NY City Workers To See Furloughs, Layoffs Without Stimulus: Mayor

NEW YORK CITY — City workers could face furloughs and layoffs if the federal government doesn't immediately supply New York with emergency funding, Mayor Bill de Blasio said Wednesday.

This assertion comes as the Comptroller's office predicts 900,000 New Yorkers will lose their jobs by June, a number de Blasio called "staggering" and "sobering."

"People are either acting on furloughs and layoffs or preparing for furloughs and layoffs of the exact people who have been the heroes in this crisis," de Blasio said on CNN Wednesday morning.

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"The first responders, the health care workers, the educators, how are we going to support these people who we need if we don't have any money?"

During his daily press briefing, de Blasio declined to provide any detail on which and how many essential workers could face job cuts under a "wartime" budget that faces a $7.4 billion deficit.

"It's not time to talk about specifics yet," de Blasio said. "We need to get that stimulus done so that people don't have to face those furloughs and layoffs."

De Blasio's plea for federal funds comes as Comptroller Scott Stringer predicts New York City will see a 22 percent unemployment rate amid the COVID-19 shutdown.

"I take that number very seriously," said de Blasio. " We're going to build on the assumption that it's that number and we're going to plan for it to get worse."

New York City's reopening efforts moved forward slightly Wednesday with the formation of 10 councils who will help engineer the process once the virus is under control.

Councils will be lead by deputy mayors and divided by sector, such as small business, arts and culture and surface transportation.

But the mayor's daily tracking criteria show New York City has not yet seen the decline in spread needed to safely reopen the economy.

New York City had 171,723 COVID-19 cases confirmed as of May 5, with 43,383 hospitalized, 13,724 lives confirmed lost to the virus and 5,383 lives likely lost, data show.

De Blasio told New Yorkers it could be months before it was safe enough to relaunch 24 hour subway service, which came to a halt for the first time in 115 years Wednesday morning.

"This disease looks for our weaknesses and tries to exploit them," de Blasio said. "I know we all want that reset but let's get it right."

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