New York Families’ Incomes Lowest They’ve Been In 14 Years

New York families’ incomes are the lowest they’ve been in 14 years – and it stinks. “The recent recession puts us in a position where we’ve gotten nowhere financially,” said Scott Brewster, a Brooklyn certified financial planner. “It’s been a very depressing decade with short periods of timid enthusiasm.” Hit the jump to read the rest of the story.
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Last year, New York’s annual median household income statewide was $49,826, the U.S. Census Bureau said. It hasn’t been that low since 1997, when it was $48,488, adjusted for inflation.

While incomes are going nowhere for people with jobs – and benefits for the unemployed are no picnic, either – the cost of food, clothing, shelter, transit, you name it, keeps going up.

Here are two examples of the struggles facing middle-class New Yorkers.

THE FERGUSONS

Valerie Ferguson made $22,000 in 1997 when she worked at Chase Bank in lower Manhattan, processing checks. Last year, she collected about $13,000 in unemployment benefits.

“I’d be thrilled to get back to where I was in 1997,” said the Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, resident, who lost her most recent job in June 2009 when the Bed-Stuy day care center where she was working as a bookkeeper shut down.

Fourteen years ago, the single mom was able to pay the rent in low-income housing and raise her three kids.

“I had a couple dollars in the bank. I was able to take my kids roller skating and to the movies,” said Ferguson, 46. “I had jewelry. I had clothes. I paid my way.”

Now she’s living with one of her grownup daughters. In July, when Ferguson’s unemployment benefits ran out, she signed up for public assistance.

“I had to swallow my pride,” she said.

To earn welfare benefits, which include her rent, $200 a month in food stamps, a MetroCard and a payment of $88 every two weeks, she cleans bathrooms three days a week in a city office.

She splits the rest of her time between city and state unemployment offices, hunting for job leads.

“It’s really depressing. I have a bachelor’s degree. I type 70 words a minute. I can do everything in the office, and I can’t find a job,” she said.

THE HOPEWELLS

Lonette and Timothy Hopewell lost three-quarters of their household income when she lost her administrative assistant’s job in late 2008. She’s still hunting for work.

The East Harlem couple have less money coming in than at any other time during their 12-year marriage – and now they have three kids.

Lonette, 32, signed the family up for food stamps after her unemployment benefits ran out in January.

When they were first married, Timothy, 33, had a full-time job at a nonprofit that has since closed its doors. It paid pretty well. Now he does part-time work in an after-school program at the Union Settlement Association.

“It’s frustrating not to be able to provide for your family as you have done in the past,” he said.

DN