New York Metropolis’s richest earners have gotten richer since earlier than the pandemic, whereas lower-income earners have struggled to maintain up with excessive inflation, based on a brand new report on revenue inequality from the town comptroller.
Wednesday’s report analyzed tax returns from 2019 to 2024, discovering revenue inequality within the metropolis elevated over these years and New Yorkers face much more revenue disparity than the nationwide price.
In 2024, the highest 1% of metropolis households held 37% of all revenue citywide, in contrast with 22% nationally. Comptroller Mark Levine’s report is the most recent information level demonstrating what many New Yorkers have felt firsthand: Within the metropolis’s “Ok-shaped” financial system, a number of achieve extra yearly, however most proceed to battle financially.
“New York Metropolis is producing huge wealth, however the overwhelming majority of that prosperity is flowing to those that have already got probably the most,” Levine stated in a press release. “We want insurance policies that increase financial mobility, construct the center class, strengthen earnings and guarantee extra New Yorkers can share within the metropolis’s progress.”
New York’s wealthiest, like millionaires throughout the USA, are likely to earn a bigger portion of their revenue by way of means aside from wages as they get wealthier. The report discovered these means — together with capital beneficial properties, dividends, curiosity, lease and different earnings — are the first drivers of quicker revenue progress on the high of the financial ladder.
The town’s poorest residents, the comptroller stated, are poorer than their friends in the remainder of the nation. Within the wealthiest metropolis on the earth, New York’s backside 90% of earners nonetheless made 9% lower than the underside 90% throughout the nation in 2024, the latest yr within the evaluation. The area’s value of dwelling can also be steeper than elsewhere, with the federal Bureau of Financial Evaluation estimating New York-area residents face costs 12.6% greater than the nationwide common.
For the underside 90% of New Yorkers, common actual incomes accounting for inflation fell barely, by 0.8%, from 2019 to 2024, based on Levine’s report. Actual wages for the highest 1% grew 16.2% over that interval, with these for the highest 0.001% rising 57.9%. The vast majority of revenue for the highest 1% got here from non-wage sources.
Dora Pekec, a spokesperson for Mayor Zohran Mamdani, stated the report “underscores the urgency of the Mamdani administration’s agenda” centered on affordability points.
“Packages like common childcare, quick and free buses, and metropolis grocery shops assist to alleviate the core value drivers for working households,” she stated in a press release.
Mohamed Obaidy, an economist and affiliate director on the New College’s Heart for NYC Affairs, stated the town’s financial system is structured round finance, insurance coverage and actual property industries, making a focus of millionaires.
The town’s unemployment price is greater than the nationwide price — 5% in comparison with 4.1% as of July — giving employees much less bargaining energy with employers. And its minimal wage of $17 per hour is decrease than these in cities with comparable dwelling prices, together with Seattle and Los Angeles, the place the minimums are $21.30 and $18.42 per hour, respectively.
Base wages and salaries, although, don’t seem like liable for the town’s rising revenue inequality, the comptroller report suggests. Pay grew in lots of the metro space’s low-wage fields, together with healthcare and meals and hospitality, between 2019 and 2025.
Andrew Rein, president of the nonprofit Residents Finances Fee, stated in a press release, “the comptroller’s discovering that actual wages have been stagnant for many New Yorkers reinforces the necessity to entice and develop extra living- and higher-wage jobs, whereas working to extend affordability by boosting housing manufacturing and different applications.”
