Cuomo: Need Money? Get a job

Somehow few news outlets thought it worth reporting New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo's advice yesterday to the newly unemployed -- people who are struggling financially after losing their jobs and paychecks to the economic shutdown caused by the worldwide pandemic.

So Cuomo's recommendations are worth repeating here.

When an Albany CBS reporter asked Democrat Cuomo for his reaction to protestors who say "they need to get back to work in order to feed their families. Their savings is running out...They're not getting answers, so their point is the cure can't be worse than the illness itself."

Cuomo said, "The illness is death. What is worse than death?"

Okay, those comments were widely reported.


But the reporter persisted.  She said protesters have yet to get a response from New York's cumbersome unemployment system. "They can't wait for the money. They are out of money."


Cuomo said it will take "a couple of days" but they will get their unemployment checks.

"By the way," Cuomo added, "if you want to go to work, take a job as an essential worker. Do it tomorrow."

"You are working," he said to the reporter. "You are an essential worker. So, go take a job an essential worker."

The reporter said people aren't hiring.

Cuomo responded, "There are people hiring. You can get a job as an essential worker. So now you can go to work and you can be an essential worker and you won't kill anyone."

This week, 26.5 million people in the United States filed for unemployment benefits.



The jobs most widely advertised are for warehouse workers at Walmart or Amazon. Maybe pizza deliverers. Even hospital workers across the country have been laid off because of the ban on elective surgery.



As for Cuomo, he will earn $225,000 this year after the Democratic-led state legislature last year approved a pay raise package in the dead of night. His salary will jump to $250,000 on Jan. 1 of next year.

If Cuomo has offered to give up his paycheck until New York reopens, nobody has reported that yet. Nor have there been any accounts of Long Island elected officials giving up their salaries  while their constituents struggle to meet mortgage payments and put food on their tables.

However, County Executive Laura Curran, who earns about $200,000 a year, did offer one solution today to the unemployed: Charity.


"We're hearing about layoffs. We're hearing about people not getting their paychecks. This has translated into serious food insecurity and we're doing everything we can to address that."
Curran said, announcing a partnership with Island Harvest to distribute free bags of food at nine sites in Nassau.