The statistics shouldn’t be a surprise to any of us; many of them have been in earlier reports. But still, the numbers are staggering. And so are the rankings those numbers put us in.
Rochester is the fourth poorest city among the 75 largest metro areas in the country. We have the third-highest concentration of people living in high-poverty census tracks.
Compared to other cities our size, we’re the worst in child poverty, in the percentage of residents living in extreme poverty, and in the poverty rate of female heads of households.
Worse, many residents have income that puts them above the federal poverty level, but don’t have nearly enough money to be self-sufficient. The federal guideline is decades old and doesn’t take into account regional differences. Self-sufficiency gives a better picture of the severity of Rochester’s poverty.
And while we think of the poor as people who don’t have jobs, many of them do. They just don’t earn enough to make ends meet.
A new report focusing on the working poor – “Wage Disparities in Monroe County by Race and Gender” – suggests a way to dramatically reduce poverty in the Rochester area. But doing what the report suggests will be both hard and controversial.
The report, which was released late last week, was prepared by the mayor’s Office of Innovation and Strategic Initiatives and by the Rochester-Monroe Anti-Poverty Initiative. It contains some of the same statistics we’ve seen before. But there’s plenty of new information – and seeing all of it compiled in one place forces us to face some unpleasant truths:
Ÿ Inequality is built into our wage and hiring structures. We value some kinds of work, and some kinds of workers, far more than we value others. And that discrimination isn’t always based on the work’s value to society.
Ÿ Racism and sexism are very much alive, both in how we value different types of work and in how we pay workers in all types of jobs. Far more African-Americans and Hispanics are poor than whites. More women are poor than men. And the disparity exists across industry sectors.
Ÿ Unless we change wage scales and personnel practices, poverty in this region will continue.
Poverty has been growing everywhere in the Greater Rochester area – in the city, in the suburbs, in rural areas. But the poor are heavily concentrated in the city. And a lot of job growth has been in the suburbs.
Fueling the concentration of the poor in Rochester: the city’s precipitous drop in population – from 318,611 in 1960 to an estimated 208,880 in 2016. That flight occurred primarily among middle-income and upper-income people.
An equally dramatic change occurred in the racial composition of city residents. In 1970, 82.4 percent of city residents were white. In 2010, 43.7 percent were white.
The result: the majority of city residents are poor and African-American or Hispanic. Estimates compiled by the staff of the city and the Anti-Poverty Initiative indicate that fewer than 30 percent of city residents earn enough to be self-sufficient.
Many of them don’t have jobs. But many do. And according to the Wage Disparities report, an estimated 13,477 full-time workers and another 17,500 part-time workers aren’t earning enough to be self-sufficient. And the part-time workers are much more likely not only to lack self-sufficiency but to be in real poverty.
And looking at current trends in employment doesn’t give us much hope for the future. “Currently,” says the report, “the health-care and social assistance industry is the largest employment sector, and trends indicate that that will continue.”
These are low-wage jobs such as nursing-home workers, home health aides (HHA’s), personal care aides (PCA’s), child-care workers. In the Finger Lakes region, for example, pay for health-care workers ranges from $11.65 per hour to $12.25 per hour, says the report.
These types of jobs don’t require a college education. And not surprisingly, African-Americans and Hispanics make up a disproportionate number of workers in those fields. And they often don’t earn enough to be self-sufficient.
An additional problem: Many of these jobs don’t offer a path to better ones. Alex Yudelson, Mayor Lovely Warren’s chief of staff, gave an example as he walked me through the Wage Disparities report. “Twenty years ago,” he said, “if you were a home health aide, it was a path to an RN,” which paid better. That path no longer exists.
“According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ 2015 estimates for Rochester,” says the Wage Disparities report, “the total number of low-wage health-care workers is 20,780, and a large proportion, or 7,560, are PCA’s. This means that over a third of the workers in the area’s top growth sector are earning low wages and unlikely to meet self-sufficiency standards for households with dependents.”
“Locally,” says the Wage Disparities report, “there is a push to increase the workforce of HHA’s and PCA’s to meet the needs of a large local disabled and/or aging population,” the report notes. “Action for a Better Community recently received a Health Profession Opportunity Grant to train people in poverty for work in these occupations. However, at current pay rates it is unlikely that these newly trained individuals will earn enough to be considered self-sufficient.”
Racism plays a part, too. Analysis of census data shows that not only are minorities concentrated in low-wage jobs but even in those jobs, the report says, they earn less than white workers.
Discussions about poverty often overlook one group of Rochesterians: those with disabilities. And yet according to ACT Rochester, more than 42.1 percent of people in Rochester with a disability are living in poverty. That’s 22 percent of the poverty population in the city.
Having a disability doesn’t always prevent people from holding a job, but a particularly insidious complication actually encourages their poverty. The Wage Disparities report cites a 1938 federal law that allows “sheltered workshops, which predominantly serve those with intellectual and/or physical disabilities, to pay subminimum wages to disabled workers.”
“Nationally,” says the report, “many of these workers earn less than a dollar per hour.”
We’ve had reports similar to this before, many times. Will anything come out of this one?
There’s been some movement, even before work on the Wage Disparities report began. As part of the Anti-Poverty Initiative, the Catholic Family Center has received funding to operate an adult job-skills mentoring program in the city’s Beechwood, Marketview Heights, and EMMA neighborhoods.
Representatives of city government and the Regional Transit Service have been discussing the need to change or add bus routes to make transportation to jobs more accessible to residents of Rochester’s poorest neighborhoods.
City and RMAPI representatives have been meeting with the leaders of businesses and institutions about the data laid out in the Wage Disparities report, and Yudelson says they’ve been receptive. Some have agreed to convene other leaders in their field. And Mayor Warren’s office says she’ll continue to conduct discussions to focus on the issue of wage disparity.
There will be the predictable response: that raising wages will be too expensive, that health care providers, other service providers, and businesses can’t afford to pay more than they do. And in truth, fields like health care are experiencing intense stress and uncertainty.
But if Rochester is serious about reducing poverty, all of its employment sectors will have to get serious about the wages of the working poor. City Hall has helped lead the way by pledging to raise the wages of all of its full-time workers to $15 by 2021, more quickly than the state has mandated for Upstate New York. The business community’s Unshackle Upstate effort, on the other hand, has been a strong opponent of the movement to raise the state’s minimum wage to $15.
It’s encouraging that the leaders of some Rochester businesses and institutions have agreed to get others together to discuss the report and its findings about the working poor. That’s a good first step. But Rochester has a history of studying problems diligently but then moving on.
There may also be the temptation to pass the poverty problem on to RMAPI and the local agencies that serve the poor. That would be a terrible mistake, but it would be consistent with the way Rochester tends to deal with difficult problems.
As the Wage Disparities report says, the stark data it contains can serve as a starting point. But the report is just an educational vehicle. What the community does with it is what matters.
Raising wages isn’t the only thing we need to do to decrease the high poverty level of the city and the region. Job creation, job training, mentoring: all of that is crucial. And the region has begun to focus on those areas.
But if all we do is create more jobs with low wages, we’ll have done little to nothing.
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How racist is Rochester?
This article appears in Aug 9-15, 2017.
“These are low-wage jobs such as nursing-home workers, home health aides (HHA’s), personal care aides (PCA’s), child-care workers. In the Finger Lakes region, for example, pay for health-care workers ranges from $11.65 per hour to $12.25 per hour, says the report.
These types of jobs don’t require a college education. And not surprisingly, African-Americans and Hispanics make up a disproportionate number of workers in those fields. And they often don’t earn enough to be self-sufficient.”
LIVE. WITHIN. YOUR. MEANS….. I really can’t stress that enough. I bought a house while making $11/hr. My mortgage (with taxes and insurance) was comparable to what renting a 1 bedroom apt would be. Difference between renting and owning? I built equity. On top of that, I had spare bedrooms in my house, so I rented them out to college kids. I basically turned a profit by being a homeowner. Fancy car? No… Used car. Steak and lobster dinners? No… Chicken and rice. Name brand clothes? No…. Walmart.
I really don’t understand why personal financial accountability is so tough for people.
“Raising wages isn’t the only thing we need to do to decrease the high poverty level of the city…” The “we” here also refers to City Newspaper, an employer that routinely recruits unpaid interns to do work that should be paid. Maybe City Newspaper needs to take its own medicine before it dispenses its medical advice to the masses.
You would think with the title of this article that City News would state that they are leading the way with across the board raises of $1 per hour and add a half dozen new jobs. But no.
It’s not up to a business to pay someone more than they are worth. It’s up to the employee to grow with the job and increase his worth to the company.
It’s up to the government to create an atmosphere where a business can grow and prosper.
Instead, the business is blamed and the employee is given a pass.
The democrats have been running this city for decades, the republicans run the suburbs. Why do business and jobs flock to the suburbs? Obviously, with 3 democrats running for mayor and no republicans, the citizens like things they way they are. As articles like these are published weekly in City News, the only conclusion I can come to is that they like it too. The democrats are forever running for elected office to correct problems that they, themselves created.
The solution lies in the ENLIGHTENED individual.
City residents—when will you tire of being taken advantage of by your mayor and supportive media?
Johnny…it takes enlightenment corporations to value employees as much or more than they value top executives.
You say that the only way to reduce poverty is to increase wages. It would certainly take some out of poverty, but for others, those that either lose their jobs or have their hours shortened due to the increased cost, it would worsen their situation.
Instead of mandating wages above their market levels, how about the government takes actions to lower the costs of living for people. They could lower property taxes, which are outrageously high in upstate (3%+ of market value), or reduce the sales tax levels (8.25%). If someone rents a $50k house, then their rent includes $1500-1700 of property taxes. In most states, it would be ~$500. What would a 4% sales tax do for the poor? Or reducing gasoline excise taxes to the median of the US states instead of being one of the highest.
Be creative instead of just another Democratic sheep.
Set public sector wages at all levels to a fixed multiple of the minimum wage. Minimum wage would keep up with inflation, driving other wages up based on skill/availability. Jobs that require some education and certification would certainly see wages increase.
The labor force participation rate is collapsing due to a lack of jobs, while inflation increases are glossed over with rigged CPI values. The former depresses wages, while the latter further reduces disposable income. In a consumer driven economy this is a recipe for disaster and the warning signs are everywhere.
I don’t know an across the board raise for certain sectors is a fix, but certainly we’ve seen enough evidence that the medical care “market” does not respond to market dynamics in ways that allow it to function positively (the cost of a good or service being what the market will bear). The biggest problem is many people need HHAs and PCAs, but they can’t afford to pay what that service is worth, leading to depressed wages AND a shortage of workers. In any other sector of the economy, the business would simply disappear.
@Luxembourg, a break on sales tax and gas taxes would help. A break on property taxes maybe less, landlords are not going to lower rents just because they have less overhead.
Another thought, take a closer look at the businesses that employ most of the HHAs and PCAs and see how much they really take in vs what they pay.
If the $’s there but not making it to the rank and file, its time to bring in a Union. Not like the boss can threaten to send all your jobs to Mexico….
Governor Andrew Cuomo supports raising the minimum wage because he’s a savvy politician wanting to get on the right side of a growing movement. What he doesn’t say, however, is that people who earn more will pay more taxes and get less entitlements. He’s pretty smart to get more taxes and more popular support at the same time.
I am getting so sick of politicians who get double money for half-time jobs trying to get on the good side of the overworked and underpaid. If politicians want to help people, then they should work on cutting government waste, making corporate welfare illegal, and making it possible for everyone to see a doctor, or dentist, and get needed medication at no cost. Being sick is bad enough without having to pay for it.
I didn’t see anything in the report that would support a conclusion of racism. Are blacks employed more frequently in lower paying job sectors? The report does show this. Do they make less than whites within the same sector? Yes according to the report. Are they paid less when they share the same job title and experience within the sector? The report does not drill down to this so we cannot make any conclusions about the wage differences. Within each sector of the economy there are wide variations of job titles and pay scales.
Wow. Your logic amazes me Mary Anna. In the beginning of your article you mention how the concentration of poor is increasing in the city, and in female head of households. Later in the article you mention the flight of middle/upper income people out of the city. Doesn’t that skew the data? The question should be WHY was there flight of this group. They sought opportunity? Saved to move out of the city and into the suburbs like my parents who raised us on Alphonse street? Not let’s try and balance it out by increasing the wages on people who did a terrible job of controlling their career trajectory. Race has nothing to do with it. It’s an insult to those African American’s and Hispanics that worked hard to grab the brass ring in life. For example, I called on many very successful minority doctors, PA’s, NP’s, RN’s. A handful of these were originally office workers making minimum wage that decided to go to nursing or med school. And some of the LPN’s, or RN’s were working FT and in night school. I’m just tired of hearing society needs to fix a problem that a non-motivated person created. Just like the writer Eric mentioned, live within your means and plan for your OWN success! I can recall a clinic in Wolcott, NY I was calling on where a patient, and her two kids, each had iPhones and plenty of tattoos between them, yet she checked in with her Medicaid card. At that time I had a flip phone. You mention “Inequality is built into our wages and hiring structures. We value some kinds of work, and some kinds of workers, far more than we value others.” OF COURSE! I value a physician who is treating me when I’m sick, or cutting me open, versus a person asking me if I want fries with that. You mention that the healthcare and social assistance industry jobs offer no room for growth. True if you don’t take the initiative to better yourself by getting a college education. There is night school, online certification, and employers willing to help you get an education through scholarships. Wegmans is a fantastic example of that!
The best way to increase wages, is to change the supply and demand curve. If more people strived to get a higher education, there would be less of a pool of HS grads for these low paying jobs. Corporations would need to pay more to attract candidates to these jobs then. I do feel for those less fortunate who live in a prison without walls. But that’s what they choose to do. I have no sympathy for people who don’t even try to better themselves like immigrants did years ago, who weren’t educated, when they entered this land of opportunity!
My goodness. I read the article and was amazed at how many flawed assumptions were cited.
Many people think or should I say believe that the minimum wage supports raising income of full-time Adults and or low income families. The economic research does NOT support this whatsoever.
49% of workers earning the minimum wage are teenagers. A large majority of these workers, approximately 62% of the 49%, live in families with 2 adults working with incomes over the poverty level.
The most recent research I have read is that only 4.7% of adults working full time earn wages under the poverty level.
Getting back to the minimum wage and the effects on business.
Businesses make adjustments to pay for added cost. Dramatically raising the MW will reduce employment, reducing employee hours, and consequently raise
prices. This is completely the opposite of the stated intention in the authors article.
Policymakers, some not all, believe that this will help solve a poverty issue, but what they truly want is tax revenue. BAD way to increase money to the coffers of State, Local and Federal governments.
There is an economic concept which economist, credible ones, rely on, which is the Basic Competitive Model pertaining to this subject.
There is also one known as the Institutional Model, which is flawed.
In the author’s article it appears to me that the the Institutional Model is what is being proposed.
The competitive model relies on basic economics, simply put supply and demand.
The Institutional Model relies on the fact that markets are imperfect among other assumptions such as social factors,,, tech factors of firms and so on.
The best way to INCREASE wages is to increase ECONOMIC activity, increase GDP, and REDUCE TAXES. It works every time and yes it reduces POVERTY faster than any politician has ever done.
Saying that 2% GDP is normal for our country is absurd, However, GDP 2% or lower will help CREATE MORE POVERTY and GOVERNMENT DEPENDENCY!! Have a great rest of the week end folks.
A modest increase in minimum wage will not have any sort of dire effect. Relatively few workers even make the minimum wage. 11% of people under 19 and only 2% of workers over 25.
As long as the increases are not higher than the rate of inflation (which is not and hasn’t been the case for years) any negative effect would be virtually non-existent.
Historically, increases in the minimum wage do not lead to labor reductions but to relatively small increases in price – you would only reduce your payroll if your business shrunk, otherwise most business already operate with the minimum possible staff. Expenses go up you pass on the overhead = a relatively small bump on the sticker price.
Miller-How can you say historically , increases to minimum wages don’t reduce employment? Our state is in the process of raising the minimum wage over the next few years. In the last 12 months, I’ve seen order kiosks being installed at Applebees, Panara’s, Chili’s, etc. Is it a coincidence that they are being put in now versus years ago when the technology was available? Businesses are cutting employees because they don’t need to raise wage rates, or benefits, for a computer terminal. The line item of salary, general administrative expenses are increasing so, from a business point of view, replacing humans makes sense. Raising prices will decrease traffic flow as many people, like seniors are on a fixed budget that doesn’t increase with CPI. You also mention 11% of those under 19 make less than minimum wage. I’ll bet many of those work in restaurants where tips are based on their performance. If your goal is to raise all of them to a higher wage level, doesn’t that reward mediocrity as the crappy waitress will make the same as someone providing good service? Many people, including me, will not leave any tip if you raise wage rates for this group because my total costs will increase proportionately. I’m a senior on a budget. So all you’ve done is, temporarily gave minimum wage earners a bonus, then either normalized their income due to less tips, or sent them to the unemployment line.
Mitch – do you have hard data to back up those claims?
Hasn’t worked well in Washington
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.washingto…
Dear Miller
What is a modest increase? $1 dollar, $15 dollars? We have seen the results / consequences of a rapid increase of the the minimum wage raised by the state of Washington to $13 dollars from $7.25 over a relatively short period of time. It has had the opposite of the intention of benefiting the worker(s).
The linked to INFLATION idea is an interesting suggestion. My question then would be ‘what does one do when there is DEFLATION’? Do we reduce the MW? The answer would most likely be NO. Needless to say.
The current stats from January to July show that inflation has been declining, e.g., January’ rate 2.5%, July’s is 1.73%. There are charts out there which can be referenced that will show each months inflation rate. Suffice it to say inflation is currently on the decline.
The majority of MW jobs are entry level positions and it is then up to the individuals own motivations to improve oneself and start to climb the ladder of success.
Have a great day.
Hi Mark-Not sure what data you’re looking for. If it’s about the 11% of 19 year olds making less than MW as Miller claimed, either they are subsidized through tips, or their employer is breaking the law. I go back to the supply and demand argument. If people would strive to better themselves, there wouldn’t be a supply of workers to fill the demand of the low paying jobs. If it’s about the kiosks being placed, no data is needed. I’ve talked to store managers, as an investor, about the kiosks. I would encourage you to go talk to the wait staff if employees have been cut with the addition of these units. Yes, my survey was small, but companies don’t spend thousands of dollars putting these systems in because they think it’s cool. Always a profit motive, no workmen’s comp for a machine, no benefits, no breaks or vacations.
“The documented results of minimum wage increases are overwhelmingly positive for working people and neutral for businesses. There are no significant negative effects on employment, employees hours, or numbers of businesses, while prices barely budge and low-income families, especially those headed by women and people of color, are better able to meet their living expenses.”
https://www.cpisandiego.org/reports/minimu…
(A thoroughly documented summary, citing peer reviewed articles from reputable academic journals.)
Mr McKenzie
Where do you get your information and facts?
I don’t mean to be personal or condescending but your comments are way off the reality reservation.
I would be very interested in knowing your sources that have lead you to your post / conclusions.
Personally I am concerned about the need to raise incomes. My focus is more on the increase in wages of the MIDDLE class which have not seen an increase in real terms for close to 19 years. The last 18 years have seen terrible political policies that have decimated incomes of the middle class and the poor. The last 8 years have been horrific.
I go back to the question? What is a fair Minimum Wage? How should it be determined? Certainly not by plucking a number out of the SKY, e.g.$15.
We know $13 an hour closed a lot of businesses in Washington St.
Tied to inflation is certainly not the answer as I have demonstrated with factual data.
Have a good day.
Mark,
How can you recommend the CPI report as either independent or objective, and therefore credible? Credibility requires that one does not have any conflicts of interest, which would include selectively including information that supports one’s prior positions.
CPI is a non-profit that states that part of their mission is the promotion of “economic justice”, Thus publishing a study to support their position simply contains a conflict of interest. Would they have published a study that contradicted their position? doubtful. Next, consider the author, Brownell. He is also an economic justice warrior, and he is lacking any degree in either economics or any field remotely related to economics. He has both a conflict of interest and lack of professional credibility. Finally, consider Robert Reich, who is referenced repeatedly. He does have the economic credentials, but he also has a conflict of interest. His stated public positions are pro union and pro increased minimum wage. Did he have the potential to cherry pick facts to support his biases.
One might as well say that studies financed by the Koch family are objective and credible.
A more objective look at the impact of a minimum wage increase was one done by the CBO in 2014 (link below). As one might expect, such an objective study finds both positive and negative impacts from a minimum wage increase. They looked at an increase to either $9 or $10. At the $10 level, they find that it would increase the wages of those impacted by it, but that it would also cost 500k jobs. One could expect that a $15 minimum wage would have much bigger impacts on both low income wage earners and the number that would be expected to lose their positions.It would certainly accelerate the retail industry’s efforts to replace low income workers with automation.
https://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/11…
I urge everyone to visit Marks recommended website. You will quickly learn that it is a far left group devoted to “economic justice.” Let’s face it, all “economic justice” is, is taking from someone who did earn it, and giving to someone else who decided not to earn it. He believes it’s just owed to him.
https://www.cpisandiego.org/reports/minimu
“Economic justice” hasn’t worked for over 60 years. What’s to say it will work now?
“I am not a product of circumstances
I am a product of decisions”
Steven Covey
I agree that the CPI does appear to be a liberal think tank
The Washington Post study I cited was more recent and used a different methodology. It studied the impact of increasing the minimum wage on the low income workers it was intended to help
In Seattle low income workers income declined by 125 a month after the wage increase
Prior studies including the CPI measured the impact on employment , productivity, and similar measures but were not specific to workers with low income
I believe very soon we will have visible effects from the large increase in upstate NY. It will take the form of increasing automation in restaurants and the loss of low paying jobs in Call centers, claims processing centers,etc to other states
Bono and Capitalism solves poverty
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAjKyEGDlX…