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I don't doubt that number, but it's always a bit baffling to look at the median income in expensive cities. New York city's median household income is $87k, which means that the majority of households are well below the income level it takes to live there. That stresses me out just to think about it.
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People did move out of NYC and companies did move HQs out to NJ and elsewhere. NYC lost pop during the eighties and didn’t recover its population till 2000. It was an 10% decline in pop[1]. They went from 125 F500 cos based in NYC down to 61 by 1986. Maybe that’s okay with you if it were to repeat but that’s a lot of a tax base leaving for better pastures. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_New_York_Ci…
It's important to discuss the reasons for the population dropping in the 1980s and subsequently recovering. It didn't experience population drops because NYC scared away the businesses and billionaires/millionaires with left-leaning policy. That population loss happened because of macroeconomic trends that were already in motion, as well as local factors that really had very little to do with who was mayor at the tim…
Anyway many fortune 500s left the city from the late 70s to late 80s. NYC sucked.
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It's important to discuss the reasons for the population dropping in the 1980s and subsequently recovering. It didn't experience population drops because NYC scared away the businesses and billionaires/millionaires with left-leaning policy. That population loss happened because of macroeconomic trends that were already in motion, as well as local factors that really had very little to do with who was mayor at the tim…
It had to do with the economy. The city was going broke and the city was levying more taxes while the city failed to make the environment attractive to companies and individuals. Koch was corrupt, Dinkins inept and it took tough DAs and mayor to clean up crime and make it more livable. They cleaned up most of the mob, some of the graffiti, went after hooligans, made train surfing less attractive and voila, people saw…
- Koch balanced the city’s budget by 1981 so we can’t really say the city being broke was a root cause for the next 10-15 years
- Taxes can’t really explain this at all. New Jersey to this day still has almost double the corporate tax rate of NYC, just as an example. Why was NYC able to recover and thrive while still maintaining one of the highest overall tax rates in the country? There’s no data correlation.
- NYC wasn’t the only city to have a declining urban core population in the same time period by a long shot. Again, nationwide macroeconomics of the 1980s.
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It's literally in the first sentence of the article: "New York families need six-figure incomes to live without government assistance in all five boroughs of New York City, according to two new reports."
I thought the first sentence was "Get unlimited access for just $1.99 your first month." Or maybe "We've updated our terms." Anyway, I don't trust media summaries of reports. The bit of the article I can see mentions two new reports, but I can only see a link to one, which is three years old. That report says it's based on something called the "NYC True Cost of Living" which does actually have a 2026 edition: https:/…
You really don’t believe it? You have access to Zillow.com right? You work at Meta HQ in Manhattan now as a contracted facilities worker cleaning the building. The highest pay I see on Indeed in Manhattan is around $21/hour for custodians, let’s be generous and call it $25/hour. Find an apartment for within a 1 hour commute for the suggested 1/3 gross income ($1444/month). Now imagine your spouse doesn’t work a full time job because you can’t afford child care and you have two kids. How is this working out exactly?
It’s not even that much better if you have a college degrees, like I see RN jobs in Manhattan at under $40/hour - and those folks are probably in student loan debt.
Basic-ass math demonstrates the situation. Stop focusing on the little nitpicks you have with these journalistic outlets.
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I thought the first sentence was "Get unlimited access for just $1.99 your first month." Or maybe "We've updated our terms." Anyway, I don't trust media summaries of reports. The bit of the article I can see mentions two new reports, but I can only see a link to one, which is three years old. That report says it's based on something called the "NYC True Cost of Living" which does actually have a 2026 edition: https:/…
Idk just seems like you’re engaging in a lot of “process nitpicks” as I might call them just to convince yourself that everything is fine in this world, to deny a reality that is very real to many people. You really don’t believe it? You have access to Zillow.com right? You work at Meta HQ in Manhattan now as a contracted facilities worker cleaning the building. The highest pay I see on Indeed in Manhattan is around…
The claim is $125k/year. That's over $60/hour. If that's true then you can't live on, say, $50/hour. 1/3rd gross income would then be a bit under $3,000/month. Zillow finds me plenty of 3-bedroom apartments in NYC for $2,800 or less.
It seems to me like you're engaging in "It doesn't matter if it's correct as long as it gives the correct feeling." Why are you talking about a $21/hour job? I'm not arguing that people making that little are anything but struggling. I'm arguing that putting the floor at far over the median income is nonsensical. NYC was doing alright last time I was there and I don't think it would be if the vast majority of the population didn't make enough money to live.
You don't have to argue for broken math just because you like the conclusion. You're allowed to say, lots of people are struggling, but this claim about their struggle doesn't add up.
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Idk just seems like you’re engaging in a lot of “process nitpicks” as I might call them just to convince yourself that everything is fine in this world, to deny a reality that is very real to many people. You really don’t believe it? You have access to Zillow.com right? You work at Meta HQ in Manhattan now as a contracted facilities worker cleaning the building. The highest pay I see on Indeed in Manhattan is around…
I don't think it's "nitpicks" to see a problem with a report that bases its minimum amount needed to live on the 40th percentile of rent. It's fundamentally nonsense to pick a value close to the median and declare it to be the minimum. The claim is $125k/year. That's over $60/hour. If that's true then you can't live on, say, $50/hour. 1/3rd gross income would then be a bit under $3,000/month. Zillow finds me plenty o…
I plugged this filter into Zillow and got 130 rentals in the entire city, including all 5 boroughs.
Listings all have the disclaimer “fees may apply.”
About 25 results within about an hour train ride to Manhattan.
I imagine 100% of them are rent controlled [1] but I also imagine that 130 results are not “plenty” in a city of 8 million.
It’s hard for me to side with you because this demonstrates your perception of the situation being rather off-base.
[1] Whether you agree with the policy of rent control or not, its existence is a demonstration of the failure of the market economy. It is a manifestation of the basic concept that the market does not self-regulate to achieve the goal of most people being able to afford decent housing.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think it's "nitpicks" to see a problem with a report that bases its minimum amount needed to live on the 40th percentile of rent. It's fundamentally nonsense to pick a value close to the median and declare it to be the minimum. The claim is $125k/year. That's over $60/hour. If that's true then you can't live on, say, $50/hour. 1/3rd gross income would then be a bit under $3,000/month. Zillow finds me plenty o…
> Zillow finds me plenty of 3-bedroom apartments in NYC for $2,800 or less. I plugged this filter into Zillow and got 130 rentals in the entire city, including all 5 boroughs. Listings all have the disclaimer “fees may apply.” About 25 results within about an hour train ride to Manhattan. I imagine 100% of them are rent controlled [1] but I also imagine that 130 results are not “plenty” in a city of 8 million. It’s h…
Note that I was being generous in filtering by 3 bedrooms. The study allows for two children to share a room, and looks at a family of four, so a two bedroom apartment would suffice. Zillow has over a thousand listings under $2,800/month with two bedrooms. Many of those would be within an hour train ride of Meta HQ or whatever fancy destination we're looking at. I'll also note that we've excluded everything outside NYC proper even though there are places in NJ and non-City NY that are within that range as well.
I don't see anything in the above links about rent control or stabilization. I'm sure that affects things significantly, but it's irrelevant to my point if the number that I'm casting doubt upon isn't intended to reflect some sort of ideal free rental market.
Let me be clear about what that point is: I don't think that NYC families actually need over $125k in income "to live." I think the criteria on which that is determined is way too pessimistic, in particular assuming that all families need $30,000+/year in child care, and that all families will pay at least 40th percentile rent. More broadly, given that a great majority of the city's households make less than the figure given, it just can't be correct.
I don't know what you think is off base about my perception of those things. You seem to think that my perception about other things is off base. Which it may well be. But that doesn't affect my point.
We seem to just be talking past each other. You're arguing some broader thing about struggling families in NYC. I'm arguing about one specific number and how it's described. If you want to argue that it's not possible for a family to survive without assistance on a single custodian job at Meta HQ, or that rent control distorts the market, I already believe it. But if you want to argue that the $125k figure is correct because $21/hour is not enough and rent control exists, that's just a non sequitur.