Adams' poor policies

To the editor:

New York has extremes of income and wealth. The Economic Policy Institute, using the latest data from 2022, found that our state has the greatest concentration of wealth in the country and the deepest economic inequality. 

New Yorkers with wealth over $30 million (less than 0.4% of the population) had $6.7 trillion dollars in wealth. A significant number of these individuals live in NYC. The city-based poverty-fighting nonprofit Robinhood and Columbia University, also using data from 2022, found that over 1.5 million adults in the city lived in poverty, as did nearly 420,000 children.  More than 4.6 million New Yorkers had incomes below 200 percent of the poverty line, and over half (52 percent) of adults had at least one type of disadvantage such as poverty, material hardship or health problems. 

Since becoming mayor, Eric Adams has shown little interest in addressing inequality at the extremes. Adams’ main priority has been law and order on streets and subways, and locking up more New Yorkers accused of crimes. Adams recently has blamed an imaginary fiscal crisis on the costs associated with caring for migrants. This is despite the city having an $8 billion surplus. 

Adams initially claimed there was a $12 billion budget gap that justified an austerity budget, with service cuts disproportionately affecting both the disadvantaged and the middle class. After receiving blowback, some cuts were rescinded. 

Adams then announced that the budget gap had somehow shrunk to $7 billion, a result of unspecified administration efficiencies and lower migrant costs. 

The mayor’s policies have won him praise from the rich, the business community, the Republican Party, and the New York Post, quite an achievement for his self-proclaimed working class administration.

Howard Elterman