Innovative Partnership to Study Poverty and Disadvantage in New York City

Robin Hood Poverty Tracker

The Poverty Tracker is a groundbreaking study of life in New York City. Launched in 2012, it is a joint project of Robin Hood and Columbia University. At its inception, there were no other surveys that were capturing the full story of poverty and disadvantage in the city. Unlike typical surveys of poverty that take an annual snapshot, the Poverty Tracker surveys a representative sample of New Yorkers every three months for several years to collect data on the dynamics of poverty and related topics. We are currently following a representative sample of approximately 4,000 New Yorkers to understand the dynamics of income poverty, material hardship, and health over time.

Early Child Hood Poverty Tracker

With the launch of the Early Childhood Poverty Tracker (ECPT), we take a closer look into the issue of childhood poverty. Launched in 2017, this study is following a representative sample of more than 1,500 families with young children in New York City. The longitudinal study links survey, home visit, and administrative data to understand the challenges and resources that shape the development of children during the critical early years and their impact later in adulthood. We hope the distinct dataset will be a valuable tool for policy leaders and child advocates to guide their understanding of our youngest New Yorkers. Check out our first report.

Poverty Tracker Findings

Tracking the Dynamics of Poverty over Time

The poverty rate tells us that nearly a quarter of New Yorkers live in poverty—but it does not show that millions more struggle to make ends meet. In order to capture an accurate picture of what it means to be poor, the Poverty Tracker documents the dynamics of poverty and disadvantage in New York City. Income poverty is only one dimension along which New Yorkers face difficult times. To fully describe the struggles people are facing, the Poverty Tracker also tracks material hardship and poor health.

Tracking poverty over time also reveals important dimensions of poverty, including how widespread it is. While annual rates show that less than a quarter of New Yorkers live in poverty in a given year, over a longer period we find that half of all New Yorkers have experienced poverty as people have moved in and out of poverty. Thus, longitudinal tracking of poverty is necessary to gain insight on the true scale of the problem of poverty and how to achieve sustained mobility towards a better life for New Yorkers.

Economic Security and Wellness

Our survey reveals that many New Yorkers are struggling to meet their basic needs. Almost half of working-age New Yorkers experience underemployment and too many New Yorkers lack the assets to cover even a modest emergency expense. Food and housing hardship has been a widespread problem in New York City for years. To live a life of dignity requires resources to meet basic needs, maintain health, and build wealth for the future. Hence, we are tracking measures of food hardship, health and wellness, employment and economic mobility in our survey. We use Poverty Tracker survey data to understand how issues such as food deserts, financial shocks, and access to healthcare are impacting the neediest New Yorkers, and what policies would serve them best.

Children and Families in New York City

Early childhood years are a critical time in shaping development and health outcomes. That’s why children are a central focus of our anti-poverty research. In 2017, we launched the Early Childhood Poverty Tracker in a collaboration with Robin Hood to better understand the long-term impacts of poverty on young children. Through surveys, we find that nearly a quarter of children ages 0-3 live in poverty and nearly half of the city’s young children live in lower-opportunity neighborhoods where the poverty rate is at least 20 percent. Increasing access to federal programs, as well as New York City initiatives, such as Pre-K for All, food pantries and other community programs, could make a real difference. We aim to use our research to elucidate what’s at stake and provide evidence of promising solutions to end child poverty.

Life in New York City during COVID-19

The pandemic exacerbated the hardships experienced by vulnerable New Yorkers and the racial disparities within the city—in housing, health outcomes, income inequality, and economic insecurity. Tracking the lives of New Yorkers as the crisis hit revealed that nearly half of all New York City workers lost employment income in the initial months of the pandemic. More than half of low-wage workers and more than half of Black and Latino workers lost employment income at the height of the COVID-19 crisis. Many New Yorkers struggled to access unemployment benefits and a quarter of renters could not pay their rent at some point during the pandemic. The crisis also intensified food hardship and magnified the digital divide as online schooling became the norm.

Role of Public Policy and Services

Government policies and programs provide critical resources to families in need. For struggling families, these resources often serve as a lifeline, however, many New Yorkers don’t apply for government benefits or seek help from community organizations. The Poverty Tracker can help government agencies and nonprofits assess the effectiveness of their anti-poverty programs and the impacts of policy changes. For example, we partnered with the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene to assess if workers had heard about the new Paid Sick Leave Law and whether they were more likely to use sick leave after its implementation. This issue became even more salient during the pandemic.