Wallet Watch newsletter: Welcome to Wallet Watch
The Long Island Consumer Confidence Index (officially the Summary Index of Consumer Sentiment) is measured by the Siena Research Institute. This data is based on quarterly telephone and web surveys of approximately 100 Long Island residents. Updates are released in January, April, July, and October.
What’s the first word that comes to mind when you think of Long Island? For me, it’s expensive.
Gas. Groceries. Housing. Prices keep going up, and while many economists say the broader economy is holding up fairly well, that’s not always how it feels around here. I go home and look at my bills, then come to work and look at other people’s bills. So when I say a lot of Long Islanders are struggling right now, believe me.
That’s why Newsday is launching Wallet Watch.
We’re putting in the work not just to cover the economy, but to help Long Islanders navigate it. The Wallet Watch landing page on newsday.com features deeply reported stories from our business team, answers to reader questions, charts tracking inflation and other economic trends across the region, and an interactive quiz designed to help people better understand — and maybe even hack — their shopping and spending habits.
Why it costs more to live on Long Island
Harrison Smith, mobile outreach and community services manager for Long Island Cares, hands out free fresh produce from the Long Island Cares Farm to Truck program at Harmony Healthcare in Hempstead. Credit: Barry Sloan Credit: Barry Sloan
To kick off the Wallet Watch project, my colleagues James T. Madore, Jonathan LaMantia and Tory N. Parrish examined why the cost of living on Long Island is 32% above the national average.
They found a host of reasons for the region’s high prices: proximity to New York City, layers of local government and expectations for a high quality of life, among other things. But for many Long Islanders, the most brutal expense is housing. The cost to buy a home here has doubled over the past decade, while rents on Long Island run about 70% higher than the national average.
The story also includes advice from experts on how Long Islanders can stretch their dollars further and potentially cut costs on housing, utilities, taxes, transportation and more.
Read more here.
She works 100 hours per week. It's not enough.
Jeannine Sheppard of Westbury answers questions from her daughter Meghan about her jobs. Credit: Jeff Bachner Credit: Jeff Bachner
I’ve spent the last few months reporting on Long Islanders working multiple jobs to push through affordability challenges that some regional business leaders are now calling an “existential” crisis for the region.
Jeannine Sheppard is one example. She’s 60, a mother of two adult daughters, and works full time as an EMT while also waitressing — sometimes logging more than 100 hours a week. And she’s not alone. While reporting this story, I spoke to dozens of Long Islanders juggling multiple jobs, including a dancer balancing four part-time gigs to cover rent and a young professional working side hustles while raising a family here.
Nearly one-third of Long Islanders report being financially strained, meaning they cannot cover an unexpected expense without missing bills or falling into debt, and one in five Long Islanders identifies as a gig worker. Jeannine described it as “fixing something you didn’t actually break” — an endless cycle of work just to stay afloat.
Read the full story here.
From our readers
Paul Cognato on Facebook asks:
Why do we pay some of the highest property taxes in America?
This actually came up in one of our Wallet Watch stories this week. As my colleagues reported, Long Island has many layers of government, including 124 school districts.
About two-thirds of the average property tax bill goes toward public schools, but those taxes also help fund law enforcement, garbage pickup, libraries, fire districts, senior services and other local programs. Many towns provide residents with a breakdown showing exactly where tax dollars go. Here’s one example from the Town of Smithtown.
But why are taxes especially high here?
“In other areas of the country, statewide broad-based taxes pay for a lot of services that we rely on the property tax to pay for, such as public education,” said Lawrence Levy, executive dean of Hofstra University’s National Center for Suburban Studies.
Have a question you'd like us to answer? Confused by a bill? Spotted a sudden price hike? Email us at walletwatch@newsday.com or click here and we may feature your question in an upcoming edition.
Brianne Ledda covers personal finance and affordability for Newsday. She previously covered Southold and Greenport for The Suffolk Times and is a graduate of Stony Brook University.
