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Friday, January 27, 2006
New York leads the nation in income inequality .......................................... 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/EndingPoverty http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/ http://www.bloggernews.net Blogger News Network is advertiser-supported, and your visits to our advertisers help BNN to meet its expenses. Help keep us afloat! posted by Ed Kent at 7:04 AM |
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