The Middle Class is Missing (New York)

Saturday, July 8, 2006

Brookings

Alan Berube

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Increasingly in N.Y., there are rich and poor—and nothing in between.

When most people think of “Middle America,” New York City isn’t the first place that springs to mind.

That’s due to the city’s mammoth size, its coastal location or its status as “blue” America’s cultural capital.

Now, New York’s economic middle also has gone missing.

According to a new study published by the Brookings Institution, only 16% of the city’s families have a “middle” income. That is, just one in six earned an income that came within 20% of the city’s median, or typical, family income in 2000 (about $42,000)—one of the lowest rates in the nation.

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