BLUE CITY BLUES: Inflation in NY outpaces national figures. It’s the rent, tuition, child care…

Bruce Bergman, an economist at the bureau, said the Consumer Price Index for the New York City area was up 3.2%, compared to the national figure of 2.7%. He attributed the increase in large part to the rise in rent, which is up 4.7% in New York and the region compared to 3.9% nationally.

But Bergman said the cost of living in the city, although higher than the national average, has eased somewhat from the steep rates of change in recent years, when it was as high as 6% in 2022 and over 4% through much of last year.

“ Recently we have seen those shelter numbers come down a bit,” Bergman said of local housing costs, “but we’re still at a point where it’s still elevated compared to where it was prior to COVID.”

Don’t worry, front-running Democratic mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani has a plan to make things so much worse.