If you thought that the average minimum wage earner in New York City was a teenager trying to save up money for college, think again. Out of the 352,000 people earning less than $8.50 an hour in New York City, a total of 92 percent are over 20 years old, according to the Fiscal Policy Institute.
One of them is Abdoullah Thiaf, a 24-year old immigrant from West Africa. He started working at a Moe’s Southwest Grill franchise in Midtown Manhattan five months ago along with some fellow immigrants from West Africa. In total, immigrants account for more than 30 percent of all minimum wage earners in New York City. Thiaf says he likes his job. He enjoys what he calls the “freedom of getting paid regularly” for the work that he puts in and says there hasn’t been “any trouble so far” since he started working there. Yet trying to survive on minimum wage in New York City is something Thiaf says he struggles with.
“Every day,” Thiaf answered when asked if he ever thinks about earning a higher wage.
Thiaf takes the 2-train to work from the Bronx every day. To pay for his commute, he buys a 7-day metro card for $30, which equals almost four hours of work.“It’s expensive,” he said. While Thiaf has not taken part in any protests or joined a movement, he sympathizes with those who argue that the current minimum wage is not enough to live on. “The New York life is expensive. It’s not just me complaining,” Thiaf said.
Bronx, where Thiaf lives, is home to some of the poorest neighborhoods in New York. Census data reveals that the median household income in neighborhoods such as Morrisania, Hunts Point and Mott Haven are far below $16,000, the annual salary of somebody working 40 hours each week on minimum wage. Other neighborhoods that were below this threshold included parts of Brownsville and East New York in Brooklyn as well as Manhattanville.
The minimum wage, coupled with the expensive costs of living in New York, has sparked the development of a class of working poor. One in ten workers in New York City do not make enough money to lift their families above the poverty level, according to the Fiscal Policy Institute. The lack of perks and benefits create a cascading effect where the working poor not only cannot cough up the money for a Metro Card, like Thiaf, but also remain without health insurance and rely on public assistance.
According to a report by the University of California-Berkeley Labor Center, 34 percent of the 104,000 fast food workers in New York are receiving Medicaid, the public health insurance program for low-income citizens, while the number of people receiving food stamps is 25 percent. In total, this costs New York State $708 million, the study suggests.
In New York’s low-income neighborhoods, the number of people receiving food stamps in the past 12 months usually hovers between 50 and 70 percent. The percentage of people relying on cash public assistance reaches double digits more often than not. The same goes for the percentage of people without health insurance.
Meanwhile, this is in stark contrast to the richest neighborhoods in New York City such as Manhattan’s Upper East Side between 60th and 80th street on Fifth Avenue. Here, the median income is well above $100,000 and the rates for unemployment, non-insured and food stamps beneficiaries remain in the low single digits.
When Bill de Blasio ran for mayor, he campaigned on a platform of reducing inequality among residents in New York City. In his inaugural address he repeated it saying, “we are called to put an end to the economic and social inequalities that threaten to unravel the city we love.”
He has been advocating an increase in the minimum wage to up to $10, which would put an extra $4000 in the pocket of someone currently working 40 hours per week on $8 per hour.Yet there are some who do not see a problem with the current standard, such as Harry Reddy. A 23-year old immigrant from India, Reddy works at a corner store in Penn station. Reddy says the $8.50 per hour that he makes is “sufficient for me to live” and he repeats one of the mantras of the American Dream. “If you work hard you make more, if you do not work hard you make less,” he said.
Which begs the question, which neighborhood is affordable enough for Reddy to survive on $8.50 per hour?
“Hoboken, New Jersey,” he said.