Deputy Speaker Williams on equitable enforcement and racial equity

Thank you.

Hello.

Just a macro question around the racial equity plans.

So how does DCWP define equitable enforcement, and what metrics does the agency use to determine

And the weather enforcement practices are being applied fairly across communities.

Well, I would make two points, because I think this is a critically important issue.

The first is that we know that some of the worst economic abuses are targeted at New Yorkers of color, primarily at black and brown New Yorkers and immigrant New Yorkers.

That is why I am fully committed not only to continuing to vigorously enforce our laws, but making sure that our enforcement actually reflects where abuses are happening throughout our city.

There have been studies, not in New York, but nationwide, that consumers of color, for example, are less likely to report violations to government agencies.

What does that mean?

It means that government agencies are less likely to hold accountable those who prey on communities of color.

That is not acceptable.

My commitment at DCWP is to make sure we're serving everyone in New York City, especially those being harmed the most by these abuses.

And that is why we take so much pride in our outreach efforts.

We are aiming to do two events a day, more than 700 events every year.

We go to every borough, every community.

And what I say to every group is, if you don't feel comfortable filing a complaint with the government, you can go to Worker Justice Project, you can go to Make the Road, go to another group, file a complaint with us.

It is critical that we not only kind of sit in our downtown office waiting for complaints, that we go out in the community and make sure that we're serving people who are most targeted by economic predation.

And so...

Back to the racial equity plans, though, like what goals has DCWP put forward that matches what you just said?

Well, a key goal, and this came up in the core report that came out very recently, is on youth financial empowerment.

You know, the fact of the matter is we're at the beginning of summer.

We know that a lot of young New Yorkers are going to have their first jobs, and they're instantly going to be targets for predatory fintechs, predatory actors who are going to try to separate them from their paychecks.

One of the points that was made by CORE was that DCWP should really step up its financial empowerment work, especially its youth financial empowerment work, including in partnership with Kids Rise.

I could not agree more with that.

We're never going to have the resources to take down every bad actor, even with the council's generous proposal this morning.

So that's why I think it's really important to empower people in school banking, which was another core recommendation.

It's something we are implementing, youth financial empowerment.

We're going to reach every school district by the end of FY29.

So I thought the core report was right on point in terms of our goals and how we're going to meet them over the years to come.