City pumps $741M into ‘long overdue’ raises

Mayor Adams and City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams joined forces Thursday to announce the city’s pumping more than $740 million into raises for tens of thousands of nonprofit human services workers, many of whom live at or near the poverty level.

The investment, which both leaders announced during a press conference at City Hall, falls just short of a 16% combined wage increase over the next three years that JustPay, a grassroots group of human services workers, has argued its members deserve.

But Michelle Jackson, a leader in the JustPay movement and executive director of the Human Services Council, said she’s not hung up on the slight salary bump deficit.

“This comes very, very close to the 16% we were asking for; it’s like 15% and change, and in March that’s a really good deal,” she said, a reference to the fact that tense budget negotiations between the mayor’s office and the Council are in full swing. “For workers to know they can stay in place and not look for other jobs because they’re not making enough money is hugely important. … This administration and Council is reversing the divestments of decades.”

Human services workers are generally employed by nonprofits that contract with the city government to provide a variety of services that range from social programs in juvenile correctional facilities to meal deliveries for the elderly.

According to data compiled by JustPay, roughly two-thirds of all full-time human services workers in the city had 2019 earnings below the city’s poverty threshold. Since human services providers are municipal contractors, they depend on city dollars to pay their workers.

The mayor and the speaker said the wage disparity in the human services sector is unconscionable. Thereby, they said they’ve cut a deal as part of the 2025 fiscal year budget to earmark $741 million for raising the wages of about 80,000 city-contracted human services workers as part of a Cost of Living Adjustment program, or COLA.

“Human service workers are among our lowest paid in our city, and that is totally unacceptable,” the speaker said. “This COLA is long overdue.”