The Long Crisis: Economic Inequality in New York City

City University of New York Law Review, Dec 2014

City University of New York Law Review hosted this public panel discussion on November 12, 2014 at CUNY School of Law. CUNY Law Review would like to thank the co-sponsors of this event: Law Students for Reproductive Justice (LSRJ); Latin American Law Students Association (LALSA); Labor Coalition for Workers’ Rights and Economic Justice; National Lawyers Guild CUNY Law Chapter (NLG); Iraqi Refugee Assistance Project (IRAP); Student for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and CUNY Law Association of Students for Housing (CLASH).

A PDF file should load here. If you do not see its contents the file may be temporarily unavailable at the journal website or you do not have a PDF plug-in installed and enabled in your browser.

Alternatively, you can download the file locally and open with any standalone PDF reader:

https://academicworks.cuny.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1362&context=clr

The Long Crisis: Economic Inequality in New York City

The Long Crisis: Economic Inequality in New York City Fahd Ahmed 0 1 Tom Angotti 0 1 CUNY Hunter College 0 1 Shawn Blumberg 0 1 Housing Conversation Coordinators 0 Fahd Ahmed , Tom Angotti, Jennifer J. Austin, Shawn Blumberg , Robin Steinberg & Stephen Loffredo, Th e Long Crisis: Economic Inequality in New York City, 18 CUNY L. Rev. 153 (2014). Available at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu/clr/vol18/iss1/8 , USA 1 The CUNY Law Review is published by the Office of Library Services at the City University of New York. For more information please contact , USA Recommended Citation - DRUM See next page for additional authors Follow this and additional works at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu/clr Part of the Law Commons The Long Crisis: Economic Inequality in New York City Authors Fahd Ahmed, Tom Angotti, Jennifer Jones Austin, Shawn Blumberg, Robin Steinberg, and Stephen Loffredo THE LONG CRISIS: ECONOMIC INEQUALITY IN NEW YORK CITY1 A Conversation between Fahd Ahmed, Tom Angotti, Jennifer Jones Austin, Shawn Blumberg, & Robin Steinberg Moderated by Professor Stephen Loffredo † I. INTRODUCTIONS The Long Crisis: Economic Inequality in New York was a panel dis cussion hosted by the City University of New York (CUNY) Law Review on November 12, 2014. CUNY Law Review planned this panel as a symposium in conjunction with our “Economic Justice” themed issue for volume 18.1. The symposium brought together lawyers and activists from New York City to reflect on how conditions of poverty are created and reproduced both in New York City and in the United States at large. Working class people in New York City struggle to survive. They suffer from wage stagnation, long hours, and diminished public benefits. The educational system prepares poor and working class children for a life of rote labor. The city’s paltry public services have undergone years of assault and continue to face the constant threat of budget cuts. Furthermore, in the current political climate, there is a steady ideological drumbeat proclaiming that those who enter into these systems are the ones at fault: if you need help, then there is something wrong with you. It is difficult living from paycheck to paycheck but this is the † Stephen Loffredo is Professor of Law at CUNY School of Law. He has litigated many path-breaking law reform cases, including actions that secured the right of homeless families in New York to safe and adequate shelter, established the right of single homeless shelter residents to public assistance and Medicaid, and vindicated the statutory entitlement of disabled New Yorkers to federal benefits worth over $100 million annually. He has continued to represent poor people through the Law School’s clinical program and as pro bono counsel to the Urban Justice Center. He has written and spoken widely on the constitutional dimensions of economic rights and the role of wealth in a constitutional democracy. 1 City University of New York Law Review hosted this public panel discussion on November 12, 2014 at CUNY School of Law. CUNY Law Review would like to thank the co-sponsors of this event: Law Students for Reproductive Justice (LSRJ); Latin American Law Students Association (LALSA); Labor Coalition for Workers’ Rights and Economic Justice; National Lawyers Guild CUNY Law Chapter (NLG); Iraqi Refugee Assistance Project (IRAP); Student for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and CUNY Law Association of Students for Housing (CLASH). CUNY LAW REVIEW reality for the overwhelming majority of New Yorkers. Moreover, given that “quality of life” and “broken windows” policing policies disproportionately impact low-income communities, working class people who interact with the criminal justice or immigration detention systems experience a unique, multi-faceted vulnerability that can propel them deeper into crisis. This panel sought to discuss the problems generated by this system, and to reflect on the work that these panelists are undertaking to combat and overcome the barriers that stand in the way of social change. The following is a transcript of the comments of our panelists, Jennifer Jones Austin, Tom Angotti, Fahd Ahmed, Shawn Blumberg, and Robin Steinberg. Stephen Loffredo moderated the discussion. CUNY Law Review Special Events Editors, Syeda Tasmin and Rachel Nager organized the panel. Thank you to the student organizers. Thank you to our panelists. Welcome, audience. Before turning to the panel, and just to set the stage a bit, I’d like to share a couple of graphics that I found useful in understanding some of the dynamics and some of the dimensions of economic inequality in the United States. TOP INCOME SHARES. UNITED STATES. 1913-20122 26 24 22 20 18 %16 14 12 10 8 6 3 9 5 1 7 3 9 5 1 7 3 9 5 1 7 3 9 1 1 2 3 3 4 4 5 6 6 7 7 8 9 9 0 0 19 19 19 91 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 20 20 Top 1% income share Top 1% income share-including capital gains Sources: The World Top Incomes Database. http://topincomes.g-mond.parisschoolof ec (...truncated)


This is a preview of a remote PDF: https://academicworks.cuny.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1362&context=clr

Fahd Ahmed, Tom Angotti, Jennifer Jones Austin, Shawn Blumberg, Robin Steinberg, Stephen Loffredo. The Long Crisis: Economic Inequality in New York City, City University of New York Law Review, 2014, Volume 18, Issue 1,