This is the first installment of New York: State in Decline, a series by Albany bureau chief Jay Gallagher on New York's state government and how it often fails residents and businesses. Part one is an overview of a dysfunctional system designed to serve insiders, with ordinary New Yorkers paying the price.


A biography of Jay Gallagher, and a
Q&A with the author of this series.

When insiders rule,
New Yorkers suffer

By JAY GALLAGHER
Albany Bureau
(Original publication: Nov. 23, 2003)

Ron Regon earned a good living negotiating contracts for the aerospace firm Lockheed Martin.

Today, laid off, he hunts for a job and works around the house, helping out and keeping busy.

Renee Lygas, 25, of East Rochester, earns $15,000 a year as a hotel desk clerk, one of thousands of state residents who can't find a better-paying job.

"I want to make enough to live on, but there doesn't seem to be anything,'' she said.

Harry Hughes of Wappingers Falls, laid off from his $60,000-a-year IBM job after almost 25 years with Big Blue, entertains children.

"I do party carnivals,'' said Hughes, 52. "I want to make them smile.''

Like tens of thousands of New Yorkers, from the canyons of Wall Street to shuttered factories upstate, they're un- or underemployed thanks to an anemic job market and stagnant state economy.

"We're dead,'' said Regon, 57, of Binghamton, the hard-hit Southern Tier city at the epicenter of the drop in state manufacturing jobs. "The politicians are doing things as usual, even as the state goes down the tubes.''