Testimony: Support for Low-Wage Immigrant Workers in a COVID-19 Recovery
Debipriya Chatterjee
Before the New York City Council Civil Service and Labor Committee
Thank you for the opportunity to testify today on the issue of low-wage immigrant workers in a COVID-19 recovery. My name is Debipriya Chatterjee, and I am a Senior Economist at the Community Service Society of New York (CSS), a nonprofit organization that works to advance upward mobility for low-income New Yorkers. We have supported low-wage workers, including immigrant workers for 175 years. Most recently, we worked to pass paid sick leave laws statewide and in New York City, secured half-price transit fares for New Yorkers in poverty and made rent-relief available through the Emergency Rental Assistance Program, or ERAP. We also advocated, alongside our partners, for the creation of the $2.3 billion Excluded Workers’ Fund in Albany. Today, my testimony will be focused on the nature and extent of hardship in the low-wage immigrant community and recommendations for policies aimed at alleviating them.
Low-wage immigrant workers and the COVID-19 crisis
Immigrants make up around 43 percent of the city’s four-million strong workforce.[1] While they are employed in a wide range of industries, they comprise a majority of the frontline essential workers who continued to operate in-person throughout the pandemic. Based on 2019 American Community Survey data, the Mayor’s Office for Immigrant Affairs (MOIA) estimates that foreign-born workers comprised 56 percent of the workforce in essential industries and 58 percent of the essential occupations. A direct consequence of being an essential worker and bearing the brunt of keeping the city running through repeated waves of infections and lockdown is that immigrant communities experienced COVID-19 infections and deaths at higher rates.
Beyond essential services, a majority of the immigrant workforce is engaged either in low-wage industries (e.g., restaurant and food services, home and health care services, child day care services etc.) or engaged in low-wage occupations across industrial sectors. (e.g., taxi and limousine driving, housekeeping and custodial services etc.). Needless to say, these are also some of the jobs that were hit the worst by the pandemic and the ensuing recession. According to the MOIA and Department of Consumer and Worker Protection (DCWP), of the total estimated 366,000 undocumented immigrant workers in the city, 233,000, or 60 percent, have already lost their jobs or are at a risk of losing it, compared to 36 percent citywide. Among those surveyed by the Community Service Society’s 2021 Unheard Third Survey, the longest running scientific survey of low-income communities in the nation, conducted annually[2] – one-in-four immigrants experienced income losses and had their hours/wages/tips reduced during the pandemic. As business closures mounted and conventional jobs were lost by the thousands, many turned to non-traditional work, or what has come to be known as the ‘gig economy’. The Unheard Third survey shows that the share of the immigrant workforce signing on to app-based gig work increased over the pandemic from 13 percent in 2019 to 19 percent in 2021. Among those with household incomes below 200 percent of the Federal Poverty Line (FPL), the rise was even more dramatic: from 16 percent in 2020 to 27 percent this year. Gig workers and independent contractors are often deliberately misclassified by employers to prevent them from accessing critical rights and workplace benefits (e.g., minimum pay standard, health and safety protections, paid time off).
These workers have largely been excluded from traditional safety net assistance programs like unemployment insurance, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), cash assistance, Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Plan (SNAP, formerly Food Stamps), etc. In addition to the undocumented, the federal CARES Act excluded all ITIN filers—another category of legitimate tax filers who pay into the system but are denied access to most benefits and tax credits, even when there are U.S. born children in their households.
To its credit, the City established the Immigrant Emergency Relief Fund to help workers who were hit the hardest by the pandemic and were ineligible for federal relief/stimulus assistance. When the $2.1 billion Excluded Workers’ Fund was established by state elected officials, it seemed like a landmark victory in support of low-income immigrant workers. The Fund, which was designed to offer up to $15,600 in assistance to undocumented workers who lost work during the pandemic, is now depleted, and thousands, who qualify for the income support, are missing out on the payments.
Recommendations
It is at this juncture, that we urge the City Council to enact our following recommendations:
- Pass Int 2325 to ensure that workers displaced from the restaurant and food service industry, as well as airports, are provided with a ‘right to return’ to their old jobs. The bill covers employees who were laid-off for six months or longer due to pandemic related reasons. Given that low-wage immigrant workers comprise a majority of the workforce in these industries, the bill would make it easier for thousands of displaced workers to be back in gainful employment.
- Pass Int 2241, which is similar to Int 2325 in spirit, but wants to ensure that displaced workers are hired back at their old positions to the extent possible. The bill would prevent some of our most vulnerable workers from losing the career gains that they have already made.
- Pass Int 1797, which would require the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection to produce posters for voluntary ongoing display at pharmacies and health care locations around the city informing New Yorkers of their right to paid sick leave.
In addition to these immediate actionable recommendations, we would like to take this opportunity to posit one broader policy change that would drastically help low-wage immigrant workers.
Expand EITC to ITIN filers at the state and city levels.
We urge the Council to pass a resolution in support of expanding the EITC to Individual Tax Identification Number (ITIN) filers at the state and city levels. Six states—Maryland, California, Colorado, New Mexico, Oregon, and Washington State—have extended their credit to filers who lack SSNs but pay taxes using an ITINs. Repeated attempts to expand EITC recipiency to ITIN filers in New York State have failed even though the expansion would have benefitted U.S. born children in mixed status households (where at least one householder is an immigrant). While the benefits of expanding the EITC are numerous—including reduction in poverty, improvement in children’s well-being, and increased tax revenue—equity would the most important reason to do so. These ITIN filers, of whom there are approximately 100,000 in New York, contribute to the economic system exactly the same at those holding SSNs, and denying them access to the EITC is more a matter of anti-immigrant stance, than one of tax policy. Extending the credit would cost the state in the range of $56 to $77 million. Critics like to point out that EITC at state and city levels are modeled on the federal rules and it would hard to have different provisions. However, an instance where the State has successfully decoupled its tax credit from the federal regulations and has made it available to ITIN filers is the Empire State Child Tax Credit.
Our immigrant workers contribute $250 billion to the city’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), or about 23 percent of the city’s total GDP. And yet, half of them believe that the pandemic will mean long-lasting economic setback for them. It is, thus, imperative that the Council and the next administration prioritize policies to help low-wage immigrant workers.