New York City in brief

New York City’s Council is mulling a $30-an-hour minimum wage—some $62,000 a year—sparking both uplift and uproar on cue. With one million on the lowest rung and CEO Tom Grech warning that small firms “can’t stand” the plan, we await the mayor’s stance and the city’s legal authority. As ever, the Big Apple peels its affordability crisis layer by expensive layer.

New York’s legislature has proposed $250 million for the Housing Access Voucher Program, up from last year’s $50 million pilot, aiming to check an eviction wave that threatens over 8% of Bronx households and rising numbers elsewhere. With 91% public backing and 90,000 people nightly in city shelters, lawmakers tout vouchers as a rare policy uniting fiscal sense with heartstrings—enough, one hopes, to open more doors than debates.

Wall Street opened in a funk as the Dow Jones shed nearly 300 points and oil prices sailed past $100 a barrel, thanks to renewed Middle East tensions. Persistent inflation, sticky-high Federal Reserve interest rates, and expensive energy continue to bruise Americans’ budgets while dashing hope for early rate cuts. For households and investors alike, cautious belt-tightening is back in fashion—a look that, sadly, never quite seems to go out of style.

Despite New York City’s lavish social welfare outlays and the nation’s heftiest taxes, a Robin Hood–Columbia University report finds city poverty at 26%, twice the U.S. average and up by 200,000 since 2022—even as inflation cools. With 450,000 children poor and a declining population offset by incoming migrants, we see that solving poverty might cost rather more than spending ever implied.

A new bill from Representative Don Beyer proposes cutting federal income tax for American workers earning less than $80,500, with those under $46,000 paying nothing at all and potential annual savings reaching $2,800. The scheme funds itself by raising taxes on those raking in over $1 million, a group historically adept at dodging fiscal rainstorms while the rest of us check for loose change under the sofa.