April 13, 2018

The Mayor’s Office for Economic Opportunity today released its annual New York City Government Poverty Measure report, which shows that both the poverty rate and the near-poverty rate (the percentage living below 150% of New York City’s poverty threshold) have decreased since last year’s report. Today’s report shows a drop in the near-poverty rate to 43.5% in 2016, which is a 1.6 percentage point decline from 2014’s rate of 45.1 percent. The report also demonstrated that New Yorkers in actual poverty has declined since 2014, from 20.6% to 19.5%. Poverty is at its lowest level since the Great Recession. In 2016, there were 141,000 fewer New Yorkers in poverty or near poverty than there were in 2013, surpassing prior projections and indicating that the City is on pace to reach its goal of moving 800,000 people out of poverty or near poverty by 2025.

Read the press release or read the 2018 Poverty Measure report.