In his NY Times column today, Bob Herbert mentions some interesting statistics about New York City:
There are 8 million residents of New York City, and roughly 700,000 are worth a million dollars or more. The average price of a Manhattan apartment is $1.3 million. The annual earnings of the average hedge fund manager is $363 million.
The number of families in the city’s homeless shelters is the highest it has been in a quarter of a century. Twenty-five percent of all families with children in New York City — that’s 1.5 million New Yorkers — are trying to make it on incomes that are below the poverty threshold established by the federal government.
185,000 of its children ages 5 or younger are poor, and 18,000 are consigned to homeless shelters each night. More than a million New Yorkers get food stamps, and another 700,000 are eligible but not receiving them.
I live in the middle of a city of extremes.
2 comments:
Sort of makes me wonder if those living at the poverty level would do any better in a smaller midwestern town?
Why doesn't the city just charge 10% capital gains tax? Every hedge fund manager would cough that up to keep her job. (You realize they don't pay income tax?) It would suffice to help the city's poor.
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