Families earning a living wage don’t buy ads or subscriptions from the NYT.

How much of that is due to the fact that the NY Times, in spite of its nationwide (and worldwide) readership, still tries to be a newspaper for New York specifically, and therefore many local readers of its business section will be on Wall Street or executives in companies headquartered in Manhattan?

There are a lot of news sources that are written primarily to inform investors, like WSJ and Bloomberg. I wouldn't place the NYT in the same niche, although I suppose most business reporting takes a similar perspective. That having been said, NYT has reported on working conditions at various employers as well, along with various other, let's say "negative coverage".

I mean what are they looking for here? They're criticizing a fairly to the point, straight information article for not being an opinion article.