New York leads nation in income inequality
[I certainly have to confirm this in personal experience. We moved into a somewhat run down building near Columbia University in the late 1960s. Our neighborhood was quite diverse at that time with SROs and prosperous buildings in the same block. Subsequently we have been progressively gentrified with our rental buildings (including the SROs) converting to co-ops. One needs to be a millionaire to move in now and the homeless flock down into Riverside Park to sleep in the railroad tunnel underlying it -- the trains mournfully sound their warnings as they pass through from Penn Station and to the north and west. Our parks used to be filled with parents and children -- now nannies have replaced parents except on weekends -- of the families that is who have not transported for the weekends to their country homes. Our neighborhood markets -- with the support of Columbia as lessor -- have 'upscaled' their prices while down scaling their services and original staffs with whom we had all become friends. Would you believe that a one bedroom apartment is now selling for $500,000.00? Who can afford such? And then there are the differentials in educational possibilities. Our neighborhood public schools are nothing to cheer for and the privates are now costing in annual tuition about twice what a poverty income would be for a family of four! And so it went! Ed Kent]
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http://ny.metro.us/metro/local/article/Report_New_York_leads_nation_in_income_inequality/913.html
Report: New York leads nation in income inequality
by patrick arden - metro new york
JAN 26, 2006
MANHATTAN — As Mayor Michael Bloomberg laid out a vision for economic development in his State of the City speech yesterday, a new report was released that showed the gap between rich and poor here is growing — New York, in fact, leads the nation in income inequality.
“This is one top-ten list we don’t want to be on,” said economist Trudi Renwick of the Fiscal Policy Institute, a local nonpartisan research group that participated in a nationwide study based on census data from 1980 to 2003.
“Evidence suggests this gap has grown even larger in recent years,” Renwick said. “Incomes at the top have soared, while wages at the bottom have been stagnant.”
A growing gap
Not surprisingly, the gap between rich and poor is widest in the city, where the top 20 percent are making more than nine times the income of the bottom 20 percent. Wages, adjusted for inflation, have not grown for the poorest families over the last decade.
“The number of families in the middle range — broadly defined as making $35,000 to $150,000 a year — has been declining in New York state as a whole, but particularly in New York City,” Renwick said.
The reasons for this are numerous, ranging from global competition and the decline of manufacturing jobs to the expansion of the low-wage service sector and the weakening of unions.
Fixing the hole
Renwick called on the state to tie the minimum wage to inflation, and she’d like the city to base its economic-development subsidies and tax incentives to businesses on the quality of jobs that will be gained. “Too often we’re providing funds to create low-wage jobs,” she said.
Dan Steinberg, a research analyst with Good Jobs New York, noted the city has justified all of its major economic development initiatives in the name of job creation. “But it’s a troubling scenario,” he said. “When you’re talking about baseball stadiums, the Ratner arena and the Gateway mall at the Bronx Terminal Market, you’re talking about low-wage jobs without health insurance. These workers then rely on state health programs, so government ends up taking a double hit.”
‘Back to work’
The city’s Human Resources Administration oversees a $130 million program designed to help nearly 50,000 New Yorkers find jobs every year. Yesterday Bloomberg said HRA should pay its vendors offering job-placement services based purely on “performance.”
That’s nothing new, said Sandra Youdelman, research director at the nonprofit group Community Voices Heard.
“Accountability is critical,” she said, “but we found that paying vendors based solely on performance undermines the process. It forces them to concentrate on the easiest cases to place. The people who really need support — or require training — don’t end up getting served.”
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort
to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CollegeConversation
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PeaceEfforts
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EndingPoverty
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/440neighborhood
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/StudentConcerns
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AcademicFreedom
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PrivacyRights
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net
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http://ny.metro.us/metro/local/article/Report_New_York_leads_nation_in_income_inequality/913.html
Report: New York leads nation in income inequality
by patrick arden - metro new york
JAN 26, 2006
MANHATTAN — As Mayor Michael Bloomberg laid out a vision for economic development in his State of the City speech yesterday, a new report was released that showed the gap between rich and poor here is growing — New York, in fact, leads the nation in income inequality.
“This is one top-ten list we don’t want to be on,” said economist Trudi Renwick of the Fiscal Policy Institute, a local nonpartisan research group that participated in a nationwide study based on census data from 1980 to 2003.
“Evidence suggests this gap has grown even larger in recent years,” Renwick said. “Incomes at the top have soared, while wages at the bottom have been stagnant.”
A growing gap
Not surprisingly, the gap between rich and poor is widest in the city, where the top 20 percent are making more than nine times the income of the bottom 20 percent. Wages, adjusted for inflation, have not grown for the poorest families over the last decade.
“The number of families in the middle range — broadly defined as making $35,000 to $150,000 a year — has been declining in New York state as a whole, but particularly in New York City,” Renwick said.
The reasons for this are numerous, ranging from global competition and the decline of manufacturing jobs to the expansion of the low-wage service sector and the weakening of unions.
Fixing the hole
Renwick called on the state to tie the minimum wage to inflation, and she’d like the city to base its economic-development subsidies and tax incentives to businesses on the quality of jobs that will be gained. “Too often we’re providing funds to create low-wage jobs,” she said.
Dan Steinberg, a research analyst with Good Jobs New York, noted the city has justified all of its major economic development initiatives in the name of job creation. “But it’s a troubling scenario,” he said. “When you’re talking about baseball stadiums, the Ratner arena and the Gateway mall at the Bronx Terminal Market, you’re talking about low-wage jobs without health insurance. These workers then rely on state health programs, so government ends up taking a double hit.”
‘Back to work’
The city’s Human Resources Administration oversees a $130 million program designed to help nearly 50,000 New Yorkers find jobs every year. Yesterday Bloomberg said HRA should pay its vendors offering job-placement services based purely on “performance.”
That’s nothing new, said Sandra Youdelman, research director at the nonprofit group Community Voices Heard.
“Accountability is critical,” she said, “but we found that paying vendors based solely on performance undermines the process. It forces them to concentrate on the easiest cases to place. The people who really need support — or require training — don’t end up getting served.”
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort
to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CollegeConversation
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PeaceEfforts
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EndingPoverty
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/440neighborhood
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/StudentConcerns
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AcademicFreedom
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PrivacyRights
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net
posted by Ed Kent at 9:00 AM
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