Wells Fargo says in a report that President Donald Trump's tariffs won't bring manufacturing back.
Carlos Barria/REUTERS
Wells Fargo said in a report that President Donald Trump's tariffs won't bring manufacturing back.
High labor costs and a lack of workers would make building more factories an "uphill battle."
US manufacturing needs $2.9 trillion in investment to reach 1979 employment levels.
President Donald Trump's push to revive American manufacturing through tariffs may face some hurdles.
Despite some high-profile commitments, including Nvidia's plans for a US-based supercomputer plant and Apple's pledge to invest $500 billion domestically, a new report from Wells Fargo economists predicts that bringing back offshored manufacturing jobs will be an "uphill battle."
"An aim of tariffs is to spur a durable rebound in US manufacturing employment," Wells Fargo analysts wrote in the report. "However, a meaningful increase in factory jobs does not appear likely in the foreseeable future, in our view."
The report attributes the potentially low factory job growth to high labor costs, a lack of suitable workers to fill vacant positions, and a subdued population growth from lower fertility rates and slower immigration.
"Higher prices and policy uncertainty may weigh on firms' ability and willingness to expand payrolls," the analysts added.
The tariffs are part of Trump's broader economic agenda to revive American manufacturing as a pathway toward middle-class prosperity. The tariffs are meant to hike the costs of imports to incentivize companies to make goods domestically.
"Jobs and factories will come roaring back into our country," Trump said while announcing tariffs on April 2. "And ultimately, more production at home will mean stronger competition and lower prices for consumers."
Some tariffs imposed on April 2 have been temporarily paused or greatly reduced, including tariffs on China. The 10% across-the-board tariff remains, as do some specific tariffs on Mexico and Canada, plus 30% in duties on China. Duties at their current level are still the highest they have been since the 1940s.
"In order for manufacturing employment to return to its historic peak, we estimate at a minimum $2.9 trillion in net new capital investment is required," Wells Fargo analysts wrote. "Assuming businesses are willing and able to invest such ample sums, questions over staffing remain."
The Wall Street bank says that US manufacturing employment currently stands at 12.8 million, down from its 1979 peak of 19.5 million. To get back to that mark, the US would need to add roughly 6.7 million jobs. Wells Fargo added that the figure is nearly the same as the entire pool of unemployed Americans, which in April was 7.2 million, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.
"Population aging, negative perceptions, and skill mismatches also underpin workforce concerns," Wells Fargo analysts wrote. "New jobs will require different skills than those previously lost."
In 2024, Taiwanese chipmaker TSMC said it delayed the opening of its Arizona chip factory due to a shortage of skilled workers. A report released in April 2024 by Deloitte and the Manufacturing Institute also found that nearly half of the 3.8 million new manufacturing jobs anticipated by 2033 could remain unfilled due to skill gaps and other population factors.
"Tariffs must be high enough to make the cost of domestic production competitive in the US market, and they also must be kept in place long enough for producers to bring on additional workers and expand capacity," the report concluded. "If the economic or political costs are deemed too high, the current administration could quickly dial-back prevailing duties further."
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comments.
The Senate voted to squash a rule limiting bank overdraft fees to $5. The House still needs to vote.
Banks collected about $5.8 billion in overdraft fees from consumers in 2023.
From JPMorgan to Wells Fargo, see what banks earn in overdraft fees.
Bank overdraft fees appear to be back on the table following years of decline — and the largest banks stand to gain the most.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in December moved to limit the fees banks can charge customers whose accounts dip below their available balances. The CFPB's rule, set to go into effect later this year, would have capped overdraft fees to $5 at banks with at least $10 billion in assets.
On Friday, the US Senate voted down the rule, which the industry largely opposed. The House of Representatives is expected to vote on it next week.
"We applaud today's Senate passage of the Congressional Review Act resolution nullifying the CFPB's unlawful overdraft rule," Rob Nichols, the president and CEO of the American Banking Association, said in a statement. "Without access to overdraft protection, many Americans would be driven to less regulated and higher risk nonbank lenders to cover unexpected or emergency expenses."
Overdraft fees have been on the decline in recent years amid criticisms from the CFPB, which referred to them as "junk fees." Banks reported $1.36 billion in such fees for the first quarter of 2024 — down from $1.41 billion during the same period the year before and the lowest in three years, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence.
In 2023, the last full year for which the data is available, consumers paid about $5.8 billion in fees for insufficient funds in their checking accounts, down from about $12 billion in 2019, according to the CFPB.
Overdraft fees from 2015 to 2023
Screenshot of CFPB data
Not all banks charge overdraft fees — some firms like Charles Schwab and Capital One have ditched them altogether, according to NerdWallet. In recent years, Americans have been making using overdraft protection more infrequently, too.
Other firms have modified how and when they levy these fees. JPMorgan Chase and TD Bank may only charge an overdraft fee under certain circumstances, NerdWallet said, such as when an account is overdrawn by more than $50.
Limited information is available about what banks earned from overdraft fees in 2024. According to the CFPB, here's a look at what banks earned in 2023.
JPMorgan: $1.1 billion
Wells Fargo: $937 million
PNC: $258 million
Truist: $231 million
US Bank: $214 million
Regions: $211 million
TD Bank: $210 million
Bank of America: $140 million
Reed Alexander is a correspondent at Business Insider. He can be reached via email at [email protected], or SMS/the encrypted app Signal at (561) 247-5758.
Women-owned businesses are growing faster compared to men's, according to Wells Fargo's most recent study.
Alistair Berg/Getty Images
Women-owned businesses are growing faster than men-owned ones, says a recent Wells Fargo report.
Women face barriers in raising capital but benefit from digital platforms and education.
Black women-owned firms grew rapidly after the BLM movement in 2020, but growth has since slowed.
Women entrepreneurs are outpacing men, according to Wells Fargo's latest report on the impact of women-owned businesses.
Although corporate America is still predominantly led by men, the number of women-owned businesses has grown faster than those owned by men in the past five years. Small businesses helmed by women have also seen faster employment and revenue growth over that period, based on Wells Fargo's analysis of Census data.
Why women are starting their own businesses
"Women see a real opportunity in entrepreneurship to do things on their own," said Geri Stengel, the president of Ventureneer, a market research firm that co-published the report with Wells Fargo. "They've hit the wall in corporate America."
While there are still significant barriers for women raising the capital needed to start a business, the report notes that solopreneurs have risen with the advent of digital platforms that democratize business opportunities. Women, in particular, have continued to flourish after federal stimulus packages aimed at supporting small businesses during the pandemic.
Education is a factor as well, Stengel added. Currently women are attending and graduating from college at higher rates than men.
Despite the strong recent growth in women's entrepreneurship, they're still underrepresented at the top of the corporate ladder. Women-owned companies only make up 2.4% of businesses that earn more than $20 million a year in revenue compared to men-owned businesses that make up 22.5%, according to the Wells Fargo study. The remaining balance represents companies owned by multiple people, or large corporations.
Overall the gender gap between the revenue earned by all women-owned businesses is gradually closing and if the current trend continues, the study projects that it would take 120 years before women would reach equal parity with men.
Where gaps and disparities persist
The study goes on to highlight that Black women-owned employer firms have experienced a growth rate three times all women-owned businesses — in part supported by diversity programs and movements like Buy Black, according to their findings.
"There was a concerted effort to support Black/African American businesses and communities after the killing of George Floyd," read the report's key statistics on Black women. In 2020, activists affiliated with the Black Lives Matter movement called on consumers to close the revenue gap for Black entrepreneurs by spending their dollars at Black-owned businesses. "The growth of Black/African American women-owned employers surged between 2019 and 2024, at 51.2%, compared to all women, at 17.2%."
But the report also noted that the growth for Black and Latino employers has cooled, with more recent political changes potentially adding to that slowdown.
"That wave has diminished to a large extent," Stengel said of the support for Black-owned businesses that exploded during the pandemic. "And we're not going to really see it right now because of the DEI executive orders."
Trump's administration has called diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, prioritizing opportunities for underrepresented groups, "radical and wasteful." Businesses like Target and Amazon have also pulled back on DEI initiatives since the presidential election.
This month, the US Small Business Administration announced agency-wide job cuts and priority shifts under the Trump administration.
"The agency has veered off track — doubling in size and turning into a sprawling leviathan plagued by mission creep, financial mismanagement, and waste," said SBA Administrator Kelly Loeffler in a press release. Several grants are being terminated including the Community Navigator Pilot Program that awarded funding to small businesses in underserved areas.
"Just like the small business owners we support, we must do more with less," Loeffler continued.
Donald Trump signing a document in the Oval Office.
Bloomberg/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Financial firms seek to hire thousands of skilled foreign workers through H-1B visas each year.
President Trump's immigration crackdown is raising questions about the future of such visas.
See which financial firms file for the most H-1B visas, according to publicly available data.
As President Donald Trump follows through on his campaign promises to crack down on immigration, questions remain about what might happen to skilled workers who come to the US on H-1B visas.
Trump targeted the H-1B visa program in his first term when he signed the "Buy American, Hire American" executive order to rein in potential abuses. Ahead of the second term, however, he told the New York Post that he "always liked the visas," which US companies use to hire foreign workers with specialized skills, often in science and technology.
"I've been a believer in H-1B," he told The Post in December. "I have used it many times. It's a great program."
Still, the future of the program remains very much up in the air: Last week two Republican senators introduced a joint resolution to strike down a Biden-era rule allowing such visas to be automatically extended for 540 days, instead of 180 days.
As such, Business Insider has run the numbers to find out which US financial services companies stand to be most impacted if these visas are tamped down again. BI used data from the Department of Labor and US Citizenship and Immigration data to analyze which financial giants file the most H-1B requests. The data runs through the 2024 government fiscal year (the fourth quarter of 2023 through the third quarter of 2024) and is collected from applications submitted by businesses that wish to sponsor a skilled worker's visa.
We found that some of the largest banks, credit card companies, and asset managers are among the most active sponsors of these visas, including JPMorgan and BlackRock. While many of the filings seek tech and software workers, some firms have used them to hire investment bankers or investment professionals.
Of course, not all filings lead to a foreign-worker hire and some filings may actually be for the same hire as firms will refile to reflect amendments or to extend an existing visa. Still, the publicly available data provides a good indication of the H-1B visa demand among major companies.
The firms listed either did not respond to a request for comment or declined to comment on the record.
Check out which financial firms are sponsoring the most H-1B visas, including the types of roles they are seeking to fill:
1. JPMorgan Chase
Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JPMorgan Chase, is skeptical about cryptocurrencies, specifically Bitcoin.
Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images
Total certified H-1B filings: 1,990
Total employees worldwide: 317,233 as of the end of 2024
Types of filings: More than 1,500 filings are for workers with "software" in their title. The firm also hired for roles like a vice president of investment banking, an executive director of liquidity risk management, and a managing director of client fraud prevention
2. Fidelity
Getty Images
Total certified H-1B filings: 1,839
Total employees worldwide: More than 76,000 per a January press release
Types of filings: More than 40% of filings contain the word software in their job title, and many other filings are related to tech as well, such as a director-level AI employee. The company also filed for a director of quantitative analysis and even some accounting roles through the program.
3. Goldman Sachs
David Solomon
Michael Kovac
Total certified H-1B filings: 1,443
Total employees worldwide: 46,500
Types of filings: Slightly more than a quarter of Goldman's filings are for roles that contain the word software. The company has also hired some divisional COO and CFOs through the program, as well as managing directors in areas like banking and financial crime control.
4. Citi
CEO Jane Fraser
Courtesy of Citi
Total certified H-1B filings: 1,058
Total employees worldwide: 239,000
Types of filings: Many of the filings are for tech roles, like software engineering, application development, and information technology roles. Other filings include a regulatory risk group manager and even a trader.
5. Capital One
J. David Ake, Getty Images
Total certified H-1B filings: 758
Total employees worldwide: 51,987 at the end of 2023
Types of filings: Most of Capital One's filings are for tech roles, as well as adjacent roles like a quantitative analysis manager and a range of data science roles.
6. Morgan Stanley
Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images
Total certified H-1B filings: 642
Total employees worldwide: More than 80,000 per its website
Types of filings: Morgan Stanley does not include job title information in their filings, only the level of seniority. The filings range from the associate level all the way up to managing director.
7. Barclays
A Barclays trader works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, July 3, 2012.
REUTERS/Brendan McDermid
Total certified H-1B filings: 609
Total employees worldwide: Approximately 85,000 per its corporate website
Types of filings: Most of Barclay's filings are for tech roles, but the company has also hired for director roles in global markets, equity derivatives structuring and for a credit desk quant role.
8. Visa
BI Intelligence
Total certified H-1B filings: 587
Total employees worldwide: 31,600 as of a December 4, 2024 report
Types of filngs: The vast majority of filings are for tech roles, like a senior machine learning engineer and a wide variety of software engineers. Other filings include a senior M&A manager and a senior finance manager.
9. American Express
American Express and American Express corporate cards are pictured in Encinitas
Thomson Reuters
Total certified H-1B filings: 575
Total employees worldwide: 74,000 per a 2024 press release
Types of filings: Nearly a third of AmEx's filings are for manager roles, the vast majority of those are in tech and data science portions of the business. The company has also filed for director roles in investment management and marketing analytics through the program.
10. Bank of America
Brian Moynihan
REUTERS / Bobby Yip
Total certified H-1B filings: 500
Total employees worldwide: 213,193 as of the end of last year
Types of filings: Similar to others on the list, most of Bank of America's H-1B filings are for tech roles, but the company has also hired a credit senior officer at a director role, and an associate general counsel and VP who works with financial derivatives.
11. Wells Fargo
Wells Fargo in San Francisco
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
Total certified H-1B filings: 453
Total employees worldwide: 220,167 employees as of the end of Q3 2024
Types of filings: Nearly 300 of Wells Fargo's filings are for roles with software in the title, but the firm had also filed for roles like a construction management director and a lead securities trader.
12. Mastercard
Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images
Total certified H-1B filings: 447
Total employees worldwide: 33,400 employees at the end of 2023 per an annual report
Types of filings: Mastercard has made 220 H-1B filings for roles with software in the title, while another 64 include product in the name. Other filings include roles like a vice president of marketing, strategy, and operations, and a commercial counsel role.
13. Charles Schwab
Charles Schwab, the founder and chairman of Charles Schwab.
REUTERS/Jim Young
Total certified H-1B filings: 429
Total employees worldwide: 32,100 employees as of the end of the third quarter of last year
Types of filing: More than 80% of roles have software in the name, though the company has also filed for director roles in business strategy, market risk management and treasury capital markets.
14. BlackRock
BlackRock CEO Larry Fink
Brendan McDermid/Reuters
Total certified H-1B filings: 354
Total employees worldwide: more than 20,000 globally
Types of filings: The vast majority of BlackRock's H-1B filings only note the role level. Some specific roles were highlighted, like an external relationship management associate and a sustainable investing associate.
15. UBS
Fabrice Coffrini/AFP/Getty Images
Total certified H-1B filings: 294
Total employees worldwide: 109,396 as of end of third quarter last year
Types of filing: UBS has filed for a range of tech roles as well as direct business roles, such as an alternative investments strategy director and director of investment banking.
Applications for 2026 summer jobs opened earlier this month at Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, RBC, Lazard, and Evercore, according to their website career portals. And some banks have already started sending applicants invitations to complete first-round interviews via HireVue, Business Insider has learned.
"It's a little bit like drinking water from a fire hose," said Meridith Dennes, an investment banking recruiter, of the Wall Street internship process. "There's so much stuff — it's really confusing, and it's changing all the time."
HireVue is a job screening tool many banks use to determine which candidates will get invitations for in-person interviews. Dennes said she is coaching some students who recently received invitations to do HireVue interviews, and Wall Street blogs are filling up with posts by aspiring interns seeking insight into the questions they could be asked. Banks that have been known to use the platform include Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan, and Wells Fargo.
Landing a summer internship at a leading investment bank is often the starting point for a high-paying and prestigious career on Wall Street, including for those who move on from investment banking to private-equity dealmaking or hedge-fund trading. The process is super competitive. Indeed, Goldman received so many applicants for the 2024 class that its hire rate dropped to under 1% last year.
To score a spot, you must compete with hundreds of thousands of applicants and nail every stage of the process, including the HireVue interview. Goldman Sachs' head of talent acquisition told BI in a 2023 interview that thjope bank uses HireVue to decide who should attend their "Super Day" — an industry-wide phenomenon for interviewing many job candidates in a single setting.
To help applicants ace this screening, BI has compiled tips from industry insiders, including Dennes, Jaylyn Jones, a former campus recruiter for JPMorgan who now works for Duolingo, and Nathan Mondragon of HireVue. They explain how to channel your favorite influencers as a hack for on-camera appeal, how to navigate some of the software's tools, and what questions you can expect to be asked.
Man in a suit exits the Wall Street subway station
Momo Takahashi/BI
How it works
HireVue is a software that conducts and records one-way interviews. The platform will ask you a question, give you a set amount of time to prepare your answer, and then start recording your response. For banks, the interviews will generally consist of four to seven questions, said Dennes.
After you've been asked a question, you will have 20 to 30 seconds to think about and prepare your answer, explained Jones, who helps the language-learning app DuoLingo find students for software engineering and product management roles. HireVue will give you one to three minutes to answer, depending on the question, she added.
"While they can be a little nerve-wracking, on-demand video interviews are a great way to shorten the hiring process and increase fairness so you can start your first day as soon as possible," Mondragon, HireVue's Chief Innovation Officer and IO Psychologist, told BI via email.
People walking by JPMorgan Chase's Manhattan office tower
Momo Takahashi/BI
Use practice mode
Most HireVue invitations include a practice feature. Use it to familiarize yourself with all the tools and buttons before your interview begins.
"Utilize the practice questions and other preparation tools offered within the interview platform," added Mondragon. "Only you can see your practice recordings, so use them fully."
HireVue's candidate help center explains it like this: "You can access practice questions by clicking the link from your invitation email and following the prompts until presented with the option to 'Try a Practice Question'. This should not start your interview."
You should also practice answering timed questions while recording yourself well before logging into HireVue, Dennes said.
"The best way to prepare for a HireVue is to take a list of standard questions from your school career center or online and then bullet out your answers," she said. "Then run a mock interview process where you use your phone or a stopwatch and you give yourself 30 to 60 seconds to prepare and 90 seconds to answer."
Practicing with a timer is key.
"You will be surprised at how fast 90 seconds go by if you don't know what you're saying," Dennes said, adding: "You'll be cut off and you won't be able to get to the point."
Goldman's HQ at 200 West Street
Momo Takahashi/BI
Move fast and be professional
Dennes suggested that candidates aim to submit their interviews within 48 hours of getting the invitation, even if they have a much longer deadline to turn it in. Think of it this way: Banks want to hire people who really want to work for them.
"If you're one of the first people to submit and you're a strong candidate, it shows you have a commitment to this firm," said Dennes.
Dress professionally and make sure you are seated in a professional setting, Jones and Dennes agreed.
"I recently spoke to a client who told me that a kid showed up in a green flannel shirt. No!" Dennes said. She suggested candidates put on a tie, a dress, or a nice sweater. "I don't know why it's not obvious, but it isn't," she added.
Interviewing at home is OK if you can't find a space that's more professional, but make sure it's presentable, said Jones.
"Filming in your dorm room is totally normal," she said. "But we don't want to see alcohol bottles in the back of your videos, especially if you're presumably not of legal drinking age."
If you have a messy bedroom, blur the background. And sit in a real chair, she said.
"I've seen students do HireVues physically in the bed, like, laying down," added Jones. "I've heard some students say 'Oh I thought it was AI so if I just said enough buzzwords no one was going to watch it.'"
Wall Street is hiring for 2026 interns.
AlexanderImage/Getty Images/iStockphoto
Channel your inner influencer
Even if you aren't the type of person to post a reel or TikTok, pretend you are for a few minutes, Jones said. Channel your favorite influencers or pretend you're FaceTiming a friend or family member. There's a way to speak professionally without coming off as mechanical or boring. That's the energy you should aim for, she said — relaxed, relatable, and energetic.
"There's something about just being able to speak naturally," she said. "Yes, I'm talking to a camera and recording it, but it does not have to be this weird robotic, cue-card vibe."
An easy way to keep up your energy is to remember to smile when speaking and raise the pitch of your voice slightly. Tap into the "Hi guys, welcome back to my channel!" energy of YouTube creators, said Jones — without sounding disingenuous or hokey.
PixeloneStocker/Getty Images
Use bulleted notes versus scripted answers
Use preparation time and the time in between takes to jot down your key talking points rather than trying to write out exact lines to read, the experts said.
"What we want to avoid is the candidates reading word for word a script out loud of the answer," said Jones. "I don't think they realize that we can see their eyes tracking across the screen."
Dennes, the Wall Street headhunter, suggested writing down the questions as they're being asked to make sure you are truly responding to them. Then use those bullet points from the earlier preparation for your answers.
"It's akin to a debate format where you would be asked a question, write it down, and then present your answer."
Take advantage of the redo tool
Many companies give applicants the opportunity to re-record every question at least once, said Jones. Figure out if you have redos before starting and, if so, how many. Then take advantage of it.
A little-utilized trick: There's no time limit between your first take and your redo, so if you don't like your first take, you could spend as long as you want to sit there and think through your answer before recording the second take.
Once you run out of redos, however, the software will submit the last take as your recorded response.
"You can't take it back, you can't undo it, so you really wanna make sure if you're gonna do a redo that you've kind of thought through what you're going to do with that redo," said Jones.
A common mistake, she said, is accidentally hitting "submit" instead of "redo" or "record."
"I had a candidate who accidentally recorded himself Facetiming his friend for help with the answers because he thought he was in between takes."
Citigroup logo
Mike Kemp/In Pictures via Getty Images
Research sample questions
Some questions, according to Dennes, may include:
Give an example of an experience where you've worked within a team.
Tell us about a time you handled a contentious situation. What was your approach?
Why [insert bank name here]?
Tell us about an article you read recently that you were interested in and why?
What is your greatest weakness?
The "greatest weakness" question is a common fumble, she added.
"You cannot say, 'I am a perfectionist.' Come up with an actual weakness, but one that's fixable or redeemable," she said.
She also stressed the importance of being prepared to answer "Why [insert bank name here]." This is where pre-application networking and coffee chats can really help. It can be advantageous to briefly mention some of the people at the bank you've met or spoken to and what you've gathered in your networking about what makes the firm special and why it aligns with you as a person.
As Lazard's head of recruiting, Danielle Dodgen, told BI in a 2023 interview, this question can often make or break a candidate's chance at moving on to the next round.
"It sounds so simple, but it's really important to be able to convey to the interviewer, 'This is my story, this is how I got here, and this is why I'm pursuing this path,'" said Dodgen. "There are instances where, if candidates haven't put much thought into the 'why,' it's pretty clear to interviewers."
Jones also stressed the importance of relating your experiences and achievements back to investment banking.
"Good candidates are able to give a concise, STAR-method answer that really lays out what they've done, what their actions were, what's the result," she said. "But great candidates then tie it back to the role."
Jaymes O'Pheron is an entrepreneur who moved from Aberdeen, Washington, to Fargo, North Dakota, in 2021.
Courtesy of Jaymes O'Pheron
Jaymes O'Pheron is an entrepreneur who has lived all over the world.
He and his wife moved from Washington state to Fargo, North Dakota, in 2021.
O'Pheron said the Midwest locale is his favorite because of its strong community.
This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Jaymes O'Pheron, a 34-year-old entrepreneur who moved from Aberdeen, Washington, to Fargo, North Dakota, in 2021.
The Fargo-Moorhead area, home to about 261,000people, has seen a significant population uptick in recent years and is expected to reach almost 340,000 people by 2045, a 35% growth rate, according to the Fargo-Moorhead Economic Development Corp.
My family is a bit odd. I'm the oldest of eight and grew up in a very sheltered, religiously-minded family. I spent most of my childhood in Washington state, outside Vancouver and across the river from Portland. When I was 17, my dad got a job in Texas, so we moved South.
After that, we deliberately decided as a family to leave America. We picked Ireland because, at the time, it was the last English-speaking nation that did not allow abortion. We wanted to support that.
I absolutely loved Ireland. The weather, the people, the history, the language, the food, the music, the pace of life, the cities, the way it's designed — it's very communal.
After four years in Ireland, though, some personal issues led me to move back to Washington in 2012. I met my wife in Aberdeen, and we got married in 2018.
But we knew we weren't going to stick around Washington forever. We had been experiencing some health issues that we eventually traced back to mold allergies. We realized we were biologically incompatible with mold and how damp and moldy the Northwest is. We couldn't live there.
We wanted to find a permanent home, so we started researching potential places to move in 2019.
We tried to be intentional about where we ended up. We narrowed it down to a few places with favorable economic and regulatory aspects and a positive culture.
Then, we visited Fargo, and we knew this was the place. We officially moved in May 2021.
O'Pheron said he loves Fargo's small-town heart and big-city energy.
Getty Images
Fargo is very friendly to startups
I'm a serial entrepreneur. I can't stop starting things, both nonprofit and for-profit. Right now, I'm primarily focusing on my nonprofit, which is focused on empowering people to be change-makers in their communities.
I'm also a freelance coach for career performance, communication, networking, and burnout prevention.
The community support here in Fargo is incredible. That was hugely important as I was trying to build up my coaching business. I needed a larger metro center to network, but I also needed a regulatory environment conducive to small business startups.
Fargo is a great place for small business startups, a huge part of which is due to the community. The people recognize that we need to support one another. Being an entrepreneur is emotionally difficult and risky. Having people around you cheering you on and having your back is incredibly valuable.
That community support is unique from all the other places I've lived. You can walk out onto the street and make friends with anyone.
We are definitely putting down roots here. We want our great-grandchildren to live here, so we started looking for a place to buy.
We found a beautiful home. I'm on the HOA board. There are a lot of benefits and assistance in North Dakota for people who are first-time home buyers.
In Washington, I was living in a studio apartment. We paid about the same rate here in Fargo for our two-bedroom apartment, which was twice the square footage, just outside downtown.
It's one of the best places in the country as far as the ratio between low cost of living and high-paying jobs goes. The quality of living is high. There are a lot of job opportunities here.
Fargo's winters are notoriously harsh.
Daniel Barry/Getty Images
Fargo is my favorite place I've lived
I just love Fargo. It's my favorite of all the places I've lived because I have all my favorite people here. I have better friends here than I've had in my entire life. My favorite part is the community.
When we first drove to Fargo, it felt like we were driving home. There's something about the scale of the city that is very approachable. It is a downtown area with robust activity, but it also has that small-town feel. It feels very safe and welcoming.
We had new friends from church help us move into an apartment immediately. We had met the pastor when we first got to Fargo, and he put out a call to the parish, and they all showed up to help us.
Because it's a college town, there's a lot of youthful energy and idealism. It's also on the border of Minnesota, a blue state. So, Fargo is a true purple city. There's a lot of diversity of thought and opinions. People actually have conversations, which is cool.
The one thing we were anticipating having to adjust to was the weather. We made sure we did all the preparation. We changed our car battery and got the right kinds of tires.
We had a really hard winter our first year there. But it was fun. I shoveled snow from our patio into the bathtub and took an ice bath. The cold weather actually leads to the quality of the community here. People help one another because we're all in it together.
Fargo is growing quickly. One of the issues we're dealing with is where to put all the people. We don't want to create sky-high prices or spread out too far so people can't commute. The city is trying to strike that balance of small-town heart and big-town body that we love so much.
As a burnout coach, I know that the silver bullet is community. We need to be able to connect with people around us authentically. Loneliness is killing us. So, it's a luxury to have people here at Fargo whom I can rely on.
I think others who value community should look at Fargo. It's an amazing place to be.
