— This story first appeared in New York Focus, a non-profit news publication investigating New York state politics. Sign up for their stories at nysfocus.com/newsletter.
As Governor Kathy Hochul and state lawmakers prepare to head into budget season next month, they have a slate of new child poverty policies to consider.
The Child Poverty Reduction Advisory Council just issued recommendations to cut the state’s child poverty rate in half, as Hochul committed to do in 2021 when she signed legislation creating the council.
The council voted Wednesday to endorse a $9 billion package of proposals that it estimates would provide financial support to more than 1.5 million families. The most impactful proposal, to expand and increase the state child tax credit, would alone reduce child poverty by 23 percent, they said.
New York has the fourth-highest child poverty rate in the country, according to the council’s report outlining the package. Census data from 2022 shows that more than 800,000 children in the state live in poverty. That’s more than one in five kids — including nearly one in three Black and Latino children. Buffalo, Rochester, and Syracuse are in the top 10 US cities for child poverty, with more than 40 percent of kids there living below the poverty line.
The state has already taken some steps since the 2021 law was enacted to reduce child poverty, such as making children under four eligible for the state child tax credit and increasing the state minimum wage, according to the council. Those and other recent measures could cut child poverty by up to about 10 percent, according to policy experts working with the council.
To get to 50 percent, the council recommends the child tax credit expansion, increasing cash assistance payments, and creating a new state housing voucher.
“We are looking for an investment that is permanent or ongoing and that is very specifically designed with the intention of reducing child poverty,” said Kate Breslin, a council member and the president and CEO of the Schuyler Center for Analysis and Advocacy, a public policy nonprofit.
Hochul is due to put forth a 2025 budget proposal after her State of the State speech in mid-January, kicking off months of negotiations with the legislature. The 17-member council, made up of advocates, community members, and government officials, the majority of whom were appointed by the Hochul administration, urged the governor to include its recommendations in her budget.
“The Governor is committed to making New York a more affordable place for kids and families, and she will review the Council’s recommendations,” a spokesperson for Hochul told New York Focus.
Here are the Child Poverty Reduction Advisory Council’s key proposals.
Expanded Child Tax Credit
The council’s most impactful anti-poverty proposal is to increase New York’s child tax credit to a maximum of $1,500 per child and expand eligibility for it.
Child tax credits have been in the policy spotlight since 2021, when President Joe Biden’s pandemic relief package temporarily expanded the federal child tax credit and sent the child poverty rate to a record low.
Currently, New York families with children 16 and under can receive up to $330 a year per child, though the poorest families — those making less than $10,000 a year — are excluded from receiving the full credit, based on eligibility rules for the federal child tax credit.
The council proposed that the state create its own eligibility rules to allow poorer families to receive the full $1,500, which it estimates would cut child poverty by nearly a quarter.
The proposal is similar to the Working Families Tax Credit legislation introduced in 2023. That bill has not passed the legislature, but the Senate included a version of it in its own budget proposal this year. Instead, this year’s final budget provided a one-time supplement to the state’s existing child tax credit.
“The child tax credit proposal that we put forward will also help families that are above the poverty line but still very much struggling. … It will make life more affordable for a wide swath of low- and middle-income families with children,” said Breslin.
The expansion would cost the state an estimated $3.2 billion a year.
More Cash Assistance
New York’s cash assistance program, meant to provide temporary relief to low-income New Yorkers, gives individuals a maximum of $158 per month and families a maximum of $336, plus other benefits. The council recommended doubling that amount. The payment increase would slash child poverty by more than 18 percent, the council estimated.
The increase would cost the state an estimated $2 billion a year.
A State Housing Voucher Program
The council proposed creating a state housing voucher program modeled after the federal Housing Choice Voucher Program, also known as Section 8. That program covers rent above 30 percent of a family’s income.
Since the federal program offers limited vouchers, only about a third of eligible New Yorkers receive them. A state voucher to fill in that gap could cut child poverty by nearly 16 percent, the council estimated.
Both the Senate and the Assembly included such a voucher system in their budget proposals this year, but Hochul has historically opposed the program and it did not make it into the final budget.
The voucher program would cost the state an estimated $3.3 billion a year.
What Didn’t Make it In
Though the council had previously considered child care policies, the final report did not include any, in part because the state has a separate task force studying “child care availability.”
The report also doesn’t include any employment-related proposals, like raising the minimum wage, because the legislature was debating a minimum wage increase in 2023, when the council was beginning to develop its plan, council members told New York Focus.
During this year’s legislative session, lawmakers proposed raising the minimum wage to $20 an hour (and $21.25 in New York City); the move would deliver a wage boost to more than 400,000 people living in poverty, the Economic Policy Institute has estimated. That bill has not passed the legislature.
Now, it’s up to the governor and the legislature to decide how to proceed.
The price tag of the proposals will likely cause a legislative fight, which will come as the state reports a budget surplus this year due to high tax receipts — and as the incoming federal administration could reshape public assistance and the state budget with tax and program cuts.
“A concern that advocates I’ve spoken to also have is that there’s going to be a potential hesitancy to make long-term changes to some programs until they see how things shake out federally,” said Pete Nabozny, a council member and policy director at the Rochester-based advocacy organization The Children’s Agenda. “But it’s on the state to lead the way and say, ‘We are going to address these problems that have been here for years.’”
Earlier this month, Hochul announced her own plan to send checks to New Yorkers, as part of a broader “affordability” campaign.
Her “Inflation Refund” would send one-time checks of up to $300 to individual taxpayers making up to $150,000, or up to $500 to families making up to $300,000 a year.
Legislative leadership is reportedly open to the proposal, which has been criticized by a range of policy experts for having a large price tag with little long-term benefit to people or the economy. Hochul has said the plan, which would cost $3 billion, will be funded by the state’s surplus sales tax revenue.
The legislative sponsors of the Working Families Tax Credit criticized the inflation refund for being a poorly targeted, one-time payment. They defended their tax credit proposal as a better use of about $3 billion, the yearly cost of the expansion.
“While we want to help everybody, you’ve got to target the people who are struggling to survive, and their kids,” said Assembly Children and Families Committee chair Andrew Hevesi. “The concern year after year is always financial. You can’t spend money where you don’t have it — but this year we have it.”
“Our proposal …will have a more meaningful, measurable, permanent outcome of success,” said bill sponsor and Senate Committee on Budget and Revenue chair Andrew Gounardes.