Nearly 2M NYC residents live in poverty, including 1 in 4 children: report

The city’s poverty rate shot up by 5 percentage points in a year.

by Alejandra O’Connell-Domenech | Feb. 21, 2024

FILE – The Manhattan skyline is seen from the observatory of the Empire State Building in New York City on Wednesday, Jan. 12, 2022. Court of Appeals judges heard arguments in a lawsuit brought by a group of Republican voters challenging the legality of the new district maps, which critics say were drawn to favor Democrats.(AP Photo/Ted Shaffrey, File)

Story at a glance

At least 2 million people in New York City live in poverty, according to a new report from the nonprofit Robin Hood.

The poverty rate increased from 18 to 23 percent between 2021 and 2022.

One in four New York City children lived in poverty in 2022, the report found.

Over half of New York City residents either live in poverty or are low-income, according to a new report from anti-poverty nonprofit Robin Hood and Columbia University’s Center on Poverty and Social Policy.

The number of people across the five boroughs living in poverty jumped from 1.5 million to 2 million between 2021 and 2022, according to the Poverty Tracker Annual Report.

That 500,000-person increase pushed the poverty rate in the city to 23 percent that year, or twice the national average of 11.5 percent, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

A renting family of four in New York City would stand on the poverty line at an annual income of approximately $44,000 in 2022.

The number of New York City children that began living in poverty skyrocketed that year, the report shows, rising from 15 to 25 percent—putting it well above the national rate of 16.3.

Robin Hood CEO Richard Buery Jr. called the report’s findings “disturbing” in a statement, especially given the steps New York City has taken to reduce poverty in recent years.

Latino New Yorkers were the most likely to live in poverty in the city, and experienced poverty at twice the rate of white New Yorkers, the report shows.

Out of New Yorkers living in poverty, 26 percent identified as Latino, 24 as Black, 23 as Asian and 13 as white.

“2022 saw some of the city’s hard-won reductions in poverty and hardship of recent years reversed, at the same time that inflation and high rents took a toll on people’s wallets,” Christopher Wimer, director of The Center on Poverty and Social Policy at Columbia University, said in a statement.

“The news is certainly grim, but if there is a silver lining it is that recent years have proven that well-designed policies can and do reduce poverty dramatically. We know what works, it’s just a matter of doing it.”