Economic boom or gloom?

The Buffalo News reports today (January 22, 2016) that the local job numbers are the best that they have been since 1999. The building and construction industry have been in high swing and the liberalization of brewery laws has done something for local micro breweries and other agents of fermentation. (From what I hear, there is a local vodka made with organic potatoes that the makers can't keep on the shelf.)

There are a few questions we need to ask.

Who is benefiting from this boom? According to BUILD of Buffalo, not the African-American or Hispanic communities. Even women owned businesses are not raking in the dough that seems to be spreading all over the place. Riverbend claims that 37% of the workforce is made up of minorities – which is higher than the 30% that the state requires. This is a slap in the face and quite ignorant if you ask me. What percentage of the citizens of Buffalo are minority? Why not that percentage? And women owned businesses are still getting cut short. Barely exceeding the required minimum is not the way to claim anything.

How long?

Yes – how long will this boom last?

After all the construction is done – what then for the construction workers? They won't be working in the medical buildings doing the research. That will go to others, mostly from out of state or the area if past trends hold up.

That leads to the next problem of employment. Even though the medical campus will have an affiliation with SUNY Buffalo, and possibly Buffalo State and other local colleges, does that guarantee those graduates a job in the local industry? Or will they be packing up looking for jobs elsewhere? OR working beneath the level of their degree? (It's sad to be at a restaurant where the waitress has the same degree that I do in education and can't find a job locally. If she wanted to leave the state she could. But then there's no guarantee that her partner would find the same position in the new community.)

And the article states another disturbing factoid: Growth in Buffalo has been below the state average. Our high of 1.6% is below the low end of 1.7% for other parts of the state. And the pay is lower as well.

So, as much as Mayor Byron Brown, the legislators, and Governor “Status” Cuomo want to brag, things are not as rosy as they seem. 2016 maybe the height of the current boom.

We all know what follows that, according to economist and those of us that read Marx.

And we all know who is going to be hurt the worst.