Just How Wide is New York City's Income Gap?

New York is a city that many love to hate, but it is not a place that can be ignored. It sets the global standard in many realms from culture to finance.

The old song claiming that 'if you can make it there, you can make it anywhere,' may have lost some of its luster, but given the global urbanization mega-trend, it has, to some degree, surpassed California as the place to watch.

So when New Yorkers overwhelmingly elected a new mayor to replace billionaire financier Michael Bloomberg, their choice of his polar opposite raised eyebrows. Bloomberg served three terms and was generally regarded as an efficient and innovative administrator. The city was well run, relatively corruption-free and had never looked better. Even the so-called outer boroughs like Queens gained some cache and Brooklyn became the new byword for urban hip.

But Bloomberg was a man of his class and vocation. What was good for Wall Street, he made clear, was good for The City. His soon-to-be former constituents, however, had the temerity to disagree. In electing Bill DiBlasio, a liberal social justice activist, a message was sent that may yet reverberate globally. The financialization of the economy, the unequal distribution of wealth and the apparent double standard for those with the connections and the income to make their own rules had apparently gone too far. At least for notoriously feisty New Yorkers who view no one as their better.

Whether that will now translate to London, Paris, Rio, Shanghai, Cairo and elsewhere remains to be seen. As the following article explains, however, the gap is much wider than generally acknowledged and will take some effort to close. The voters have spoken, but whether their choice will be able to overcome the lobbyists and those who fund them is by no means certain. JL

Tami Luhby reports in CNN/Money:

The rich are getting much richer.
Closing New York City's income gap is at the top of new Mayor Bill de Blasio's agenda.
In his inaugural address, the city's first Democratic mayor in two decades said: "We are called to put an end to economic and social inequalities that threaten to unravel the city we love."
But that will be a Herculean lift. A new report from the City University of New York's Graduate Center shows that the gap has become a canyon since 1990. Median income has soared for those at the top, but it has stagnated on the lower rungs.

The wealthy are also taking a larger piece of the income pie, while the middle class is losing ground and the poor are stuck in place.
In fact, the rich are the only ones who have seen their share of the city's income grow.

The report also found that whites control more than half the income in the city, though they make up just over one-third of the population.
Latinos and blacks lag behind in terms of income earned compared to their share of the population.

First up on the new mayor's agenda? Raising taxes on the rich to pay for early education and after-school programs. Economic mobility experts point to education as one way to narrow income inequality.