 where a botched workforce development system and failed implementation are just part of a decline by design ecosystem. But this botched state of affairs is normal in Memphis, where after 20 years, the educated Memphis community knows nothing else.
Away From Ignorance: Career Ready Using a Data Driven Approach
So what is career ready for a job that pays a good wage? After five years local leaders don’t know. The State of Tennessee is trying to help define that with their Ready Graduate Early Post-secondary Opportunity (EPSO) programming. Ready Graduate measurement deems a student ready for post-secondary life based on a collection of academic milestones, industry certifications and/or standardized test measurement such as ACT, ACT WorkKeys and Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB). Sometimes this collection practice is called stacking credentials. And with the newly introduced Junior Achievement program, perhaps local legislators might want to consider adding Junior Achievement to its State Legislative agenda for inclusion in the Ready Graduate EPSO measurement scale.
With the above and employer demand in mind, while using Jobs4TN projections, below are some data driven observations of what career ready looks like in the Greater Memphis area with regard to educational and occupationally aligned skill attainment. Here’s the good news, with a high school equivalency, industry certification and a ACT Workeys National Career Readiness Certificate (NCRC), students coming out of high school meet the prerequisite educational attainment and skills requirement for 69% of the projected job openings that pay an average wage above $43K while incurring no college debt. And furthermore, they can continue their education as they work to obtain their Associate degree while incurring no college debt which will quality them for more job openings and higher wages.
As communities throughout the country battle aging populations, workforce development can become the economic engine while leveraging the youthful population of Memphis. And for youth, going to work early, soon after high school and making a good wage, while incurring no college debt is a great career start. Of course, to make the big bucks, career pathways can go beyond an Associate degree to include Bachelor’s, Master’s and Post Master’s Degrees. See below data sets.
Educational Attainment
Most of the work with this data set had do to with defining occupations that required more than a high school equivalency but less than an Associate degree. An example would be a commercial truck driver that requires a post-secondary award but less than an Associate degree. Additionally, all manufacturing jobs in this analysis were assigned a minimal certification requirement. Given this analysis, 71% of the projected Greater Memphis job openings in 2026 will require something more than a high school equivalency educational attainment while paying an average 2018 wage of $36K and up.
Skill Attainment
Examples of standardized test that align to occupational skill readiness are ASVAB for military occupations and ACT WorkKeys for civilian occupations. Both of these assessments are recognized in the State of Tennessee Ready Graduate program. The below data reveals that an individual has the pre-requisite skills in Applied Math, Reading for Information and Graphic Literacy with a Silver NCRC to qualify for 76% of the projected 2026 job openings that pay an average 2018 wage of $43K and above.
Conclusion
Career ready, based on Greater Memphis employer demand for a job that pays a good wage is a high school equivalency, certification and a ACT Silver NCRC ideally accompanied with a completed career plan.
For Memphis to progress forward, it will need to compete in the global economy where implementation, measurement, oversight and workforce development take center stage away from the rigged practices of the past. Without the former, Memphis will fall further behind in the global economy.