Sign New York Banking Living Will Mobile

Industry sign banking new york living will mobile

new york's one percent is fleeing the city and their departure could have dire consequences for the economic ecosystem already struggling on account of the coronavirus joining us with more is ben steverman who covers wealth taxes and inequality for bloomberg news ben tell us um is this mostly to do with covet 19 and where are they going yes so i think a lot of it has to do exactly with the pandemic i mean in march and april when new york was this hot spot for the for the virus um a lot of people who had houses outside the city left they got out of town some of the wealthy people the top one percent have come back but then they've left again and they've gone down to florida just to homes down there and other warm warmer weather places i mean for the longest time for years um there's been a thing where rich people will leave new york and move to low tax states like new york like florida and texas have no state income tax and um new york not only has a state income tax it has a city income tax and so it's much it's always been much cheaper to live elsewhere in the united states but people have been staying in new york wealthy people have stayed in new york because they want to live here and and it's just gotten a much less attractive place to be wow so you know i have to say i was struck by a number in your story the top one percent of new yorkers pay more than 40 percent of total taxes so this must have an impact on schools and transportation yeah i mean so much of the city revenue and so much of the city economy is based on this top one percent i mean you have basically 30 000 families in a in a city of 8 million people 30 000 people who earn more than a million dollars you know it's billions 130 billion dollars of income that these people are bringing into the city and they're spending it and they're going to cultural institutions and they're donating money spending big big money on tickets and restaurants and all that is just a huge engine economically for the city and this is so much more than a story about wealthy people escaping a pandemic i mean this is a tale of inequality and so who and what is left behind when rich people flee the city and they take their money with them i mean what does this mean for the average new yorker who does not want to leave new york yeah i mean you really have a situation where there's so many working class and middle class new yorkers who are earning just barely getting by and paying a lot on rent and first of all a lot of the people have lost their jobs another thing is that you know this city services are so dependent on um revenue from wealthy people paying taxes that you really worry about a decline in city services whether it's transit parks safety cleanliness um you know there could be a range of cuts that the city and state will have to make and services and so you worry about sort of a downward spiral in in the city where people just don't want to be here anymore well that makes a lot of sense because as we know the mta is already facing a huge hit i did some extensive reporting on that for bloomberg radio but i also want to note that this is not just about economics it's as much about economics as it is about new york city's culture i wonder if we're going to see new york city's culture change the theaters the met gala what can we expect there and and would this mean that these staples that aren't that accessible to the average person may become more accessible yeah i mean i think it would be lovely if if all of a sudden you know you know without rich people new york became just a cheaper place easier to find you know easier to get into a broadway show easier to get into into events but i think actually what's going to happen is that a lot of the funding for these arts organizations comes from wealthy people and they end up subsidizing culture for the rest rest of new yorkers so you have so many small theater companies that are really going to be struggling if they don't have wealthy people showing up and paying full price for tickets um and you have these cultural institutions that really don't rely on um wealthy people to to to you know to pay their freight um and and that i think the the the the other thing is that a lot of the uh employees in you know in the cultural industry in the restaurant industry a lot of creative people really depend on that kind of patronage as well and a lot of those people might have to leave if they if if they don't have that source of income wow so a lot of this as you say a lot of people may have to leave but hopefully this is not forever and when do you think people will eventually make their way back to new york and what may bring them back what may be the thing to bring that back yeah well we had some great news about this vaccine that seems to be effective and if we can get a vaccine and we can get to the other side of this and things like broadway reopen um and cultural events reopen you know a lot of rich people really want to be where the action is they want to be with other wealthy rich wealthy people so a lot of them could come rushing back the other thing is that new york state and new york tax enforcement forces are not going to take this lying down they have a very strict rules about when you when you have to pay income tax and it's not as simple as just saying oh i'm spending you know 2021 or 2020 in florida i don't have to pay income taxes in new york you really have to cut ties with the state in a permanent way and you know unless you do that you have to pay your taxes wow well ben thank you so much for joining us it'll be interesting to see this wave and how how it ebbs and flows so we really appreciate you coming on the biggest story is the moment they happen from around the globe subscribe to bloomer quick take now for insight in an instant