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Children growing up in poverty face horrible lifelong consequences to their health, education, and overall quality of life. Compared with cities its size, Rochester ranks as the number one worst city in the United States for child poverty, with 48% of our city’s children in poverty. We are first in the nation in the rate of extreme poverty, with 15% of the city’s population living in deep poverty (2020 U.S. Census data, 2015 – 2019). From May – July 2020, 10,000 more Monroe County children plunged into poverty under COVID (United Hospital Fund study, Oct. 2020).
Congress ordered and funded the largest, most exhaustive, and most nonpartisan, evidence-based report on how to reduce childhood poverty in half. The 2019 report released by the National Academy of Sciences estimates that child poverty costs us $800 billion to $1.1 trillion every year due to increased crime, worsened health, and lower earnings when poor kids become adults.
But the report concluded that a suite of two-generation-at-once public policy changes would cut child poverty in half in 10 years:
- A big increase in the Earned Income Tax Credit;
- A refundable child tax credit; and
- A publicly funded minimum child support payment for single parents entitled to child support from their former partners.
Along with assistance for high quality early child care and education, we already know what works. What’s missing is the political will to make it happen. That’s where The Children’s Agenda comes in.
Our Recommendations on Poverty
We call upon Governor Cuomo and the Legislature to enact the Child Poverty Reduction Bill (S.9012/A.11063). With child poverty skyrocketing due to the impacts of the pandemic, it is more important than ever for government to put reducing child poverty at the center of its work. New York cannot build back better if it leaves New York children behind.
The legislation proposes a pledge to reduce child poverty in half in New York state by 2030 and:
- Creates a Child Poverty Reduction Advisory Council that would hold public hearings and consider changes in state policy and funding to achieve the 50% reduction goal, such as tax credits for families living in poverty and expanded access to child care, housing and employment assistance; and
- Requires the state Budget Director to evaluate the effects that adjustments to the state budget will have on reducing child poverty in New York State.
Poverty News and Alerts
How Public Policy Can Change Poverty As We Know It
NYS Child Advocates Urge Legislators to Prioritize Child Poverty
Poverty
"Poverty... should not be accepted as a necessary evil or insoluble problem, but should be considered a crisis requiring emergency measures. It is a matter of will and priorities, not a matter of resources."
-- Martin Luther King, Jr.
Learn More
Victories
- Child Care Subsidies. Our ongoing advocacy with Monroe County resulted in the County adding $1.8 million toward child care in the 2019 budget. This will provide child care to 200 additional low-income working families.
- Paid Family Leave New York. Working families no longer have to choose between caring for their newborn and risking their economic security. TCA strongly advocated for NY to pass Paid Family Leave legislation, giving 6.4 million working New York families the financial stability to bond with their baby, newly adopted or fostered child. The law was signed in 2016. Family members no longer have to choose between what’s best for their job and what’s best for their family.
