Spotlight on Food Hardship: Compounding hardships and health challenges among New Yorkers struggling to afford food
This Poverty Tracker report shows how food hardship increased from 2021 to 2022—rising from 30% to 34% among adults and from 39% to 43% among families with children—and documents how commonly it overlaps with other hardships and health challenges.
Spotlight On: Liquid Assets, Financial Shocks, and Entrances into Material Hardship
This report uses Poverty Tracker data to examine whether liquid assets guard New Yorkers from sliding into hardship after experiencing a financial shock. The findings show that roughly $2,000 in liquid assets appear to buffer against added hardships after such a shock, but not all New Yorkers have access to such financial reserves.
Special Series: Health and Health Care in New York City, Second Report
This report examines healthcare utilization among New Yorkers with high health care needs who also face economic disadvantage. These New Yorkers often forgo needed care, driven by issues of access related to cost, transportation, and mobility. Inequalities were even more stark among those facing housing challenges. This work is part of a special series funded by The Helmsley Charitable Trust.
Spotlight on Food Assistance in NYC: Food pantry use spikes among non-U.S. citizens amid changing immigration rules
This new report examines an often overlooked area of need in New York City: food insecurity among low-income, non-citizen New Yorkers. The Poverty Tracker documents a significant increase in non-citizens using emergency food services—and how pantries served a critical lifeline.
Spotlight on Child Tax Credit: Transforming the Lives of Families
We interviewed 18 families receiving an expanded Child Tax Credit in New York City over six months to understand how they incorporated the new monthly payments into their household budgets. Parents viewed the expanded Child Tax Credit as an opportunity to enhance their children’s lives, prevent hardship, stabilize their budgets, and save for the future.
Special Series: Health and Healthcare in New York City
Using Poverty Tracker data, this report aims to provide a better understanding of the economic lives of New Yorkers with the highest health care needs.
Spotlight on Housing: The looming eviction crisis
As New York State’s eviction moratorium ended on January 15th, 2021, New York City is at risk of a massive increase in evictions and homelessness, but there are policy solutions that can help address housing affordability in New York City.
Spotlight on Food Hardship in New York City
Despite the additional challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, food insecurity rates in New York City remained stable between 2019 and 2020, a testament to the social policy response and efforts by the city’s emergency food distribution network. However, the rate of food hardship still remains high in New York City.
Double Pandemic: Discrimination Experiences of New Yorkers of Chinese Descent During COVID-19
New Yorkers of Chinese descent have been suffering from the “double pandemic” of COVID-19 and racial discrimination. Over half of study participants reported experiencing discrimination and one third an incident of harassment. The vast majority of New Yorkers of Chinese descent are worried about their own safety and that of loved ones.
Direct Cash Benefits during the Pandemic: Spending, saving and returning to work
After being forced into unemployment by the pandemic, direct cash benefits allowed New Yorkers to avoid material hardship while adapting to a changing labor market. Using Poverty Tracker interviews, we also find that while New Yorkers put their COVID-relief benefits to good use, they did not substitute for work. Rather the benefits helped people secure their current, and even future, economic survival while they figured out when and how, and not if, to return to work.
Spotlight on Hunger: Food hardship in New York City is rising as New Yorkers wait for a second federal stimulus bill
As New York City and the country continue to grapple with the health and economic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, millions of New Yorkers struggle to feed themselves and their families.
Spotlight on COVID-19: The deepening economic insecurity and racial inequity
Using Poverty Tracker data, we find New Yorkers who were already in precarious economic positions bore the brunt of the initial economic fallout associated with COVID-19.
Forced Moves and Evictions in New York City
The Poverty Tracker housing module provides a first look at the experiences and trajectories of New Yorkers who are forced out of their housing due to forced displacement or high rental costs and the efficacy of housing policies in curbing rates of forced moves.
Mapping Hunger in New York City
Many New Yorkers continue to struggle to afford food, and it’s often an ongoing challenge. Citywide, more than 50 percent of New Yorkers experienced food hardship at least once over a four-year period.
On the Precipice: An Analysis of the Vulnerability of New Yorkers to Financial Shocks
When measuring one’s financial security by whether a respondent has the ability to pay for an unanticipated financial shock, a sizable share of New Yorkers and Americans are living on a financial ledge—one emergency away from not being able to make ends meet.
New Yorkers’ Perception of Economic Mobility and Opportunity
The Poverty Tracker reveals how New Yorkers view their own and their children’s opportunities and found that most New Yorkers view the economy as unfair and opportunity as limited, but they are also optimistic about the future.
Spotlight on Food Hardship: Many New Yorkers may be going hungry this Thanksgiving
For many New Yorkers, being able to put food on the table is a regular struggle. We find that many households turn to SNAP or to local food pantries to help make up for shortfalls in their family budgets.
Shortchanged: Underemployment in New York City
Almost half of working New Yorkers under the age of 65 don’t have enough work.
Food Pantries or Food Stamps: Who Uses Them and What Impact Do They Have on Poverty?
An alarming number of New York City residents are not able to meet basic food needs. According to the latest Poverty Tracker data collected by Columbia and Robin Hood, over one in ten New Yorkers – approximately nearly 1 million people – report that it is often the case that their family does not have enough food to eat.