Is New York Still a ‘Tale of Two Cities’?

Checking in on Bill de Blasio’s pledge to improve inequality, eight years later.

In his final weeks in office, Mayor Bill de Blasio has sought to cement his legacy, arguing that he has accomplished what he set out to do when he first ran for mayor in 2013: reduce inequality in New York City.

There is some evidence to support this. His signature accomplishment, creating a prekindergarten-for-all program, set the stage for a “3K-for-all” expansion in 2017. Currently, about 96,000 children are enrolled in both programs. The mayor has also pointed to the city’s poverty rate, which fell before the pandemic to roughly 18 percent in 2019, from 20.5 percent in 2013.

“We know there was a huge transfer of wealth,” Mr. de Blasio recently told reporters. “I’m a believer in redistribution of wealth. It happened to the tune of tens of billions of dollars.”