The Effects Of Poverty In New York City

There are so many people suffering in New York City and around the world because they are unable to afford basic necessities for themselves and their families; many are living well below the poverty level. This is because New York City has a major income gap, the biggest gap in any county in the United States (Roberts, 2014). Over the past twenty years, the income gap has just gone up and will continue to rise if we do not find out why it is happening and how to stop it. According to Roberts (2014), “The top 5 percent of households earned 864,394, or 88 times as much as the poorest 20 percent…” (pg.1). So what are the causes and effects of the income gap in New York City over the last twenty years between the richest five percent and the poorest

Jones, the president of the Community Service Society of New York, an antipoverty advocacy and research group. "We 're still seeing really high rates of unemployment, while jobs have been growing in an anemic way and the jobs that have been created are really low-wage." While Mr. Bloomberg has made reducing the poverty rate, now nearly 21 percent, a priority, administration officials acknowledged that the stagnant national economy had hurt the city…"As President Clinton recently said, 'The old economy is not coming back, ' and that 's why the mayor believes we need a new national approach to job creation and education, one that gives everyone a chance to rise up the economic ladder." (pg.1) Mayor Bloomberg is correct we do need a new approach to creating new jobs, education and it should be a plan that helps everyone not just the top one percent in the city. However, he is wrong when he believes that nation should be the ones implementing the plan. New York City has one of the highest poverty rates in the United States at twenty-one point two percent, six point nine percent higher than the national average of fourteen point three percent. As you can see, New York does not have time to wait around and see what national law is going to be passed to help get our city and millions of people out of poverty. If every mayor after Bloomberg thought they way he did, our city’s poverty and unemployment rate would continue to rise. Thankfully, not every mayor is the tenth richest person in the United State like Mayor Bloomberg, so his successor should be more concerned with the well being of the entire New York City and not just the top one percent that Mayor Bloomberg was mainly concerned about. His successor is Mayor de Blasio, who has already within one year started his #OneNYC campaign to help change our city for the better between the years of 2030-2050 through a number of