Almost 1.55 Million New Yorkers Live in Poverty;
NYC's Income Gap Between Rich and Poor is Huge

I know this is an old thread, but got me thinking about the current bailout thread, and how Wall Street might be feeling a little more sympathetic to the plight of those in poverty in the NYC area now.

Truly, what comes around goes around.

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Money Saving Tips

Thank you Michael for helping me maintain my faith in humanity :)

Hello, I make $800 dollars a month working as an AmeriCorps VISTA for the New York City Coalition Against Hunger of which the above mentioned Joel Berg is Director. $800 dollars a month means $200 dollars a week, or, for a 40hour week, that comes to about $5 dollars an hour.

I live quite well, to be honest. My apartment plus utilities, internet, etc. comes to about $675 a month. I am on Food Stamps. I live in poverty for the time being. Some of you hot heads might want to try it. However, saving money this way is not an option. This is an unsustainable lifestyle, and by its very nature of net loss, leads into a life of necessary dependency.

Have a little bit of sympathy and support programs and benefits that are designed to lift people out of poverty. Please, volunteer your skills and knowledge (professional or otherwise) to help out nonprofit agencies who deal with these issues. If you are well off, please consider redistributing some of your wealth. We all have something to spare and give. (I even donate from time to time.) The mechanism for change is to stop living in excess and consumerism, and you will find much more freedom and moveable income. This previous excess must be redistributed to create a fair and economically just society. Please give back, having the profound knowledge and foresight that in reality we are all in this together as human beings.

Take care,

Michael

exactly number 26, survive is a good way to put it.

we're all hustling and surviving. till cancer comes along.

A big part of the reason that the gap between rich and poor is so wide in New York is that the top fifth is so much richer than it is in other cities. The poor are just as poor. But the concentration of the super-rich, of the highly compensated wall street-ers, distorts the scale.

I myself make a salary in the high thirties and live in Queens. I'm not livin' large by any stretch of the imagination but I manage, I survive.

What pisses me off isn't so much the fact that some trust-fund fuckwit has x millions of dollars in the bank so much as my inability to thrive on the salaries offered on my level. If my rent were capped at a third of my income, and I had full medical and four weeks of paid vacation, I wouldn't give a damn about the Avenue A rich kids. But given my current situation, I can't help but feel resentful.

Poverty my butt. I see in America so-called 'poor people' waddling around with their fat butts dragging, cell-phones in hand, nice car parked outside KFC. Color t.v., washer-dryer, a.c., mp3, playstation, welfraud checks a-waiting, 5 rugrats and 1 in the oven. GET UP OFF YOUR SORRY FAT-BUTT and get a job. Oh, excuse me, I forgot that you're a VICTIM of the system, of the MAN. Life dealt you a bad hand and the drugs/alcohol were forced down your throat.....Well, you get the drift...

Poverty my butt. I see in America so-called 'poor people' waddling around with their fat butts dragging, cell-phones in hand, nice car parked outside KFC. Color t.v., washer-dryer, a.c., mp3, playstation, welfraud checks a-waiting, 5 rugrats and 1 in the oven. GET UP OFF YOUR SORRY FAT-BUTT and get a job. Oh, excuse me, I forgot that you're a VICTIM of the system, of the MAN. Life dealt you a bad hand and the drugs/alcohol were forced down your throat.....Well, you get the drift...

Hey, at least you look cool in yer aviator sunglasses...

i make 27,000 working for a record label and its hard to live. I couldnt buy in east ny.

Screw all the hipsters with $20k a year jobs they think are cool...and use this blog to vent...

this reminds me a lot of you insult hurling Gothamist commenters

#8/15 First off you suggest that there are no hard working people that live in the city. 2nd I work with people that make money in the 40's that can afford to live here. It's all relative, if they worked in another city they would probably only be making high 20's to mid 30's. 3rd: Why would someone want to live in the city, I'm sure 8.5 million people could tell you. And the reasons you give mostly have to do with owning a car witch is one of the great things about this city, that is a choice not a necessity, so bitching about tickets and insurance is retarded.

It's impossible to save when you make under $35k and have to pay rent, utils, cell phone, MetroCard, credit card, loans. I know I'm not the only 20-something living check to check. And it's not as simple as finding a new job; I work for one of the highest paying cultural institutions in the city, so there are no options. Short of selling your soul and going corporate, you have to tough it out and work your way up.

It's a fact of life in this city, and unfortunately, it traps you.

"Who making $43,000 can qualify for housing these days anywhere in the 5 boros??"

You'd be surprised. You can buy a co-op in Queens for that salary and still have enough left over to be somewhat comfortable. Yeah there might be a bit of a commute, but just suck it up.



And where is this 200 to 350k salary range coming from? Please. You can be comfortable living in NY for a lot less than that.

education education education! save save save!

I posted the comment under #8.

How am I retarded?? I grew up in Queens and lived in NYC all my life until earlier this year.

I moved out like many other middle class white native NY'ers. Taxes, rent & everything else is overpriced & people will try to rip you off every which way.

Not to mention the extremely confiscatory tax burden as well as being, fined & 'fee'd' for everything (ex. driving with no seatbelt is a $90 fine).

Of course, it is a wonderful city if you are typical metrosexual $200,000 yuppie or hipster whose life revolves around shopping, spending $4,500 a month for a shithole in the 'right' neighborhood, and thinking you are cool because you can live 'car free'.

I won't miss the hour commutes on the 7 train from Queens to midtown in sauna like conditions.

you dont have to tell me how hard it is to make ends meet around here. not that anyone cares but i myself just got out from under the poverty line a few years ago. i have friends making 6 figures that have a difficult time after rent, utilities, loan repayments, credits cards and all that.

i have always felt its in a person's best interest to at least have enough savings to move away from their situation. when considering a place to move, sometimes people need to lower their standards... it may have be to a lower cost cost of living location like Florida, Kansas, Iowa or god-forbid Texas.

Are you kidding me? Haven't you seen all the new real estate developments? Just because you don't run a hedge fund doesn't mean you're 'poverty level.' There are still some really nice steals for under 1.1 mil.

hey dumbass #11, it's hard to save to move when the cost of living keeps going way up in this shithole. saving to move just implies that one can't afford to live where they are living anymore, so how easy is it going to be to save to begin with. i'm doing it and will get there eventually but by the time i save enough for moving expenses and fees and two months security rent and whatnot, i'll back to square one in my new place because it's getting harder and harder to find affordable housing EVEN if you make a decent living. when will this ever end? when will bloomberg adim stop all the construction "deregulation" and reckless rezoning and realize they need to strike a balance in this city? bloomberg is sooooooooo out of touch with the common person. he has no respect for people -just money.

i hate to sound callous but, if you dont have enough money saved to move, you are probably living a bit outside of your means.

#8 your retarded.

Dear #8,

Some of us want to move, but that takes money.

NYC has become a playground for the rich as well as all these 20 something gen y trust fund kids running around. If you walk around Union Square or anywhere in Manhattan south of 96th street this is evident.

$18,000 the max for the EITC is a joke. It should be expanded to single people making up to $100,000 a year if not more.

And that renters credit where you could only earn a max of $43,000 a year was also a joke. Who making $43,000 can qualify for housing these days anywhere in the 5 boros??

Why does anyone need to live in NYC?? Taxes & the tax burden if you are slightly above the poverty line are the highest in the country. Con Ed bills are confiscatory. Insurance on a car is close to the highest in the country. Parking fines are ridiculous even with the elimination of the 'even on Sunday' parking meter rules.

Move out of the NYC metro region unless you are a self absorbed vapid trust fund baby or wall street bitch making $350,000 a year or more.

number one should be castrated.

I'm guessing guest #1 has never lived in poverty.

Another Republican presidency should ensure that these stats remain as such - is this "simple" thinking? BTW GW really has the nerve to visit Katrina..?

Oh, and #2 you're a moron who should be institutionalized because you live in your own deluded little world where you can't even support your positions and can only lob insults.

I thought at first this was because of the sheer size of new york state but then i realized it is dealing in percentages.

You need a study for to come to this conclusion?

Oh, and #1 you're a moron who should be institutionalized because you live in your own deluded little world.

Poverty is a relative concept. You can't eliminate poverty and you can't reduce it. Someone has to be at the bottom of the heap. If everyone suddenly made at least $20,000 per year then there would be inflation and the new poverty threshold would be set at $25,000.

Today's people living in poverty (excluding homeless people and illegal immigrants, since the former should be institutionalized and the latter should be deported) are eligible for so many goverment handouts that they have comfortable lives compared to the middle class of 50 years ago, and a better standard of living than many hard working people living elsewhere on this planet.

The unemployment rate in this country is 4.6%. If you want to work, you can get a job. You can even get two if you're really motivated.