HOMELESS INCREASE BY FIFTY PERCENT
"Straining against the tide of record levels of homelessness in New York, the Bloomberg administration is trying a variety of new approaches to address the problem, many significantly different from those the city has followed for two decades.

In the past few years, the number of homeless families in the shelter system has risen significantly; more than 9,000 families are in need of shelter each night, an increase of almost 50 percent since 2001.
NY Times

FIFTY PERCENT UNEMPLOYMENT
...just 51.8 percent of black men ages 16 to 64 held jobs in New York City in 2003. The rate for white men was 75.7 percent; for Hispanic men, 65.7; and for black women, 57.1. The employment-population ratio for black men was the lowest for the period Mr. Levitan has studied, which goes back to 1979.

"We're left with a very big question,'' Mr. Levitan, a senior policy analyst with the society, said in an interview. "As the economy recovers, will we see a rise in employment among black men in tandem with the rise in employment of city residents generally? In other words, is this fundamentally a cyclical problem or is it more deeply structural? I fear that it is more deeply structural."