[wat10000]

I’m extremely skeptical that well over half of NYC households are in such dire straits.

But even if that’s the case, it doesn’t say “to live alone” or “to live without government assistance.” It just says “to live.”

I don’t think having roommates or a rent-controlled apartment is so terrible that it wouldn’t qualify as “living.” It doesn’t have to be completely literal. If it meant not being homeless, I could work with that. But a number that’s more than 50% higher than the median? I don’t know what the heck it means “to live” in that case. It clearly means something well beyond what the average New Yorker actually has, but I don’t know what and I don’t know why you’d call that “living.”

[dangus]

It's literally in the first sentence of the article:

"New York families need six-figure incomes to live without government assistance in all five boroughs of New York City, according to two new reports."

[wat10000]

I thought the first sentence was "Get unlimited access for just $1.99 your first month." Or maybe "We've updated our terms."

Anyway, I don't trust media summaries of reports. The bit of the article I can see mentions two new reports, but I can only see a link to one, which is three years old.

That report says it's based on something called the "NYC True Cost of Living" which does actually have a 2026 edition: https://www.fcny.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/NYC2026_TCL_...

That report lists a $125,814/year "cost of meeting basic needs" for the lowest amount of any borough, which fits the headline. But that figure is also based on having one preschool child, which according to the report costs $33,000 for child care. Lots of families don't, so their figure would be substantially less. The report says that 46% of working-age NYC households fall below the True Cost of Living, which certainly doesn't fit with that cost being so much higher than the median income, even considering the "working-age" qualifier.

The 2023 edition of the report has a lot more details: https://selfsufficiencystandard.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/.... If I'm reading that right, they're calculating housing costs at the 40th percentile in a given area, which doesn't make any sense when calculating the minimum needed. In this case, the areas are entire boroughs, or borough halves for Manhattan and Brooklyn.

I see this kind of nonsense all over the place. Random example: https://www.investopedia.com/minimum-wage-earners-can-not-co.... "There are no major American cities that hold an average monthly rental cost which is 30% of a minimum wage earner's gross income." OK, why would we compare the minimum wage with the average rent? If you want to find out what people can afford, you need to look at the lowest available cost, not the average.

So, I remain skeptical of the claim made by this article.

[dangus]

Idk just seems like you’re engaging in a lot of “process nitpicks” as I might call them just to convince yourself that everything is fine in this world, to deny a reality that is very real to many people.

You really don’t believe it? You have access to Zillow.com right? You work at Meta HQ in Manhattan now as a contracted facilities worker cleaning the building. The highest pay I see on Indeed in Manhattan is around $21/hour for custodians, let’s be generous and call it $25/hour. Find an apartment for within a 1 hour commute for the suggested 1/3 gross income ($1444/month). Now imagine your spouse doesn’t work a full time job because you can’t afford child care and you have two kids. How is this working out exactly?

It’s not even that much better if you have a college degrees, like I see RN jobs in Manhattan at under $40/hour - and those folks are probably in student loan debt.

Basic-ass math demonstrates the situation. Stop focusing on the little nitpicks you have with these journalistic outlets.

[wat10000]

I don't think it's "nitpicks" to see a problem with a report that bases its minimum amount needed to live on the 40th percentile of rent. It's fundamentally nonsense to pick a value close to the median and declare it to be the minimum.

The claim is $125k/year. That's over $60/hour. If that's true then you can't live on, say, $50/hour. 1/3rd gross income would then be a bit under $3,000/month. Zillow finds me plenty of 3-bedroom apartments in NYC for $2,800 or less.

It seems to me like you're engaging in "It doesn't matter if it's correct as long as it gives the correct feeling." Why are you talking about a $21/hour job? I'm not arguing that people making that little are anything but struggling. I'm arguing that putting the floor at far over the median income is nonsensical. NYC was doing alright last time I was there and I don't think it would be if the vast majority of the population didn't make enough money to live.

You don't have to argue for broken math just because you like the conclusion. You're allowed to say, lots of people are struggling, but this claim about their struggle doesn't add up.

[dangus]

> Zillow finds me plenty of 3-bedroom apartments in NYC for $2,800 or less.

I plugged this filter into Zillow and got 130 rentals in the entire city, including all 5 boroughs.

Listings all have the disclaimer “fees may apply.”

About 25 results within about an hour train ride to Manhattan.

I imagine 100% of them are rent controlled [1] but I also imagine that 130 results are not “plenty” in a city of 8 million.

It’s hard for me to side with you because this demonstrates your perception of the situation being rather off-base.

[1] Whether you agree with the policy of rent control or not, its existence is a demonstration of the failure of the market economy. It is a manifestation of the basic concept that the market does not self-regulate to achieve the goal of most people being able to afford decent housing.

[wat10000]

How many do you need exactly? Without the price filter, there are 3,406 listings. 130 out of 3,406 is not huge, but if you're making 20% less than the amount of money you supposedly need in order to live, that seems alright. The point is not that it's a wonderful easy comfortable life, the point is that saying you need $125k "to live" doesn't fit the facts.

Note that I was being generous in filtering by 3 bedrooms. The study allows for two children to share a room, and looks at a family of four, so a two bedroom apartment would suffice. Zillow has over a thousand listings under $2,800/month with two bedrooms. Many of those would be within an hour train ride of Meta HQ or whatever fancy destination we're looking at. I'll also note that we've excluded everything outside NYC proper even though there are places in NJ and non-City NY that are within that range as well.

I don't see anything in the above links about rent control or stabilization. I'm sure that affects things significantly, but it's irrelevant to my point if the number that I'm casting doubt upon isn't intended to reflect some sort of ideal free rental market.

Let me be clear about what that point is: I don't think that NYC families actually need over $125k in income "to live." I think the criteria on which that is determined is way too pessimistic, in particular assuming that all families need $30,000+/year in child care, and that all families will pay at least 40th percentile rent. More broadly, given that a great majority of the city's households make less than the figure given, it just can't be correct.

I don't know what you think is off base about my perception of those things. You seem to think that my perception about other things is off base. Which it may well be. But that doesn't affect my point.

We seem to just be talking past each other. You're arguing some broader thing about struggling families in NYC. I'm arguing about one specific number and how it's described. If you want to argue that it's not possible for a family to survive without assistance on a single custodian job at Meta HQ, or that rent control distorts the market, I already believe it. But if you want to argue that the $125k figure is correct because $21/hour is not enough and rent control exists, that's just a non sequitur.