NEW YORK - New York City, hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic, is mired in the worst economic calamity since the financial crisis of the 1970s, when it nearly went bankrupt.
Kelvin Rolling, 48, was among those affected. A taxi dispatcher at Kennedy International Airport for the past five years, Rolling said he thought he was one of the lucky ones who would hold on to his job despite the plunge in traffic at the airport.With the city trying to kick-start its economy and in the midst of a phased reopening, Rolling said,"It seems like you would be calling people back, not laying people off.
While the national unemployment rate fell to 11.1 per cent in June, New York City's rate reached 18.3 per cent in May, the highest level in the 44 years that such data has been collected. The numbers for June will be released July 16. The government benefits she has been relying on do not match the salary she was earning as an executive assistant for a travel and entertainment company in Manhattan. But she and her family have been getting by in their Bronx home because her husband has continued working.
"New York City is experiencing deep and enduring unemployment, mostly by low-income workers of colour, and the city is facing a sluggish recovery with double-digit unemployment," said James Parrott, director of economic and fiscal policies at the Center for New York City Affairs. The state was so ill prepared to have to pay out so much so fast that it quickly exhausted its unemployment insurance trust fund and had to borrow from the federal government. That debt is US$3.4 billion and rising - more than any other state has had to borrow.
With Broadway theatres dark through the end of the year and spectators barred from the US Open tennis tournament, he said,"We don't see any pickup at all until September at the earliest." Dozens of layoff notices have been filed each week by employers unsure of what to tell their workers about the future. Junior's, a family-owned group of restaurants in New York City and Connecticut known for its cheesecake, has warned more than 600 employees that furloughs that started in mid-March will be extended indefinitely.
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