Mayor's Focus on Workforce Development Meets 'Pressure Cooker' Program Landscape, New Report Says
On the job (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)
New York City has recovered many of the jobs lost at the height of the covid pandemic and some industries have expanded in the shifting economic landscape. But unemployment and inequality remain high, and there is too often a mismatch between employers seeking a workforce to power growth in areas like health care, tech, and life sciences and those in need of jobs. It is a challenge and opportunity Mayor Eric Adams discussed regularly when he was running for office last year.
Against this backdrop, workforce development providers – career services programs and a host of supplemental educators – have seen their budgets slashed in recent years, while the demand for the safety net services they provide has skyrocketed. The situation has created a "pressure cooker" environment for the industry, according to a new survey from New York City Employment and Training Coalition (NYCETC), Workforce Professionals Training Institute, and The New School.
"In tandem with the stress brought by the pandemic, providers’ budgets have been drastically cut, leaving some (or many) struggling to survive," the report reads, citing drops in city, state, and philanthropic dollars.
Annie Garneva, NYCETC's interim CEO, said the onus is on the New York City government, the single largest contributor to workforce programs, to intervene. “This report and our experience over the last two years further confirm that our city has a lot more to do to ensure every New Yorker has the opportunity to access the skills and training they need to thrive," she wrote in a statement accompanying the report.
According to the survey, the most common type of workforce service is job placement. Organizations also frequently provide sector-specific training, mid-career "upskilling," and digital and financial literacy.
Ninety-six percent of respondents to a 2021 NYCETC survey of providers said they saw decreases in revenue during the first year of the pandemic. The new survey found many of them are now struggling to provide crucial services to their clients, who include some of the lowest-income New Yorkers, immigrants, public housing residents, justice-involved individuals, and women, who have been driven out of the workforce at higher rates than men. In the case of workforce development organizations that also offer direct cash assistance or housing services, 90% and 88%, respectively, are at capacity or can't meet demand.
The combination has put a strain on the workforce development sector – making it difficult to retain both underpaid staff and clients, many of whom must forgo training for jobs now in order to pay the bills – while the pandemic has put an additional spotlight on it as a potential boon to New York City's long-term economic prosperity.
“As the Workforce Landscape report highlights, New York City's workforce development community has and will continue to play an important role in fortifying the most vibrant economy in the world,” said Deputy Mayor for Economic and Workforce Development Maria Torres-Springer, in a statement accompanying the release of the report. "The administration looks forward to working with the NYC Employment and Training Coalition and its membership towards a shared goal of building a workforce that not only recovers from the impacts of the pandemic but thrives in its wake."
Workforce development has been a consistent theme in Adams' pronouncements on the economy and the plight of marginalized New Yorkers, and something he has pledged to make a signature issue. A portion of his economic recovery "blueprint" is dedicated to bolstering the workforce with investments in career pipelines, adult education, tangential services, and worker protections. While many of the proposals have yet to materialize, workforce experts have generally endorsed the spirit behind them.
"Producing quality employees of the future can't stop because of covid," Adams told reporters in August after announcing a program intended to employ 2,300 construction and industrial trade workers. "You can't put this city on pause because there's a crisis."
According to the new “workforce landscape” report, while the city’s new fiscal year 2023 (FY23) budget “brought funding levels back to FY20 levels, the financial hardships and their consequences are compounded and continue to be felt, as expressed in the results reported by this survey’s respondents."
Of the 143 workforce development organizations surveyed in the new report, close to two-thirds provide services outside of career and employment programs. City funds accounted for 39% of revenue for those multi-service providers' budgets and 25% of workforce-only organizations', with the rest funded by state, federal, and private dollars. In the 2021 survey, 64% of respondents who received city funds said they saw a decrease in city contracting and 72% said they saw a decrease in discretionary funding from the City Council.
Close to a third of respondents to the new survey said funding and staffing have become even more of a challenge during the pandemic. The lack of competitive wages and the in-person nature of many training programs likely contributes to staffing shortages, according to the report. It states 58% of workforce development staff earned below $55,000 annually in 2020, despite a disproportionate number holding a bachelor's degree or higher. And Black, Latino, and Asian workers are more likely than their white colleagues to earn below that threshold.
While multi-service agencies have seen a rush on their lifeline services, they have faced difficulty recruiting clients to workforce development programs. Forty-two percent of career readiness, college access, and job placement programs were below capacity, according to the survey.
The report attributes the low demand to the need for immediate employment, or "survival jobs," and the lack of collateral support, like childcare or stipends, that could help low-income New Yorkers afford to enroll in training courses.
Restrictions built into most government funding sources often limit organizations from offering wrap-around services. Those conditions, along with staffing shortages, have made it difficult for workforce development providers to adapt their programs to the hybrid office-setting and meet new needs in growing sectors. Thirty-nine percent of survey respondents said updating curriculum for the post-covid economy was a moderate to extreme challenge.
"You can't pursue training and employment if you're not certain if you're going to have a roof over your head next month," said Eli Dvorkin, editorial and policy director at Center for an Urban Future, a research and advocacy group focused on economic opportunity that was not involved in the survey.
"The effectiveness of these providers' services are really contingent on meeting the full scope of the needs that their clients are facing. It was really dramatic to see in the data," Dvorkin said.
Mayor Adams has made workforce development a central component of his economic recovery agenda, which is still unfolding.
“While the problems highlighted in this report mirror many of the workforce issues being seen nationwide, Mayor Adams is dedicated to ensuring that all New Yorkers can earn a living wage and share in our city’s prosperity," a mayoral spokesperson wrote in an email to Gotham Gazette.
"That is why this administration has prioritized working strategically across city agencies and in tandem with key external partners," the spokesperson wrote. "The non-profit providers featured in this report are critical partners to the city and we look forward to continuing our work together to make economic security for all city residents a top priority.”
In his economic recovery "blueprint," released in March, the mayor laid out goals to expand childcare, high speed internet, financial counseling, and stipends for jobs program participants. A few months later, the administration unveiled another plan to expand childcare in underserved areas, with direct connections to workforce opportunities, boosted by new state funding. The goal is to increase the number of childcare slots by 41,000 over two years using an additional $800 million investment (bringing total city childcare spending to $2 billion over four years).
Adams set lofty goals on the campaign trail, including a digital portal to map local talent and connect employers with job seekers, internships, and apprenticeships fueled by public-private partnerships, corporate involvement in developing Department of Education and CUNY curricula, free community colleges, and a commitment to put 10% of the city's economic development dollars toward workforce programs. Several of these proposals have seen little apparent progress and it is unclear to what extent the administration is pursuing them.
Adams' recovery blueprint also included expansion of digital literacy and adult education through CUNY and the public library systems, and career pipelines in tech, healthcare, and STEAM. And, echoing calls from providers, the plan emphasizes the need to de-silo the workforce development ecosystem, which is currently funded through isolated programming across 21 city agencies. That has made it difficult to align career services with industry trends and scale-up effective programs. Adams recently gave advocates more cause for hope that the administration may follow through.
On August 15, the mayor announced a new program called "Pathways to Industrial and Construction Careers" (PINCC), backed by an $18.6 million federal grant, to provide job trajectories in growing sectors for 2,300 low-income New Yorkers – targeting public assistance recipients and NYCHA residents – in high-wage or unionized jobs.
Adams also signed an executive order to streamline operations at the city agencies offering these services.
Executive Order 22 requires the Mayor's Office for Talent and Workforce Development to design a strategy and report for inclusive workforce development, and gives it responsibility to coordinate contracting across multiple agencies. The order shifts industry partnerships from the Department of Small Business Services into the office's portfolio. It also established an Interagency Talent and Workforce Development Cabinet and formalized the "Future of Workers" Task Force, a group of industry leaders, educators, workforce providers, and labor, to guide decisions.
According to Dvorkin, the new powers of the office ("which was not among the strongest mayoral offices," he said) could bolster its position within the workforce landscape.
"These are not enormous changes just yet but they signal some real intent around building stronger infrastructure to make future investments more effective and ideally more accountable," he said.
The next big question, he added, is: "can the city produce a budget for the next fiscal year that invests significant new resources in workforce development and that can help realize the promise of the city's most effective programs?"
***
by Ethan Geringer-Sameth, reporter, Gotham Gazette
@GeringerSameth @GothamGazette
Max Politics Podcast: Dennis Walcott on New York City Council Redistricting
Dennis Walcott (photo: Spencer Tucker/Mayor's Office)
September 1, 2022 - Max Politics Podcast: Dennis Walcott on New York City Council Redistricting
Dennis Walcott, Chair of the New York City Districting Commission, joined the show to discuss the commission's ongoing work to draw new City Council districts, as mandated after each U.S. Census.
Listen to the conversation and let us know what you think, on Twitter @TweetBenMax. You can listen to the show through the embedded audio below or download the episode wherever you get your podcasts at Max Politics.
Read more: Max Politics Podcast: Dennis Walcott on New York City Council Redistricting
Several Significant Wins and One Big Loss for Working Families Party in Latest New York Primaries
The Working Families Party in Queens (photo: @NYWFP)
The results of the August party primary elections for the U.S. House of Representatives and State Senate were bittersweet for the New York Working Families Party, the progressive third party that seeks to push Democrats to the left. The WFP is one of the most prominent actors in the intra-party battle Democrats continue to wage in New York and beyond.
Several WFP-backed Democratic incumbents who faced competitive challenges emerged victorious in their primary races. Other endorsed candidates won primaries for open seats, likely adding to the ranks of progressives in the State Senate given what are expected to be many uncompetitive general elections in heavily-Democratic districts. But in certain closely-watched House races, candidates backed by the Working Families Party fell short, indicating to some the limits of the progressive movement, particularly in races with higher, more national stakes or where consolidating around a single left-wing candidate could have been decisive.
A similar result played out in the June primaries for statewide and state Assembly races.
The WFP, which mostly plays in Democratic primaries and rarely runs candidates on its own ballot line, functions as a progressive seal of approval, political consultancy, and organizing vehicle. The party made endorsements in 21 congressional and State Senate races, and celebrated victories in 16 of them, an unequivocally successful result. In the June primary, every Assembly candidate it endorsed won, though its two statewide candidates -- Jumaane Williams for governor and Ana Maria Archila for lieutenant governor -- lost.
Touting a number of victories from “a strong winning slate of candidates,” Sochie Nnaemeka, director of the New York Working Families Party, said in a phone interview that the WFP and its allies are ascendent, particularly in New York state government.
“We feel confident, strong, and hopeful that this new leadership is going to be ascending into Albany and really strengthening the ranks of progressives pushing to meet the moment that we're in,” she said. “[It] will have real material effects on working people’s lives across the state.”
The candidates the WFP endorses share the party’s broad values and their campaign platforms reflect progressive priorities such as universal healthcare, urgent climate action and movement to renewable energy, taxing the wealthy to pay for broader social services and investments in public education, tenant protections, labor rights, criminal justice reform, and more.
Among the WFP-supported incumbents who defended their seats against spirited challengers were U.S. Reps. Jamaal Bowman and Jerry Nadler, and State Senators Gustavo Rivera, Robert Jackson, Jabari Brisport, and Andrew Gounardes. Rivera and Jackson, in particular, faced well-funded, heavily-backed challenges from more moderate Democrats aligned with major power players like Rep. Adriano Espaillat, Mayor Eric Adams, and the Bronx Democratic Party.
“WFP just has a proven record [of] ascendance,” said Camille Rivera, partner at New Deal Strategies, who worked on Senator Rivera’s campaign, in a text message. “WFP defending incumbents is hugely important to ensure consistent leadership in Albany pushing for taxes on the wealthy, universal healthcare and childcare…and adding leaders both upstate and downstate…signals that that power will only grow.”
In prominent open races where no incumbent was running, WFP candidates were the victors. For instance, Ulster County Executive Pat Ryan, who was on two separate ballots, won the special election in the current 19th Congressional District and the primary for the new 18th Congressional District. Josh Riley, an attorney, won the primary for the new 19th Congressional District. Binghamton City Council Member Lea Webb won in State Senate District 53; Kristen Gonzalez won in Senate District 59; and Assemblymember Nathalia Fernandez won in Senate District 34.
Those victories were no easy feat, Nnaemeka said. “This electoral cycle was really marked by the aggressive infusion of dark money in our politics, real fear-mongering from PACs that are representing real estate interests and other anti-progressive outfits who were dead set on confusing voters, smearing progressive names and just dropping a great amount of dark money on these elections,” she said. “So to be able to beat those challenges, considering the headwinds of redistricting, considering the headwinds of huge spending, I think really demonstrates the power and connection that these progressive electeds have to their voter base.”
While there were several victories, there were disappointments as well. In two congressional races, the WFP had hoped that their candidate would defeat a more moderate Democrat. In the new 17th Congressional District in the Hudson Valley, WFP-backed State Senator Alessandra Biaggi unsuccessfully ran against U.S. Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, the chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. While Biaggi, who has not represented any part of the 17th or lived in it until deciding to run there, was something of a long-shot against Maloney, there were high hopes among many progressives that she could galvanize a movement that never materialized.
And in the crowded primary for the new 10th Congressional District in Lower Manhattan and a large stretch of Brooklyn, WFP-backed Assemblymember Yuh-Line Niou came in a close second place to former federal prosecutor Dan Goldman, who led the first impeachment investigation of former President Donald Trump.
“It’s a glass half-full and half-empty,” said Bruce Gyory, a veteran Democratic political consultant with Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, LLP. “They played excellent defense and were very productive in that defense in protecting incumbents where they won before.”
But, on offense, the WFP failed to make significant gains, he said. “They continue to be able to win these newer gentrified districts, in terms of political demographics, such as the 59th District,” he said of the win by democratic socialist Gonzalez in a new Queens-Brooklyn-Manhattan district. “But they've run into some clear headwinds when they tried to branch out into the suburbs, either in Long Island or in Westchester. And what it comes down to is, they have not yet been able to build bridges beyond their base constituency.”
Notably, the Brooklyn side of the new 10th District is the WFP’s home base, where it was founded. Niou did do especially well in the WFP-centric portion of brownstone Brooklyn, and while she picked up many other votes in parts of her Manhattan Assembly district and a stretch of south Brooklyn, it was not enough to overcome Goldman’s dominance in parts of the west side and downtown Manhattan, Downtown Brooklyn, and Borough Park. The outcome was more nuanced than that, though.
Goldman received the coveted endorsement of The New York Times editorial board, gave his campaign $4 million of his own money, and benefited from there being several strong-running progressives in the race. Besides Niou, U.S. Rep. Mondaire Jones and City Council Member Carlina Rivera, both of whom have been past allies of the WFP, performed well, indicating that a progressive could possibly have won if they had coalesced behind one candidate.
“That's a tough district,” Gyory said. “That’s one where the influence of The New York Times editorial endorsement trumped the vote-pulling power of the WFP.”
Mayor Adams, a moderate and rival of the WFP, said that Goldman’s victory signaled support for more moderate Democratic candidates. In the August primary, Adams endorsed several moderate candidates, some of whom lost their races. Those who won their primaries include State Senators Kevin Parker, Joseph Addabbo Jr., and Anna Kaplan, as well as Jessica Scarcella-Spanton, who ran to replace outgoing State Senator Diane Savino. Parker's win over the WFP-backed David Alexis was particularly notable given the WFP and Democratic Socialist of America - New York City put significant resources into attempting to win the seat and had high hopes.
But Adams did not endorse Goldman in a district where Adams is not believed to be popular and did not do well in last year’s mayoral primary, where he beat out the WFP’s favored candidate, Maya Wiley (who was actually originally the WFP’s third choice in what became a messy primary), among others.
And Adams supported losing candidates in bids to unseat several progressive state senators, including the WFP-backed Senators Jackson, Rivera, and Brisport (who defeated Angel Vasquez, Migeulina Camilo, and Conrad Tiller, respectively), as well as in the open seat where Gonzalez beat his endorsee, Elizabeth Crowley.
Nnaemeka doesn’t buy Adams’ argument that moderates have momentum. “Data-wise, the mayor’s position does not stand,” she said, noting that WFP’s many winning candidates ran on progressive issues that include universal childcare, stronger climate action, universal healthcare, and more.
And she noted that Niou “got to second place with a grassroots movement of voters choosing her despite being radically outspent by the presumed Democratic nominee.”
“I think that gives people hope about where democracy can be, where democracy kind-of is on the cusp of becoming, and that creates a lot of hope for our progressive and pro-democratic movement going forward,” Nnaemeka said.
There is a possibility that the WFP will get another chance to prove its mettle if Niou and the party decide she will run on its line in the general election. A decision must be made by the end of the day on Tuesday, September 6, and according to a WFP spokesperson, discussions are ongoing and expected to continue through the weekend.
Earlier this week, the WFP removed Jones from its ballot line (he had been placed on its line for the 17th district before he decided to run in the 10th, allowing him the ballot line even as the party endorsed Niou in the 10th).
“I’m currently speaking with WFP and my community about how we can best represent the needs of this district,” Niou said in a statement. “Because what we can do together is too important to give up this fight, we must count every vote. I’m so grateful for the outpouring of support and all of the people who showed up and turned out. Our people need and deserve a voice.”
Some Democrats have been quick to endorse Goldman now that he is the presumptive Democratic nominee and openly discouraged Niou and the WFP from mounting a general election race. They have argued that any resources directed to such an effort would be better spent in actual swing districts, either trying to keep them in Democratic hands or flip them from red to blue as control of the House is in the balance.
Meanwhile, some progressives have been openly encouraging a Niou run on the WFP line to try to ensure a more progressive Democrat heads to Congress from the deep blue 10th. The debate again speaks to the role of the Working Families Party and its relationship with the Democratic Party, especially in New York, where Governor Kathy Hochul will appear on the WFP line in the general election after defeating Williams in the primary and seeking to ensure Democrats keep their two-decade hold on the governor’s office.
Nnaemeka, when asked if she was encouraging Niou to run, said, “I think she's doing her due diligence as a candidate, talking to community members, talking to people broadly…and we are exploring all options.”
***
by Samar Khurshid, senior reporter, Gotham Gazette
@samarkhurshid @GothamGazette
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