US definitely messed up on war on drugs, but it's actually other countries ways of outsourcing their criminal elements to the US to deal with(or in some cases destabilize and profit off the US). They're protected by borders as the US would prioritize business interests rather than taking nations to task. Gateway drugs lead users to abuse harder substances helping users to eventually become a burden on community.

The problem for NYC is that much like homelessness and migrants, other states will shift their problem populations to NYC to handle the cost.

Reading some articles the war on smoking is probably a better example than prohibition, as alcohol's detrimental effects are more immediate and increase faster on consumption compared to drugs along with delivery mechanism. The US has definitely messed up on the war on drugs in many ways but it's dangerous not to be aware that it's also a war being waged on America by other countries much like Britain on China with opium. Unfortunately the US priorities business over taking countries to task, it's a war of attrition if drug producers just hide behind borders. The US faltered on anti drug use messaging and was behind the curve on regulating legal opiates

If ebikes were regulated like motorcycles and cars it would improve safety though driving up the cost of an ebike

Agree it also attracts and encourages more inconsiderate teens and adults to come vandalize but to selfishly expand to personal property and business. So people just trying to get by are forced to waste time and money cleaning up after selfish kids.

I could never make sense of the DOT in queens, they ignores complaints about a dangerous intersection for years before finally painting the ground and putting signs up relatively low cost safety measures. I don't get what their real priorities are other than hints it's to maximize traffic speed regardless of pedestrians.

Ah sorry making assumptions that people saw other news where city employees were quitting causing abnormal vacancies and Adams blocking agencies from filling vacant spots and now trying to make those blocks permanent. Though I am making the assumption that HRA is understaffed. If it is understaffed then I would see impact much like in corporations. But I admit I'm making assumption they are currently understaffed

Not sure if you're being serious but I meant a typical American grocery store shopping cart load of food being handed out. Which is much bigger than the foldable laundry or grocery carts you're referring to. Of the food bank ive donated to and watched the food boxes packed for handouts and also observed the line during the initial stage of the pandemic, it would be more of a supplement to your existing groceries, you would have to return multiple times to live entirely on the food bank and the wait is quite long. Bottom line it may be free food but it's not something most people would really want to depend on if they had a choice.

While it is true that no one starves to death as most people won't get to that point (will go into debt, begging, crime, etc), if you study the issue its more about food insecurity and malnourishment. The US has plenty of food but like income inequality there is no guarantee it's distributed correctly or real food is being distributed. While there are food banks in NYC it's not like they're overflowing with groceries and handing people a shopping cart of food these days. NYC schools meals are only guaranteed not to run out for students and only certain locations allow non student walk ins during working hours. Going back to the article, if the city is minimally staffed any further cuts probably increase chaos in the overall system. For example those not receiving food stamps will put more pressure on food banks. The city is way behind on tech and process improvement, probably still relies on manual processes vs this age of AI

Better to try than be Uberd again

I wouldn't say that's the correct conclusion. Techies and academics tend to be weak at understanding optics and cultural/racial issues. supposedly claiming "data is king". Academic probation is a negative term, automatic dumping people into that bucket is the most head slapping PR decision. 20 years ago there were equal opportunity programs at colleges which basically used income level and minority as a filter to quality applicants for additional college aid, work employment, and mentoring all without statistical modelling. The correct takeaway in your advisors case is to bring findings to a holistic cross discipline cross culture committee to examine the root cause such as minorities coming from underfunded school districts that poorly prepared people for college. Descions done in secret and especially without racial representative input continues blindness.

Tech bros used to say the same thing about data privacy, social media, and other diaruptors

In all honesty, if these resume screening software are the typical rush to market software products produced at the cheapest cost, the "AI" is probably some hack job ducted taped together from googling code, apis, stackexchange posts or even if there was a data scientist on the project the programmer gave up understanding the requirements in order to finish the code on time. Resulting in the resume/interview screener being basically a glorified keyword scoring filter. If the bill allows the source code to be audited it will be easy to spot inherent keywords bias like demographics or colleges. I haven't heard of interviews being recorded to run through software but it'll be easy to spot that programmer took shortcuts such as training the model on the same demographic over and over again to get through QA. QA is usually the lowest on the totem pole. Look at the lack of regulation in social media and data privacy, the current laws are already behind in America.

I thought city pay is so low compared to NYC cost of living that you would need food aid

I'm always curious where the votes come from but suspect the party affiliated groups have a solid voting base and unfortunately voter turn out is low. The amount of rational people who actually vote aren't enough to outweigh the party backed candidate supporters and anyone they win over through pork barrel promises.

I've been helping some people out with advice. Basically despite the drop in stock and real estate values, they still represent the only investment paths for financial security in retirement. But to invest you need spare finances. It sounds like city pay is so low that you may wind up broke or in debt by the time your pensions kick in at retirement.maybe it's ok if your spouse gets a city job while your job is the main income. In addition health care benefits are a big target for the city to cut costs. But outside of your finances, it's important to build up your skill set whether it's training or classes. Try to find a job that has the best balance between work your passionate about and your financial goals. Recognize the market is pretty cyclic and it appears even govt jobs like NYC is no longer a real safe haven from economic cycles due to politicians not believing in rainy day funds.

In terms of working for NYC gov, against unless you have no other options. I wouldn't be surprised if Adams started outsourcing govt jobs, as increasing employee attrition ignoring morale while increasing pursuit of pet projects is usually a pretext to outsource jobs

Sounds like a setup for future outsourcing or subcontracting government operations. "Smaller govt"

It almost sounds like NYC setting itself up to outsource more operations. The common refrain before such happens is that there's not enough skilled employees and it will fit the budget

It sounds like NYC jobs would be ideal if you have health issues. If the pay is too low and doesn't rise much it's worst than having to bounce around companies. Also job skill atrophy and danger of adopting toxic culture as a norm. Most companies aren't the stereotypical founder/owner driven fiefdoms, they're staffed by people who also know what's it like to be an employee and care about employee satisfaction to a degree.

Most corporations are made up of people who also worked their way up so they more likely to care to varying degrees about employee satisfaction. If pay is too low and doesn't adjust, you're also facing being affected by toxic culture and skill atrophy. In addition I don't know what NYC rules are on unpaid overtime, if you get into that situation you're basically working for free. The only situation I can see that would work is if you're disabled or physically unhealthy to work most jobs, if you can get a union desk job it might be tough for the city to fire you.

I've never worked in govt but the op's descriptions sound similar to family owned(or majority share) companies Ive worked for. In addition to being stingy with pay and employee career training, it was a toxic environment. Many companies have toxic environments also but a decent company will adjust or at least recognize the balance of keeping employees happy and productive or at least the pay and experience is market rate. Below average pay and experience will hurt you longer term than a stable job in a low pay and toxic environment where leadership is unaccountable

Was the county jail plan a result of the failures at Rikers? When I heard about it they didn't seem to push the problems at Rikers as the selling point. I can understand bail reform and it's related soft on minor crime laws to avoid sending people to Rikers. Seems that the city has been winging the justice system for decades.

Yuck that's horrible

He was implying that if the accused is violent(or in the examples he gave shrugged off a taser and still knocked out a cop) people will ivory tower judge cops for protecting themselves. So if an accused is knocking out cops you can't expect someone to take punches until they tire out. His argument is that they're not provided any means to restrain violent individuals. The article doesnt go into if all the individuals were violent or resisting arrest, so we only have his testimony