Several government and private reports describing the “health” of the Big Apple economy conclude that employment in the private sector has returned to levels prior to the public health crisis caused by COVID-19.
For example, the New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC), celebrates in its latest “photograph” from August 2023, that “more New Yorkers are joining or returning to work.”
The unemployment rate dropped to 5.3%, after months hovering around 8%.
At first glance, this is good news.
However, if you look at other “photographs”, beyond the numbers that describe the formal, corporate and business sectors, the panorama in majority Hispanic neighborhoods is that working class families are having a very bad time. , to cover their main needs, even having a job.
At the same time, several analyzes confirm that for the first time in decades, the majority of immigrant families are navigating the troubled waters of barely surviving between the unstoppable increases in real estate rent and the costs of services.
With a very clear number, the United Way organization maintains in an investigation, updated in the first quarter of this year, under the title ‘The true cost of living in NYC’, that 50% of people of working age in the Big Apple are suffering to be able to cover the minimum services necessary to live, in contrast to 36% in 2021.
This analysis excludes people age 65 and older and with disabilities.
In precise data, that means, based on surveys, that more than 2.9 million New Yorkers simply “can’t make ends meet.”
“This group of people tend to skip meals to pay for what are normally fixed costs, such as transportation,” interprets Elizabeth Angeles, spokesperson for the United Way.
desperate for income
On the other hand, there are several parallel realities that are not reflected in any economic report on working life in the Big Apple. But that is an overwhelming truth in every corner of the city.
First, it is very evident that there is much more informality. In other words, hundreds of people have to take to the streets to sell products, in order to put some food on the table.
Second, with the flow of more than 104,000 recently arrived immigrants, desperate for work, new schemes appear that encourage schemes of labor exploitation or modern slavery.
Without anyone doubting it, now more people in the five boroughs are willing to accept pyrrhic amounts of money for their efforts, in services traditionally provided by immigrants.
“Someone who does not pay rent, because they live in a shelter, can accept any labor condition, because everything they receive goes to their pocket. It is a perverse thing for the undocumented working class, who has fought against the theft of wages in restaurants, in small non-unionized constructions, and in the cleaning area,” reasons Colombian Javier Valdivia, who was an activist for many years. of community organizations that defend the rights of immigrants.
uneven recovery
Likewise, the comptroller of the City of New York, Brad Lander, in a report on his observations of the Fiscal Budget 2024, outlines that although there are reasons for optimism, serious challenges remain.
“The severe lack of housing affordability threatens inclusion in the city and the strength of its economy. While the job recovery has been strong, it has been uneven. The rising costs of providing accommodation and services to people seeking asylum, without adequate federal or state support, are putting increasing pressure on the municipal budget”, he highlights.
Lander details that most of the gains from new jobs in recent months have been directed to private education and health services, which added a total of 98,300 new employees.
The leisure and hotel sector added 33,400 new jobs, but the commerce, transportation and public services sector lost 23,600 jobs. And from the manufacturing sector, 1,300 positions disappeared.
Projections from the comptroller’s office suggest that there are growing signs that the national economy “will avoid recession and continue to create jobs in the coming quarters.”
Additionally, both nationally and locally, initial claims for unemployment insurance remain reassuringly low, inflation has steadily declined, and surveys of consumers and businesses show an improvement in the economy.
In the comptroller’s words: “New York City enters fiscal year 2024 with a stronger economy than many predicted just six months ago.”
While this growth is expected to slow this year, compared to fiscal 2023, “recession fears have subsided considerably.”
A feeling or a reality?
Among the thousands of New Yorkers who walk the streets every day, the retired Dominican teacher, Carmen Beatriz López, after 42 years residing in New York, assures that she knows nothing of official statistics, but she witnesses the deterioration of the quality of life of the working family.
“Currently no one can live on a minimum wage. I always talk to employees of nail salons, for example, who have lived here paying their taxes for years since they arrived. They are drowning, because they can no longer cover the rent increases. The tough economy is driving people out of their neighborhoods,” says Carmen.
The Dominican resident of Upper Manhattan, in her words, believes that the Big Apple is no longer a place that offers opportunities for advancement to the labor force. In her opinion, only the wealthy and people with professional titles can cover the rental costs.
“What I am going to say is the feeling of thousands of people. It is not fair that thousands of thousands of immigrants who have lived here for decades, and even continue without papers, continue to pay taxes, in exchange for no help in these difficult times. And with those taxes the costs of newcomers are covered. But then now one shares this idea and they call you anti-immigrant. And it’s not true!” she asserted.
The United Way report on the labor economy of New York City gives consistency to the educator’s opinion, but after having crossed data and surveys from various academic institutions.
Basically New York City households are now much poorer than official measurements establish.
“The Official Poverty Measure (OPM) used by the federal government to classify the levels of economic hardship of families does not take into account several important aspects that strangle family budgets at this time in a city like New York,” he says. The report.
Currently, in this 2023, the OPM still classifies that a family made up of two adults with an annual income of $19,720, or a little more, does not enter the poverty line.
It takes a lot of money
In the x-ray of each county, it is verified that precisely in the neighborhoods that concentrate the greatest number of Hispanics and communities of color, it is where the difference in average income versus what is really needed to live is truly abysmal.
The Bronx County and vast neighborhoods of Upper Manhattan continue the historical trend of being the places where the weight of the low income of those who work even long hours is hitting hardest.
In addition, it is shown that more and more money is needed to cover the minimum, completely removing activities from the family budget that are typical of the essence of New York City, such as eating at a restaurant or other recreational expenses. .
This report shows how, in the year 2000, an average family in The Bronx made up of two adults and two school-age children needed an income of $48,077 per year to cover food, rent, and transportation expenses. Now in 2023, that same family group would need $107,000.
On average, according to the weightings detailed in this research, released by the United Way, an adult New Yorker with a school-age child, depending on the neighborhood where they live, would require between $82,000 and $110,000 per year to cover “without great excesses” their minimum services .
Another interesting fact derived from surveys carried out by the American Community Survey is that in the case of Queens County, real estate rent increases have skyrocketed in the last two years by 19%, for families made up of two adults and two children.
“There is no justice”
Ecuadorian nail worker Silvia Romero, 42, works in a Manhattan salon and observes that for months she has had to make many cuts to her lifestyle, because she received the news in January that her landlord increased her Rent in Queens at $350.
The 20-year-old immigrant in New York was on the verge of eviction, because she was delayed for several months during the pandemic lockdowns. Although she was able to save herself from being “thrown out on the streets” and she has been able to stay at home, she is still heavily in debt. She juggling to make ends meet.
“It is unfair that those of us who arrived years ago, without having papers and working honestly to pay our taxes, do not have any kind of consideration. I applied to the rental assistance programs and never received any answers. For us, the immigrant working class, the one that kept this city awake, during the worst of the pandemic, there are no funds even to prevent evictions,” Silvia concluded.
I’m not staying here!
For her part, the Venezuelan Francelys Pérez, 28, who arrived in the Big Apple five months ago with her two-year-old son, already has some calculations about her future, after having made the decision to cross the border to look for a better life. In summary, she assures that: I am not staying here!
“I live in a shelter in Queens. And from the first day I do nothing but strive to be independent. I don’t want to live like a beggar. I am a working woman and I already understood that here in New York it is very hard to prosper. Nobody rents you, even a room, with a child. Less if you say you live in a shelter. I really appreciate the help. But I am already in connection with some friends to go to another state, ”she shared.
The data:
- 65% of the Hispanic residents of the Big Apple are struggling to maintain a balance between their income and the high cost of living, highlights the report on the ‘True Cost of Living in NYC – 2023’.