Campaign Calls Gov. Hochul to Acknowledge Interlocking Crises and Injustices, Meet to Develop Agenda For All New Yorkers
In the Poor People’s State of the State Report released today at nysppc.org, the New York State Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival calls on Governor Kathy Hochul to publicly acknowledge the crisis of poverty in New York State and convene in-person meetings with the New York State Poor People’s Campaign to craft a policy agenda to meet the basic needs of all New Yorkers.
New York is the most unequal state in the country: along with hundreds of Wall Street billionaires, 45 percent of New Yorkers are poor or low-income—a total of 8.6 million residents. This includes 58 percent of children (2.4 million), 50 percent of women (5 million), 65 percent of Black people (1.7 million), 71 percent of Latinx people (2.5 million), and 36 percent of White people (3.9 million).
The report notes: “This inequality arises from economic, political, and cultural power that is highly concentrated in the hands of elite corporate and financial institutions and individuals. These elites, and their political representatives at all levels of government fashion public policy to their own advantage. The needs and interests of working people and the poor and near-poor not only go unaddressed – they are often directly contradicted by elite power structures that plague the lives of millions of poor and low-wealth people.”
The NYS Poor People’s Campaign has compiled in its report the most recent data about systemic racism, poverty, militarism and ecological devastation and how they affect New York communities.
From low-wage workers in New York City to veterans upstate, New Yorkers shared their experiences of poverty as well as indignation at the state’s skewed budget priorities.
In a linked video testimony, Bella Calderón of One Fair Wage in New York City said: “I’d been working in the restaurant industry for 10 years … working sometimes seven days, [making] maybe just $200 a week. And if you are working but you don’t get decent pay, your life is miserable. You cannot stretch that salary for so many things that you have to do.”
Army veteran and retired Rochester teacher Marybeth Knowles said: “It’s sickening that we would spend that much money on war and violence, when the true cost of war is such devastation to the youngest in our state… We have to stop feeding that war machine.”
“We don’t know what the governor plans to say tomorrow,” said Rev. E. West McNeill, tri-chair of the NYS Poor People’s Campaign and Executive Director of the Labor-Religion Coalition. “But in issuing this report we challenge her and the political and economic elites of New York to acknowledge the scope of these crises and to enact policies that fully and adequately respond to the needs and demands of poor and low-income people in this state,” McNeill said.
FULL PDF REPORT AVAILABLE AT NYSPPC.ORG.
