James Parrott, Author at Public Seminar

Kinships

COVID-19 Paused Family Reunification Cases

They’re resuming, but at what pace?

April 24, 2020 • by James Parrott

Abigail Kramer is a senior editor at the Center for New York City Affairs at The New School. She specializes in policy issues impacting low-income children, youth, and families in New York City—especially those in the foster care and juvenile justice systems.

COVID-19 Paused Family Reunification Cases

Public Health

How to Slow the Bleeding

Important action in a coronavirus-infected economy

March 19, 2020 • by James Parrott

On Tuesday, the White House announced its support for a large economic stimulus package. That’s certainly needed, but let’s keep the focus where it should be: to head off the epidemic of necessary job loss and business closings before it becomes an economic contagion. Elected officials have asked businesses and workers ...

New York City

Time for a Real Look at How the New York State Workers’ Compensation System Treats Workers

February 16, 2020 • by James Parrott

Improvements in reducing workplace injuries have slowed in many industries, particularly those employing low-wage workers, and New York has seen a disturbing rise in fatal workplace injuries in recent years. More than half of those receiving payments for lost worktime injuries are low-wage workers, and, prior to injury, three-fourths earned ...

Time for a Real Look at How the New York State Workers’ Compensation System Treats Workers

New York City

Bad Medicine

Arbitrary Caps and Cost Shifts Won’t Heal Medicaid

February 15, 2020 • by James Parrott

Instead, gimmicks such as moving some spending forward by a few days into the next fiscal year, as was done the past two years with Medicaid, served to mainly obscure the steady rise in Medicaid spending and pushed a reckoning down the road. That reckoning is no longer avoidable. Six million ...

New York City

Local Governments Can Afford To Pay a $15 Minimum Wage

November 7, 2019 • by James Parrott

In contrast to this Congressional stalemate, there’s been a growing push in many states for higher minimum wages. Over the past decade, 29 states and the District of Columbia have raised their minimum wages above the federal floor. In the spring, Maryland and Connecticut joined New Jersey, Illinois, New York, ...

Feature

Budget Watch

If New York’s economy slows, reality-based budgeting must prevail

January 11, 2019 • by James Parrott

Two years ago, the outlook for New Yorkers was bleak on the political side but brighter on the economic front. Today, the trends appear to have reversed. The midterm election results portend more hopeful changes in Albany and, the effects of the partial federal government shutdown notwithstanding, Washington. On the ...

Feature

A Policy U-Turn Steers Toward A New Day For New York’s For-Hire Drivers

New York is the first in the nation to enact legislation upping minimum pay for drivers

October 28, 2018 • by James Parrott

While Manhattan traffic often crawls and stalls, New York City officials have put the pedal to the metal on actions designed to improve pay and working conditions for thousands of for-hire vehicle (FHV) and taxi drivers. In August, New York became the nation’s first city to enact legislation calling for a ...

A Policy U-Turn Steers Toward A New Day For New York’s For-Hire Drivers

Feature

A Rising Employment Rate Means Fewer Sidelined Workers

New York City’s long rising economic tide

March 11, 2018 • by James Parrott

Economic theory suggests that sustained periods of low unemployment should produce an array of broadly enjoyed job market benefits. Not only will more people have jobs: their wages should also rise; overall poverty should subside; and general economic conditions for the traditionally disadvantaged should improve. Unfortunately, reality doesn’t always conform to ...

A Rising Employment Rate Means Fewer Sidelined Workers

Feature

The Trump Tax Trap: Can New Yorkers Escape It?

Urban Matters talks with James Parrott

January 13, 2018 • by James Parrott

On Jan. 16th, Governor Andrew Cuomo will present New York State’s proposed budget for the coming fiscal year. Earlier this month, in his State of the State address, he previewed some possible major tax overhauls designed to offset the potentially punishing blows to State finances resulting from the recently passed ...

The Trump Tax Trap: Can New Yorkers Escape It?

Feature

How to Stop the Bleeding at New York’s Public Hospitals

Caring for the neediest and most vulnerable should be more equitably distributed

November 20, 2017 • by Barbara Caress and James Parrott

Serving more than one million New Yorkers a year, the hospitals and clinics of the New York City Health + Hospitals (NYCH+H) system play a key role in combatting illness and injury across the city. But fiscally, they’re in dire health themselves; in fact, they’re hemorrhaging money. The system’s operating ...