Trajan
conscientia mille testes
interesting article........sounds ominous, they need the economy to take a major up turn, or these numbers will fill out....
snip-
There's also more work in Gotham than in the state as a whole. The problem is that the kind of work available shows that the city accommodates new immigrants much better than it supports middle-class aspirations. A recent report from the Drum Major Institute has the data: "The two fastest-growing industries in New York are also the lowest-paid. More than half of the city's employment growth over the past year has been in retail, hospitality and food services, all of which pay their workers less than half of the city's average wage."
Worse, more than 80 percent of the new jobs are in the city's five lowest-paying sectors.
Parts of the country are seeing a revival of manufacturing -- traditionally a source of upward mobility for immigrants -- but not New York City, where manufacturing continues to decline. The culprits here include the city's zoning policies, business taxes and decaying physical infrastructure.
Then there's the cost of living in New York City. A 2009 report by the Center for an Urban Future found that "a New Yorker would have to make $123,322 a year to have the same standard of living as someone making $50,000 in Houston. In Manhattan, a $60,000 salary is equivalent to someone making $26,092 in Atlanta." Even Queens, the report found, is the fifth most expensive urban area in the country.
The implications of Gotham's "hourglass economy" -- with all the action on the top and the bottom and not much in the middle -- are daunting.
The Drum Major report, which noted that 31 percent of the adults employed in New York work at low-wage labor, came with a political agenda. The institute wants the city to subsidize new categories of work by expanding the scope of "living-wage" laws, which require higher pay than minimum-wage laws do, to all businesses that receive city funds or contracts. But that would mean higher taxes on the middle class and a further narrowing of the hourglass' midsection.
Read more: Why New York's future is fleeing - NYPOST.com
snip-
There's also more work in Gotham than in the state as a whole. The problem is that the kind of work available shows that the city accommodates new immigrants much better than it supports middle-class aspirations. A recent report from the Drum Major Institute has the data: "The two fastest-growing industries in New York are also the lowest-paid. More than half of the city's employment growth over the past year has been in retail, hospitality and food services, all of which pay their workers less than half of the city's average wage."
Worse, more than 80 percent of the new jobs are in the city's five lowest-paying sectors.
Parts of the country are seeing a revival of manufacturing -- traditionally a source of upward mobility for immigrants -- but not New York City, where manufacturing continues to decline. The culprits here include the city's zoning policies, business taxes and decaying physical infrastructure.
Then there's the cost of living in New York City. A 2009 report by the Center for an Urban Future found that "a New Yorker would have to make $123,322 a year to have the same standard of living as someone making $50,000 in Houston. In Manhattan, a $60,000 salary is equivalent to someone making $26,092 in Atlanta." Even Queens, the report found, is the fifth most expensive urban area in the country.
The implications of Gotham's "hourglass economy" -- with all the action on the top and the bottom and not much in the middle -- are daunting.
The Drum Major report, which noted that 31 percent of the adults employed in New York work at low-wage labor, came with a political agenda. The institute wants the city to subsidize new categories of work by expanding the scope of "living-wage" laws, which require higher pay than minimum-wage laws do, to all businesses that receive city funds or contracts. But that would mean higher taxes on the middle class and a further narrowing of the hourglass' midsection.
Read more: Why New York's future is fleeing - NYPOST.com
thx....
........ahhh the memories!
