As New York City inches closer to recovering all the jobs lost in the pandemic, the milestone in Manhattan, the city's economic engine, was not so encouraging. We currently have the highest income disparity of any large county in the country.
Even in a city famous for its depiction of opulent living juxtaposed with crushing poverty, widening inequality is evident. The fifth-richest Manhattan resident had a median household income of $545,549, more than 53 times the median income of $10,259 for the bottom 20 percent, according to 2022 Census data released earlier this month. . Demographic data firm Social Explorer analyzed the Times' data.
“It's shockingly unequal,” said Andrew Beveridge, president of Social Explorer. “This is a greater disparity than in many developing countries,” making it the widest disparity in the United States since 2006, when this data was first reported. The Bronx and Brooklyn also rank in the top 10 counties in the nation for income inequality.
This is the latest data to highlight the city's uneven recovery from the pandemic. Wages are rising across the city, but mostly for the wealthy. Jobs are coming back, but many are in low-wage jobs. Although unemployment rates are decreasing, unemployment rates for black and Hispanic New Yorkers remain significantly higher. The mixed signal highlights the widening of the groove. While the city is recovering, many of its residents are not.
“We're in an even worse situation than we were in 2019,” said James Parrott, director of economic and fiscal policy at the New School's Center on New York City Affairs.
According to the Department of Housing and Urban Development, nearly 20% of public housing residents in New York City report incomes of less than $10,000.
And middle-income New Yorkers are also suffering. “I make $22 an hour, but I still can't support myself in New York,” said Roger Gunning, 50, a South Bronx public housing resident and sanitation worker. society. He said some of his colleagues are living in temporary shelters.
Dr. Parrott said middle-income New Yorkers have been hurting since the pandemic because of stagnant wage growth in the service sector and the slow recovery of key industries such as retail. , said New York has seen a much larger contraction than almost anywhere else in the country.
From 2019 to 2022, median household income, adjusted for inflation, fell below $75,000, a decrease of nearly 7%. This was four times the national rate of decline and the steepest decline among large U.S. cities. San Antonio had the next largest decline in income, where median household income fell by just over 5% to below $59,000. The biggest improvement was in Phoenix, where median household income rose nearly 8% to nearly $76,000.
Chino Zeno, a 21-year-old construction worker, earns $23 an hour installing solar panels, but he realizes his pay isn't keeping up with inflation. To cover rising food and gas prices, and to help pay for his family's apartment in East New York, Brooklyn, he works as a freelance photographer.
He said he is grateful for the recent salary increase. In 2021, before he trained to enter the construction industry, he was making just $16 an hour as a part-time warehouse worker, which he says isn't enough without a side job.
“100 is the new $20 bill,” he said. “People are in a difficult situation right now.”
Labor data analyzed by the Center for New York City Affairs shows that those who are already wealthy are the biggest beneficiaries of higher wages. Low-wage workers such as restaurant workers and childcare workers, who earned an average of $40,000 last year, saw their pay increase by just $186 a year from 2019 to 2022, after adjusting for inflation. But higher-paid workers in fields such as technology and finance, who earned an average of $217,000, earned an average of $5,100 more in salary each year and 27 times more extra income than their lower-wage counterparts.
Cities have made great strides. The labor force participation rate hit a record high in August, with the unemployment rate at 5.3%, down from a peak of more than 21% in May 2020 during the pandemic. But New York City has yet to fully regain the jobs lost since the pandemic. Meanwhile, large parts of the country are already doing so, in part because the virus hit faster in urban areas and businesses, including those related to hospitality and tourism, closed for longer. Dr Parrott said. Other popular entry-level jobs, such as delivery workers and home health aides, have seen wages decline due to inflation.
Charles Luttwak, a spokesman for the mayor's office, said the job growth is thanks to initiatives such as youth employment and expanding apprenticeship programs. “But we still have work to do, and we won't stop until every New Yorker has a quality job that can support their families,” he said in a statement.
Dr. Parrott said wage growth for many New Yorkers has stalled, in part because the minimum wage, which was set at $15 an hour, hasn't increased since 2019. Five of America's 10 largest cities raised their minimum wages by an average of 25% during this period, and four of those cities have higher minimum wages than New York City.
Many labor groups are calling for a minimum wage of $21 an hour, but New York City does not adjust wages for inflation, meaning the minimum wage itself could fall below the cost of living, the New York City Employment Association said. Chief Executive Gregory Morris said. Training Coalition, Association of Workforce Development Groups. Next year, New York state will raise the minimum wage to $16 an hour in the greater New York City area and $15 statewide. In 2027, the minimum wage will be indexed to inflation.
“As the mayor points out, this is a city of working people, but I think the question is which working people?” Morris asked.
Finding a job isn't a problem for Khadijah Beshear, a 42-year-old single mother raising three children on Manhattan's Lower East Side. It's time.
After losing her job as a bank security guard in 2020, she began working as a server at catered events across the city, working up to 70 hours, seven days a week.
Jobs that pay more than $25 an hour are rewarding but all-consuming, she said. “One day I had a really bad anxiety attack. You're worried about not spending enough time with your kids, so I said, 'I have to find something else to do.' I did.”
Earlier this year, Bethea enrolled in a 14-week career training program run by two nonprofit organizations: Henry Street Settlement and Stacks and Jules. This free program helps low-income job seekers find jobs managing large building heating and ventilation systems.
She graduated in May and is currently enrolled in another training program that pays $20 an hour, which is lower than she would be waiting tables, but with opportunities for career advancement and, depending on the day, There is also the possibility of working remotely. For now, she still works about four catering jobs a week.
A big dilemma for job seekers is that taking the time to learn new skills can be expensive, especially in an expensive city like New York, said YouthBuild, a six-month employment program through St. Nick's. said program director Anicee Alves Willis. Alliance, a nonprofit community service group.
For many low- and moderate-income workers, time constraints are a luxury they can't afford even with a paycheck.
Angelita Mendez, a 35-year-old hairdresser who moved from the Dominican Republic to Washington Heights in Manhattan in 2021, started taking free English lessons with a nonprofit service provider last year.
About halfway through the course, the bill started to pile up. These include the $1,600 a month in rent she splits with her mother, the $1,100 a month she pays to rent a salon booth, and the rising cost of groceries for her two children. . She makes about $600 a week, or about $31,000 a year.
“Honestly, I don't have time for that,” she said in Spanish, but she hopes to return to class one day to become fluent in English and use those skills to study cosmetology.
Where will her newfound skills take her?
Probably New Jersey, she said, where it's cheaper.
Anna Ray Contributed to the report.
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