The Free Market Does Not Work Without Moral Restraints

The housing and labor markets in New York city do not work to sustain the lives of the citizens who live here. Case in point, from the front page of NYC's Partnership for the Homeless website:

On August 28, 2009, there were over 37,000 people--including over 9,000 families and over 16,000 children--in New York City shelters.

At the heart of our city's epidemic of homelessness is a shortage of affordable housing and living-wage jobs.

* City-wide, the average asking rental price has risen to about $2,700 a month.1
* New York City started the 90's with some 925,000 units of low-cost ($500 or less per month) housing; it ended the decade with less than half that number.2
* One out of three New York households pays more than 30 percent of its income for rent, the current Federal measure of housing affordability. One out of four pays more than fifty percent.3
* The "housing wage" for New York metro area (the minimal wage a family needs to afford a two bedroom at a fair market rate) is $25.35 an hour.4 The current minimum wage in New York is $7.25 per hour.

1 "What You Need to Know Before You Rent" Elizabeth A. Harris. The New York Times. August 22, 2008.
2 "The Housing Data Deficit: Why We Need a NYC Housing Census"; George Locker and Leonard Rodberg; The Five Borough Institute; November 2002.
3 Ibid.
4 "Out of Reach 2007-2008" National Low Income Housing Coalition.