Walsh, de Blasio address income inequality at forum

From left to right: Dr. Eric Rosengren, Boston Mayor Marty Walsh, Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, Seattle Mayor Ed Murray, and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio at UMass Boston on Sunday.Kayana Szymczak for the Boston Globe/Globe Freelance

Drawing from their geographically distant experiences, mayors from Baltimore, Boston, New York, and Seattle gathered at the University of Massachusetts Boston Sunday to highlight what their cities are doing to address income inequality and to sound an alarm that much more remains to be done.

"Insecurity is affecting people right now," Boston's mayor, Martin J. Walsh, said, adding: "That's why financial empowerment is a priority, making sure people have the tools to take control of their situations and seize their opportunities."

Walsh shared the stage in the UMass Boston Campus Center with Stephanie Rawlings-Blake of Baltimore, Ed Murray of Seattle, and Bill de Blasio of New York — three Democrats who, like Boston's mayor, face similar economic challenges, though nuances vary by each city's size and makeup.

"This crisis of inequality now has taken on a form really unprecedented in this country," de Blasio said, adding that it is undermining basic confidence.

"The material reality is so harsh for so many families," he said, "that the notion of getting ahead is simply being able to pay the bills again, as opposed to having to decide among what bills you're going to pay this month and what will have to wait until next month. . . . That shows you just how far off the mark we are."

Sunday's forum, attended by about 200 people, was held the day before Boston hosts the US Conference of Mayors' Cities of Opportunity Task Force at the Omni Parker House. De Blasio chairs that task force and Walsh is vice chairman.

The UMass forum Sunday gave the four mayors a public stage to talk about ways their cities and other municipalities can address the wage gap between the highest and lowest earners, affordable housing, and other issues affecting the economic well-being of residents from the East Coast to the West.

Good news in some areas, the mayors said, doesn't alleviate the struggles for many households. Even though unemployment in Boston has dipped to its lowest level in eight years, the city ranks high in income inequality, Walsh noted.

A study by the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank, found that Boston had the third highest rate of income inequality among the nation's 50 largest cities, and that nearly half of Boston households would not have enough savings to live above the poverty level for three months if income was disrupted, a number that climbs quickly for African-American and Hispanic households.

Walsh, who has made teaching people to take control of their finances a focus of his attempts to narrow the income divide between rich and poor, spoke about the two financial opportunity centers that have opened since the city launched an Office of Financial Empowerment in October.

Since the beginning of the year, some 1,800 people have been to the centers, which lend assistance in finding jobs, provide access to training for career development, and offer guidance in managing resources and securing benefits. The city "bundled these services together," Walsh said, because each depends on the others.

Rawlings-Blake highlighted the "Your Money, Your Goals" financial literacy program in Baltimore that is designed to improve the financial fitness of her constituents.

All four mayors touched on the necessity of cooperation among businesses, labor unions, nonprofits, and for-profit agencies to address the complexities facing families and other residents.

"This is a crisis right now that we have in this country," Walsh said, and any success in improving the lot of those who are struggling must be measured across the board: in financial literacy, education, economic development, job opportunities, and housing.

The mayors praised Seattle's Murray for signing a law that will phase in a $15 an hour minimum wage beginning in April.

As for the argument that businesses will falter or close if wages increase, "folks, the myths just aren't true," Murray said, offering a list of companies moving into Seattle. "You raise the minimum wage, it actually attracts business."