Thread: N.C. needs Hispanics, professor says

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Article published Feb 23, 2007

Feb 23, 2007

N.C. needs Hispanics, professor says


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James H Johnson Jr. (right), a business professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, speaks Thursday at the annual meeting of the Lexington Area Chamber of Commerce. William Keesler/The Dispatch
By WILLIAM KEESLER
The Dispatch


North Carolina needs its growing Hispanic population not only to compete in the global labor market but also to replace aging baby boomers in the work force, a business professor from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill said Thursday night in Lexington.

In a presentation at the Lexington Municipal Club during the Lexington Area Chamber of Commerce's annual meeting, James H. Johnson Jr. said the median age of Hispanics in the state is 25 while the median age for non-Hispanics is 35.

In addition, fertility rates are higher for Hispanics than for most other groups, which are not reproducing fast enough to "replace" themselves in the population.

Johnson joked that no matter what members of his entirely non-Hispanic audience did after going home from the meeting, regardless of how much Viagra or Cialis they used, they were not going to be able to change demographic trends.

"Forget it," he said. "You're too old. It's not going to happen."

Johnson spoke about a study that he and other researchers from UNC's Kenan-Flagler Business School completed early last year for the North Carolina Bankers Association in cooperation with the Mexican Consulate of Raleigh.

The study concluded that Hispanics contribute $9.2 billion to North Carolina's economy annually through their purchases, labor and taxes. They annually contribute $756 million in taxes to the state while costing the state budget $817 million for K-12 education, health care and corrections, for a net cost to the state of just $61 million, or $102 per Hispanic resident.

Johnson warned audience members Thursday night not to get too upset about the $61 million. "You don't know what you cost yet," he said. "No group in this country pays its own way."

From 1970 through 2004, North Carolina has developed a "mature" Hispanic immigrant population - with not just men coming to work but whole families settling and putting down permanent roots, Johnson said. Early growth that concentrated along the interstates between Raleigh and Charlotte has spread to every county of the state. Hispanics accounted for 27.5 percent of the state's population growth from 1990 to 2004 and 57 percent of the enrollment growth in the N.C. public schools between the 2000-01 and 2004-05 school years.

Hispanics totaled about 601,000, or 7 percent of the state's total population, in 2004, Johnson said. The average Hispanic household contains 3.7 people, compared with 2.4 people in the average non-Hispanic household, and earns about $32,000 annually, compared with $45,700 for non-Hispanics. Contrary to claims in the recent public debate about illegal immigration, 56 percent of Hispanics in North Carolina are authorized to be here, Johnson said.

Hispanics filled one in three new jobs created in North Carolina between 1995 and 2005, with significant concentrations in the construction industry, Johnson said. Without their labor, housing would cost considerably more, and some industries still hanging on in North Carolina would have moved overseas. The U.S. is starting to lose not just blue-collar jobs but also white-collar jobs to other countries, he said. The now-starting retirement of baby boomers will pressure American pay rates much higher, making foreign workers even more competitive.

In the global economy, immigrant labor can help meet those challenges, Johnson said. But North Carolina needs to help Hispanic entrepreneurs overcome barriers to starting businesses, Hispanic consumers get the goods and services they need and Latin American businesses invest in the state.

Other states are starting to take steps in that direction, he said, noting that Iowa has rebranded itself as "the Ellis Island of the Midwest" and is welcoming immigrants.

Johnson, who grew up outside Greenville in eastern North Carolina, has a bachelor's degree from North Carolina Central University, a master's degree from the University of Wisconsin at Madison and a doctorate in geography from Michigan State University. He taught at the University of California at Los Angeles before moving to UNC, where he is the William R. Kenan Jr. Distinguished Professor of Entrepreneurship, director of the Urban Investment Strategies Center and co-director of the Center for Sustainable Enterprise in the business school's Frank Hawkins Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise.

In answer to an audience member's question, Johnson said North Carolina needs to reorganize its education system to encourage creativity and innovation. "If we can unleash the entrepreneurial spirit, something is going to happen," he said.

While U.S. schools are "teaching to the test," he said, people in other nations "are convinced and committed that they are going to clean our clocks, and they are well on their way to doing it."

Larry Allen, a county commissioner who has been critical of illegal immigration and who introduced a resolution last November stating that county business should be conducted in English, was in the audience.

"I found it very interesting," Allen said of Johnson's presentation, but added that he has seen higher estimated percentages of illegal immigrants in the population.

"There's no way that you can sugar-coat the figures to change the definition of illegal," Allen said. "Illegal is still illegal, and it's still an unfair cost that legal Americans are having to pay."

William Keesler can be reached at 249-3981, ext. 221, or at bill.keesler@the-dispatch.com.







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its growing Hispanic population not only to compete in the global labor market but also to replace aging baby boomers in the work force

Garbage.....How many retiring baby boomers do you know cleaning hotel rooms and flipping burgers.

Johnson joked that no matter what members of his entirely non-Hispanic audience did after going home from the meeting, regardless of how much Viagra or Cialis they used, they were not going to be able to change demographic trends.

"Forget it," he said. "You're too old. It's not going to happen."