By Philip Newman
People who live in places like Bethpage, L.I. and Bronxville, N.Y. pull down the biggest pay in Manhattan, a place where Queens residents lag behind the suburbanites. But so do commuters from just about everywhere else.
New data from the 2000 U.S. Census analyzed by Professor Andrew Beveridge, a sociologist at Queens College, show that Queens residents who work in Manhattan earn an average of $38,345 — lower than any other borough.
“Queens commuters to Manhattan might typically work in clerical jobs or low level management,” said Beveridge. “Many are from immigrant families.”
People who commute into Manhattan from Long Island, Westchester and other suburban points earn an average of $85,317, the census shows. Census figures for New Jersey and Connecticut commuters to Manhattan are yet to be released, although the 1990 census showed that they also earned high salaries that eclipsed the earnings of workers from throughout the city.
Workers who commute to Manhattan from other boroughs do not fare much better than those from Queens. Employees from Brooklyn, the Bronx and Staten Island average $39,181.
Residents of Manhattan do better working in their home island with an average salary of $68,566.
As for commuters from the suburbs, a large number work on Wall Street and the financial sector along with many who hold other upper management corporate jobs in the non-financial sector, said Beveridge.
The 2000 Census shows that suburbanites who toil in Manhattan tend to be white, male and married with one in every four holding a college degree and more than half having some college education.
A typical Queens commuter to a Manhattan job would be ethnically white, followed in numbers by Hispanic, Asian and black, according to Beveridge’s analysis.
More than half are married and there are slightly more women than men who make the daily trek to Manhattan. A large segment of Queens workers in Manhattan have never married, while a fourth have college degrees and more than a quarter some college education, he found.
More than half the 298,748 people who live in Queens and work in Manhattan are foreign-born.
What is it about suburbanites that results in greater achievement?
“I think it is simply that many of those who achieve go to suburbia,” Beveridge said. “They also are very interested in education for their own children. They then pass the advantages on to their kids.”
Reach contributing writer Philip Newman by e-mail at Timesledger@aol.com or call 229-0300, Ext. 136.
