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Well.
April is Autism Awareness Month. The bioneurological developmental disability now affects one in thirty six children. This according to the National Autism Association, which says that even though it's the fastest growing developmental disorder, it's also the most underfunded.
Yeah, it's pretty incredible, and we've got a great voice on this and we're lucky to reach out to him again.
Charlie Massimo is a financial advisor at Wealth Enhancement Group who specializes in planning for families affected by autism. He's also the founder of Autism Communities, which provides independent living opportunities for young adults with autism. Charlie joins us from Bluepoint, New York. Charlie, good to have you back with us. How are you.
It's my pleasure. I appreciate you bringing me back, especially this month.
Yeah, we love it when you join us. Hey, I want to talk a little bit big picture here about what it means to be planning everybody is affected by autism. I mean like, like I said, one in thirty six people are are affected by this, right now, how does it change the financial planning situation for someone?
Oh, drastically. I think we're to have to understand, you, I raised two boys with autism, and just the other day I'm at a client. She's eighty six and she's still raising her sixty seven year old son with autism. This is life long.
Yeah.
So for many of us, we have our children, they grow, they take care of themselves, they're out and doing their own thing, earning their own living. Not so when you're raising a child with autism. So not only do you have to figure out how do I care for my child with autism? And that costs, you know, the estimate is about two and a half million dollars over the life of a child with autism, and how do I then fund my own retirement? So it's significant challenge for these families. Charlie.
One of the things that I appreciate when you come on, I think our whole audience does, is that you do give some insight into the world of autism and understand it from a level that most do not. Having said that autism is a spectrum, right, and I do always wonder how many individuals are living with autism that are able to support themselves in some way or live on their own. How many or not do we do you have do we have some understanding of that breakdown?
Well, it's a it's a great point, Carol, And you know the thing about autism, sometimes you don't know what the capabilities of your son or daughter may be till later on. But to put in somewhat perspective, sixty eight percent of the population of autism are unemployed for their entire life. Sixty eight percent, So that's that's that's a pretty large number. And some of it is not due
to their inability to work. It's just employees don't really understand the value or how to relate to them so they can be a valuable part of their of their thermal company. But the reality of sixty eight percent are not earning any money and rely solely on some governmental supports and whatever the family can can supplement those needs with.
Well.
As you mentioned and Charlie, the cost of caring for a child with autism ranges in the millions of dollars, can reach the millions of dollars over the lifetime of the child. If people don't necessarily have the financial means to do this, what are their options?
Yeah, great point. Again, their options are to understand the resources available. Fortunately, through Medicaid there is a lot of federal funding. It takes some legwork, it takes some research, but there is a lot of money available through medicaid through Social Security. So the first thing I ask a family or tele a family, have you researched all the governmental entitlements that are available for your son or daughter?
Because your point is well taken. The vast majority of population you can't afford two and a half million to raise their son a daughter autism, then figure out how to plan for their own retirement. So it's really the entitlements are very very important.
In terms of I'm curious about kind of the working component too, to like you said that, there's a lot of folks that maybe there are employers out there that right could certainly employ individuals with autism. How do we kind of figure that one out, that component, that piece.
Yeah, that's been that's been a challenge for a long time. And there are companies like Microsoft, there are companies like Panera and others that have found a way by and this is where AI is going to become a big part for this population because through AI programs, they're learning how to communicate with the autism population in the in the workforce. And I'm really excited about that component. But it takes a lot of time. It takes a lot of training to support these young men and women with
autism and how to fit them in. But I will tell you this. You talk to these firms that have employed those on the spectrum and they all tell you they have a valuable part of the workforce and they're incredibly product when they learn how to communicate and learn how to assimilate them into their company.
And Charlie, one thing I was really surprised to find when I was doing research for this is that according to the National Autism Association, it's still significantly underfunded, even though it's increasingly common in this day and age. How do you explain that?
You know, Tim, right, if you think look at the projections next year, it's projected that autism will cost this country four hundred and sixty one billion dollars. That's about what two percent or so of the GDP, And you're right, it is probably one of the areas that the government is not looking at I mean, there's only so many
places you can pull from. And now what's happening is they're putting the burden back on the families and they're saying, hey, we'll give you the dollars, but you need to manage these dollars yourself. And that creates a whole nother challenge in itself. But you're right, the government is not looking at this strong enough.
Certainly, in your experience, since this, since this started to be part of your life, has has awareness increased, has funding increased, has a government understanding increased or has it gone the other way?
No? No, certainly awareness has increased. When my boys would diagnose in two thousand and one, I never even heard of autism. But now I can't walk. I can have a conversation with one person and bring up autism. They say, oh, I know somebody with autism. So awareness is significantly increased. In diagnosis has significantly increased. So those things are great,
are happening, But again there are parts. The financial aspect is just not being addressed into strong enough fashion, and it has to be or this is going to become an epidemic for the country that's going to get ahead of itself or get too far ahead of itself that we're never going to be able to figure it out.
Help me understand the financial aspect. Is it the overall cost that you find that's going that we've got to kind of figure out, because you do seem to say that there's money provided for individuals, but people it's on the owner, you know, then for them to kind of figure out how to do it all. I mean, if you could change a couple of things overnight, Charlie, what would you.
Do if I could change I make more of the beyond.
No kids having to deal with autism, I'm assuming would be number one.
But yeah, of course, but let's unfortunately that's not going to it's not going to happen. But I think I would.
I would have more of these therapies because what happens is once you get to the age of twenty one and over twenty one, a lot of the services that were covered prior to twenty one are no longer covered, right, So I'd like to see a lot of these health insurance companies realize that there's these therapies, a lifelong speech ot PT, these are lifelong therapies that have to be part of this of these childs or these adults lives and it's just not covered or a lot of it
is not covered. So the first thing I would do is look at the healthcare system say we got to address this in a much more aggressive manner. Then the second part I would really figure out with HUT, how do we make affordable housing available because we can't have these young men and women living with their families until their families die, un till their parents die. But depending on where you live in this country, it's just unaffordable
for this to happen. So I will look at HUT to create better programs to make housing affordable for those with intellectual disability.
Well that's that's where I want to end. With your work that you've been doing at Autism Communities. Can you just talk a little bit about what you created? Wow, just about a decade ago at this point, Charlie.
Yeah, it's not just thoughts as communities, it's so many other associations that are we've been part of. But I think the goal is working with developers and taking these affordable units within these developments that they're building and then setting them aside for those with intellectual disability. So instead of paying market rate, we've gone to the developers to say, can we reserve a couple of your units and put them for low income housing? And it certainly helps or
goes toward making it more affordable. So we're looking to work with more developers to create more of these housing or affordable housing units for those on the spectrum.
Yeah, makes a lot of sense, all right, Charlie, So good to check in with you. Be well, Charlie Massimo, financial advisor at Wealth Enhancement Enhancement Group excuse me, as we said, specializing and planning for families affected by autism. He's also the founder of Autism Communities, joining us there from Bluepoint, New York.
Well.
The contribution of Latinos to the US economy rose to three point two trillion dollars in twenty twenty one. It would rank fifth in the world if the group were an independent country, just behind Germany and head of the UK and India. This according to report release last fall, So Carol compared with the world's biggest economies, US Latino GDP was the third fastest growing economy during the decade
ending in twenty twenty one, behind China and India. This, I should note all from a Bloomberg story back in September.
Yeah, I feel like Bloomberg does a lot of reporting about this, about the importance of following the Latin community, certainly here in the United States as consumers, as brands, just everything politics.
I was going to say, a political block too.
Very very important members of the group that face pay, inequality, stereotyping, tim and also underrepresentation though still in the workplace.
Coke Wall is a nonprofit think tank that is working to change that. The group, in its own words, has a mission to quote address bias and uncovered barriers to advancement for underrepresented populations in the workplace. Leneia Irvin is the CEO of Coke Wall. She joins us from New York City. Lenaa, how are you.
Well. It's great to see you all. I'm delighted to be here and well, thank you.
So the big question that I think I have is how can this be addressed? How can you address bias and uncovered barriers to advancement specifically for this group?
Right? You know, I think I mean you set it up. You know in your earlier statements, there's tremendous economic opportunity here, and I think that uh, you know, denying not only the strength of the consumer, uh, the brands, but also the entrepreneur base that is found within this cohort is is is a huge risk I think for uh, the
US economy. And I think what we can what we see in the work environment is that there's an opportunity to invite Hispanic and Latino professionals into the work environment to deliver their best, best selves, their most brilliant contributions to business without requiring them to perhaps hide or basically, uh, how do you say, these burdens to cover up their heritage, their their backgrounds in order to advance in the work environment.
And that's what we're seeing, is there is there something different from you know, we also we often talk about this that individuals in the workforce, we embrace diversity, and yet there's still a lot of individual who don't feel like they can embrace their diversity if you will, or or their differences when it comes Is it something different for the for the Latino community other than if it was Black Americans or LGBTQ. Just curious.
I mean, again, there's there's obviously nuanced and studying this this group, but yes, it is. It is different. There's tremendous intense othering around things such as language and accent, and so there's there's a different pressure to cover with
this group. Uh. You know, there's discouragement from speaking one's language in the in the in the workforce, we see actually barriers to advancement, store rates of advancement, uh, and pay inequities for those who speak Spanish is the first language, for example, versus those who speak English as a first language.
And we do think that there's opportunity here, you know, to to resolve this because ultimately, look, if you have an individual who speaks Mandarin or speaks French or speak Spanish in the work environment, that actually is valuable when you think about hopping on a flight to a client and or ensuring messaging I mean to your user.
There's a reason why many colleges have language requirements, right, I mean, that's an incredible asset to be able to speak multiple languages.
No, it's a really good point, right, I mean, that's an asset.
Absolutely.
Well. Well, so what do you think the business environment continues to get wrong or what could they do better specifically in terms of programs or initiatives.
Well, one thing I will say before I hop into that, because I think it's really important women are really bearing the brunt. Here. We find that Hispanic and Latino women, in addition to caregiving burdens and things of that, make sure they're twice as likely to feel that the way that they're compensated right, their pay does not sufficiently allow them to support their dependents. And we're talking white collar
professionals here, right, this is what we study. They're far more likely to fill career career stall than their male counterparts within the Hispanic and Latino community. You know where there are where there is board representation, five percent of corporate boards Fortune five hundred the seats are held by Hispanic and Latino professionals, but only one percent of those are women. And so we're really seeing disparities in this particular study in the data as it relates to Hispanic
and Latino women. That should not go without being called out. But I would say there are a few things that companies can do very quickly. It's along the engage, invest and then ultimately disrupt some structural barriers. Engage means invite the employee into the conversation. Far too often we see and we hear from leaders and professionals and they say, you know what, leaders just often fail to ask the basics, what are the obstacles you're facing in the workplace, right,
and how can I help you to overcome them? Right? So in some cases, it makes it a lot easier to get at what the most pressing barriers are by
just asking the community. And then from an investment standpoint, we think it's extraor really important to not only invest in recruitment but also development, right, strengthening your sponsorship offerings, looking at how you can deepen skill sets and on the job experiences within your teams so that you can cultivate that pipeline for leadership and hopefully, you know, we see a pipeline long term that better reflects the future workforce,
because this is nearly twenty percent of the US population and we do know, you know, it's inevitable demographically that you know, this will be a part of our leadership as well.
Lenee, I feel like we can't have this conversation right now without talking about the charged political environment that we find ourselves in. And I'm wondering how right now that if you found anything in the research that Cokewald did in terms of the way that this is now such a charge topic here in the US, given that immigration is that is in focus, given that what's happening in the border is in focus, giving that migrants being bussed
into different cities around the country is in focus. Talk a little bit about that.
Absolutely, it showed up in our data, showed up in the qualitative and the stories that so many professionals shared. One in five of our respondents, so twenty one percent essentially have had and have on a regular basis colleagues, you know, share kind of negative things about, you know, immigrants and immigration. And again, these things don't typically come up in one's daily workplace, but they're twice as likely to have colleagues, you know, kind of repeat to this
rhetoric and and make comments around undocumented people. And it's a it's a real alienating experience for them, regardless, immigration is a part of their story in some cases their second generation or third generation Hispanic and Latinos, and you know, it is something that especially an election year, it's something that is they're acutely aware of, right because they know that the rhetoric is going to continue to bubble up in the coming quarters.
Really appreciate you joining us. That's Lena Urban, CEO of Cooke wal