Robin Hood and Columbia University Release 2026 Annual Poverty Tracker Report: New York City Poverty Rate Reaches Record High As Federal Cuts Threaten to Turn a Crisis into a Catastrophe 

New York – The State of Poverty and Disadvantage in New York City, Vol. 8, released today by Robin Hood and Columbia University’s Center on Poverty and Social Policy, documents a troubling milestone: more New Yorkers lived in poverty in 2024 than at any point since the Poverty Tracker began collecting data more than a decade ago.The city’s poverty rate climbed to 26% — twice the national average — affecting 2.2 million people, including 1.7 million adults and nearly 450,000 children. Nearly 5 million New Yorkers, or 3 in 5, live below 200% of the poverty line, putting them just one setback away from falling into poverty.

New York City now faces two poverty emergencies: the one that’s already here, and the one on the horizon. Before the city had a chance to recover from record hardship, federal cuts to the nation’s most critical safety net programs — including SNAP — threaten to push thousands more New Yorkers to the brink.

“New York City is on the brink of falling off a poverty cliff,” said Richard Buery, CEO of Robin Hood. “One in four New Yorkers – 2.2 million people – live below the poverty line, and millions more struggle to make ends meet, with the rising costs of rent, childcare, and groceries already challenging most of our neighbors. And now, Washington, is threatening to pull away the very lifelines keeping millions of families afloat. State and local leaders are being forced to make impossible choices to stave off the worst outcomes of an emergency they didn’t create. It’s critical that we all come together to support our neighbors in this moment of need.”

The persistence of poverty in 2024

​In 2024, the cost of basic needs that make up the poverty measure, like food and housing, continued to trend upward,and poverty reached a record level in the Poverty Tracker’s history for the third consecutive year. Half of all New Yorkers experienced at least one form of material disadvantage in 2024. Government transfers and tax credits — including SNAP, Medicaid, and the Child Tax Credit — kept more than 850,000 New Yorkers above the poverty line, underscoring how catastrophic the erosion of these programs would be for the city’s most vulnerable residents. 

Despite ample evidence of effective policy remedies, relief is unlikely to come from the federal government, and may get significantly worse. This year’s report includes a special spotlight on the New Yorkers who rely on SNAP to help meet their food needs, and the devastating consequences pending federal cuts to the program could inflict on families already living on the edge.

Spotlight on SNAP Recipients in New York City and the Consequences of Federal Cuts to the SNAP Program

Even as New York City’s poverty rate climbed to a record high in 2024, SNAP remained one of the most powerful anti-poverty tools available – reducing the poverty rate of recipients in New York City by more than 19%, lifting approximately 1 in 10 recipients above the poverty line and providing critical income support to nearly 1.8 million New Yorkers each month.. The anti-poverty impact is even greater for children and seniors who together comprise roughly half of all SNAP recipients in New York City — more than 1 in 4 are children and more than 1 in 5 are seniors. 

Working, Struggling, and Often Facing Health Problems

• The majority of working-age SNAP recipients are employed. Fifty-four percent worked or had a working spouse or partner in the year they received benefits. Among those not working, most faced work-limiting disabilities or poor health. And work alone is rarely enough: 85% of working recipients earn less than $25 per hour.
• Poor Health is pervasive. Adult SNAP recipients are more than three times as likely to have a work-limiting disability or health condition than non-recipients (52% vs. 16%). 
• SNAP recipients won’t only be affected by SNAP cuts. Two in three recipient families include at least one adult covered by Medicaid, and could also be impacted by OBBBA’s cuts to this crucial program.
• SNAP softens but does not resolve the affordability crisis. Roughly 80% of SNAP recipients experienced at least some form of material hardship — food, financial, housing, or medical — in the year they received benefits. More than half (62%) of families often or sometimes ran out of food, or worried they would, before having enough money to buy more.

Federal cuts to SNAP under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBA/H.R.1) – which would shift administrative costs to states, impose stricter work-reporting requirements, cap benefit growth, and restrict eligibility – are projected to push roughly 70,000 additional New Yorkers into poverty in each year between 2028 and 2034. 

“Contrary to misconceptions, the data shows that the majority of working-age SNAP recipients are already working,” said Christopher Yera, a research analyst at the Center on Poverty and Social Policy at Columbia and one of the authors of the report. “The new restrictions and red tape brought on by OBBBA will increase the administrative burdens they’re navigating and see New Yorkers lose food assistance they count on. Soon, nearly 70,000 New Yorkers could be pushed into poverty every year as a result of the OBBBA SNAP cuts, including many who work hard but earn too little to make ends meet, who are kept above the poverty line by SNAP, and who face serious health challenges.” 

What Albany and City Hall Can Do

The contraction of the federal safety net will carry wide-ranging consequences for all New Yorkers. While state and local policies cannot replace federal funding, Albany and City Hall should consider prioritizing these critical, temporary stop gaps to prevent the worst outcomes for poor and low-income New Yorkers:

• Food: Bolster New York’s emergency food infrastructure, including $75 million each for the Hunger Prevention and Nutrition Assistance Program (HPNAP) and Nourish NY.
• Housing: Expand the Housing Access Voucher Program to $250 million annually and strengthen CityFHEPS to move families out of shelter faster and prevent homelessness before it starts.
• Health: Fund Medicaid coverage for the approximately 450,000 New Yorkers at risk of losing Essential Plan insurance under OBBBA, invest $300 million in Community Health Centers, and reform Temporary Disability Insurance to protect workers on medical leave.
• Child Tax Credit: Permanently expand the Empire State Child Credit to $1,500 per child (ages 0–17), indexed to inflation.
• Cost of living: Mayor Mamdani’s proposals to expand no-cost childcare, raise the minimum wage, and increase affordable housing supply are additional measures that could meaningfully offset federal cuts at the city level.

About the Poverty Tracker
Since 2012, the Poverty Tracker has surveyed a representative sample of 3,000 New York households multiple times a year, providing critical longitudinal insight into the dynamics of poverty and disadvantage in the city — tracking employment, assets and debts, health, and more. 

That longitudinal view has proven essential to understanding poverty not as a fixed condition but as a dynamic and precarious one. The recent Poverty Tracker Data Snapshot, Exiting and Falling Back into Poverty (January 2026), found that while roughly half of New Yorkers living in poverty exit in a given year, more than half of those fall back below the poverty line within two years — a cycle of setbacks and near-misses that plays out against the backdrop of the city’s persistent affordability crisis. With record poverty levels now serving as the baseline, the planned dismantling of the federal safety net could make that cycle harder than ever to break.

About Robin Hood
We are NYC’s largest local poverty-fighting philanthropy and since 1988, we have invested $3 billion to elevate and fuel New Yorkers’ permanent escapes from poverty. In 2025, through $140 million in grantmaking to 295 community partners, we created pathways to opportunity through strategic partnerships on child care, child poverty, jobs, living wages, and more. We are scaling impact at a population level for the more than two million New Yorkers living in poverty. 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 visit 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.  povertycenter.columbia.edu.

About the Columbia University Population Research Center
The Columbia Population Research Center supports population health researchers across Columbia University, galvanizing new interdisciplinary and cross-campus collaborations, promoting the professional development of junior scientists, and enabling members to do work that is more innovative and impactful. Our members’ interests encompass five primary research areas: Children, Youth, and Families; Climate and Environment; Immigration/Migration; Reproductive Health and HIV/AIDS; and Urbanism and Neighborhoods, with cross-cutting attention to inequalities and policies to mitigate those inequalities.