http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/30/nyregion/nearly-half-of-new-yorkers-are-struggling-to-get-by-study-finds.html?hp&_r=0#New York City’s share of poor people appears to have plateaued since the recession, at 21.4 percent,
with more people working in 2012 than the year before, but at lower wages, according to a new city study. Contributing to the city’s economic problems were increases in the number of Asian-Americans, immigrants and residents of Queens slipping into poverty.
But under a broader definition of poverty that the city applies, the picture remains grim for a far larger number of New Yorkers.
As in 2011, 46 percent, or nearly half of New Yorkers,
were making less than 150 percent of the poverty threshold, a figure that describes people who are struggling to get by.
Even with fewer people unemployed,
the poverty rate for working-age adults working full time reached 8 percent, by the city’s measure. Fully 17 percent of families with a full-time worker lived in poverty, and even among families with two full-time workers, the rate was 5.2 percent.
The latest numbers, compiled by the city’s Center for Economic Opportunity, were presented to the City Council on Tuesday and are to provide a base line for how well Mayor Bill de Blasio addresses a signature issue.
