Report Funded by Helmsley Charitable Trust Looks at Human Well-Being in NYC
New Yorkers on average are faring better than Americans as a whole on key barometers of human well-being, yet deep and persistent disparities divide the city’s diverse population. This is among the key findings of A Portrait of New York City 2018, a new, comprehensive report from Measure of America (MOA), a program of the Social Science Research Council (SSRC).
The report presents the American Human Development Index, which combines health, education, and earnings data from the U.S. Census Bureau and state and city health departments into a single well-being score. This approach to analyzing human well-being goes beyond economic data, encompassing life expectancy, living standards, overall health, education levels, access to knowledge, and more.
“A Portrait of New York City was created to inform the public debate and the decisions and policies of civic leaders, policymakers, scholars, and community members across the metro area,” said Sarah Burd-Sharps, co-author of the report and co-director of Measure of America. “Last fall we published a similar report, A Portrait of Los Angeles County, and have seen the important contribution its findings are making towards greater equity and more evidence-based policymaking in the LA area. Likewise, our goal is to have a significant impact here in the city in which we live and work.”
The report offers Index scores for tri-state area cities and towns and for NYC neighborhood clusters, as well as by race and ethnicity, gender, and nativity, enabling side-by-side comparisons of the advantages and challenges facing residents of the New York-New Jersey-Connecticut metro area...