The recession put a 3.1 percent dent in the personal incomes of New York state residents, who endured their first full-year decline in more than 70 years, according to a report released Tuesday.
Paychecks or net earnings tumbled 5.4 percent, while dividends, interest and rent slid 8.4 percent, to a grand total of nearly $908 billion, the state comptroller’s report said.
Not only did New Yorkers’ personal incomes fall “almost twice” as much as they did in the nation as a whole, but they have yet to recover to pre-recession levels, Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli said.
The drop occurred even though the job-destroying recession was milder in New York than in the rest of the country.
One reason for the hit to New Yorker’s pocketbooks is Wall Street’s dominance among the state’s employers; pay and job security are often highly volatile in the securities industry.
After the securities industry lost a record $54 billion in the financial crisis of 2007 and 2008, federal bailouts and low interest rates helped it achieve record profits in 2009 of $61.4 billion, DiNapoli said.
This year, the companies’ first-quarter profits of $10.1 billion were more than twice the $3.9 billion total in the second quarter – but the more recent earnings were “in line with historic levels,” DiNapoli said.
Though Wall Street went on a bit of a hiring spree in early 2010, these employers, whose earnings drive the city and state economies, have gone back to handing out pink slips, he said.
During the first eight months of this year, they sliced 4,200 positions, which means 31,300 securities industry jobs have been lost since January 2008, the report said.
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7 Responses
So why does the government in New York keep spending the money they would have had had the boom continued? And why do New Yorkers (including frum New Yorkers) keep saying “gimme” (give me) as if the public fisc was overflowing? At least we know why New York’s politicians (especially the frum ones) keep asking irresponsibly – their constituents prefer irresponsible ones to fiscally prudent ones.
Why shouldn’t they say gimme, after all there are many of us who take home only 55% of their pay and the rest goes to taxes so people can buy things i myself wouldn’t allow myself. You see for yourself many eye openers when you do any shopping and who is buying what! Including are vacations many of us high taxpayers can’t get to!!
If you over 300,000,000 million saying “gimme” at the same time, they blow up a very nice bubble, which then bursts. That is short explains the economic mess that Obama inherited and then enhanced. We have met the enemy, and it is “us” – all of us.
and since when are “vacations” a necessity?
and whatever happened to “who is rich – he who is happy with what he got” – or is that only for religious fanatics (of which I suspect there aren’t really all that many – only a lot of wannabees)
akuperma,
What programs benefitting the frum community would YOU end? How many people who are employed by those frum organizations would you send to unemployment? How much tzedakah will you personally contribute so they can have a Shabat meal?
Medicaid is the largest part of the state budget. How many people will you kick off the Medicaid roles? How much tzedakah will you personally contribute so that a poor Jew can afford their lifesaving diabetes or hypertention or hyperlipidemia medication? Are you willing to take in a poor Jew whose Medicaid nursing home has just closed and provide him the round the clock care he used to get? How much tzedakah will you personally contribute so that a Jew who used to work for a hospital that is being closed will be able to have Shabat meals? We are talking about the permanent disappearance of jobs here, never to return.
It is easy to call for cuts. But they really do hurt people and we must realize that it does.
Akuperma has always been very sure of himself (by the posts he make). Parnassah “comes from” Unesaneh Tokef. His tune will change when (hopefully not), he is the one that has to yell “gimme”. How do I know? I was once like him too and learned a big life lesson. Charlie, on the other hand, you have a heart of gold and may Hashem bless you with only good.
To Charlie Hall:
Here is who I would kick off the State gravy train–the lawyers!
We need to reform the “Tort” laws that permit piranha lawyers to rip off billions of dollars from hospitals and doctors in malpractice lawsuits.
As a result medical costs have skyrocketed, due to skyrocketing malpractice insurance rates and lawsuit settlements.
Note that it is “UNZER FRIEND” Sheldon Silver, speaker of the State Assembly who is single-handedly preventing Tort Reform.
While deepthinker is right about the need to replace the medical malpractice tort liability system with some kind of no-fault system, that has nothing to do with the state budget. Furthermore, malpractice awards are a very small part of the total cost of medical care. In addition, we can be wary of Texas’ experience; it put a severe cap on punative damages but its healthcare system continues to get worse and worse, so much so that many Texans now go to Mexico for health care!