why $15 an hour is needed by all on long island

Julia Vasquez with here daughter Samantha Vasquez 2, Julia Vasquez with here daughter Samantha Vasquez 2, both live with Julia's mother in Port Washington on Tuesday, July 1, 2014. Vasquez who earns minimum wage at a fast food business can't afford to live in her own place. (Credit: Uli Seit) Related media A file photo of a person applying for What jobs are growing fastest? NAFTA Where trade deal lost LI over 1,000 jobs Rep. Peter King (R-Seaford) will attend the How LI reps voted on 55 issues jobs numbers See where the jobs are on LI Leslie Moonves $62,157,026 yearly compensation change: -11.1%CEOCBS Corp.1-yr LI executive pay Portion of the salary application Interactive: Compare their pay to yours Travel deals Julia Vasquez of Port Washington knows exactly where she will be each weekday, 52 weeks a year. She rises early, puts on her white shirt and jeans, and by 6:30 a.m. Vasquez is standing behind the counter of a fast-food restaurant in Suffolk County working an eight-hour shift. Her weekly take-home pay for 40 hours: about $300. SEARCH: What different jobs pay | LI vs. NYC salaries | Where are the jobs on LI? | Forecast for jobs | State worker overtime | LI jobs lost because of NAFTA | How LI reps voted on job bills Vasquez, 34, is employed in one of the fastest-growing job categories on Long Island, with among the lowest wages. Her $10-an-hour pay is higher than what many make in similar jobs. "It's very hard to manage, to provide for my daughter and pay my rent," said Vasquez, who has no benefits, paid sick days or vacations. "It's not easy." Now there's a movement nationally and across New York pushing for higher hourly pay for fast-food and other low-wage workers. The effort faces fierce opposition from business associations and small-business owners who say that higher wages could force them to raise prices, cut jobs or even close down. "Honestly, it's very tough to give them any kind of wage increase," said Jeff Iqubal, owner of Dante's Pizzeria of Hicksville. Last weekend, about 1,200 fast-food workers gathered from all over the country at an expo center outside Chicago to strategize on furthering their campaign for $15-an-hour wages, focusing on franchises and chains like McDonald's and Burger King. The Service Employees International Union, with 2 million members, helped underwrite the two-day convention, where there was unanimous support for nonviolent actions of civil disobedience. In June in Albany, about 1,000 workers demonstrated at the state Capitol in favor of a bill to allow localities to set minimum wages higher than the state minimum of $8 an hour (already slated to rise to $9 by the end of 2015.) Fast-food workers, led by unions, especially the SEIU, and other advocacy groups, also have staged one-day strikes and demonstrations, beginning in New York City in November 2012. On May 15, coordinated demonstrations took place in 130 U.S. and 20 foreign cities -- although none on Long Island. Federal legislation in the Senate proposes to raise the $7.25 federal minimum wage to $10.10, but activists support wages as high as $15 an hour, a figure backed by New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and recently enacted in Seattle, to be phased in by 2021. Fast-food outlets have been difficult to unionize because most are run by individual franchise holders operating under a franchiser corporation's rules. However, on Tuesday, labor won a potentially big victory when the National Labor Relations Board determined that McDonald's, USA, LLC could be named a joint employer of workers in its more than 14,000 U.S. restaurants, the great majority operated by franchisees. The board's Office of the General Counsel found merit in 43 cases so far, alleging labor law violations against workers, including charges they were punished for pro-union activities, and said suits could be filed against McDonald's if the cases aren't settled first. The decision to name McDonald's a joint employer opens the way for a unionization campaign targeting the corporation directly rather than its more than 3,000 individual owner-operators. A McDonald's representative said the company would contest the labor board decision, and said it wasn't responsible for hiring, termination, wages and employee hours at franchised locations, according to The Associated Press. Many support children Minimum-wage workers are typically depicted as young and entry-level, yet federal data reveal that more than 40 percent are 25 and older. About a third of those 20 or older -- such as Vasquez -- support children. To get by, Vasquez, who said she gets no financial help from her child's father, lives with her mother, paying $600 a month in rent, and relies on food stamps and county help to pay for day care for her 2-year-old daughter, Samantha. Still, Vasquez never takes a week off. "I don't have the luxury of taking vacations," she said. "My daughter needs her clothes, her shoes. It's a very tight budget." Last year, 23,532 people worked in Long Island's 2,317 limited-service restaurants, which includes fast-food outlets as well as delis, takeout pizzerias and sandwich shops. That was up from 17,151 employees in 1,675 establishments 10 years earlier, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Business groups, including the National Restaurant Association, have come out strongly against raising the minimum wage, especially as high as $15, arguing it would force business owners to cut jobs and hours and result in a loss of entry-level jobs for young workers. And, critics of raising the minimum wage point out, family incomes may be considerably higher than the earnings of individual fast-food workers, especially for teenagers or young people living with their families, or for married employees. Matthew Haller, spokesman for the Washington, D.C.-based International Franchise Association, which represents about 30,000 individual franchisees with businesses ranging from fast food to print centers and flower shops, said raising the federal minimum wage would force business owners to raise prices -- or eliminate jobs. "A minimum wage was never meant to be a living wage," he said, noting such jobs were traditionally held by young workers or those seeking flexibility, who, in a better job market, could then move on to higher-paying employment. "Part of the reason we're having this conversation" about raising minimum wages, he said, "is because of the lack of job creation in other sectors of the economy." "Fast-food restaurants typically operate on thin profit margins," he said. "A lot of restaurants choose to pay wages that are competitive in the market in which they operate, but raising wages to extreme levels like $15 is unsustainable. At a certain point if you can't turn a profit in a business, you have to go out of business or raise prices, or you eliminate workers, and that impacts consumers." Yet the economic implications are more complicated, suggested John Rizzo, economist at the Long Island Association, a business group based in Melville. He noted that while rapidly rising wages could motivate businesses to raise prices, cut workers' hours and spur automation, there were benefits from raising low incomes as well. Low-wage workers spend their income, and with more money in hand their spending could help boost local economies. "It's a trade-off," he said. While advocates say profitable businesses could pay higher wages, many small-businessmen such as Jeff Iqubal say they cannot. He'd have to cut his two main employees' hours, he said, if wages rose above the $10 an hour he pays now. They each work about 36 hours and hold second jobs elsewhere. In addition, "There's a lot of competition here," said Iqubal, who works 72 hours a week in the strip mall pizzeria he's owned for nine years. "With [owning only] one place, you can't live." Gary Gulla, 57, another independent small-businessman, has owned Bellagio Pizzeria in Farmingdale for the past 14 years. He, his wife and three children run it, with about 33 full- and part-time employees, who make from $8-an-hour minimum wage to as much as $18 an hour for cooks and pizza makers. In a competitive business climate, he said, rising costs, including salaries, mean higher prices for consumers, which could jeopardize jobs and businesses if prices get too high for consumers to accept. "Many business owners are just barely bringing home a paycheck, and raising salaries and prices would put them out of business -- which would raise unemployment," said Richard Albano, 53, owner of Richie's Pizza in Deer Park. His own employees start out at $9 an hour, with good performers moving up to $12 or $13 an hour after two months. A higher minimum wage "won't affect me because we're doing good," he said. Most affected would be franchises with a business model of low wages and thin profit margins, and an owner "who isn't doing that well in a small business," he said. Struggle on Long Island But while business owners must meet their expenses, so too must low-wage workers. And meeting expenses can be especially difficult for low-wage families on high-cost Long Island. A 41-year-old Suffolk County woman whose husband holds a low-wage factory job said her income at a fast-food hamburger franchise helped pay for food and clothing for their three sons. After seven years on the job, she takes home only about $100 for a 15-hour week. "I want to work 40 hours a week here, but the boss says no," said the woman, who asked that her name be withheld. She recently began a second job working three days a week at a clothing store, for about $150 more in take-home pay. "I'm not happy, but God helps me," she said. Ana Davis, 22, a Hofstra University senior from Connecticut, better fits the depiction of a low-wage worker as young and entry-level. Yet, she supports herself on her wages without help from her working mom, and takes out college loans. She pays rent for her off-campus housing in Uniondale by working up to 35 hours a week at the Westbury fast-food restaurant. She makes $9.75 an hour and takes home, after taxes, about $250 to $300 a week, she said. Over the last school year, she said, she had worked three jobs and her grades suffered as she sometimes traded off attending class with the need to work enough to pay her bills. "The money is getting kind of thin," said Davis, noting her pay is "better than a lot of other places, but realistically it doesn't cover everything. Honestly, this is the best job I ever had, but it would be nice to earn enough to be comfortable." Mileny Loais, 23, who makes $8.50 an hour at a sandwich chain franchise in Mineola, lives with her parents in Uniondale. Like many young adults in a difficult job environment, she still lives in her childhood bedroom. She has looked on Craigslist for an apartment but said with a laugh, "No, I couldn't move out. I'll have to stay with my parents for a couple more years." She'd like to save for college, she said, but barely covers her personal expenses. Wages of $10 or $12 an hour, she said, "would be a lot better. That would help me a lot." Organizing workers Make the Road New York is among the advocacy groups organizing low-wage workers. Its Long Island chapter, based in Brentwood, includes volunteers such as Teresa Farfan, 65, of Central Islip, who used to work at a national fast-food chain for up to 70 hours a week with no more than $400 in take-home pay. Another is a pizza deliveryman, 64, who requested anonymity. After 12 years on the job, his 50- to 56-hour workweek at $6.75 an hour plus overtime yielded weekly take-home pay of $150 to $200, plus tips, he said. His tips — from $30 to $100 a week — go to maintain his car, which he must use for deliveries. But for many workers, the fast-food industry, whatever its wages, offers the best job they can find. Vasquez, the single mom from Port Washington, said since beginning work in the fast-food industry 11 years ago, she’s tried to find better-paying jobs. For two years she had a job in a warehouse, which ended when the company moved, and she returned to her fast-food employer. “If I find something better, I leave, and if that doesn’t work out,” she said, “they always take me back.” SURVIVING ON $16,018 A YEAR In 2013, the average wage was $16,018 for limited-service restaurants (including fast-food restaurants, delis, limited-menu pizzerias and other similar establishments). In 2003, the average wage was $13,220. (Average wage is total wages divided by total number of employees, from higher-wage salaried managers to teenage part-timers). Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics The Washington, D.C., think tank Economic Policy Institute’s family budget calculator said an adequate but modest income in 2013 for a family of four on Long Island was $94,567. It posited a monthly budget of $7,881, including $2,000 for child care, $607 for transportation, $1,387 for health care, $754 for food, $1,583 for housing, taxes of $946 and $598 for other necessities. Among workers earning between $7.25 and $11 nationally, the median age is 30 (half older, half younger) and more than a third (34.5 percent) are at least 40 years old. In New York State, low-wage workers provide on average 46.8 percent of family income. Source: Economic Policy Institute analysis of U.S. Community Population Survey data MINIMUM PAY IN STATES As of June 1, 22 states and the District of Columbia have minimum wages above the federal minimum wage. 19 states, Guam, and the Virgin Islands have minimum wages the same as the federal minimum wage of $7.25. Four states, American Samoa and Puerto Rico have minimum wages below the federal minimum wage (the federal minimum thus applies). One state, New Hampshire, repealed its state minimum wage in 2011 but left the reference to the federal minimum wage. Five states have not established a state minimum wage. HIGHEST: District of Columbia, $9.50, going up to $11.50 by July 1, 2016 LOWEST: Georgia and Wyoming, $5.15 NONE: Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina and Tennessee, wages not tied to federal minimum; New Hampshire has no state minimum but wages tied to federal minimum Source: National Conference of State LegislaturesJulia Vasquez with here daughter Samantha Vasquez 2, Julia Vasquez with here daughter Samantha Vasquez 2, both live with Julia's mother in Port Washington on Tuesday, July 1, 2014. Vasquez who earns minimum wage at a fast food business can't afford to live in her own place. (Credit: Uli Seit) Related media A file photo of a person applying for What jobs are growing fastest? NAFTA Where trade deal lost LI over 1,000 jobs Rep. Peter King (R-Seaford) will attend the How LI reps voted on 55 issues jobs numbers See where the jobs are on LI Leslie Moonves $62,157,026 yearly compensation change: -11.1%CEOCBS Corp.1-yr LI executive pay Portion of the salary application Interactive: Compare their pay to yours Travel deals Julia Vasquez of Port Washington knows exactly where she will be each weekday, 52 weeks a year. She rises early, puts on her white shirt and jeans, and by 6:30 a.m. Vasquez is standing behind the counter of a fast-food restaurant in Suffolk County working an eight-hour shift. Her weekly take-home pay for 40 hours: about $300. SEARCH: What different jobs pay | LI vs. NYC salaries | Where are the jobs on LI? | Forecast for jobs | State worker overtime | LI jobs lost because of NAFTA | How LI reps voted on job bills Vasquez, 34, is employed in one of the fastest-growing job categories on Long Island, with among the lowest wages. Her $10-an-hour pay is higher than what many make in similar jobs. "It's very hard to manage, to provide for my daughter and pay my rent," said Vasquez, who has no benefits, paid sick days or vacations. "It's not easy." Now there's a movement nationally and across New York pushing for higher hourly pay for fast-food and other low-wage workers. The effort faces fierce opposition from business associations and small-business owners who say that higher wages could force them to raise prices, cut jobs or even close down. "Honestly, it's very tough to give them any kind of wage increase," said Jeff Iqubal, owner of Dante's Pizzeria of Hicksville. Last weekend, about 1,200 fast-food workers gathered from all over the country at an expo center outside Chicago to strategize on furthering their campaign for $15-an-hour wages, focusing on franchises and chains like McDonald's and Burger King. The Service Employees International Union, with 2 million members, helped underwrite the two-day convention, where there was unanimous support for nonviolent actions of civil disobedience. In June in Albany, about 1,000 workers demonstrated at the state Capitol in favor of a bill to allow localities to set minimum wages higher than the state minimum of $8 an hour (already slated to rise to $9 by the end of 2015.) Fast-food workers, led by unions, especially the SEIU, and other advocacy groups, also have staged one-day strikes and demonstrations, beginning in New York City in November 2012. On May 15, coordinated demonstrations took place in 130 U.S. and 20 foreign cities -- although none on Long Island. Federal legislation in the Senate proposes to raise the $7.25 federal minimum wage to $10.10, but activists support wages as high as $15 an hour, a figure backed by New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and recently enacted in Seattle, to be phased in by 2021. Fast-food outlets have been difficult to unionize because most are run by individual franchise holders operating under a franchiser corporation's rules. However, on Tuesday, labor won a potentially big victory when the National Labor Relations Board determined that McDonald's, USA, LLC could be named a joint employer of workers in its more than 14,000 U.S. restaurants, the great majority operated by franchisees. The board's Office of the General Counsel found merit in 43 cases so far, alleging labor law violations against workers, including charges they were punished for pro-union activities, and said suits could be filed against McDonald's if the cases aren't settled first. The decision to name McDonald's a joint employer opens the way for a unionization campaign targeting the corporation directly rather than its more than 3,000 individual owner-operators. A McDonald's representative said the company would contest the labor board decision, and said it wasn't responsible for hiring, termination, wages and employee hours at franchised locations, according to The Associated Press. Many support children Minimum-wage workers are typically depicted as young and entry-level, yet federal data reveal that more than 40 percent are 25 and older. About a third of those 20 or older -- such as Vasquez -- support children. To get by, Vasquez, who said she gets no financial help from her child's father, lives with her mother, paying $600 a month in rent, and relies on food stamps and county help to pay for day care for her 2-year-old daughter, Samantha. Still, Vasquez never takes a week off. "I don't have the luxury of taking vacations," she said. "My daughter needs her clothes, her shoes. It's a very tight budget." Last year, 23,532 people worked in Long Island's 2,317 limited-service restaurants, which includes fast-food outlets as well as delis, takeout pizzerias and sandwich shops. That was up from 17,151 employees in 1,675 establishments 10 years earlier, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Business groups, including the National Restaurant Association, have come out strongly against raising the minimum wage, especially as high as $15, arguing it would force business owners to cut jobs and hours and result in a loss of entry-level jobs for young workers. And, critics of raising the minimum wage point out, family incomes may be considerably higher than the earnings of individual fast-food workers, especially for teenagers or young people living with their families, or for married employees. Matthew Haller, spokesman for the Washington, D.C.-based International Franchise Association, which represents about 30,000 individual franchisees with businesses ranging from fast food to print centers and flower shops, said raising the federal minimum wage would force business owners to raise prices -- or eliminate jobs. "A minimum wage was never meant to be a living wage," he said, noting such jobs were traditionally held by young workers or those seeking flexibility, who, in a better job market, could then move on to higher-paying employment. "Part of the reason we're having this conversation" about raising minimum wages, he said, "is because of the lack of job creation in other sectors of the economy." "Fast-food restaurants typically operate on thin profit margins," he said. "A lot of restaurants choose to pay wages that are competitive in the market in which they operate, but raising wages to extreme levels like $15 is unsustainable. At a certain point if you can't turn a profit in a business, you have to go out of business or raise prices, or you eliminate workers, and that impacts consumers." Yet the economic implications are more complicated, suggested John Rizzo, economist at the Long Island Association, a business group based in Melville. He noted that while rapidly rising wages could motivate businesses to raise prices, cut workers' hours and spur automation, there were benefits from raising low incomes as well. Low-wage workers spend their income, and with more money in hand their spending could help boost local economies. "It's a trade-off," he said. While advocates say profitable businesses could pay higher wages, many small-businessmen such as Jeff Iqubal say they cannot. He'd have to cut his two main employees' hours, he said, if wages rose above the $10 an hour he pays now. They each work about 36 hours and hold second jobs elsewhere. In addition, "There's a lot of competition here," said Iqubal, who works 72 hours a week in the strip mall pizzeria he's owned for nine years. "With [owning only] one place, you can't live." Gary Gulla, 57, another independent small-businessman, has owned Bellagio Pizzeria in Farmingdale for the past 14 years. He, his wife and three children run it, with about 33 full- and part-time employees, who make from $8-an-hour minimum wage to as much as $18 an hour for cooks and pizza makers. In a competitive business climate, he said, rising costs, including salaries, mean higher prices for consumers, which could jeopardize jobs and businesses if prices get too high for consumers to accept. "Many business owners are just barely bringing home a paycheck, and raising salaries and prices would put them out of business -- which would raise unemployment," said Richard Albano, 53, owner of Richie's Pizza in Deer Park. His own employees start out at $9 an hour, with good performers moving up to $12 or $13 an hour after two months. A higher minimum wage "won't affect me because we're doing good," he said. Most affected would be franchises with a business model of low wages and thin profit margins, and an owner "who isn't doing that well in a small business," he said. Struggle on Long Island But while business owners must meet their expenses, so too must low-wage workers. And meeting expenses can be especially difficult for low-wage families on high-cost Long Island. A 41-year-old Suffolk County woman whose husband holds a low-wage factory job said her income at a fast-food hamburger franchise helped pay for food and clothing for their three sons. After seven years on the job, she takes home only about $100 for a 15-hour week. "I want to work 40 hours a week here, but the boss says no," said the woman, who asked that her name be withheld. She recently began a second job working three days a week at a clothing store, for about $150 more in take-home pay. "I'm not happy, but God helps me," she said. Ana Davis, 22, a Hofstra University senior from Connecticut, better fits the depiction of a low-wage worker as young and entry-level. Yet, she supports herself on her wages without help from her working mom, and takes out college loans. She pays rent for her off-campus housing in Uniondale by working up to 35 hours a week at the Westbury fast-food restaurant. She makes $9.75 an hour and takes home, after taxes, about $250 to $300 a week, she said. Over the last school year, she said, she had worked three jobs and her grades suffered as she sometimes traded off attending class with the need to work enough to pay her bills. "The money is getting kind of thin," said Davis, noting her pay is "better than a lot of other places, but realistically it doesn't cover everything. Honestly, this is the best job I ever had, but it would be nice to earn enough to be comfortable." Mileny Loais, 23, who makes $8.50 an hour at a sandwich chain franchise in Mineola, lives with her parents in Uniondale. Like many young adults in a difficult job environment, she still lives in her childhood bedroom. She has looked on Craigslist for an apartment but said with a laugh, "No, I couldn't move out. I'll have to stay with my parents for a couple more years." She'd like to save for college, she said, but barely covers her personal expenses. Wages of $10 or $12 an hour, she said, "would be a lot better. That would help me a lot." Organizing workers Make the Road New York is among the advocacy groups organizing low-wage workers. Its Long Island chapter, based in Brentwood, includes volunteers such as Teresa Farfan, 65, of Central Islip, who used to work at a national fast-food chain for up to 70 hours a week with no more than $400 in take-home pay. Another is a pizza deliveryman, 64, who requested anonymity. After 12 years on the job, his 50- to 56-hour workweek at $6.75 an hour plus overtime yielded weekly take-home pay of $150 to $200, plus tips, he said. His tips — from $30 to $100 a week — go to maintain his car, which he must use for deliveries. But for many workers, the fast-food industry, whatever its wages, offers the best job they can find. Vasquez, the single mom from Port Washington, said since beginning work in the fast-food industry 11 years ago, she’s tried to find better-paying jobs. For two years she had a job in a warehouse, which ended when the company moved, and she returned to her fast-food employer. “If I find something better, I leave, and if that doesn’t work out,” she said, “they always take me back.” SURVIVING ON $16,018 A YEAR In 2013, the average wage was $16,018 for limited-service restaurants (including fast-food restaurants, delis, limited-menu pizzerias and other similar establishments). In 2003, the average wage was $13,220. (Average wage is total wages divided by total number of employees, from higher-wage salaried managers to teenage part-timers). Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics The Washington, D.C., think tank Economic Policy Institute’s family budget calculator said an adequate but modest income in 2013 for a family of four on Long Island was $94,567. It posited a monthly budget of $7,881, including $2,000 for child care, $607 for transportation, $1,387 for health care, $754 for food, $1,583 for housing, taxes of $946 and $598 for other necessities. Among workers earning between $7.25 and $11 nationally, the median age is 30 (half older, half younger) and more than a third (34.5 percent) are at least 40 years old. In New York State, low-wage workers provide on average 46.8 percent of family income. Source: Economic Policy Institute analysis of U.S. Community Population Survey data MINIMUM PAY IN STATES As of June 1, 22 states and the District of Columbia have minimum wages above the federal minimum wage. 19 states, Guam, and the Virgin Islands have minimum wages the same as the federal minimum wage of $7.25. Four states, American Samoa and Puerto Rico have minimum wages below the federal minimum wage (the federal minimum thus applies). One state, New Hampshire, repealed its state minimum wage in 2011 but left the reference to the federal minimum wage. Five states have not established a state minimum wage. HIGHEST: District of Columbia, $9.50, going up to $11.50 by July 1, 2016 LOWEST: Georgia and Wyoming, $5.15 NONE: Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina and Tennessee, wages not tied to federal minimum; New Hampshire has no state minimum but wages tied to federal minimum Source: National Conference of State LegislaturesJulia Vasquez with here daughter Samantha Vasquez 2, Julia Vasquez with here daughter Samantha Vasquez 2, both live with Julia's mother in Port Washington on Tuesday, July 1, 2014. Vasquez who earns minimum wage at a fast food business can't afford to live in her own place. (Credit: Uli Seit) Related media A file photo of a person applying for What jobs are growing fastest? NAFTA Where trade deal lost LI over 1,000 jobs Rep. Peter King (R-Seaford) will attend the How LI reps voted on 55 issues jobs numbers See where the jobs are on LI Leslie Moonves $62,157,026 yearly compensation change: -11.1%CEOCBS Corp.1-yr LI executive pay Portion of the salary application Interactive: Compare their pay to yours Travel deals Julia Vasquez of Port Washington knows exactly where she will be each weekday, 52 weeks a year. She rises early, puts on her white shirt and jeans, and by 6:30 a.m. Vasquez is standing behind the counter of a fast-food restaurant in Suffolk County working an eight-hour shift. Her weekly take-home pay for 40 hours: about $300. SEARCH: What different jobs pay | LI vs. NYC salaries | Where are the jobs on LI? | Forecast for jobs | State worker overtime | LI jobs lost because of NAFTA | How LI reps voted on job bills Vasquez, 34, is employed in one of the fastest-growing job categories on Long Island, with among the lowest wages. Her $10-an-hour pay is higher than what many make in similar jobs. "It's very hard to manage, to provide for my daughter and pay my rent," said Vasquez, who has no benefits, paid sick days or vacations. "It's not easy." Now there's a movement nationally and across New York pushing for higher hourly pay for fast-food and other low-wage workers. The effort faces fierce opposition from business associations and small-business owners who say that higher wages could force them to raise prices, cut jobs or even close down. "Honestly, it's very tough to give them any kind of wage increase," said Jeff Iqubal, owner of Dante's Pizzeria of Hicksville. Last weekend, about 1,200 fast-food workers gathered from all over the country at an expo center outside Chicago to strategize on furthering their campaign for $15-an-hour wages, focusing on franchises and chains like McDonald's and Burger King. The Service Employees International Union, with 2 million members, helped underwrite the two-day convention, where there was unanimous support for nonviolent actions of civil disobedience. In June in Albany, about 1,000 workers demonstrated at the state Capitol in favor of a bill to allow localities to set minimum wages higher than the state minimum of $8 an hour (already slated to rise to $9 by the end of 2015.) Fast-food workers, led by unions, especially the SEIU, and other advocacy groups, also have staged one-day strikes and demonstrations, beginning in New York City in November 2012. On May 15, coordinated demonstrations took place in 130 U.S. and 20 foreign cities -- although none on Long Island. Federal legislation in the Senate proposes to raise the $7.25 federal minimum wage to $10.10, but activists support wages as high as $15 an hour, a figure backed by New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and recently enacted in Seattle, to be phased in by 2021. Fast-food outlets have been difficult to unionize because most are run by individual franchise holders operating under a franchiser corporation's rules. However, on Tuesday, labor won a potentially big victory when the National Labor Relations Board determined that McDonald's, USA, LLC could be named a joint employer of workers in its more than 14,000 U.S. restaurants, the great majority operated by franchisees. The board's Office of the General Counsel found merit in 43 cases so far, alleging labor law violations against workers, including charges they were punished for pro-union activities, and said suits could be filed against McDonald's if the cases aren't settled first. The decision to name McDonald's a joint employer opens the way for a unionization campaign targeting the corporation directly rather than its more than 3,000 individual owner-operators. A McDonald's representative said the company would contest the labor board decision, and said it wasn't responsible for hiring, termination, wages and employee hours at franchised locations, according to The Associated Press. Many support children Minimum-wage workers are typically depicted as young and entry-level, yet federal data reveal that more than 40 percent are 25 and older. About a third of those 20 or older -- such as Vasquez -- support children. To get by, Vasquez, who said she gets no financial help from her child's father, lives with her mother, paying $600 a month in rent, and relies on food stamps and county help to pay for day care for her 2-year-old daughter, Samantha. Still, Vasquez never takes a week off. "I don't have the luxury of taking vacations," she said. "My daughter needs her clothes, her shoes. It's a very tight budget." Last year, 23,532 people worked in Long Island's 2,317 limited-service restaurants, which includes fast-food outlets as well as delis, takeout pizzerias and sandwich shops. That was up from 17,151 employees in 1,675 establishments 10 years earlier, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Business groups, including the National Restaurant Association, have come out strongly against raising the minimum wage, especially as high as $15, arguing it would force business owners to cut jobs and hours and result in a loss of entry-level jobs for young workers. And, critics of raising the minimum wage point out, family incomes may be considerably higher than the earnings of individual fast-food workers, especially for teenagers or young people living with their families, or for married employees. Matthew Haller, spokesman for the Washington, D.C.-based International Franchise Association, which represents about 30,000 individual franchisees with businesses ranging from fast food to print centers and flower shops, said raising the federal minimum wage would force business owners to raise prices -- or eliminate jobs. "A minimum wage was never meant to be a living wage," he said, noting such jobs were traditionally held by young workers or those seeking flexibility, who, in a better job market, could then move on to higher-paying employment. "Part of the reason we're having this conversation" about raising minimum wages, he said, "is because of the lack of job creation in other sectors of the economy." "Fast-food restaurants typically operate on thin profit margins," he said. "A lot of restaurants choose to pay wages that are competitive in the market in which they operate, but raising wages to extreme levels like $15 is unsustainable. At a certain point if you can't turn a profit in a business, you have to go out of business or raise prices, or you eliminate workers, and that impacts consumers." Yet the economic implications are more complicated, suggested John Rizzo, economist at the Long Island Association, a business group based in Melville. He noted that while rapidly rising wages could motivate businesses to raise prices, cut workers' hours and spur automation, there were benefits from raising low incomes as well. Low-wage workers spend their income, and with more money in hand their spending could help boost local economies. "It's a trade-off," he said. While advocates say profitable businesses could pay higher wages, many small-businessmen such as Jeff Iqubal say they cannot. He'd have to cut his two main employees' hours, he said, if wages rose above the $10 an hour he pays now. They each work about 36 hours and hold second jobs elsewhere. In addition, "There's a lot of competition here," said Iqubal, who works 72 hours a week in the strip mall pizzeria he's owned for nine years. "With [owning only] one place, you can't live." Gary Gulla, 57, another independent small-businessman, has owned Bellagio Pizzeria in Farmingdale for the past 14 years. He, his wife and three children run it, with about 33 full- and part-time employees, who make from $8-an-hour minimum wage to as much as $18 an hour for cooks and pizza makers. In a competitive business climate, he said, rising costs, including salaries, mean higher prices for consumers, which could jeopardize jobs and businesses if prices get too high for consumers to accept. "Many business owners are just barely bringing home a paycheck, and raising salaries and prices would put them out of business -- which would raise unemployment," said Richard Albano, 53, owner of Richie's Pizza in Deer Park. His own employees start out at $9 an hour, with good performers moving up to $12 or $13 an hour after two months. A higher minimum wage "won't affect me because we're doing good," he said. Most affected would be franchises with a business model of low wages and thin profit margins, and an owner "who isn't doing that well in a small business," he said. Struggle on Long Island But while business owners must meet their expenses, so too must low-wage workers. And meeting expenses can be especially difficult for low-wage families on high-cost Long Island. A 41-year-old Suffolk County woman whose husband holds a low-wage factory job said her income at a fast-food hamburger franchise helped pay for food and clothing for their three sons. After seven years on the job, she takes home only about $100 for a 15-hour week. "I want to work 40 hours a week here, but the boss says no," said the woman, who asked that her name be withheld. She recently began a second job working three days a week at a clothing store, for about $150 more in take-home pay. "I'm not happy, but God helps me," she said. Ana Davis, 22, a Hofstra University senior from Connecticut, better fits the depiction of a low-wage worker as young and entry-level. Yet, she supports herself on her wages without help from her working mom, and takes out college loans. She pays rent for her off-campus housing in Uniondale by working up to 35 hours a week at the Westbury fast-food restaurant. She makes $9.75 an hour and takes home, after taxes, about $250 to $300 a week, she said. Over the last school year, she said, she had worked three jobs and her grades suffered as she sometimes traded off attending class with the need to work enough to pay her bills. "The money is getting kind of thin," said Davis, noting her pay is "better than a lot of other places, but realistically it doesn't cover everything. Honestly, this is the best job I ever had, but it would be nice to earn enough to be comfortable." Mileny Loais, 23, who makes $8.50 an hour at a sandwich chain franchise in Mineola, lives with her parents in Uniondale. Like many young adults in a difficult job environment, she still lives in her childhood bedroom. She has looked on Craigslist for an apartment but said with a laugh, "No, I couldn't move out. I'll have to stay with my parents for a couple more years." She'd like to save for college, she said, but barely covers her personal expenses. Wages of $10 or $12 an hour, she said, "would be a lot better. That would help me a lot." Organizing workers Make the Road New York is among the advocacy groups organizing low-wage workers. Its Long Island chapter, based in Brentwood, includes volunteers such as Teresa Farfan, 65, of Central Islip, who used to work at a national fast-food chain for up to 70 hours a week with no more than $400 in take-home pay. Another is a pizza deliveryman, 64, who requested anonymity. After 12 years on the job, his 50- to 56-hour workweek at $6.75 an hour plus overtime yielded weekly take-home pay of $150 to $200, plus tips, he said. His tips — from $30 to $100 a week — go to maintain his car, which he must use for deliveries. But for many workers, the fast-food industry, whatever its wages, offers the best job they can find. Vasquez, the single mom from Port Washington, said since beginning work in the fast-food industry 11 years ago, she’s tried to find better-paying jobs. For two years she had a job in a warehouse, which ended when the company moved, and she returned to her fast-food employer. “If I find something better, I leave, and if that doesn’t work out,” she said, “they always take me back.” SURVIVING ON $16,018 A YEAR In 2013, the average wage was $16,018 for limited-service restaurants (including fast-food restaurants, delis, limited-menu pizzerias and other similar establishments). In 2003, the average wage was $13,220. (Average wage is total wages divided by total number of employees, from higher-wage salaried managers to teenage part-timers). Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics The Washington, D.C., think tank Economic Policy Institute’s family budget calculator said an adequate but modest income in 2013 for a family of four on Long Island was $94,567. It posited a monthly budget of $7,881, including $2,000 for child care, $607 for transportation, $1,387 for health care, $754 for food, $1,583 for housing, taxes of $946 and $598 for other necessities. Among workers earning between $7.25 and $11 nationally, the median age is 30 (half older, half younger) and more than a third (34.5 percent) are at least 40 years old. In New York State, low-wage workers provide on average 46.8 percent of family income. Source: Economic Policy Institute analysis of U.S. Community Population Survey data MINIMUM PAY IN STATES As of June 1, 22 states and the District of Columbia have minimum wages above the federal minimum wage. 19 states, Guam, and the Virgin Islands have minimum wages the same as the federal minimum wage of $7.25. Four states, American Samoa and Puerto Rico have minimum wages below the federal minimum wage (the federal minimum thus applies). One state, New Hampshire, repealed its state minimum wage in 2011 but left the reference to the federal minimum wage. Five states have not established a state minimum wage. HIGHEST: District of Columbia, $9.50, going up to $11.50 by July 1, 2016 LOWEST: Georgia and Wyoming, $5.15 NONE: Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina and Tennessee, wages not tied to federal minimum; New Hampshire has no state minimum but wages tied to federal minimum Source: National Conference of State Legislatures

christian first communist second!!!!

Pope Francis just expertly trolled his critics When faced with a McCarthy-esque smear campaign, best to pull a communist switcheroo By Elizabeth Stoker Bruenig | July 4, 2014 107 1.3k 228 Nothing diabolical going on here. Nothing diabolical going on here. (Franco Origlia/Getty Images) Since Pope Francis began speaking in public about the Christian view on economic matters, opponents have engaged in what often feels like a McCarthy-era smear campaign, accusing the Pope of things like Marxism, communism, and Leninism. It was Rush Limbaugh on his radio show that first leveled charges of Marxism after the publication of Pope Francis' apostolic exhortation Evangelii Gaudium; he later doubled down on the accusations: Pope Francis called today for governments to redistribute wealth to the poor in a new spirit of generosity to help curb the economy of exclusion that is taking hold today…That's Marxism, that's socialism. That's not charity. Following suit, an Economist blogger diagnosed Pope Francis' recognition of a link between capitalism and violence as Leninism. "Francis may not be offering all the right answers," the piece opines, dripping with patronizing conceit, "or getting the diagnosis exactly right, but he is asking the right questions. Like a little boy who observes the emperor's nakedness." The pattern is always the same: dismiss Pope Francis, with the greatest respect for his office or the most genteel admiration of his character, by labeling his ministry more political than theological. And the motives attributed to Pope Francis are never neutral; rather, they're mere metonymy, short for larger arguments. Identifying Pope Francis' theological analyses with the boogeymen political ideologies of yesteryear denies, however implicitly, that what he is doing is strictly Christian. This is accomplished by conflating what is religious with what is secular, and in part through selecting ideologies that have been defamed in American culture for their anti-Christian tendencies. It will likely never matter to these critics that Pope Francis himself has emphatically denied any association with Marxism or Marxist ideology. And so in a recent interview, he took another tack: Rather than making another attempt to roundly decry a set of ideologies no one seriously suspects him of adhering to, Pope Francis turned the criticisms around on the critics: "I can only say that the communists have stolen our flag. The flag of the poor is Christian. Poverty is at the center of the Gospel," he said, citing Biblical passages about the need to help the poor, the sick and the needy. "Communists say that all this is communism. Sure, twenty centuries later. So when they speak, one can say to them: 'but then you are Christian'." [Pope Francis, via Reuters] In other words, since his concern for the poor causes critics to accuse him of Marxism, Pope Francis reversed their accusations: rather than Christianity looking suspiciously communist over its concern for the poor, perhaps communism looks suspiciously Christian. After all, justice for the poor is hardly a communist invention; as Pope Francis points out, a focus on helping the poor was native to Christianity long before the 19th century. But Pope Francis' reversal has another effect: namely, it calls into question why our political narratives immediately categorize any demand for justice for the poor as anti-Christian communism. In fact, it would seem rather impossible to practice any legitimate form of Christianity without seeking justice for the poor. If we immediately identify support for impoverished people as evidence of some anti-Christian impulse, then we've built up a political narrative that can't sustain the truth about Christianity. For that reason, Pope Francis' refusal to capitulate to how political types would like to contain the radical power of Christianity is especially valuable, and especially irksome. For as long as he's unwilling to contain his Christianity to the realms it's politically welcome in — say, legislation related to sex and reproduction — it will be too vast and too revolutionary for his critics, who will fail to see it as Christian at all, and will continue bandying about accusations of communism, Marxism, and so forth. But it's hard to imagine those kinds of attacks will ever do much to harm Pope Francis or his message, given that his refusal to pay heed to secular political categories offers a broader range of political thought than his critics' tribal views. Pope Francis puts Christian ethics first, rather than trying to see where Christian ethics will fit in a given political ideology. It's for this reason he can say that communism has stolen the flag of Christianity, and it's his fundamental grounding in faith that will ultimately make his message so powerful Pope Francis just expertly trolled his critics When faced with a McCarthy-esque smear campaign, best to pull a communist switcheroo By Elizabeth Stoker Bruenig | July 4, 2014

College degrees still pay, according to Fed study Originally published: June 24, 2014 10:02 AM Updated: June 24, 2014 9:48 PM By ZACHARY R. DOWDY zachary.dowdy@newsday.com The value of a college degree far outweighs its ever-rising price, and degrees in technical fields such as engineering, computers and math are a considerably better investment, a new study by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York says. The study, "Do the Benefits of College Still Outweigh the Costs?" by economists Jaison R. Abel and Richard Deitz, examines whether the up-front cost of college pays off, even as tuitions spiked and job prospects and wages plummeted in recent years. "While it might seem as if the value of a college degree has declined because of falling wages and rising tuition, we show that this is actually not the case," the authors said. "Instead, after climbing impressively between 1980 and 2000, the return on a college degree has held steady for more than a decade at around 15 percent, easily surpassing the threshold for a sound investment." PHOTOS: Highlights from all local college graduations MORE: U.S. Merchant Marine Academy, Five Towns, Stony Brook, Farmingdale, Briarcliffe, Molloy, Dowling, LIU Post, Adelphi, St. Joseph's and more graduations The Fed study, which looked at data from 1970 through 2013, identified the best degrees for the money, using as a benchmark the 7 percent average return on investments in the stock market. At the upper end, engineering majors realize a 21 percent return on their investment, math and computer majors reap 18 percent returns and business majors cull 17 percent back. Those who major in social sciences, technologies and communications garner 15 percent returns, liberal arts majors 12 percent and leisure and hospitality majors pull 11 percent. Education majors with only a bachelor's degree came in last with 9 percent return, but even that level of performance beat the stock market standard, making it still a good investment, the authors said. The study found that college graduates earn an average of $64,500 yearly, while associate degree holders earn $50,000 and high school graduates earn $41,000. The authors cited another study that showed that people with a college degree earn more than $1 million more in wages over their working careers than those who only have a high school diploma, and associate degree holders earn $325,000 more. "Thus, over the past four decades, those with a bachelor's degree have tended to earn 56 percent more than high school graduates, while those with an associate degree have tended to earn 21 percent more than high school graduates," the study said. Student loans don't offset the benefit, the study said, because the money borrowed is deferred for payment at a later date and the interest is far lower than the return on the investment in an education. Heidi Shierholz, an economist at the Washington-based Economic Policy Institute who has studied wage stagnation, said the Fed study dovetails with others demonstrating the value of a college education. But she added that the wage sluggishness that prompts the dilemma of whether someone should go to college is partly due to declines in union membership. The Fed study did not factor in unionization. Unionized workers tend to earn more through collective bargaining, Shierholz said, and their gains also increase wages and benefits for nonunionized workers. "It's a really significant factor in the stagnating wages for the vast middle of the wage distribution," she said, attributing much of the growing gap between wages earned and the growth in the economy since the 1970s to the loss of union positions. A Pew Research Center analysis cited Bureau of Labor Statistics figures showing that in 2013, 11.3 percent of wage and salary workers belonged to unions, a drop from 20.1 percent in 1983. Happy returns A Federal Reserve Bank of New York study identifies the value of a bachelor's degree by specific fields of study, using as a benchmark the 7 percent average return on investments in the stock market. The study examined data from 1970 to 2013. Source: Federal Reserve Bank of New York

why we need a good immigration program

Navarrette: Americans are confused about 'border kids' Originally published: June 18, 2014 12:16 PM Updated: June 18, 2014 2:30 PM By RUBEN NAVARRETTE JR., The Washington Post Children participate in a U.S. citizenship ceremony at Children participate in a U.n Americans are trying to get a handle on the border kids -- and what President Obama has called an "urgent humanitarian situation" along the U.S.-Mexico border. Americans want to know why, according to U.S. immigration officials, more than 47,000 young people -- most of them from Central America -- have streamed across the U.S.-Mexico border in the last eight months. They want to know who or what is to blame for the surge, and thus should be held accountable. They want to know how federal immigration agents, who are overwhelmed despite being warned by Texas officials two years ago about an uptick in unaccompanied minors crossing the border from countries other than Mexico, are going to respond. And finally, they want to know -- if most of these young newcomers are allowed to stay -- what impact they are going to have on our communities, our politics and our national fabric. According to U.S. immigration officials, almost three-fourths of these minors are coming from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador. About 70 percent of them have come through Texas' Rio Grande Valley, which is a favorite doorway for smugglers because there is easy access to interstate highways and not much fencing compared to what you find in California, Arizona and West Texas And since most of these young people hail from countries battered by gang violence after the dissolving of a truce, it's more accurate to call them refugees than immigrants. According to the U.N. high commissioner for refugees, the United States isn't alone. Mexico, Costa Rica, Panama, Nicaragua and Belize are experiencing surges in unaccompanied minors. Those who headed all the way to the United States -- often by stowing away on top of dangerous trains that go from the Mexico-Guatemala border to the U.S.-Mexico border -- intended to reunite with family members here. Some have been able to do that and now find themselves as far away as New York or Washington state. The rest are being held in government-run detention facilities or on military bases. Judging from what I've heard in the last couple of weeks, Americans might be able to better understand this story if not for five things that keep getting in the way. -- Even though these kids could be deserving of refugee status, we're projecting onto this story our feelings about immigrants as if these young people were coming here for jobs. For conservatives, that means assuming that every person who comes from Latin America arrives with an outstretched palm for handouts, freebies and giveaways. For liberals, it means using the sad plight of these young people to argue that we need immigration reform because the system is broken. -- We're mixing terms and confusing "amnesty" (the granting of legal status en masse to millions of illegal immigrants) with "protective status" (which merely allows the undocumented to remain in the United States without being deported). While the legislative branch has to grant the former, the executive branch has the power to provide the latter. So it's not truthful or fair for conservatives to claim that young people are being lured here because President Obama is offering "amnesty." -- We're susceptible to believing that the Obama administration is offering some kind of special accommodation in this case because most of us are not aware that there is a long-standing policy of treating unaccompanied minors who cross the border differently from adults, which could include allowing them to remain in the United States in the care of relatives while they await a hearing before an immigration judge for which most of them will never show up. -- We think this is happening because of either a push or a pull, when it's probably both. The kids could have been pushed out by government instability and gang violence in Central America. They could also have been, according to a border security specialist I spoke to with knowledge of what many kids are telling federal officials, pulled to the United States by a rumor spread by television networks in their home countries that Congress had approved a special "permiso" (permission to stay) for children. The desperate will believe anything. -- Finally, we look for one-size-fits-all answers. There aren't any. There are thousands of kids coming from a handful of countries. Each story is unique. Human nature is complicated, and so is this crisis. Americans are no closer to understanding what drives the story of the border kids. To get there, we'll need to keep our prejudices in check and our minds open. Ruben Navarrette's email address is ruben@rubennavarrette.com.

need housing for all

Young adult survey: LI needs more housing options, jobs to keep us here Originally published: June 9, 2014 7:51 PM Updated: June 9, 2014 10:53 PM By OLIVIA WINSLOW olivia.winslow@newsday.com Tara Bono, 26, president of Destination LI, and Tara Bono, 26, president of Destination LI, and marketing manager for EmPower Solar, in her basement studio apartment at her parents' house in Seaford on June 9, 2014. (Credit: Daniel Brennan) Related media Two women walk around the 2-plus-mile exercise path Take the survey Tara Bono, 26, President of Destination LI, and Results Alexander Roberts, ex. dir. of Community Housing Innovations, Long Island's young are leaving in droves Residents of all ages gravitate to the Town Best places to live on LI for first-time homebuyers Long Islanders talk about how enriching it is Great places to live on LI The newly built Canon USA headquarters looms over Best places to live on LI for jobs Travel deals An overwhelming majority of young adult Long Islanders can see themselves leaving the region if they do not have housing options at an "attainable" cost and cannot find jobs in line with their skills and salary expectations, says a survey released Monday. This does not bode well for the region, said the report's author, Martin R. Cantor, chief economist for Destination LI, a nonprofit smart-growth group based in Plainview that advocates for creating centers that support and generate economic development. Residents in the so-called "Millennial" group, ages 20-34, "are not happy with their overall life on Long Island," citing as obstacles "the lack of housing options and high housing costs" as well as a dearth of housing "in walkable communities with public transportation," the report says. SURVEY: Full results | Take the survey MORE: Report: LI's young adult workforce in demographic collapse The survey, conducted on social media Web forums between Feb. 27 and March 24, drew 413 respondents. Cantor said the group used sites such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Reddit, among others. The participants were anonymous and their responses confidential. Among the survey's findings: More than 75 percent said they "strongly agree" or "agree" that housing options on the Island may limit their ability to stay. Another 10.9 percent said they "somewhat agree" with that. 58.7 percent lived with their parents or relatives, about 22 percent lived in rental apartments and nearly 12 percent lived in illegal rental apartments. 54.3 percent said they didn't care if they stayed on Long Island, while 46 percent said remaining here was important. The survey's respondents were highly educated, Cantor said, the sort of workforce the region can't afford to lose: 66.9 percent held associate, undergraduate, graduate or doctoral degrees, and another 24.6 percent currently were in college or have had some college education. Cantor is scheduled to present the report Tuesday at a meeting of the Long Island Regional Planning Council. He said Destination LI "brought me on in January to start focusing on young people . . . to see what it's going to take for people to stay here." Tara Bono, president of Destination LI, said, "Up until now, we really haven't had the opinions of young professionals documented. . . . It's just great to have the data to support what everybody's been saying." While Cantor said the respondents were randomly solicited, an outside expert said the survey was not truly random. "It's a sample of people who he was able to reach on social media and who decided to respond to him," said John Logan, a sociology professor at Brown University and a former Stony Brook University professor, who has done census data analyses of communities across the nation, including Long Island, for Brown's US2010 Project. "It's a very self-selected sample," said Logan, who had not read the report but was responding to a reporter's description. Logan, however, said of Cantor's correlation and regression, or predictive, analysis: "We can have more confidence in those associations even when the sample is not a random sample" if a "strong pattern" emerged. Cantor's findings about young people who consider leaving the Island is "plausible," he said, and consistent with a general pattern. Cantor conceded Logan's point about the survey not being random, adding he set a "high standard" on his analysis at a 99 percent confidence level to toss "fringe" social media responses. Jean-Marie Smith, 30, executive director of Destination LI, said the region needs "what we call bridge housing" for young professionals that allows them to live affordably while saving to buy a home. Asked if they planned to purchase their own home or condominium, nearly 85 percent of survey respondents said "yes." Smith said her circumstances differ from many of the other young professionals she knows. "I share a home [in Merrick] with my boyfriend. It wasn't something we could've done without two incomes," she said. "We were in a basement apartment for awhile." Bono, 26, a marketing manager for EmPower Solar in Island Park, lives in a basement apartment in her parents' Seaford home as she saves to buy her own residence. "I made the decision to stay on Long Island while all my friends and family are leaving," Bono said. "Housing on Long Island is very unattainable" for young people in situations such as hers, she added. See the Results by Newsday

need to contact your congressperson student loans lead to homelessness this can be stopped

Obama, Noting Own Student Debt Burden, Expands Repayment Cap and Pushes Bi WASHINGTON — President Obama signed an executive order on Monday intended to lessen the college loan burden on nearly five million younger Americans by capping repayments at 10 percent of the borrowers’ monthly income. Joined by indebted graduates in the East Room of the White House, Mr. Obama said the spiraling cost of higher education had put “too big a debt load on too many people.” “These rising costs have left middle-class families feeling trapped,” he said. “You’ve got middle-class families who can’t build up enough savings, don’t qualify for support, feel like nobody’s looking out for them.” Mr. Obama drew on his own financial history in promoting the measure. He told the audience that he and his wife, Michelle, paid off their law school loans just 10 years ago, after they had already begun saving for their daughters’ college educations. “This is why I feel so strongly about this,” the president said. “This is why I’m passionate about it.” Continue reading the main story Mr. Obama’s executive actions coincided with the introduction of a bill by Senate Democrats that would allow 25 million borrowers to refinance student loans at lower interest rates. The government would finance the measure by imposing a new tax on wealthy people. Continue reading the main story Interactive Graphic: Student Loan Calculator The president challenged Congress to pass the legislation, which would go further than his executive orders and which, he said, “pays for itself.” But with Republicans implacably opposed, Democrats appear unlikely to gather the votes in the Senate needed to pass it. “Everybody here knows it’s a partisan political stunt,” Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, the ranking Republican on the education committee, said in an interview. The bill, he said, would expand the federal debt and raise taxes while offering loan-holders a subsidy of $1 a day. Under the order, the administration will expand a 2010 law that capped monthly repayments, applying it to those who got loans before October 2007 or stopped borrowing by October 2011. The order will not go into effect until December 2015 to allow the Education Department to draft and institute new rules. In addition to the cap, Mr. Obama said, the government will renegotiate contracts with Sallie Mae and other loan providers to increase incentives for paying off loans. The Education Department will also work with tax preparation firms like H & R Block and Intuit to inform borrowers of repayment options and tax credits for college tuition. The White House said it did not know how much the measures would cost. Briefing reporters before the president spoke, the education secretary, Arne Duncan, said, “We’ll figure that out the back end, but we think this is something that’d be fantastic for the economy.” “This is not about pointing fingers and laying blame,” he said. “This is about mutual responsibility.” But Mr. Obama took a gleefully political tone, setting aside his prepared text to criticize Republicans for refusing to consider a tax increase for millionaires to finance a program that would ease the debt burden on graduates. “It would be scandalous if we allowed these kinds of tax loopholes for the very, very fortunate to survive while students are having trouble just getting started with their lives,” he said. After the announcement, Mr. Obama joined his chief of staff, Denis R. McDonough, for an impromptu walk to a Starbucks near the White House. It was the latest in a series of spontaneous outings for a president who appears to be suffering from cabin fever. Emerging from the White House, he said with a smile, “The bear is loose.” A version of this article appears in print on June 10, 2014, on page A15 of the New York edition with the headline: Obama, Noting Own Student Debt Burden, Expands Repayment Cap and Pushes Bill. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe Next in Politics Graham Poised to Hold Off Tea Party Challenge Obama, Noting Own Student Debt Burden, Expands Repayment Cap and Pushes Bill By MARK LANDLERJUNE 9, 2014

great story on homeless on long island

Sharing a vodka bottle of “holy water” while mourning their friend who they say froze to death, six homeless people in the Hicksville train station waiting room ponder their fate on a recent snowy Saturday. One, a Syosset native who thinks a warm jail may be better than calling the so-called hotbox his living room, openly considers suicide before his fellow “skids,” as they prefer to be called, shout him down. The oldest among them, a 71-year-old ex-plumber named Irving, who says he’s been homeless 25 years, jokes about being murdered. The grim talk turns to the average life expectancy for those living on the streets, which is between 42 and 52—decades younger than most Americans. “Why ain’t I dead yet?” a member of the group jokingly asks the others, most of whom are middle-aged. Playing off their morbid, self-deprecating sense of humor hardened by years of being treated like trash, another replies: “Because only the good die young!” They all share a laugh, forgetting their misery, if only for the moment. Dim florescent lighting, faded-yellow brick walls and urine-scented metal benches are the only other respite from gray skies, subzero wind chills and the frozen ground outside. They may not have much, but they’ve got each other. “Queen Maria,” as the five homeless men who protect her from being raped a third time call her, sits in a blue plastic shopping cart to keep raised the ankle she sprained after slipping on the ice. The group makes up just six of likely hundreds of undercounted, unsheltered homeless who refuse to stay in one of the more than roughly 100 shelters on Long Island despite the threat of frostbite, hypothermia and gangs. “If you tell them you’re safer on the street, they look at you like you have three heads,” says Maria, a 41-year-old mother of two whose husband kicked her out when her drinking got out of control six years ago. “After a while you get used to this lifestyle and you learn survival skills.” With the recent loss of their friend, “Mineola Tommy,” who they say was a Korean War veteran, the group is fully aware of the risk their “lifestyle” poses. Especially during a string of rare, extra-cold arctic blasts that led the Long Island Rail Road to keep the waiting rooms open 24 hours for a change. “Most important right now is to stay warm,” says Bobby Angell, a 56-year-old former MTA worker who’s been homeless on and off for two decades since losing his job and family to crack. “This is killer weather.” Local news outlets have reported the recent deaths of Tommy, another homeless man in East Meadow called “Wild Bill,” and an unidentified man in Medford, but confirming their cause of death—exposure or otherwise—with Nassau or Suffolk medical examiners is impossible without their full names and the consent of their likely estranged family. Tommy, the vet, wasn’t claimed right away at the morgue, an LIRR spokesman says. The population of people who are homeless on LI is by estimates up 18 percent in the five years following the 2008 Wall Street crash that caused the Great Recession—from 2,639 in ’09 to 3,123 last year, the latter nearly the population of Southampton village—according to latest annual homeless surveys, which a Press analysis found are lower than reality. The rise has caused tension in Nassau, where residents worry about aggressive panhandlers, and in Suffolk, where two new “mega-shelters” galvanized their neighbors to protest against the unwelcome additions to their community. Attempts to address the issue have had mixed results. LI’s rise comes as total homelessness fell 7 percent to 610,000 nationally last year with a 23 percent decrease in unsheltered homeless people (those not in shelters, living on the streets) since 2007, according to the U.S. Department of Housing an Urban Development (HUD), which counted more than one-third of those as unsheltered. Although homelessness on LI was down seven percent as the stats show that growth reversed from ’12 to last year, New York State bucked the nation’s downward trend with the largest increase in homelessness—11 percent—from ’12 to ’13 with 7,864 people and a 23 percent hike since ’07, according to HUD’s 2013 Annual Homeless Assessment Report to Congress. Leading causes are still mental illness and substance abuse, with an increasing amount of aid emphasized for a subset of these sufferers, LI’s homeless veterans. Others who lost their homes in Sandy—both directly from storm damage or during its ensuing housing crunch—are still struggling, too, although it’s unclear how many of the 17 superstorm survivors the federal government was reimbursing for staying in hotels in New York as of December are from LI. Smaller subsets include people with HIV/AIDS, victims of domestic violence and runaway children. Homeless people may remain largely invisible—aside from the occasional panhandler or garbage picker—but more are teetering on the edge of joining their ranks, experts warn. “Working people are one check away from being homeless,” says Johnola Morales, managing director of the Hempstead-based Interfaith Nutrition Network, which has seen more clients at their soup kitchens across LI and three shelters in Nassau. “It would take a very small emergency for people to not pay their rent and wind up in the same situation.” THE FORGOTTEN Footprints in a foot of snow lead up to a graffiti-covered abandoned house in Wyandanch. Following them with a flashlight before dawn last month, Greta Guarton peers into a busted-out window and shouts: “Hello?” A voice from behind an upstairs window blocked by junk yells back, asking what she wants. After a back-and-forth, she gets what she’s after: information. The man tells her that he spends time at the train station, has been on the streets for two years and isn’t alone—three others are in the boarded-up house, too. OUR HOUSE: A group of homeless people who refuse to stay in local shelters, including a woman who rides in a shopping cart after injuring her foot, warm up in the Hicksville train station’s platform-level waiting room. OUR HOUSE: A group of homeless people who refuse to stay in local shelters, including a woman who rides in a shopping cart after injuring her foot, warm up in the Hicksville train station’s platform-level waiting room. Guarton, executive director of the Long Island Coalition for the Homeless, makes such vacant house calls for HUD’s Homeless Point-in-Time Count, held one day each January, a census of those in shelters and on the street. She coordinates volunteers who count the unsheltered. The local tally is then rolled into national stats to be released later this year. In the broken window, she leaves four donated sweatshirts and paperwork with phone numbers for social service agencies that those inside can call. Then she trudges back through the freshly fallen flakes to her SUV. It’s more productive than when she follows tracks in the snow up to two other nearby vacant homes. No one answers at the second. At the third, she calls out in Spanish—she’s met undocumented immigrants staying there before—but again, there’s no answer, which she suspects is because they’re afraid she’s law enforcement looking to deport them. “We heard people in a lot of [vacant] houses that wouldn’t come out,” says Guarton, recalling surveys going back a decade. “They’re terrified to talk to us. “If they don’t have documents of being here legally, they’re not eligible for most services, including emergency housing,” she adds. Monica Diez, administrative director at the Workplace Project, a Hempstead-based nonprofit immigrant advocacy group, says many of those she works with avoid the shelters. “Shelter-wise, they’re basically left on their own to fend for themselves,” Diez says. “They don’t know exactly where they stand with the immigration issue with sheltering and who’s eligible at least for a night, so they don’t really go through that resource.” Complicating the survey further is that everyone tends to look homeless bundled up in the dead of winter. Guarton stops a man on the street, then another, to ask if they know where the homeless are. One points to a vacant house she checked where nobody answered. She heads to a bodega where the homeless are said to congregate. A group of men eating breakfast inside point her to another bodega across the street, where a man in a camouflage jacket leaves upon hearing Guarton’s query. The rest claim ignorance. After sun-up an hour later, Guarton’s questioned more than a dozen around the downtown and only found the one vacant house dweller with three apparent friends. Other volunteers take over the search for the area after she leaves. “There are tons of people who are obviously homeless and they say, ‘No, I’m not homeless, but I know where they are,’” Guarton says, noting that she can’t count those who appear to be, but deny being homeless. Nassau, Suffolk and the shelter operators send her their stats tallying how many homeless are staying in emergency and transitional housing while she relies on volunteers to count those on the streets all day and night for the survey. But the margin of error for polling such a transient group is incalculable. For one, “The Hicksville Crew,” as the sextet at the train station call themselves, say they weren’t counted. Guarton expects the stats for LI’s unsheltered to be lower than reality. Especially since only about 50 volunteers—half of those last year—were available when the survey came the day after an average of 14.5 inches of snow covered parts of LI. Shelters may serve more clients on such snowy nights, which compensates for some of the unsheltered that could be missed, but there are many more homeless that aren’t counted at all, such as those temporarily in jail, rehab and psychiatric wards. Statistics for how many homeless are jailed, committed or in rehab were not available. Suburban sprawl also makes the homeless census harder than in New York City, where counters scour the metropolis in grids. Volunteers on the Island mostly target known homeless hangouts for their leg of the national survey—but those living in cars, for example, tend to go uncounted, advocates say. Volunteers counted 207 unsheltered in ’09—8 percent of LI’s homeless that year—and less than 100 every year since, except last year, when 117 were tallied. Results of this year’s street count were not available as of press time. “I think it’s a useful exercise, but I would have questions about its absolute accuracy,” says Joel Blau, professor of social policy at the School of Social Welfare at Stony Brook University. He likens the homeless stats to the unemployment rate, which is estimated to be twice as high as reported since it doesn’t count those whose benefits ran out. “The problem with that is homeless people often try to be elusive,” he says. “You never know if you missed the person under the bridge, or whether somebody’s in the basement of the abandoned house or whether they’re in the woods at the end of a dead-end street.” SKID ROW In the easier-to-count segment of the homeless population, Suffolk officials report a more than 62-percent increase in individuals seeking temporary housing assistance over the past five years—from 1,405 in ’09 to 2,260, about the population of Shelter Island, last year. That includes a 30-percent increase since May in homeless families—totaling 535—consisting of 684 adults and 1,282 children, as of December. To meet demand, the county last year contracted two new family shelters, each fitting nearly 100 families, in converted hotels two miles apart from one another in Hauppauge and Brentwood. Neighboring school officials have complained that the added homeless children overwhelm classrooms; outraged neighbors say the mega-shelters ruin their communities and the facilities’ legality has been debated in the county legislature. And there’s still not enough shelters, advocates and officials say. “The wintertime is the time when demand for homelessness goes up,” Suffolk Social Services Commissioner John O’Neill told the legislature’s human services committee in December while being pressured to cut the number of families at the two controversial shelters. “I’m not going to commit to shifting families out of some place that I may need to place homeless families.” Legis. John Kennedy Jr. (R-Nesconset), the legislature’s Republican minority leader, had proposed a bill that would cancel the contract with the new shelters, but the measure was tabled. He maintains the county should abide by its law limiting shelter size to 12 families, but the county attorney says state law trumps county limits on shelter sizes in these cases. “There are many, many, many shelters throughout Suffolk County, but only three of them that go to this size and really nothing that eclipses this facility in the center of Hauppauge,” Kennedy said at the same meeting. “So right there we go to what is clearly an equity issue.” Dozens of residents, arguing they’ve absorbed more homeless than other communities, packed the meeting to sound off in support of the bill, and are expected to do the same when the legislature holds its first full meeting of the year this month. “What Suffolk County wants to do to the Hauppauge community is an outright disgrace,” Joanne Garramone, a longtime resident of the area, told the panel. “Concentrating all the homeless into our community…to save money for the county will in the long run severely hurt our residents’ safety, finances, taxes and value of their home.” Legis. Kate Browning (WF-Shirley) said at the same meeting that she received some “disturbing” emails with comments “derogatory” toward homeless families after she previously said that the anti-mega-shelter crowd are arging NIMBY—not-in-my-backyard. Aside from the size and school aspects of the issue—officials say many of the children in shelters are bused to their hometown schools—some mega-shelter opponents’ comments suggest the fear is that all homeless are alcoholics or drug abusers, like the Hicksville Crew. That isn’t necessarily the case. “A large portion of our homeless are the result of a slow-recovering economy coupled with the high number of bank foreclosures on Long Island,” says John Nieves, spokesman for the Suffolk Department of Social Services (DSS). “Another contributing factor is the high cost of living on Long Island.” While the federal government defines poverty for a family of four as a total income of $24,343 a year, the poverty level for LI is $46,000 a year, due to the higher cost of living, according to the Long Island Federation of Labor. And since much of the county’s homeless population and shelters are in western Suffolk, the safety net has holes on the ritzier East End. DSS officials say they’re planning to open more shelters around the Twin Forks, but it’s doubtful any new beds will open up before spring. “We cannot take everyone who comes walking through the door, we don’t have the capacity,” says Tracey Lutz, executive director of Maureen’s Haven, a network of 18 houses of worship that host up to 60 homeless nightly more than 100 times annually. “The system that we have in place right now doesn’t work, particularly on Long Island for long-term solutions… We have to give people opportunities to earn a living wage.” She also takes issue with DSS requiring eviction notices for clients to qualify for their shelters. “This is particularly concerning because many of the people that are looking for shelter have not lived in a traditional environment where they would easily have access to an eviction notice,” she says. “There doesn’t seem to be any wiggle room.” Nieves says DSS will except informal eviction notices as proof of homelessness, or conduct evaluations to corroborate an applicant in fact has no place to go. GIMME SHELTER Asked how many homeless people Nassau sheltered in recent years, Dr. John Imhoff, the social services commissioner for that county, provided stats for how many homeless people his agency placed in permanent housing and got out of motels. LI’s homeless coalition reports a 42-percent hike in sheltered people in the county from ’09 to ’12—595 to 847, about the population of Quioque. Survey results broken down by county were only available for that four-year span. Starting last year, LI’s homeless stats are lumped together. Imhoff says he has no plans to open any mega-shelters in Nassau, but he didn’t need to for sentiment rivaling that of Suffolk’s mega-shelter neighbors to rear its head in East Meadow, home to Eisenhower Park, historically a hotspot for the homeless. That is, until last year, when Nassau police, tired of summonsing homeless people that ignore the tickets, stepped up arresting them for quality-of-life crimes. Especially after finding out that some had obtained keys to the bathrooms, where they made themselves at home. “They’ve made it very unpleasant for people who sign up to use the barbeque areas,” Third Precinct Inspector Sean McCarthy told an East Meadow community meeting last spring. “We’ve made it less hospitable for them in Eisenhower Park. That’s a ship that doesn’t turn around right away. But, instead of writing appearance tickets at the scene, we usually bring them into the precinct and process them in a regular arrest fashion, not just write them a ticket that they’re never gonna answer anyway.” McCarthy was not available to provide an update on how this tactic has fared. A large homeless tent city tucked in the woods just west of the park that authorities shut down following a murder there a decade ago had one tent on a recent visit. Another camp along the Meadowbrook State Parkway, farther south near a Freeport day laborer hiring site, has seen two men living in those woods die in as many years, including a Hispanic man in his 20s found dead there last May. “He lived over there all winter,” Fernando, who declined to give his last name, told the Press following the March 2012 death of 33-year-old Jose Garrido-Lobo, a father of four who they nicknamed “El Cantante,” Spanish for “The Singer,” because he would sing when he drank. “He’s a good guy.” As for the progress on solving the overall problem of homelessness in the county, Imhoff touts reducing the number of families in motels from 44 to 16 in the past three years and 142 to 112 in shelters for the same time span. He also says the county found homes for 328 people in ‘12 and 629 last year. “I don’t think the economic conditions for many families have changed that radically, but I think that our aggressive policy of working with our housing specialists and helping families acquire the means and support to get out of shelters and motels [is] beginning to see a difference,” Imhoff says. Rev. Daphne Haynes, president of nonprofit Peace Valley Haven, which operates a men’s shelter in Roosevelt and does outreach to the unsheltered, says she’s noticed fewer people on the streets, but convincing the chronically homeless to seek help is still an uphill battle. “‘If I’m going to die, I’m going to die right here,’” one homeless person told Haynes, she says. “If every person was accepting, I could bring in…20 people a night. We can’t turn our eyes and say the need is not there.” Blau, the Stony Brook professor, notes that Nassau’s homeless arrest policy is likely to be as ineffective as Suffolk’s mega-shelters—he favors smaller facilities—but notes that the issue needs a fresh look from local leaders. “We have to figure our some way of addressing this so we don’t come to accept the fact that when you go to a local supermarket some guy’s gonna be outside collecting cans and possibly begging,” he says. “Thirty or 40 years ago it was shocking to see people in the street, and I think what’s happened is we got used to it and not only have we gotten used to it, but we’ve gotten used to it in the suburbs, which was supposed to be immune to the city’s problems.” STAND YOUR GROUND Aside from warmer weather on the horizon, silver linings are seen in new alliances formed to help tackle homelessness on LI, including veterans groups and the LIRR partnering with advocates. Railroad workers have begun sharing information on where the homeless are staying with the LI homeless coalition, says Guarton, the group’s director, who adds that Services for the Underserved, a large New York City-based homeless veterans group, set up an LI outpost in Farmingdale for the first time last year. “We thought it was time to expand our operation,” says Brett Morash, a retired U.S. Navy veteran who’s director of veterans’ services at the nonprofit, which partnered with several LI vets groups’ goal of helping 500 families. “The idea of the program is to prevent veterans from becoming homeless.” Guarton is as thankful for the reinforcements on the veteran front as she is for backup from the LIRR, where advocates say an average of half dozen homeless of all types are often found in waiting rooms, sometimes twice that. “This joint effort was prompted by a noticeable uptick in complaints about the homeless from our customers as we increased the hours of waiting room availability at many LIRR stations,” Salvatore Arena, an LIRR spokesman, tells the Press. “We are also working closely with the MTA Police on this issue.” For those homeless folks that take the advocates up on the offer to stay in one of their shelters, their odds increase for getting back on their feet with the help of social services. The mega-shelters offer even more programs because of their size, Suffolk officials say. “As long as there is life, there is hope,” says Haynes, of Peace Valley Haven. There’s another saying common in this line of work, too, repeated by Lutz at Maureen’s Haven: “There, but for the grace of God, go any of us.” Back at the Hicksville train station, Angell recalls making $40 hourly as a track worker. Now he’s lucky if he makes $40 a day recycling cans. Between swigs from a can of cheap beer, he says, “I wish I knew then what I know now.” -With additional reporting by Samuel J. Paul Important Numbers: Suffolk County Department of Social Services Central Housing Unit hotline: 631- 854-9517 between 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Monday through Friday. For emergencies during non-business hours, weekends and holidays, call 631-854-9100. Nassau County Warm Bed Homeless Hotline: 1-866-927-6233 Nassau Homeless Help Line: 516-572-2711 Nassau Department of Social Services: 516-227-8395. After hours: 516-572-3143 Long Island Crisis Counseling & Referral Center: 516-679-1111 Nassau County Coalition Against Domestic Violence: 516-542-0404 Thoughts? Your reaction LOL 0% Cool 0% What!? 0% Meh... 100% Sad 0% RAGE! 0% Featured News, Investigations, Island Issues, Main Feature, News, The Issue, The Latest from the issueHomelessHUDJohn KennedyKate BrowningLIRRLong Island Coalition for the HomelessMaureen's HavenMust ReadNassau CountyPace Valley HavenServices for the UnderservedsliderSuffolk CountySuffolk Social ServicestickerWorkplace Project About the Author Timothy Bolger Timothy Bolger Timothy Bolger is the Managing Editor for the Long Island Press who’s been working to uncover unreported stories since shortly after it launched in 2003. When he’s not editing, getting hassled by The Man or fielding cold calls to the newsroom, he covers crime, general interest and political news in addition to reporting longer, sometimes investigative features. He won’t be happy until everyone is as pissed off as he is about how screwed up Lawn Guyland is.