Poverty in New York City is at its lowest level since the Great Recession, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Friday.
The mayor’s Office for Economic Opportunity released its annual New York City Government Poverty Measure report, which looks both at the poverty rate and the “near-poverty rate” of residents.
In 2016, according to the report, there were 141,000 fewer New Yorkers in poverty or near poverty than in 2013.
“From Pre-K for All to paid family and sick leave to the most ambitious affordable housing plan in the city’s history, we are working to provide opportunities that will make a lasting difference in the lives of New Yorkers,” de Blasio said in a statement.
The near-poverty rate in New York City — which includes those making up to 50 percent above the poverty line, or $47,634 for a family of four, according to the New York Daily News in 2017 — dropped to 43.5 percent in 2016. That is a 1.6 percentage point decrease from the 2014 rate of 45.1 percent.
The amount of New Yorkers in poverty dropped from 20.6 percent to 19.5 percent, according to the report.
The NYCgov poverty measure is updated annually, using the most recently available info from the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey and supplemented by the Mayor’s Office for Economic Opportunity.
This process, the city said, provides a “more precise measure” of poverty than the federal poverty measure.
Along with the decreasing poverty rate, the median household income in New York City has increased 7.8 percent since 2014.
This report surpassed previous poverty rate projections, according to the mayor’s office, and shows, de Blasio said in a statement, “real progress toward our goal of lifting 800,000 New Yorkers out of poverty or near poverty by 2025.”
