MANHATTAN — Mayor Michael Bloomberg warned Friday that unless the economy improves substantially, young people without jobs could begin rioting in the streets.
“You have a lot of kids graduating from college, can’t find jobs. That’s what happened in Cairo. That’s what happened in Madrid. You don’t want these kinds of riots here,” Bloomberg said on his weekly radio sit-down with WOR’s John Gambling.
The mayor faulted leaders in Washington who are refusing to compromise when it comes to President Barack Obama’s job plan, and said the impact of joblessness will last for years.
The unemployment rate in the city rose to 8.7 percent in August, due in part to a two-week strike by Verizon workers, according to the New York Times.
“The damage to a generation that can’t find jobs will go on for many, many years,” he said. “We are really making ourselves have less of a future than we could have.”
Bloomberg said that the only solution is to compromise and to spread the pain.
“The only thing you can do now to solve the problem is everyone pays a little more [in taxes], everyone take a little less,” he said. “The only way to make it palatable is to make everybody share.”
