When Wecker complained that wouldn't be enough once he found an apartment, the city said it would go as high as $1,070 a month for the rental of his choice web design. But he insists he needs over $1,200 a month to get the apartment he wants -- a one- or two-bedroom in the Sheepshead Bay section of Brooklyn, preferably with an elevator since he has trouble walking up stairs.

He also collects $1,226 a month in federal Social Security disability payments and a small monthly allotment of food stamps that he says isn't enough to feed himself properly.

Wecker is part of a wave of benefit seekers who have arrived in the city since the Great Recession hit, social experts say. As middle-class residents flee because of high taxes cheap web hosting, the poor and disabled look to New York to access some of the best taxpayer-funded social services in the nation.

The state and city have long been what some economists call a "welfare magnet." In particular, New York City offers better housing and Medicaid options than much of the rest of the country home based business
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"That will draw people, and there has been a pattern in the past in the US of migrating for higher benefits," said Robert Rector, a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation search engine optimization.