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Affordability
With each year that passes, life becomes more unaffordable in the Hudson Valley. Housing prices, utility bills, and costs of living keep going up while our wages fail to keep pace with inflation. Meanwhile, corporate landlords, for-profit utility companies, and greedy billionaires continue to increase their profits.
As a single teen mom, I struggled to raise my family while affording rent, bills, groceries, and other essentials. At one point, I was working with disabled youth during the day and attending Board of Supervisors meetings at night—and I still wasn’t making enough to get by, while somehow making too much to qualify for public assistance. Like so many others, I was failed by a system that puts profit over people.
Some folks don’t have to worry about money—people like Assemblymember Didi Barrett, who has at least $7 million to her name. That makes her one of the wealthiest politicians in the state. And since she’s already a multi-millionaire, she hasn’t lifted a finger to raise the minimum wage or lower our rising costs of living.
Claire believes that we all deserve to live in the Hudson Valley. That’s why she’s fighting to:
- Raise the minimum wage to at least $25 an hour. The upstate minimum wage will only reach $16 an hour by 2026. That’s an entire dollar less than New York City’s minimum wage and doesn’t account for the last few years of inflation. It’s time to raise New York’s minimum wage to $25 an hour. Or—at a minimum—we should pass the Raise the Wage Act, which would raise the minimum wage to $21.25 an hour by 2026.
- Create a single-payer healthcare system. Healthcare is a human right, not a privilege. But right now, many New Yorkers are underinsured or completely uninsured. And if they do have private health insurance, it’s often incredibly expensive and bureaucratic. The New York Health Act would create a statewide, single-payer healthcare system that covers everyone and ensures that no one pays a dime for their medical care.
- Guarantee universal childcare. It’s getting harder for working-class families to hold down a job while caring for their kids. The Universal Child Care Act will invest $5 billion into our childcare system while giving childcare workers the raise they deserve.
Compare to Didi Barrett’s record:
During her decade in office, multi-millionaire Barrett has prioritized her own wealth and the wealth of the top 1% by:
- Refusing to support the union-endorsed Raise the Wage Act, which would raise the minimum wage to $21.25 by 2026.
- Refusing to support the NY HEAT Act.
- Failing to support the Universal Child Care Act.
