New York City’s Results-Driven Approach to Combating Poverty and Inequality
In 2014, Mayor Bill de Blasio entered office with inequality as the defining core of his agenda. Across the new administration, New York City agencies organized with this priority in mind. New York City’s Center for Economic Opportunity (CEO), established under Mayor Mike Bloomberg in 2006 as the first municipal innovation lab in the United States, was initially charged with launching and evaluating new anti-poverty pilot programs to identify effective solutions; its mandate also included constructing superior methodologies for accurately measuring poverty. With an entire administration oriented to consider economic disparities, New York City now needed to consider how CEO could evolve.