It's not working: Nearly 2M NYC residents on food stamps

By JOHN AIDAN BYRNE

They've fallen through the cracks: millions of jobless or underemployed New Yorkers whose daily struggle is to find work and food.

They certainly don't show up in the 9.1 percent unemployment rate for the city, since they have exhausted those benefits.

But the number of city residents on food stamps is on pace to jump this year from just above 1 million in 2007 to a breathtaking 2 million sometime this summer. That's equals almost 50 percent of the city's labor force today, which, according to the latest government calculations, shrank by nearly 200,000 people since 2011. There"s also 176,000 New Yorkers collecting Social Security disability insurance, which is up 30,000 in last 4 years.

UP AGAINST IT:Marc Capozza led an office staff of 74 three years ago. Today he works a 16-hour week at minimum wage to get by.

Not surprisingly, the official economic recovery that began with the end of the Great Recession in June 2009 does not look or feel like much of a recovery to residents like Marc Capozza.

Capozza, a mid-50s professional with his MBA and a background in higher education, hasn't had steady employment since he lost his job three years ago. He was managing a staff of 74 administrative assistants at a prestigious Manhattan law firm. By his reckoning, he has since sent out 800 resumes — and received not one offer back.

"Being a baby boomer, I was taught that you had to go to college, so I did everything society told me to do," said Capozza, who lives in Chelsea. "I put money into a retirement fund and into a supplemental fund, and later I opened up another account when I started at the law firm."

Now Capozza, who has exhausted his unemployment benefits, is tapping into his retirement savings to pay his bills. He earns the minimum wage in a part-time office job, 16 hours a week and collects $50 a week in food stamps.

"Who knows what's going to happen next? The savings are dwindling. What happens when people in this situation turn 65 and [have] raided their retirement account[s]?" Capozza asked...

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