Government policies during the COVID-19 pandemic, including cash transfers and tax credits, reduced poverty in New York City, even while poverty citywide—particularly among minorities—persisted well above national averages, a report from Robin Hood finds.

Released in collaboration with Columbia University’s Center on Poverty and Social Policy, the Columbia Population Research Center, and the Chinese American Planning Council, the report, The State of Poverty and Disadvantage in New York City (76 pages PDF), found that while poverty was increasing in New York City between 2019 and 2020, government policies in response to the COVID-19 pandemic cut the poverty rate of adults and children in the city by nearly 60 percent (from 37 percent to 16 percent for adults and from 45 percent to 18 percent for children). All told, cash transfers and tax credits moved 1.9 million New Yorkers out of poverty, according to the report.

While government support played a substantial role in stabilizing incomes in New York City, the overall poverty rate of the largest city in the United States remained substantially higher than the national average (nationally 9 percent for adults and 10 percent for children). The study found that poverty among Asian, Black, and Latinx New Yorkers (23 percent, 19 percent, and 23 percent, respectively) was nearly twice that of white New Yorkers (12 percent). In addition, New Yorkers living in poverty experienced health problems in 2020 at a rate 7 percentage points higher than all New Yorkers (29 percent compared with 22 percent). Among minorities living in poverty, health problems were roughly 40 percent more common.

Read the full article about poverty reduction during COVID-19 at Philanthropy News Digest.