Fewer than 40% of New Yorkers earn a living wage
The issue with these assessments of living wage in NY is that, if you&#x27;re poor and desperate, there are many ways to &quot;live&quot; that, while not particularly desirable to most people, are certainly <i>available</i>. This is true both on the &quot;cost&quot; side (i.e. expenses related to food and housing) and on the &quot;income&quot; side (reported wages).<p>There is a large, technically illegal, economy to NYC which doesn&#x27;t appear in W-2s, 1099s or self-reported census income, that most people outside of it generally aren&#x27;t aware of. I&#x27;m not saying that the situation is good, but &quot;60% of New Yorkers are not earning a living wage&quot; is inaccurate. The existence of this grey economy makes it very difficult to measure income and expenses for a large proportion of New Yorkers.<p>[edit]: As an example, I have a friend who grew up in a working class family in south Brooklyn. His mother&#x27;s job was &quot;on the books&quot; and his father&#x27;s construction work was completely off-the-books, paid in cash. Everybody in the family was very aware of the amount of money you could deposit in a bank account, in a given time period, without attracting IRS attention.<p>Recently, they bought a building in Brooklyn for a low million dollar figure, after pooling together informal loans from family members and friends. But their household was probably below the &quot;living&quot; wage, from the point of view of this data set, for the past 25 years.