This report updates the Center's ongoing examination of the Covid-19 economic impact, finding that as of early August, unemployment remains distressingly high, and the July expiration of the temporary $600 Federal supplemental weekly unemployment insurance benefit will impose deep new hardships on hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers and on the entire city economy.
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The Center for New York City Affairs and the Center for Wage and Employment Dynamics at the University of California Institute for Research on Labor and Employment are releasing a new report recommending the establishment of a minimum compensation standard for Seattle Uber and Lyft drivers. The study examined pay for thousands of Seattle drivers, and found that drivers net about $9.73 per hour, much less than Seattle’s $16.39 minimum wage for employees of large businesses. A third of all drivers work 32 hours per week or more and provide 55 percent of all trips. Nearly three-fourths rely on driving as their sole source of income.
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Since February, New York City has lost 1.25 million jobs, by far the sharpest job decline since the 1930s. To a greater extent than in previous downturns, the Covid-19-related job losses are heavily concentrated among low-wage workers, hitting persons of color, immigrants, young workers, and less educated workers the hardest. It is likely that the city could end 2020 with 500,000 to 600,000 fewer jobs than at the beginning of the year. Substantial additional federal economic assistance is needed to reduce hardships and spark more and better employment opportunities.
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New York City’s economy is in a more precarious state than at any time since the 1970s fiscal and economic crisis. The current public health and economic crisis far surpasses the personal, psychological, and economic devastation wrought by 9/11, the 2008-09 Great Recession, or Superstorm Sandy. The social distancing public health imperative at present has incapacitated a substantial portion of the city’s economy. Job losses and new unemployment claims that have mounted since the beginning of the pandemic are unprecedented. An estimated 1.2 million New Yorkers (or 27 percent of all private sector workers) will be jobless by the end of April in an environment where businesses have been ordered to close and non-essential personnel told to stay at home. This report identifies the workers and industries that are expected to experience the most profound displacement and economic losses as business closures and social distancing measures demanded by the health crisis continue. The daunting economic challenges New York City faces in the months and years ahead are discussed.
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James Parrott, director of economic and fiscal policies for the Center for New York City Affairs at The New School, partnered with The Century Foundation and its Senior Fellow Andrew Stettner on a new report released yesterday projecting up to 15 million U.S. lost jobs as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, and estimating the value of a key provision in the new Senate stimulus bill regarding unemployment insurance benefits.
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Many aspects of New York’s workers’ comp benefit structure combine to deliver inadequate lost-worktime compensation to injured workers. Since 2007 workers' comp “reforms,” payments to or on behalf of workers have fallen relative to workers’ comp premiums while insurance company profits have soared. This report unravels the details and argues that the Empire State needs to take a fresh look at its workers’ comp system in order to restore the priority of fairly compensating victims of workplace injuries and ensure that businesses responsibly invest in enhancing workplace safety. This report updates several data series included in an earlier version released in April 2019.
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