Downtown Youth Are Faring Well by Multiple Metrics
A statistical and demographic analysis compiled by the Citizens’ Committee for Children of New York (CCC) indicates that Lower Manhattan kids are, by multiple yardsticks, exceptionally fortunate.
The CCC, a nonprofit organization that provides aims to make New York a better place for its youngest residents, applied multiple metrics to this study and sorted the results according to New York’s 59 community districts. Lower Manhattan is defined as Community District 1 (CD1)—essentially, Manhattan south of Canal Street and the Brooklyn Bridge.
One criterion is the cost of childcare. While this expense is, in absolute terms, likely as pricey in CD1 as anywhere in the five boroughs, the report found that CD1 and CD2 (Soho and the West Village) have more affordable childcare than any other community when compared to the earnings of parents. Lower Manhattan parents pay 4.5 percent of their income (or an average of $20,176) for this service, compared to the citywide average of 22.9 percent. (The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services defines affordable child care as costing seven percent of a family’s income, a benchmark that 76.9 percent of local households met.)
The same analysis documents that there were 87 child abuse and neglect investigations in CD1 during 2022 (the last year for which statistics are available), the second-fewest of any community in New York. In the prior year, only one local child was placed in foster care, and in 2020, there were zero births to mothers younger than 20 years old.
Through 2021, the rate of “teen idleness” (defined as residents aged 16 to 19 who are not in school and not in the labor force) was 2.2 percent. The related metric of “disconnected youth” (which refers to residents aged 16 to 24 who are not in school and not working) was quantified at 3.3 percent (the lowest anywhere in New York City).