These policies are especially crushing the middle class in areas where they were already struggling; much of NYC has already expelled the middle class.
The middle class is the enemy of totalitarianism (the upper class its drivers and the lower class its useful dupes); while we can’t line the middle class up against a wall and execute them, our elites can (and will) ruin them.
Historically, totalitarian regimes have murdered or exterminated millions of people to get rid of dissidents. What was left were people they could control.
Like you said, here they are destroying their lives instead of just shooting them. It accomplishes the same results.