As cost of living in NYC rises, fewer young Long Islanders may be moving to the city 

In high school, Justin Wooster played the landlord “Benny” in Great Neck North’s production of the musical “Rent.”

But starting in June, he found himself playing the real-life role of tenant in Brooklyn and couldn't afford the $1,400 rent, despite three part-time jobs that included tutoring and walking dogs, and his parents' help. 

Now he finds himself back on Long Island. Since just before Christmas, he's been living with his parents in his childhood bedroom and commuting into the city.

The role-reversing irony isn’t lost on Wooster, 24. 

“Most of the opportunity and most of my friends are in the city, so, like I would love to move to the city, but I mean, it’s so expensive. You’re paying a lot for very little space,” said Wooster, who’s in acting school in Manhattan. He added: “The commute is a pain in the ---, but it saves a lot of money.”

Moving from Long Island to New York City has long has been a rite of passage for generations of suburban kids transitioning into young adulthood. But as costs rise, young people face new challenges. The face of New York City is getting older and wealthier, according to a report from state Comptroller Tom DiNapoli. 

“In the pandemic’s wake, we see an altered population and it raises long-standing concerns about the cost of living, the growing wealth gap, the need to preserve a strong middle class, and the challenges of serving an aging population, while ensuring that families are able to raise their children here,” DiNapoli said in the report, issued earlier this month. “We need the city to remain competitive on the world stage and a place where people want to move, put down roots and thrive.”

That comes after the rite of passage of moving into the city was slowed during the coronavirus pandemic as fewer people relocated to a shuttered city, which had been the epicenter of the pandemic.

Now, as 2023 comes to a close, statistics show that every borough lost population, DiNapoli’s report found, including Brooklyn, where Wooster had moved in with roommates.

The experience of three Great Neck twentysomething contemporaries — Wooster, Lynda Bigio and Freddy Sion — helps tell the story of who is and who isn’t moving to New York City from the suburbs, as the city becomes more expensive.

Bigio, a law student in lower Manhattan, never moved out, for several reasons -- the sky-high cost of living in New York City being the main reason.

She said she “didn’t want to hold my parents responsible for paying crazy NYC rent, especially post-COVID with how expensive the market has been,” said Bigio, 22.

Andrew A. Beveridge, an emeritus professor of sociology at Queens College, said that higher rents tended to discourage young people from moving into the city.

“The long-term pattern always has been that younger people come into New York, they build up their social capital, their career, whatever, some of them stay, but a lot of them leave,” said Beveridge, who is now president of SocialExplorer.com, a demographic analysis company.

Long Island had long been the number-one source of young New York City residents.

“Particularly from Long Island, they used to pile in,” he said.

He said he hadn’t done that analysis in at least a decade.

DiNapoli’s report found that the cost of living went up as the pandemic receded, meaning the city was more expensive.

And the median wage of those who left the city last year was $49,000, 18% less than those who left the year before. His report also found that from 2019 to 2021, the rate of households making over $100,000 went down, to 35%, for the first time in over a decade.

But in 2022, as the pandemic crested, “that statistic rebounded to a record high of 39%.”

“In addition, the median wage of those who moved into the city that year was $51,000, which was 13.3% more than in 2021,” the report found.

About 5.3% fewer people are in New York City after the pandemic, comparing 2020 with 2022 — 8.3 million people in 2022, compared to 8.8 million before the pandemic. That's 6.3% fewer in the Bronx, 5.3% fewer in Brooklyn, 5.8% fewer in Manhattan, 5.3% fewer in Queens, and 0.9% fewer on Staten Island.

The city is increasingly populated by those who earn a relatively high wage. 

Take Sion, 22, a software engineer with Amazon who makes close to $180,000 a year. He lives on the border of Astoria and Long Island City, Queens, enjoying restaurants and friends and an easy commute.

He lives alone in a one-bedroom walk-up — five flights of stairs — paying $1,850 a month. He moved in July. 

“The last thing I would want to do is move back home. Having to live with my parents on LI would be really stunting to my growth and just a letdown,” he said. His parents live in Great Neck.

Still, his life isn’t fully off Long Island.

“Since my parents are close by, I am expected to visit almost every weekend, which causes some extra stress,” he said.

And with the commute, he said, “it’s draining to make that every weekend.”

By Matthew Chayes

matthew.chayes@newsday.comchayesmatthew

Matthew Chayes, a Newsday reporter since 2007, covers New York City.