Nearly 1 In 5 NYers Is Poor Despite Poverty Drop, Figures Show

NEW YORK — Almost a fifth of New York City residents are poor even though the local poverty rate has steadily declined in recent years, a new government report says.

The city's poverty rate in 2017 was 19 percent, indicating nearly one in five New Yorkers was considered poor, according to the annual poverty report that the Mayor’s Office for Economic Opportunity released Monday.

That marked significant drop from the 2013 poverty rate of 20.7 percent and the lowest rate the city has seen since 2008, the year of the last major economic recession, the report says. The decrease meant that there were about 236,500 fewer poor New Yorkers in 2017 than if the poverty rate had stayed at the 2013 level, Mayor Bill de Blasio's office said.

"The good news in this annual report is that poverty has steadily decreased. The data also serve

as a reminder, however, that many New Yorkers continue to live in poverty and near poverty," Matthew Klein, the executive director of the Mayor’s Office for Economic Opportunity, wrote in the preface to the report.

A larger share of New Yorkers — 43.1 percent — was "near poverty" in 2017, a figure that includes people who are poor and those who are in danger of becoming poor, the report shows. That's down from a rate of 45.9 percent in 2013.

The city calculates the poverty rate based on its own income threshold for who is considered poor, which accounts for the higher cost of living in the five boroughs. That means the city's poverty estimate is higher than the federal government's, which said the city had a poverty rate of 16.6 percent in 2017.

A family of four lived in poverty in 2017 if its income was less than $33,562, according to the city's measurements. That's about 35 percent higher than the federal poverty threshold of $24,858. New Yorkers are considered near poverty if they earn up to 150 percent of the poverty threshold, or $50,343 for a family of four, the report says.

The return to the pre-recession poverty rate of 19 percent in 2017 tied for the lowest rate since the city's tracking started in 2005, de Blasio's office said.

The increased minimum wage, which hit $15 an hour at the end of last year, has been a major factor in reducing poverty, the report says. The decrease in the poverty rate came alongside a 14.7 percent increase in the city's median wage income, according to the report.

The numbers show that the de Blasio administration is on track to reach its goal of getting 800,000 people out of poverty or near-poverty by 2025, the mayor's office said. The report notes that mayoral initiatives such as universal pre-kindergarten and paid sick leave — which de Blasio has touted in his presidential campaign — aim to drive down poverty.

"At the beginning of this administration, we set out to ensure the doors of economic opportunity were open to all New Yorkers," de Blasio, a Democrat, said in a statement. "This report reveals that bold progressive policies from Pre-K for All to Paid Sick Leave, combined with increases in the minimum wage, are uplifting working people across this city."