The State of Poverty and Disadvantage in NYC 2021
Robin Hood and CPSP released the fifth Poverty Tracker Annual Report which assesses rates of income poverty, material hardship and economic disadvantage in New York City in 2021. This year’s Poverty Tracker also spotlights the temporary pandemic relief programs that dramatically—but only briefly—brought child poverty in New York City to historic lows. The reduction in poverty rates highlighted in the report shows that government policy can be an effective poverty-fighting tool.
Key Findings:
In 2021, 18% of adult New Yorkers and 15% of children in New York City lived in poverty. This is the lowest annual child poverty rate observed in the Poverty Tracker data, which began collecting child poverty data in 2017.
Between 2015 and 2020, roughly one in three adults faced material hardship. In 2021, this fell to one in four. Declines in the share of children in families facing material hardship were even more pronounced, falling from 36% in 2020 to 26% in 2021.
In 2021, economic disadvantage was significantly more common among Asian, Black, and Latino New Yorkers than among White New Yorkers, pointing to structures of inequality that reproduce economic disadvantage among racial and ethnic lines.
46% of New Yorkers faced at least one form of disadvantage (poverty, material hardship, or health problems) in 2021, meaning disadvantage was far too common. But this also declined from years prior.
The Poverty Tracker is a longitudinal study of the dynamics of poverty and disadvantage in New York City. It is a joint project of Robin Hood and Columbia University.