Monthly Archives: August 2012

August 31, 2012. A story reported by Mike Clifford, Public News Service - NY. As New York heads into a long weekend to celebrate the contributions made by workers, local advocates say this Labor Day should shine a spotlight on local workers who have the least protections. David Dyssegard Kallick, director of the Fiscal Policy Institute's Immigration Research Initiative, says immigrant day laborers are doing tough jobs and contributing to local economic growth, despite the fact that many work "under the table" in low-paying jobs [...]

August 31, 2012. An article by Brian Amaral, Watertown Daily News. In fliers mailed to Jefferson County residents, state Sen. Patricia A. Ritchie, R-Heuvelton, claims to have saved taxpayers in her three-county district $36 million on their property tax bills. But experts on the right and left say that the claim — based on her support for the 2011 state law that limits property tax hikes — is unknowable at best and misleading at worst. ... Mrs. Ritchie’s office said that the claim in the [...]

August 28, 2012. Immigrants Twice as Likely to Start Small Businesses as Native-Born, by Noel Brinkerhoff, AllGov news blog. The U.S. should be welcoming, and not demonizing, immigrants if it seeks job and economic growth, based on a new study about entrepreneurialism. ... According to a separate report by the Fiscal Policy Institute, "firms for which half or more of the owners are immigrants employed an estimated 4.7 million people, 14 percent of all people employed by small business owners" and that 18% of small [...]

August 21, 2012. Local electeds gather in Bed-Stuy to announce their support of a bill in Congress to raise worker pay: an article by C. Zawadi Morris, Fort Greene-Clinton Hill Patch. The current minimum wage, which is at a historic low, would be estimated at $10.50 an hour if indexed with the current rate of inflation. But at its current level, a minimum wage worker earns $15,000 annually - $3,000 below the poverty line, Gillibrand pointed out. "Imagine how difficult it is to try to [...]

August 14, 2012. Mark Koba reports for CNBC. In the end, Kallick says his study is not about solving U.S. immigration problems - which seem unsolvable anytime soon. And Kallick adds that immigrants - legal or not - can't cure the nation's economic woes. But he says they have played an important part in the country's past and are needed for its future. "What we see is that immigrants don't just come to the U.S. as workers but also as consumers and entrepreneurs and that [...]