The city has yet to recover all the 436,000 jobs it lost in the last recession and its 10 percent unemployment rate is twice the national average. While tight labor markets in urban areas across the country may provide a honeymoon for welfare reform, the outlook for New York City is not nearly so promising. As Figure 1 makes clear, New York City's poverty rate, at 26.5 percent, towers over the national average of 13.8 percent. Moreover, the difference between the city and the nation is getting larger. The poverty rate for New York City's minorities is over three times that for Whites.
Children are poor.
The poverty rate for New Yorkers below the age of 18 was 41.8 percent. Income is another important measure of economic well-being. The difference, moreover, between family incomes of the city's minority and White families remains enormous. In 1995, Black median family income was only 50.8 percent of White median family income. Hispanic median family income was a mere 40.7 percent of White median family income.