New York City has always had a higher cost of living than average, but I think the biggest problem with NYC is that while you can most of the time expect a marginally higher salary than the country average, the salary is not quite high enough to balance out the cost of living. Just marginally.

BUT, that made it doable. It just meant that (for middle class and below) some many have to live paycheck-paycheck, and those with surplus every month won't have as much surplus as they would in other places outside of NYC.

Compare this to San Francisco for example, where the cost of living is ludicrous in comparison, but so are the wages, so it balances out a little better.

Today, NYC has hit its highest peak of cost of living (ranking number 1 as the most expensive city in the world). This is all thanks to inflation, which has hit the entire country. But unlike the rest of the country, people in NYC didn't have as much surplus per month before the inflation. Now they have none.