New York —
In New York City, the typical household spends more than half of its income on rent and 100,000 people sleep in homeless shelters every night.
“This is what a full-blown affordability crisis looks like,” said Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine in a December report. Median rents in Manhattan have topped $5,400 a month.
The city’s cost-of-living crisis extends to food, child care and other parts of daily life: 1.4 million people, or 15% of the city’s population, is food insecure. A family must earn $334,000 to afford child care for a 2-year old, according to US Census Bureau data.
Zohran Mamdani, New York City’s next mayor, faces the enormous task of making it easier to get by in one of the most expensive cities in the world.
Mamdani won the most votes of any New York City mayor in 60 years, propelled by his focus on working-class issues. Now he must deliver on his progressive agenda when the city’s economy is slowing, the federal government is cutting the social safety net and the city’s budget gap i
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