Feb
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February 23, 2015 | Leave a Comment
Income inequality has been a very contentious and pervasive topic in both the national and federal political landscape in recent years. There have been various arguments made on where exactly this income inequality stems from and even more debate on what measures need to be taken in order to mitigate and decrease this kind of economic inequality. Data serves a critical role in addressing these debates as it paints a particular picture dependent on how the data is presented. The New Yorker article “Idea of the Week: Inequality and New York’s Subway” provides a quite unique take on where income inequality is present within NY as it shows and compares median household income across neighborhoods according to train stops. The analysis and outcome is is not very surprising; areas in Manhattan and Brooklyn that are known to be inhabited by rich residents have much higher income than traditionally poorer neighborhoods/ trains stops.
I experience these differences on day-to-day basis when I ride the trains and get off of at or pass by certain stops. For example, the 5th Avenue stop on the E train feels very artsy and glamorous; paintings and beautiful photos of NYC serve as ads in the stations to the popular museums and attractions that are nearby. There is a sharp contrast to stops in Jamaica, Queens such as the Parsons Boulevard F stop, where there is grime and graffiti laden throughout the station. This article definitely quantifies these differences that I have subconsciously or consciously noticed when going through NY via the MTA. Although I do find the use of train stops to compare the areas interesting, I don’t feel like this info graphic tells us anything new about disparities across these different regions. More importantly, I feel like author just states facts in the info graphic and doesn’t apply the facts to issues surrounding income inequality, which would have been much more useful and eye-opening.
Another article that provides more data about how spread the income gap is “Just how wide is New York City’s income gap?” This is another article that I feel presents data in a new light but doesn’t provide much commentary on how the data can be used to draft any possible new solutions. It was quite surprising to see however, how stark the differences are between the median income of the lower 20% and the upper 1% over the past few decades. Indeed, the rich do keep on getting richer; increasing from $452.4k to $716.6k within 20 years, whereas the lower 20% increase about a mere $1,000. I knew the progress of income was unequal, but I didn’t think it was as disparate as the article’s graphs show. Another quite morose statistic that I found to be quite telling was the fact that even though the Caucasian population was a third of NY’s population, they controlled 50.5% of the city’s income. The story isn’t the same for other demographics within the city unfortunately, as their income was not commensurate with their population percentage.
The article that I found to be the most interesting however is “What the Rich Give to New York”. I thought the author; Nicole Gelinas took a unique approach in describing the tale of two cities within New York. Although she does agree that income inequality is very prevalent within NYC, she sheds a positive light on the rich by essentially portraying them as necessary cogs to the social and economic wheel of NYC in order for it to keep functioning. She also supports the trickle down effects of taxing the rich, explaining that their private wealth becomes public wealth through great public works, which make NYC such a famous American tourist attraction and magnet for both the poor and rich alike. I definitely do agree that this method of essentially spreading out the city’s wealth to the poor via public work initiatives is beneficial to the low-income residents. The fact that the state-run Metropolitan Transportation Authority and subway system are much more efficient and safer is truly a testament as to how tax dollars from the rich can uplift the poor.
On the more economic side of this argument, the MTA has allowed many low to even rich income residents to gain more financial opportunity as the transportation provides more access to jobs across the 5 boroughs. Moreover, it is obviously much cheaper to take public transportation instead of a car, which further strengthens the economic benefits that an improved MTA provides. According to the article, all of these changes and access points for the lower-middle income NY residents have originated primarily due to the massive investments made from the payroll taxes on the rich. Significant investments have also trickled into renovations and improvements in public libraries, which has created a domino effect to improve education for the low-middle income New Yorkers as well. Although these are fantastic consequences of having the rich still inhabiting NY, I still believe there should be direct government help and initiatives for the poor alongside these trickle down effects, as immediate action would improve the lifestyles of lower income residents even quicker.
