New York City sits at the center of an extraordinary economic contradiction: it is home to one of the greatest concentrations of private wealth anywhere on Earth, while millions of ordinary New Yorkers live in a city where incomes have struggled to keep pace with the cost of everyday life.

The latest available World’s Wealthiest Cities ranking from Henley & Partners and New World Wealth placed New York at No. 1, with an estimated 384,500 resident millionaires, 818 centi-millionaires—people with at least $100 million in liquid investable wealth—and 66 billionaires. The number of millionaires living in the city increased an estimated 45% over the decade ending in 2024.

Those numbers put New York ahead of other major global wealth centers including the San Francisco Bay Area, Tokyo, Singapore, Los Angeles and London under Henley’s methodology. The Bay Area actually had more billionaires—82 compared with New York's 66—but New York maintained the largest overall population of millionaires in the ranking.

Yet a separate report released Sept. 2 by the New York City Comptroller's Office shows how differently the city's economy has performed depending on where a resident falls on the income ladder.

Between 2019 and 2024, nearly two-thirds of New York City's real income growth went to the top 1% of earners. Meanwhile, average real income for the bottom 90% declined slightly.

New York isn't simply an extremely wealthy city.

It is an extremely wealthy city in which that wealth is increasingly concentrated near the top.

The Top 1% Captured Nearly Two-Thirds of Income Growth

The Comptroller's analysis found that the top 1% of New York City tax units received 37.4% of all city income in 2024, compared with 22.4% nationally.

The divide becomes even more pronounced at the very top. The wealthiest 0.1% received 22.1% of all income in New York City—nearly twice the 11.3% national share.

Income growth was similarly concentrated.

From 2019 through 2024, the top 1% captured 63.7% of New York City's total real income growth. The top 0.1% alone accounted for 53.1%, while the extraordinarily small top 0.01% captured 40.7% of the growth.

The experience was substantially different for everyone else.

Real median income in the city fell 3.2% between 2019 and 2024 after accounting for inflation. Average real income for the bottom 90% declined 0.8%, meaning that despite rising nominal paychecks, purchasing power for most of the city's income distribution made essentially no progress over the five-year period.

That is particularly significant in New York because residents aren't paying average American prices.

New Yorkers Pay More While Most Earners Lag Behind

The Bureau of Economic Analysis estimates cited by the Comptroller's Office put prices in the New York City metropolitan area 12.6% above the national average.

At the same time, the average income among the bottom 90% of New York City tax units was approximately $44,500 in 2024—9% below the roughly $49,000 average for the bottom 90% nationally.

Put those two factors together and the disparity becomes considerably larger.

After adjusting for regional prices, the Comptroller's analysis estimated that the purchasing power of the average income among the bottom 90% of New York City families was approximately 19% below the national average for the same group, before accounting for government taxes, transfers and subsidies.

In other words, most New Yorkers weren't simply earning less than their counterparts elsewhere in the country on average. They were doing so while living in one of America's most expensive metropolitan areas.

Where New York’s Enormous Wealth Comes From

New York's position as a global wealth center has been built over generations.

Wall Street and the broader financial-services industry remain central to the city's economy, while New York also serves as a major center for real estate, technology, law, media, entertainment and international business. Its combination of financial markets, expensive property and global investment has helped make the region a magnet for extremely wealthy residents.

The Comptroller's latest analysis also helps explain why income at the top has expanded so much faster than income for much of the rest of the city.

It isn't simply about salaries.

Non-wage income—including capital gains, dividends, interest, business income and rents—has become an increasingly important source of money for New York's highest earners. Among the top 1%, non-wage sources accounted for 69% of total income in 2024, up from 64% in 2019.

That means a booming stock market, rising asset values or successful investments can produce enormous income gains for households that own substantial assets, even when ordinary wages across the broader population aren't experiencing anything comparable.

The numbers therefore describe two versions of the same New York economy.

One is a global capital center with hundreds of thousands of millionaires and a concentration of wealth few cities can match.

The other is a city where the typical resident's inflation-adjusted income has lost ground and where high prices make the gap between New Yorkers and their counterparts elsewhere even larger.

New York can legitimately claim the title of the world's wealthiest city under Henley & Partners' millionaire-based ranking.

The more complicated question is how much of that extraordinary prosperity reaches the people who actually live there.

The latest income data suggest the answer depends heavily on which New Yorker you ask.