Job, income article revealed problem

Your [Aug. 29] story “Employment takes sudden tumble” should have been front-page news (with all due respect to the trolley story). Your story noted that 62,000 fewer people in Indy are working than in December 2007—a drop of 7 percent (worse than every similarly sized city in the Midwest). Wages are down 9 percent over the same period.

These facts should be a wake up call to policy makers and politicians—and to those in the mayor’s race.

No wonder home sales and prices remain sluggish, crime is up, abandoned homes are an eyesore, and the schools are being taken over by the state.

Creation of new jobs at decent wages should be job No. 1. Instead, the city has focused on propping up football teams and the hospitality industry (via hefty CIB and Colts subsidies plus subsidies to build the new JW Marriott). These are low-wage jobs. Ditto for the focus on life sciences. Every other city and state has a biosciences initiative.

While I don’t have the solution, your article identified the problem.
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Bill Malcolm