Newly released Census Bureau statistics, including poverty data, show that the economic recovery has not yet reached a majority of New Yorkers. The severe impact the recession has had on our neighborhoods and boroughs drove poverty, unemployment and income inequality to unacceptably high levels. Those levels did not decrease in 2011.
Low-wage work is undermining our city, our communities, and our economy. Employers who hire workers at minimum or near-minimum wages—and sometimes fail to pay their workers even that—too often are profiting handsomely while their workers suffer. When CEOs of these companies are rewarded with millions in compensation and live in luxury at the expense of their workers, the society and our economy pay the price. More money in the pockets of working people would mean more opportunity for ...
What does caring mean to you? I’m Nancy Salazar, and I'd like to tell you what caring means to me. Being a home health aide is hard work – I wake up early, so I can get to work at 8am, and my workday doesn’t end until 8pm. But I don’t mind the hours.
This report by Good Jobs First, a non-profit, non-partisan research center based in Washington, DC, analyzes the performance standards and enforcement policies of the states’ major economic development programs. The study shows that most states are highly inconsistent in how they monitor, verify and enforce the terms of job subsidies that cost taxpayers billions of dollars per year. New York State had one of the poorest track records, receiving a score of D+ and ranking 45th out of the 50 states ...
Good Jobs First examined the subsidy disclosure practices of the 50 states and the District of Columbia in this comprehensive report. See which states do a good job of reporting on where the money is going and which keep taxpayers in the dark.
National Jobs with Justice and the Excluded Worker Congress commemorated International Human Rights Day by releasing Unity for Dignity: Expanding the Right to Organize to Win Human Rights at Work, a report highlighting on-going efforts to dramatically expand workers’ human right to organize and collectively bargain. The Excluded Workers Congress and the report highlight workers who have historically been excluded from labor protections, the right to organize, and underrepresented in the labor movement - domestic workers, farmworkers, taxi drivers, restaurant ...
This new report from the Fiscal Policy Institute identifies $5.4 billion a year in state government "back door" spending in the name of economic development and job creation. An additional $2.8 billion a year is being drained from New York's local government budgets because of a variety of tax expenditures in state law. In these tough budget times, these billions of dollars in business tax expenditures, which have historically lacked transparency and accountability, must be examined carefully - program by program - ...
The Center for American Progress Action Fund’s new report, Creating Good Jobs in Our Communities: How Higher Wage Standards Affect Economic Development and Employment, examines the impact of living wage standards on economic development subsidies. It finds that economic development wage standards have no negative effect on citywide employment levels. The study finds that the 15 cities effectively implementing business assistance living wage laws—Ann Arbor, Berkeley, Cambridge, Cleveland, Duluth, Hartford, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Oakland, Philadelphia, Richmond, San Antonio, San ...
This report, co-authored by Sarita Gupta of National Jobs with Justice and released by the Institute for Policy Studies, concludes that the economic crisis is still on the rise for millions of Americans, while at the same time the social safety net is failing to support many of them. It offers one of the boldest, most comprehensive plans to combat poverty and unemployment — beginning now.
This National Unemployment Law Project report shows how America's workplace laws are failing to protect our country's workers. In industries ranging from construction and food manufacturing to restaurants, janitorial services and home health care, workers are enduring minimum wage and overtime violations, hazardous working conditions, discrimination, and retaliation for speaking up or trying to organize. They have little recourse because of their need for work, especially during the recession. Broken Laws, Unprotected Workers is the first study of its kind, ...