Robin Hood Annual Poverty Tracker Report Shows 25% Overall Poverty Rate in New York City, Climbing Beyond Record Highs Observed in 2022 

Today, Robin Hood, in collaboration with Columbia University’s Center on Poverty and Social Policy, released the seventh volume of its annual report, The State of Poverty and Disadvantage in New York City. While continued economic growth and declining unemployment typically reduce poverty levels, this year’s report finds that the increased cost of living plunged an additional 100,000 New Yorkers into poverty. As a result, New York City’s poverty rate hit 25% – or 1 in 4 New Yorkers – up from 23% last year, and is nearly double the national poverty rate of 13%. The report’s findings are based on 2023 data, the latest year for which data about poverty in New York City is available.   

The data further show that of the 2.02 million New Yorkers now living in poverty, 1.6 million are adults and 420,000 are children. Poverty rates for adults (25%) and children (26%) each rose by 1 percentage point from the year prior, bringing the child poverty rate to the highest observed in Poverty Tracker data since the study began collecting data on child poverty in 2017.  

“Inflation has hit everyone hard. Over the last year alone, an additional 100,000 New Yorkers fell into poverty. One in four New York children remains below the poverty line, one of the highest child poverty rates in the nation. This is a high-cost city where a family of four needs to make at least $50,000 just to survive. We must resist any efforts to cut or eliminate the federal safety net programs on which these families rely. Threatened reductions to these vital supports would be nothing short of a mass impoverishing event,” said Richard R. Buery, Jr. CEO of Robin Hood. “I applaud Governor Hochul’s proposal to expand the Empire State Child Credit and hope that the State will continue making progress toward implementing the recommendations of the Child Poverty Reduction Advisory Council, which is tasked with developing strategies to reduce child poverty in our state by half. But we cannot reach that achievable goal if progress in the fight against poverty at the state level is met with retreat at the federal level.”   

Understanding the Increase in Poverty
In 2023, the cost of five basic necessities that make up the poverty line—food, shelter, utilities, clothing, and telephone/ internet—outpaced income growth and the overall rate of inflation. This pushed the poverty threshold up to $47,190 for a renting family of four—7.5% higher than the 2022 poverty threshold of $43,890—causing more New Yorkers to fall below this line.  

“We’ve long known that government policies and programs are critical to helping those on the ground fighting to eradicate poverty in the city. And 2023 was no different – despite an overall increase in the poverty rate, we found that government policies kept half a million adults and 300,000 children from falling below the poverty line. But the policies in place were not sufficient to outpace the city’s extraordinary cost of living – the city’s families are having to do more to stretch their budgets to keep pace with these rising costs,” said Christopher Wimer, the principal investigator on the Poverty Tracker and Director of the Center on Poverty and Social Policy at Columbia University’s School of Social Work.   

It is not only those living in poverty who struggle to make ends meet. Material hardship, defined as facing severe difficulty affording food, housing, bills, and any form of medical hardship, is even more widespread across the city and affects New Yorkers living beyond the poverty line. Despite observing a decline in material hardship from last year’s rate of 29%, this year’s report still shows that a quarter (26%) of New Yorkers faced material hardship. Similarly, while the prevalence of work-limiting health problems (22%) and serious psychological distress (12%) among New Yorkers decreased slightly from the year prior, the combined prevalence of both issues remains above pre-pandemic levels, reflecting the ongoing mental toll of the pandemic and its aftermath in the lives of New Yorkers. 

This year’s findings were presented at an event that brought together local direct service nonprofits and experts from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities to outline the severe impact that proposed federal policy changes could have on poverty and hardship across New York. With the looming threat of substantial federal budget cuts, Robin Hood urged New York State lawmakers to implement policies that would cut child poverty in half, as mandated by the Child Poverty Reduction Act of 2022. 

Spotlight on the Child Poverty Reduction Advisory Council (CPRAC) Recommendations
The 2025 Poverty Tracker features novel analysis showing that the overwhelming majority of New York City families with children (78%) – more than 650,000 families and more than 1 million children – stand to benefit from policy recommendations that CPRAC issued last December.  These policies include expanding the state’s child tax credit and SNAP, creating a statewide housing voucher program, and boosting monthly public assistance. Thus, CPRAC beneficiaries are a broad, diverse set of families, including 34% who live in poverty, 50% who are low income, and 16% who are moderate income. Their experiences include: 

• In 2023, 43% of CPRAC-eligible families could not cover a $400 expense with cash on hand or an equivalent. 
• A large majority (73%) of parents in these families had to reduce their savings in recent years to cope with rising prices, and nearly one in three (31%) said they took on an additional job or more work to cope with inflation.  
• More than half (54%) of potential CPRAC beneficiaries were rent-burdened in 2023, spending more than 30% of their cash income on rent.  

Since 2012, the Poverty Tracker has surveyed a representative sample of 3,000 New York households multiple times a year, providing critical information on the dynamics of poverty and other forms of disadvantage in the city while tracking data on employment, assets and debts, and health. The Poverty Tracker has monitored the impacts that COVID-19 and the related economic downturn have had on life in New York City since the onset of the pandemic. 

***

About Robin Hood: 
We are NYC’s largest local poverty-fighting philanthropy and have invested nearly $3 billion since 1988 to elevate and fuel New Yorkers’ permanent escape from poverty. Our grantmaking with more than 250 community partners tackles solutions for child care, child poverty, jobs, living wages, and more. At Robin Hood, we believe your starting point in life should not define where you end up. To learn more, follow us on X @RobinHoodNYC or go to robinhood.org.  

About Columbia University’s Center on Poverty and Social Policy:
The Center on Poverty and Social Policy at the Columbia University School of Social Work produces actionable research to advance our understanding of poverty and the role of social policy in reducing poverty and promoting economic security, opportunity, and well-being in New York City and the United States.  www.povertycenter.columbia.edu. 

MEDIA CONTACT

Crystal Cooper, Deputy Director, Communications, Robin Hood
press@robinhood.org