The nation’s economic collapse jolted many New Yorkers into financial distress, driving some into poverty and dependence on food stamps and unemployment benefits and even altering their living arrangements between 2007 and 2009, according to census data released Tuesday that offered the first extensive measure of how the city weathered the recession.

Although New York City has fared better than the country as a whole, recording smaller increases in poverty and smaller declines in household income, more subtle indicators, like the rise in the number of New Yorkers living in homes without kitchens, underscore the struggles confronting many.

The Census Bureau’s 2009 American Community Survey also found that from 2007 to 2009, the income of single people in the city shrank the most among New Yorkers; the poverty rate edged up among people 15 to 64 years old; both parents were in the work force more often; home values dipped; the share of renters increased compared with owners; more renters were paying over 35 percent of their income on housing; and a smaller share said they owned two vehicles.

The proportion of very rich and very poor New Yorkers rose slightly, and the gap between them remained higher in New York than in any other state, and, in Manhattan, higher than in any other county in the country.