Most New Yorkers would agree that poverty and inequality are bad, and the data confirms that both are far above average in New York City.  Advocates for the poor report this constantly.  Their solution:  more money for their organizations, and more places for the poor to live.

As I wrote here, poverty and inequality may be explained by economic and social conditions and public policy at the national level.  At the local level, however, the level of poverty is primarily a product of migration:  who moves in (or is kept out), who moves out (or is pushed out), who is born and who dies off.  Local changes in the poverty rate may have nothing to do with whether individuals are getting richer or poorer whatsoever.  Even if the city succeeded in helping every poor person within its borders to advance out of poverty, its poverty rate would not go down if those formerly poor people moved out and were replaced by new poor people seeking to move up.  When people advocate for more low-income housing in New York City, they are advocating for the opportunity for more low-income people to live here, and thus a higher poverty rate.  Places with low poverty rates are generally affluent suburban jurisdictions that seek to exclude the poor, through zoning rules that keep the price of housing high (more on that in future essays).  Thus, the city’s high poverty rate is an inevitable by product of its accessibility to the poor, something that is in other ways desirable.

Note: This is the second post in a series about Charles A. Gargano,  President of the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) and Vice-Chairman of the New York-New Jersey Port Authority. The first post is here. 

Intelli-Check press release:

"AUGUST 27, 2006 / NEW YORK - Senators Jeffrey D. Klein (D-Bronx/Westchester) and Martin Connor (D-Brooklyn/Manhattan), today proposed legislation that would modify existing law to require merchants who sell  alcohol or  tobacco  products  to use advanced ID scanner  systems  to  validate driver licenses and non-driver ID cards  presented  as  proof  of  the  buyers  legal  age.  The original law, which was written and introduced by Senator Klein in 1999, encouraged the use of the scanning devices, however did not require them. The new legislation will make the scanning devices mandatory, and make it easier for merchants to identify counterfeit IDs - thus reducing the occurrence of both underage drinking and tobacco sales to minors...

NY1 ("the Al Sharpton Channel") must have an ombudsman. Yes, I've said this before here. Yes,  Al Sharpton was on "Inside City Hall" again last night, offering the same insights we've already heard 50 times this year.

It's a disgrace that NY1 broadcast a McFarland-Spencer U.S. Senate debate, but not a Tasini-Clinton debate. The public lost out.

I wrote to Tasini--at least he got a NY1 response! I just received this e-mail from a Tasini staffer:

I had to call them many, many times before I finally got an answer from them, and you know how that turned out. The interesting thing is that they are a subsidiary of Time Warner, which has donated $100,000 to Hillary Clinton.

The alleged big story this morning is that perennial losing candidate Charlie King is again dropping out and endorsing Andrew Cuomo.

Since nobody he hasn't bought lunch for was supporting King, the story isn't that interesting.

Except for the reason that Charlie gave for his decision according to the NY Times blog -

“I am doing this primarily because I am interested in unifying the Democratic Party at a time when we will face a strong Republican challenge,” he said.

Huh? Strong Republican challenge? Doesn't Charlie read the papers? 

The Manhattan Institute, the Public Policy Institute, and the New York Post continually moan about the extent to which New York State’s economy and population grow more slowly than the national average.  The reason, they assert, is because New York’s state and local taxes are high, and the solution is to cut taxes on people like themselves until they are near or below the national average.  Since New York has more pension obligations and debts than the national average, and the federal government covers a lower share of Medicaid and social services costs here, this would require spending on public services and benefits that were much lower than the national average.  In other words, all public services in the state, or at least those outside certain affluent suburbs, would have to be funded like New York City’s schools.

Happy Labor Day.  I began the day looking through the news, and seeing the usual round of Labor Day stories about the New York economy.  There is no doubt New York State’s economy is not the strongest in the country.  There is no doubt there are people in this state with economic problems.  And there is no doubt that bad state and local government policies play a role in creating those problems. 

And yet, hearing what is said in the media, by interest groups, and by elected and would-be elected officials, I find that the state’s problems are generally vastly exaggerated and misdiagnosed.  Some of the purported problems are inherent conditions which cannot be remedied; others are the flip side of good things New Yorkers would be loath to give up.  Some of the exaggerated problems are little more than a disingenuous excuse for more public money for interests that aren’t necessarily the most in need – a plea for the continuation, or even expansion, of policies that were bad to begin with.  Meanwhile the state’s actual economic problems, as I see them, are generally not on the state government agenda, mainly because there isn’t an organized group giving campaign contributions that is interested in them.  I’ll discuss the real problems, and my suggested solutions, in later essays (probably next week).  First, however, I’ll go over what I see as phony or exaggerated problems:  slow job and population growth in New York City, poverty and income inequality in New York City, the high cost of living in the Downstate Suburbs, and job losses and decline in Upstate New York.