Income Data Shows Widening Gap Between New York City’s Richest and Poorest

[alp227]

Source: NY Times

The rich got richer and the poor got poorer in New York City last year as the poverty rate reached its highest point in more than a decade, and the income gap in Manhattan, already wider than almost anywhere else in the country, rivaled disparities in sub-Saharan Africa.

While the national recession officially ended in 2009 and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has repeatedly proclaimed the city’s robust recovery, the census figures to be released on Thursday painted a decidedly sober view of how New Yorkers are faring.

“To see the poverty rate jump almost a full percentage point is not a good sign,” said David R. Jones, the president of the Community Service Society of New York, an antipoverty advocacy and research group. “We’re still seeing really high rates of unemployment, while jobs have been growing in an anemic way and the jobs that have been created are really low-wage.”

While Mr. Bloomberg has made reducing the poverty rate, now nearly 21 percent, a priority, administration officials acknowledged that the stagnant national economy had hurt the city.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/20/nyregion/rich-got-richer-and-poor-poorer-in-nyc-2011-data-shows.html

[DonCoquixote]

1. This is the fruit

of Rudy G, Bloomberg, even Koch, and all others that demonized the poor.

I got news for you NYC. The foundation of your virtue was that everybody from the rich swell to the Homeless panhandler realized that they had common indentity, NYC was a common cause, the big Apple that offered it's glories to all that would take it. Remeber how you used to make fun of us in Jersey for being so pronvincial, that we never had to meet anyone we did not know?

If you let the Conservatives make New York a place where everyone runs through it,but no one meets, than guess what, you wuill just be another place for Mcdonalds and Walmart.

[BeyondGeography]

2. Poor New York

It used to be so much fun.

[HockeyMom]

3. Wages, Housing, and Rent Control

Back in the 60s, it was possible to rent a decent apartment for $125 a month (Rent Control)) and live alone on a secretary salary. Back in the 70s, it was possible to buy a 3 bedroom house in the boroughs for under $150,000 on a middle income.

Middle income wages, and jobs, have not kept pace with housing costs.