Woe is Me in NYC

As I casually gazed over the NYTimes homepage today, this article caught my eye. It is entitled, "You Try to Live on $500K in This Town." It outlines how difficult it will be for Wall Street banking executives to maintain their upscale lifestyles if their firms accepted federal bailout money--because it would mean their maximum salary would equal a mere $500,000. It details how much private school fees cost per year, an annual mortgage payment in the area, the fees for a nanny, taxes, living expenses, personal trainer expenses, the sum for formal gowns for charity functions. Oh, and "frozen hot chocolate" costs $8.50.

I'm sure you get the feel for the article by now.

Perhaps this quote sums up my reaction:

"Few are playing sad cellos over the fate of such folk, especially since the collapse of the institutions they run has yielded untold financial pain."

The article says, "the cold hard math can be cruel."

Yes it can, so let's look at the bigger picture. This is not to say the Times has not written articles, columns and blogs on the dramatic economic downtown. For that bigger picture, however, I give you some other numbers--numbers, that in my opinion, warrant the Times' attention more so than nanny fees and pennies for personal trainers.

Via the Bureau of Labor Statistics: Approximately 598,000 jobs were lost in January alone. Approximately 3.6 million jobs were lost since the beginning of the recession in December 2007. BLS estimates the current unemployment rate at 7.6%.

Think about what that means. How that affects those workers without jobs, those workers' families. Not about an $8 frozen hot chocolate.

--Cassie, WCSU's Research & Communication Assistant