Public projects should pay good wages
Nassau Deputy County Executive Rob Walker speaks during the public hearing about the proposed Nassau Coliseum project at the East Meadow Library. (June 29, 2011) Credit: Howard Schnapp
Taxpayer-subsidized developments, like the proposed replacement of the Nassau Coliseum, should be paying wages that can support a household. What is the gain for taxpayers if workers who are paid poverty-level wages must then use taxpayer-subsidized social services and programs, like food stamps, in order to get by?
Another positive in paying a living wage is the trickle-up effect it can have. After more than eight years of tax breaks for the wealthy and big business, the trickle-down has been a widening gap in wage disparity, a continuation of the decades-old problem of frozen wages, increasing erosion of the middle class and an obscene minimum wage of less than $8 an hour.
To use this same old tired formula and expect different results has proved to be an insult.
Tony Giametta, Oceanside
