Poll finds residents pessimistic about LI future

Battered by job cuts and declining home values, almost six in 10 Long Islanders are pessimistic about the region's immediate future, according to the Newsday/Siena College Research Institute poll.

Some 57 percent of the people surveyed said Nassau and Suffolk counties were "moving in the wrong direction." In contrast, only 40 percent said the same about the state.

In the three years the Newsday/Siena poll has been conducted, this is the first time residents' outlook about Long Island diverged greatly from their view of New York State.

The poll of 804 registered voters was conducted by telephone on Dec. 12-15 and Dec. 18-19. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points. More than 80 percent of those surveyed said they expect their household income to be flat or to decline in 2012. A similar number said they expect the value of their home to remain the same or drop. Seventy percent also said their houses had lost value in the past two years.Long Island lost 8,600 jobs in the 12 months through November, the worst employment contraction in New York State. The Island's largest publicly traded company, Arrow Electronics Inc., moved its headquarters to Colorado from Melville last month. And the median home sale price fell 5 percent in Nassau and 3.1 percent in Suffolk last month from a year earlier.

These and other facts weigh on Long Islanders.

Mary Ann Eggers lost her job at a commercial real estate brokerage about two years ago. She retired after winning a spot in an affordable housing complex for seniors and failing to find work.

"Just drive down the street and see all the storefronts that are empty," the East Meadow resident said. "The economy is not on the upswing, and I think it will be about the same next year."

Such pessimism was prevalent among all demographic groups. It also contrasted with the optimism expressed about New York's future.

Siena pollster Donald Levy said Long Islanders feel good about the state, largely because Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and lawmakers forged compromises that cut income taxes, adopted a state budget on time and capped property tax increases -- a top priority of homeowners. These events follow four years of late budgets, a legislative coup and inaction on many bills under Govs. David A. Paterson and Eliot Spitzer.

"One explanation for why people say Long Island is on the wrong track is the economy," Levy said. "People are saying, 'I've gotten beaten up a little bit in the last couple of years, and right now the best I can hope for is to stay even over the next year' . . . It's not a terribly rosy picture."

Levy also said attitudes about housing carry great weight locally because so much of people's net worth is tied up in real estate. While 66 percent of those polled thought they could sell their home for more than they owe on it, 11 percent said they could only match the mortgage. And 12 percent said they expected to receive less.

Vincent Donovan, a retired manager for an electronics company, said inflation would likely wipe out the 3.6 percent cost-of-living increase in Social Security payments that he'll begin receiving next month.

Like many, Donovan, 67, isn't expecting the value of his North Babylon home to bounce back from a 5 percent decline.

"It will probably go down a little bit, because there are a lot of houses in my area that are for sale," he said, estimating his house is worth about $300,000.

In East Hampton, Prudence T. Carabine said the value of her home had dropped from $1.5 million four years ago to about $1.1 million.

Carabine, 63, said local contractors, landscapers and others who provide services to wealthy summer residents are hurting. "Business is a trickle compared to what it was five years ago," said the 11th-generation East Hamptonite, "and I'm afraid it's going to be five years before it builds back up again."

The poll results are troubling because they show "there is still a great deal of uncertainty in terms of how things are going," said Edward Gullason, an economics professor at Dowling College in Oakdale. "People aren't sure Long Island is moving absolutely in the right direction. When you feel that way, you are not going to spend."