Tag: Economy

Jan 19

2026

More on the Big Brother act at Wegmans

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The story of Wegmans snooping on its customers has legs. The Gothamist broke the story and several local news outlets here followed with stories that largely quoted store flaks as refusing to say whether facial recognition technology is deployed in WNY as it is in New York City. Our J. Dale Shoemaker did a deeper drive that documented the use of biometrics is just the tip of the iceberg. Investigative Post has found that Wegmans is tracking and collecting data on customers from the moment they enter the parking lot to the moment they check out.  Big Brother kind of[...]

Posted 2 weeks ago

Dec 15

2025

Survey: A lot of Bills fans are plowed at home games

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We’re closing in on Christmas, so I’ll start out a little less heavy than usual. A survey of fans attending NFL games found that Bills fans drink more than almost any fan base. Just shy of 16 percent of fans have at least five alcoholic beverages before and/or during games.  Put another way: Some 11,400 fans are plastered for games. Tailgating has something to do with it. Six in Ten Bills fans drink before they enter the stadium, according to the survey. Only the Arizona Cardinals had a higher percentage of fans boozing it up (18.5 percent) than the Bills[...]

Posted 2 months ago

Dec 1

2025

There’s more to local media than what the chains offer

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Although local corporate media websites attract most of the traffic, there are a growing number of worthwhile websites and Substacks worth reading. Allow me to introduce, or remind you, of the best of them: Ken Kruly authors Politics and Other Stuff, which reports on, well, politics and other stuff. Ken has a particularly sharp eye when it comes to government and campaign finances. He also has a good feel for local and state politics. Charlie Specht writes Buffalo Muckraker on Substack, riffing largely off his work for Channel 2 and drawing from his knowledge gained through previous reporting gigs with[...]

Posted 2 months ago

Nov 3

2025

Our risky casino economy

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An op-ed in The New York Times (gift link) makes a case that the U.S. economy emerging under Donald Trump is akin to a casino, replete with all the risks that go with it. He has ushered in … a casino economy, built on speculation and risk. Across markets and policy, wagers on the future are being made with other people’s money at a cost that could prove catastrophic. This economy is largely defined by froth. What was once a fluke has become the operating system of modern markets: like stock prices largely driven by sentiment rather than fundamentals (recall[...]

Posted 3 months ago

May 20

2025

Local DAs don’t prosecute wage theft cases

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Wage theft — the practice of an employer withholding pay or benefits from a worker — has been considered a felony crime in New York since September 2023. Yet in the 20 months since, not a single prosecutor in the eight counties of Western New York has brought a single case under the statute. It’s not for a lack of offenders. Data from state and federal labor investigators shows that at least a dozen cases have met the $1,000 threshold of felony larceny since the law changed. Cases from October, November and December 2023 show eight employers were found to[...]

Posted 9 months ago

Apr 17

2025

IDAs responsible for millions in tax breaks, fees

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Meetings of the Erie and Niagara county IDAs (top) and the Genesee County IDA industrial park (bottom). Across Western New York last year, some 639 companies were allowed to skip out on $91 million in tax payments. In exchange, those companies kept nearly 18,000 people employed.  The story doesn’t end there. The companies also paid fees to the industrial development agencies that issued those tax breaks — nearly $22 million in 2024. For nine of the 13 IDAs in the region, those fees covered 75 percent or more of their annual budgets. Those figures are spelled out in the annual[...]

Posted 10 months ago

Apr 8

2025

Tesla spends taxpayer ‘slush fund’ on new cafeteria

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When Tesla employees show up to work nowadays in South Buffalo, a cafeteria serving breakfast, lunch and dinner — along with snacks and coffee — awaits. But there’s no such thing as a free lunch: Tesla employees must pay for the meals, which include salads, pasta, pizza and sandwiches. The other catch? New York State taxpayers have footed the bill for the eatery, which cost $1.6 million to build. Records obtained by Investigative Post show the electric vehicle maker continues to spend taxpayer dollars each year on the factory, which the state spent $959 million to build and equip. The[...]

Posted 10 months ago

Mar 25

2025

Wage theft widespread in Western New York

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The theft of employee wages is widespread across Western New York, data from state and federal labor departments show. State and federal labor investigators found some 1,900 regional employers withheld $17.1 million in pay and benefits from 23,613 workers over the past decade.  That’s an average of $3,066 per affected worker, according to data collected by Documented and analyzed by Investigative Post. Some employers were found to owe a handful of employees large amounts — more than $40,000 in some cases — while others were found to owe many workers small amounts. The median worker was returned $500 due to[...]

Posted 10 months ago
Investigative Post