Help Me Out on New York City Rents

I need some help here from New York City natives. Here are a few average rents for one-bedroom apartments recorded in a 1993 New York Times article:

At the Windsor Court, a 700-unit building at 155 East 31st Street, a one-bedroom unit that rented for…$1,650 in 1993, an 8 percent rise….At the Normandie Court at 225 East 95th Street, rents were…$1,465 in 1993….On the West Side, at 30 Lincoln Plaza, a large building near Lincoln Center, a one-bedroom rose…to $1,675.

Here’s a map from Zumper that alleges to show median rents for one-bedroom apartments today:

According to the Census Bureau, the median household income in the Northeast has increased from $33,747 in 1993 to about $68,000 today. Plugging in the 1993 and 2019 rent numbers produces this:

This is only three data points, and rents can vary within the boundaries of large neighborhoods, so this could be off by a few percentage points here and there. Generally speaking, however, it suggests that rent as a percentage of income has either stayed flat or maybe decreased a bit over the past 25 years in Manhattan.

Are there any problems with this data? Is Zumper full of shit? Is rent control too prevalent to provide an accurate picture of market rents? Or is this a reasonable snapshot of Manhattan apartments in 1993 and 2019?

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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