The Post-Pandemic Future of NYC Through the Eyes of Low-Income New Yorkers
Irene Lew
Eighteen months since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, New York City is slowly rebounding from the economic devastation. While the city’s current unemployment rate of 10.5 percent[1] is down from the May 2020 peak of 20 percent, it’s still twice the national average of 5.4 percent, and the city has gained back fewer than half the jobs it lost since February 2020. Furthermore, the city continues to experience a steady rise in coronavirus cases fueled by the highly contagious delta variant, and vaccination rates remain too low to prevent community spread. Many tenants continue to struggle with unpaid rent, owing an estimated total debt of $2.2 billion citywide.[2] While the $2.7 billion federally-funded Emergency Rental Assistance Program (ERAP) was designed to provide relief to tenants who have fallen behind on their rent, the program has distributed aid to less than 5 percent of applicants since it launched in June.[3]
Against this backdrop, it is important for policymakers to understand how the COVID-19 pandemic has shaped low-income New Yorkers’ perceptions of their long-term future in the city. Earlier posts from our special 2020 Unheard Third[4] blog series, Roadmap to an Inclusive Recovery: Assessing COVID-19’s Impact on Low-Income New Yorkers, showed that low-income New Yorkers[5] and people of color have suffered the brunt of the economic and public health toll of the pandemic in terms of lost jobs, housing instability, and COVID-19 infection rates. This brief, as part of the series, highlights low-income New Yorkers’ priorities for the city’s elected officials based on data from our 2020 survey, as well as their concerns around the pandemic’s long-term impact on the city and on their families.[6]
Key findings:
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Regardless of income, the pandemic ranked as the top concern for New Yorkers, followed by the economy and affordable housing.
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Eight out of every 10 New Yorkers viewed the pandemic as a long-term setback for the city and this perception was consistent across incomes.
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Low-income New Yorkers have an especially bleak outlook when it comes to the pandemic and their household finances: 63 percent considered the pandemic to be a long-term setback to their family’s income compared to 45 percent of moderate to higher-income New Yorkers.
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Learning loss is a concern for a majority of low-income families: nearly 70 percent of respondents with children viewed the pandemic as a setback to their child’s education.
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Across incomes, most New Yorkers haven’t considered a permanent move out of New York City due to the pandemic, but young New Yorkers, Latinx New Yorkers, and families with children are more likely to say they’ve considered moving out of the city permanently.
Addressing COVID-19 is the top priority for New Yorkers across incomes.
Regardless of income, the pandemic ranked as the top concern for New Yorkers, followed by the economy and affordable housing. Among low-income New Yorkers, 26 percent said that COVID-19 was the top priority for the city’s elected officials to address, a slightly higher share than among those with moderate to higher incomes. The economy ranked as the second highest concern among both low-income and moderate- to higher-income New Yorkers, followed by affordable housing and homelessness in third place. These rankings reflect the convergence of three crises during COVID-19—public health, job loss, and housing affordability. Meanwhile, low-income New Yorkers were less likely to cite issues like law and order, public safety, and policing as their major priorities for the city’s elected leaders in 2020.
Eight out of every 10 New Yorkers viewed the pandemic as a long-term setback for the city and this perception was consistent across incomes. But low-income New Yorkers have an especially bleak outlook when it comes to the pandemic and their household finances.
Nearly two-thirds of low-income New Yorkers considered the pandemic to be a long-term setback to their family’s income, compared to 45 percent of those with moderate to higher incomes. This grim assessment is unsurprising given that low-income New Yorkers, especially those with children, were hit hardest by pandemic-related job loss. Nearly 60 percent of low-income respondents with children said that they experienced temporary or permanent loss of employment since the start of the pandemic, compared to 44 percent of those who had moderate to higher incomes (data not shown).
Among families with children, nearly three-quarters of those with low incomes reported that the pandemic would be a long-term setback to their family income, compared to 52 percent of those with moderate to higher incomes. Furthermore, nearly 70 percent of low-income respondents with children viewed the pandemic as a setback to their child’s education, in contrast to 61 percent of higher-income families. With the shift to remote schooling, the pandemic has deepened the "digital divide."[7]
Across incomes, most New Yorkers said that they haven’t considered a permanent move out of New York City due to the pandemic, but young New Yorkers, Latinx New Yorkers, and families with children are more likely to say they’ve considered moving permanently.
Throughout the pandemic, the media has highlighted the wave of people fleeing New York City for the outlying suburbs and other states, especially more affluent residents.[8] Apprehension about this perceived migration reached a crescendo as Governor Cuomo and the state legislature debated—and ultimately succeeded in—raising personal income taxes on millionaires. The opponents were concerned that such proposals would encourage the super-rich to leave the state permanently.[9] But evidence from previous rounds of tax increases, both here in New York as well as in other states, provides little basis for such fears.[10] In line with existing evidence, data from the 2020 Unheard Third shows that the majority of New Yorkers across incomes have not considered a permanent move out of New York City due to the pandemic and the current economic conditions.
However, there are notable exceptions to these attitudes toward mobility, with young New Yorkers under the age of 35 and Latina/o/x New Yorkers most likely to say that they had considered moving out of the city due to the pandemic and the current economic conditions. Nearly a third (32 percent) of New Yorkers under the age of 35 and a similar share of Latina/o/x New Yorkers (31 percent) considered a permanent move out of New York City. As we noted in an earlier post, these were the same groups that had been disproportionately impacted by COVID-19-related job and income loss. In addition to higher rates of job and wage loss, Latina/o/x New Yorkers experienced elevated rates of rent shortfalls and have also borne the brunt of the pandemic’s public health consequences. We can assume that grappling with the fallout of the pandemic has made New York City seem a less desirable place for young adults and Latina/o/x residents to continue living in.
Among families with children, 36 percent of respondents seriously considered permanently moving out of the city, double the share of those without children. But those with moderate to higher incomes, who were less impacted by COVID-19-related job loss, account for the majority of families who have considered a permanent move out of the city. Nearly 40 percent of moderate- to higher-income respondents with children said that they were somewhat or very likely to consider permanently moving out of New York City, compared to less than a third of low-income families.
Conclusion
Concerns around public safety and rising gun violence in the city have received plenty of media coverage in recent months, with these issues serving as the centerpiece of the campaign of Eric Adams, the Democratic nominee for mayor. However, as we look ahead to the next mayoral term, our Unheard Third data shows that New Yorkers prioritized other issues for the city’s elected leaders to focus on: slowing the spread of COVID-19, bringing back jobs, and improving access to affordable housing.
With pandemic-related job loss leading to increased housing insecurity and eviction risk, the next mayoral administration should prioritize the expansion of Right to Counsel, expand affordable housing options for extremely low-income and very low-income households, and develop a plan to fast-track the conversion of financially distressed hotels and office buildings into permanent affordable and supportive housing. To encourage young people and families with children to stay—and thrive—in the city, we must invest in more pathways to higher education and training that leads to better-paying jobs, including work-based learning opportunities like paid internships for all high school students who want them. As the city continues to recover, public transit will play a key role in connecting low-income New Yorkers to jobs and educational opportunities, and the city should increase funding for Fair Fares and expand the program to other groups in need.
The pessimism that so many low-income New Yorkers and New Yorkers of color have about the pandemic’s impact on the city’s future and on their families highlight the continuing need for the next mayoral administration to target aid and recovery efforts that reach a larger share of our most vulnerable New Yorkers. The next mayor will have to take an inclusive and comprehensive approach to governing the city while inheriting an economy that still has a long way to go toward full recovery.
1. As of July 2021
2. As of July 2021. Based on National Equity Atlas’s Rent Debt Dashboard, accessed here.
3. Governor Kathy Hochul signed into law an extension of New York State’s COVID-related eviction moratorium until January 15, 2022. The new law also provides additional funding to speed up the disbursement of rent relief through the ERAP program.
4. The 2020 Unheard Third survey was designed in collaboration with Lake Research Partners, who administered the survey by phone using professional interviewers. It was conducted from July 7 through August 4, 2020, and reached a total of 1,632 New York City residents, ages 18 or older. The sample included 1,002 low-income residents (up to 200% of federal poverty standards, or FPL), and 630 moderate- and higher-income residents (above 200% FPL). The margin of error for the entire survey is +/- 2.42%, for the low-income component is +/- 3.09%, and for the higher income component is +/- 3.9%, all at the 95% confidence interval.
5. Low-income refers to those with household income at or below 200 percent of the federal poverty level. For more information about the federal poverty thresholds, see: https://aspe.hhs.gov/topics/poverty-economic-mobility/poverty-guidelines/prior-hhs-poverty-guidelines-federal-register-references/2020-poverty-guidelines
6. The 2021 Unheard Third data will be available shortly and CSS will have updated data on New Yorkers’ opinions of pandemic impacts.
7. The digital divide refers to disparities in access to digital devices and affordable, high-speed Internet. See: https://cccnewyork.org/data-publications/new-york-citys-digital-divide-500000-nyc-households-have-no-internet-access-when-it-is-more-important-than-ever-before/
8. See: Paybarah, Azi, Matthew Bloch and Scott Reinhard. The New York Times. “Where New Yorkers Moved to Escape Coronavirus” https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/05/16/nyregion/nyc-coronavirus-moving-leaving.html. May 16, 2020.
9. Quealy, Kevin. The New York Times. “The Richest Neighborhoods Emptied Out Most as Coronavirus Hit New York City.” https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/05/15/upshot/who-left-new-york-coronavirus.html. May 15, 2020.
10. For months, a statewide coalition of activists, Invest in Our NY, of which CSS is a member, pushed for a number of new taxes on the superrich in order to support the most vulnerable New Yorkers in the aftermath of the pandemic.