Yearly Archives: 2012

October 29, 2012. Ted Hesson reports for ABC News/Univision on how immigrants helped keep the city going through the hurricane. Immigrants make up half of all small business owners in New York City, according to a 2011 report by the Fiscal Policy Institute, and fields like taxi and limousine services, with 90 percent immigrant ownership, will be crucial during the hurricane. One cabbie estimated that only five percent of taxi drivers were on the road this morning, and in Manhattan Valley, traffic had slowed to [...]

October 15, 2012. Danny Hakim writes about New York State's high unemployment rate in the New York Times. While the nation’s unemployment rate has been declining over the last year, New York State’s has been rising sharply, presenting a challenge for Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo as he tries to build an image as a fiscal centrist who can transform the state’s business climate. Over the last 12 months, New York has been the only state with a statistically significant increase in its unemployment rate, according [...]

October 15, 2012. An ABC/Univision commentary on why the presidential candidates should address immigration in their debate at Hofstra University.   You sometimes forget that Long Island starts where Queens, one of the most diverse places on earth, ends, and that the demographic richness carries over. Immigrants make up 16 percent of the population across the Island, and 19 percent of the population in Nassau County, according to a 2011 report by the Fiscal Policy Institute.

September 26, 2012. An opinion piece from the George W. Bush Institute on why immigration matters to the economy. Data show that immigrants are highly entrepreneurial, putting their skills to good use creating new jobs in the U.S. economy. A June 2012 study published by the Fiscal Policy Institute reports that 18% of all small business owners in the U.S. are immigrants. This is especially impressive considering immigrants make-up less than 16% of the civilian labor force and account for less than 13% of the [...]

September 20, 2012. A story reported by Ilya Marritz for WNYC.

September 20, 2012. Anjali Athavaley of the Wall Street Journal writes about new data on poverty from the Census Bureau's American Community Survey. Link requires subscription; excerpt below. Of the boroughs, the Bronx had the highest rate in 2011, with 30.4% of the population living in poverty in 2011. Manhattan experienced the largest increase, from 16.4% to 18.3%. Some economists pointed to New York's high unemployment as a driving factor in poverty. "While we've had job growth that looks good relative to other places, it [...]

September 20, 2012. Census data show similar 3-year results statewide: a story by Joseph Spector in the Poughkeepsie Journal. The data show what has been a perennial problem in New York: high taxes compared to wealth. Median household income in New York fell 1.4 percent from $56,033 to $55,246, but property taxes rose 18 percent, census data released today show. Many New Yorkers "have property-tax bills that are an inordinate share of their income," said Frank Mauro, executive director of the Fiscal Policy Institute, a [...]

September 17, 2012. An op ed by Shikha Dalmia, Bloomberg View. Dalmia is a Detroit-based senior analyst at Reason Foundation. What is true, contrary to the bellyaching by anti-immigration restrictionists, is that [immigrants] are a net boon - not a burden - for local economies. A recent Standard & Poor's study found that U.S. cities with a “significant” immigrant population improved their credit rating because even low-wage foreigners pay taxes that help defray the cost of services. There is also evidence that immigration and growth [...]