So, here's the macro thing:

If you made $30 an hour in NYC and lived in Ashville N.C. (picked at random), then you'd be (relatively) stellar. But if you did the same in NYC and so did everyone else, you still couldn't afford to go to a Broadway show or eat at a restaurant because all the prices would tend to increase to cover the business's labor overhead.

While there are neighborhoods in NYC where every occupant is aa millionaire (and the local cost of living reflects that), there are large swaths of the city where things are affordable.

That said:
2025 US poverty thresholds
One person: $15,650
Two people: $21,150
Three people: $26,650
Four people: $32,150

So you are asking if it is easy for a family of three at the poverty level to live in NYC (presumably without any form of public assistance) and the answer is that it is tough - but then it would be tough anywhere in the US for a person living in/or near the poverty level to live at a "middle class" standard of living.

We live in a unique era in the US. Our poor tend to have a far better standard of living than the poor in most of the world's other countries. Our poor have TV's, food assistance, medical assistance, internet connections, free decent education and frequently a car.

On the other hand, the middle class in those countries can generally afford servants (which are paid "working class wages".

NYC's infrastructure is far more expensive than that of most cities. It has an extensive mass-transit system, underground sewer system, fresh water piped from mountain stream-fed reservoirs hundreds of miles to the north, thousands of miles of paved roads, bridges, an army of policemen, firemen, sanitation workers and so on. This requires substantial tax revenue which, among other costs, raises the cost of rent. So, yes, NYC is expensive. When I sold my business 14 years ago, no employee of mine made less than $15 an hour (which, frankly, caused me to replace some of the ones lowest on the totem pole, who I deemed wee not suitable for reassignment to more useful positions, with cheaper technology-based alternatives - with the rationalization that I was running a profit-oriented business, not a charity).

So, yes, living in NYC has trade-offs - it tends to be more expensive than elsewhere in the US, but compensates with better services.

Jeff