New York City is facing its worst affordability crisis in the past two decades, according to a new report released Tuesday. Half of the city’s households did not have enough money to comfortably occupy an apartment, access adequate food and basic health care, and get around, the report said.
The study is the latest evidence showing the depth of the crisis, which is reshaping local demographics and culture in real time.
Officials are particularly alarmed by a significant drop in public school enrollments, which accelerated during the worst of the pandemic and are driven in part by black families leaving the city over cost-of-living concerns. Mayor Eric Adams and Governor Kathy Hochul have both made addressing the lack of affordability a priority, but it’s unclear whether they will be able to make meaningful changes, particularly in housing.
The city suffers from a dire shortage of affordable housing, a huge problem that seems unlikely to abate. Ms. Hochul’s attempt to build more homes across the state appears to have backfired in recent state budget negotiations. Nearly 80 percent of households that didn’t bring in enough to cover the city’s minimal living costs ended up contributing more than 30 percent of their income to housing, the study found.
At the same time, food prices have risen steadily amid stubborn inflation, and public transport officials have warned of imminent fare hikes.
The report was released Tuesday by the Fund for the City of New York, which advises government agencies and was founded in 1968 by the Ford Foundation, and the United Way of New York City. The authors of the reports used 2021 US Census data along with a measure that calculates the baseline for affordability for families in New York City.
The study found that New Yorkers are in even worse shape than they were after the pandemic’s nadir. The groups’ 2021 report found that just over a third of city households couldn’t keep up with the cost of living at the time, a figure that has since risen. The findings in this year’s report may reflect, in part, the challenges low-income New Yorkers faced as pandemic-era safety net programs, such as stimulus checks and child tax credits, expired.
The percentage of households struggling to afford basic necessities in the city was higher than any other year in the two-decade history of the report’s cost-of-living survey. Households in all five boroughs had to bring in at least $100,000 to pay for housing, food and transportation, and to stand a chance of making plans for the future, the study found. In southern Manhattan, home to some of the most expensive zip codes in the country, families with two adults and two children combined had to earn at least $150,000.
According to the most recent Census data, the actual median household income in the city hovered around $70,000.
New York City has long been prohibitively expensive for its most vulnerable residents, including those without college degrees or those unable to work. But the report shows that a significant majority of households that couldn’t keep up with living costs — 80 percent — had at least one working adult, and more than half of New Yorkers who couldn’t make ends meet knots had a college or university education. credits, if not a graduate degree.
According to the study, among working New Yorkers, home health workers were the most likely to have an income that the basics couldn’t cover. Health care assistants account for one of New York City’s fastest growing industries, but typically earn very low salaries; the average wage for health care assistants was just over $15 an hour, the study found. Recent research has shown that the city is facing a huge shortage of home care workers, which will increase significantly in the coming years.
Concierges, cashiers, and teaching assistants probably couldn’t afford to pay for essentials either.
The affordability crisis is especially pressing for nonwhite New Yorkers, the study found. Latino, black, and immigrant New Yorkers were hardest hit by the affordability crisis, and residents of the central Bronx had the highest levels of economic instability.
And more than 85 percent of households where single mothers cared for young children couldn’t keep up with the cost of living.