Children in Poverty: Statewide Numbers Mask Local Realities
For Immediate Release
February 26, 2002
Contact: Anne Erickson, (518) 462-6831
The State Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance recently announced that childhood poverty is at its lowest level since 1980. While the statewide data is accurate, they potentially mask disturbing county-by-county trends in child poverty.
“To congratulate ourselves for reducing child poverty from 22% to 19%, just 3% over two decades that included periods of unprecedented economic growth, to say we now have about one in five children living in poverty, is to admit how little impact we’re having on helping families with children move, not just off welfare, but out of poverty. This data should serve as a challenge to us to redouble our efforts,” said Anne Erickson, Executive Director of the Greater Upstate Law Project, a non-profit policy analysis, research and advocacy center.
More troubling than the child poverty rates reflected in general Census data are the trends uncovered when looking at the Small Area Income and Poverty Estimates from the Census Bureau. The most recent year for which county-by-county child poverty data are available is 1998.
These Census data show that relative to 1989, the 1998 child poverty rate in New York State actually increased by 3.6%, rising from 19.7% to 23.3%. The number of children living in poverty rose from 842,790 to over one million (1,057,946).
Only three counties saw a drop in the child poverty rate between 1989 and 1998: Bronx county where the child poverty rate dropped from 46.9% to 38.2%, Brooklyn with a drop from 38% to 35.8% and Manhattan with a drop from 39.9% to 33.6%. In each of these counties the child poverty rate was still significantly above the state child poverty rate of 23.3% for that year. (See attached table and charts).
According to the Small Area Income and Poverty Estimates, every county outside of New York City saw an increase in child poverty between 1989 and 1998. Five counties outside New York City had childhood poverty rates at or above the state rate: Allegany 25.7%, Franklin, 24.1%, Fulton, 23.4%, Montgomery, 24.1%, Oneida, 23.3% and Sullivan, 24.5%.
“When the 2000 county level child poverty data are released by the Census, we may see some improvement,” Ms. Erickson noted, cautioning however that these past few years have not been kind to the upstate economy.”
