US shutdown: New York City is home to 384,500 millionaires but one in four residents live in poverty

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North America

Trump's America

Opinion

Liz Gooch Journalist November 13, 2025 — 12.00pm

On a cold autumn morning last week, a security guard outside a food bank in the New York neighbourhood of Harlem was dealing with a steady stream of people. A friend and I had come to this branch of the city’s largest hunger relief organisation, the Food Bank for NYC, to drop off donations our kids had collected for a school community service project.

As we unpacked bags of soap, shampoo and toothbrushes, a woman with salt-and-pepper hair knocked on the window. “Can you help me?” she asked. “What exactly is being done for people who didn’t get their food stamps?”

During the federal government shutdown, 42 million Americans who rely on the country’s largest food assistance program have