From WXXI news.

This is connections.

I'm Evan Dawson.

Our connection this hour is made with a rather concerning statistic.

More than 1 in 5 New Yorkers under the age of 18 are living in poverty.

That's more than 735,000 children.

According to data from the 2022 census.

And in May of last year, a report by State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli s office showed that almost half of those kids are living in households with income that is 50% below the federal poverty line.

That's considered deep poverty.

That leaves us with the question, what would it take to actually lift those kids out of poverty, or at least cut the poverty rate in half?

A new group of experts and advocates with the Child Poverty Reduction Advisory Council has been charged with reducing New York's child poverty rate by 50% in ten years.

And the group thinks its recommendations may accomplish just that, especially if Governor Kathy Hochul budget supports it.

They say her proposals are considerably more ambitious in scope than any governor has proposed to address child poverty.

This hour, we explore the state of child poverty in New York, and we discuss the recommendations from child tax credits, the baby benefits to housing vouchers and, if enacted.

Who is affected?

Parents.

How kids are impacted.

Families struggling with poverty.

We're going to get specific here.

Let me welcome our guests.

Barbara Gwinn is commissioner of the new York State Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance and co-chair of the Child Poverty Reduction Advisory Council.

Barbara, welcome.

Thank you for being afternoon.

Thank you for having me.

Pete, nobody is back with us, policy director for the Children's Agenda and a member of the Child Poverty Reduction Advisory Council.

Thanks for being back here.

Thanks for having me.

And Jason Toulouse is with us.

Jason is a father and a parent advocate.

Jason, welcome.

Thank you for having me.

Thank you for being here.

so I you know, I've talked to Pete about this many times, and I just want to say right out of the gate, Pete, you know, as a Rochester and you know that some listeners heard that intro and they said, didn't you say that in 2015 with the Rochester Metro anti-poverty initiative?

Haven't we talked about big goals before?

And we're sitting here with a still high poverty number.

Yes.

We have and and at some level, this is a credit to this community.

I think the attention that, we've drawn on poverty and on child poverty, specifically in Rochester, has has led the state to, take a deeper look at the challenges that families across New York State are facing, with, you know, experiencing economic hardship and poverty.

and you're right.

We as a community, in 2014, 2015, we came together and said, we really want to tackle this problem.

we have had some, positive signs over the past ten years.

but I think as folks locally got into that work, it became increasingly clear that it was going to take state policy action to really drive down the rates of child poverty in this community.

and, people in this community were, responsible in some part for helping pass the Child Poverty Reduction Act, which led to the establishment of this council and led to, the work that the that the council has been doing for the past several years.

And and just to kind of put the backdrop we've been talking a lot about the fast changes coming from a new presidential administration.

Here's what I'm having a hard time getting my head around.

During the campaign, the vice presidential candidate, now Vice President JD Vance, he talked a lot about family support, encouraging couples to get married, encouraging couples to have more children, larger families, more support for kids.

he talked about a child tax credit, which son said it and didn't come back several years ago.

And you've talked and I'm sure we'll talk this hour about what that means and how direct that can, that can be in lifting kids out of poverty.

So you have a you have a vice president who talks a lot about this, but this administration has also come in with just a blowtorch to federal agencies.

And, you know, we're hearing all kinds of things are getting cut before people even really know it.

And then the next day, well, we're going to try to hire the nuclear inspectors back and whoops, we're going to try to get those FAA and investigators back.

And and I don't know how this affects some of your work or some of Barbara's work.

We'll talk about that.

But what is the moment like?

Is it uncertain.

Do you feel like there will be possibly an atmosphere of support in Washington?

well we'll see.

I mean, unfortunately, the signs we've seen so far are more, negative than I think some of us would have hoped.

in particular, it looks like Congress, obviously, the DOJ's and the executive, they're doing their thing.

And it's pretty hard to make sense of what's going on there.

But, a lot of us are really paying attention to Congress.

And as they're trying to, work through a budget and, appropriations for the next several years, there's a there's a plan to continue some of, the tax cuts that were enacted in 2017 and, implement some new ones and the proposals that seem to be floated out there, to help pay for some of those tax cuts are, involve cutting Medicaid, which would devastate New York and cutting Snap benefits, which would devastate, many, many low income New Yorkers.

And so that's really concerning for those of us who are very concerned about issues of child poverty and making sure that families have the resources they need to thrive.

at the same time, there hasn't been much discussion about that child tax credit, which which was expanded under, President Trump in his first term.

we don't know what's going to happen with that.

I think, there are certainly many members of Congress on both sides of the aisle who support a stronger federal child tax credit.

The vice president spoken in favor of it, but, it's too soon to tell how that will play out in, in the sort of budget making process.

See, you're going to think this sounds snarky.

It's not meant to sound snarky, is you talking about what Congress is doing?

Is Congress doing things quietly?

in certain areas, they are.

Yeah.

you know, I think, there's certainly, from what we can tell or not, there seems to be a bit docile about some of the executive is a nice euphemism, ceding almost all authority to the executive branch.

But but behind the scenes and quietly, there are things are moving towards, some really potentially devastating cuts.

And so a lot of us who pay attention to those bills moving through Congress are very concerned about what's going to happen.

You're looking at Medicaid.

You're looking at Snap.

Yeah.

For starters.

Yeah.

Those are the two big areas.

I mean, if you're exempting Social Security and exempting Medicare and exempting defense, I mean, that's the bulk of the federal budget.

And so where else is the money?

The money?

yeah.

It's largely Medicaid.

Yeah.

Okay.

So let's take a step back here.

Barbara, can you describe how you see the mission of this Child Poverty Reduction Advisory Council?

And frankly, if you think some of these big goals are realistic.

I absolutely think the big goals are realistic.

The charge of the council is to develop recommendations to submit to the governor and the legislature on how new York State can reduce our child poverty rate by at least 50%.

in December, we did issue a report with initial recommendations.

our charge is is critical and important, but it's also pretty simple, right?

We have a lot of evidence out there, including what we saw when the federal child tax credit was increased and then when it was taken away, it was quick.

It quickly moved families out of poverty, and it quickly put families back into poverty when it was taken away.

so I think our I think our charge, is again, very noble, but I also think it is something that we can do and we have come up with recommendations.

It is not inexpensive to do.

and we are, you know, this this year so far, Governor Hochul has proposed a historic increase in the child tax credit for New York State.

And so that is a very positive step in the right direction.

We're going to hear more, Jason story coming up here, because the children's agenda calls him a VIP, a very invested parent.

And I know your own life story is one, that has plenty of experience about some of the the wonky policy stuff.

We're going to talk about how it actually affects people.

Barbara and Pete, do you want to take us through some of the specifics and I should ask you?

I mean, Pete, you mentioned possible cuts, some of what you and Barbara and the council are going to work on.

Is it almost immediately impossible to reach these goals if we see these cuts to Medicaid or Snap?

Or can you circumvent them at the state level?

I mean, I would hope that New York State would do everything that it can.

And as a member of this council, I would, you know, plan to push the state to do it.

But, you're right.

I mean, the federal government has the biggest checkbook and is the biggest funder of services that support low income families.

Whether you're looking at Snap or Medicaid or the Earned income tax Credit or the federal child tax credit.

you know, it's we rely heavily on the federal government for for a lot of programs and a lot of supports from New Yorkers.

So it would be very challenging.

we'd be sort of trying to, you know, to catch, I don't know, falling sort of something, you know, to avoid some of these damages.

But, but I think the, the, the items that, that we've put forward as recommendations are, are things that New York can do and and would benefit, you know, so many, so many New Yorkers.

And so, we, I mean, those of us who are advocates are going to pay attention to what's happening at the federal level and, and work to, to try to stave off some of those potential cuts.

But we also have to work with the things in our control.

And the things that we're recommending are programs that New York can invest in.

And, that could help millions of New Yorkers.

Barbara, to Pete's point about the federal cuts that first week of DOJ's, we saw about a 24 hour period where it looked like Medicaid and even Snap could be cut.

we've talked to state representatives whose phones were blowing up, and then the federal government came out 24 hours later.

And like, well, it's not it's not Medicaid, like, not right now, but certainly if you're going to get serious about cutting, they've talked about cutting $2 trillion from the federal budget.

the money is in the military and the money is in Medicaid, Medicare.

And so do you expect those cuts?

And do you agree with your colleague here that there could be some effort to mitigate?

I mean, I'm wondering what you think the effects could be.

Yeah.

I mean, the effects would be devastating.

So I think that, hopefully members of Congress will start speaking up, coming together because while New York State has 3 million individuals receiving Snap every day, every state has a lot of families and individuals receiving Snap.

And and all states really rely on federal assistance.

So if if some of those serious cuts go through regardless, you know, if it's Medicaid or if it's snap, any any one of those would certainly undermine our efforts.

And so it's really important that, you know, that Governor Hochul continues to speak up and to work with our congressional delegation to avoid those cuts.

because, as Pete said, you know, Rochester can't do this on its own.

Rochester does need the state to step up and take additional, actions to invest in low income families if we want to really reduce child poverty in our state.

And I would say the same thing about the federal government, states need the federal government support.

And this is certainly not a time, given the high rates of poverty, for the federal government to back away.

And there was, you know, during the campaign, there was a decent amount of talk about expanding the federal child tax credit on both sides.

and so we are we will remain hopeful and continue to advocate for that.

Well, and I think it would be useful to hear from, from Barbara and Pete a response to an email I got, before we get into Jason story.

And then the email comes from a listener who, like a lot of Americans, is watching what's going on with Doge and thinking, maybe this is a an important time to be cutting waste and fraud and abuse and there's waste, fraud and abuse everywhere.

And, and so Chaz says the fourth highest child poverty rate in the nation in New York state, the first highest taxes in the nation.

But somehow I'm the crazy one for wanting to know where my money went.

So he's already he's essentially which, as the saying is, are we already spending a lot in tax dollars?

I mean, why are we talking about doing more?

Why aren't we getting more for it already?

What do you think?

So, I mean, we we do spend tax revenues that come in and we spend it on Medicaid.

We spend it on schools, we spend it on roads and bridges.

and I think what our council is focused on is increasing the extent to which state resources, as well as federal resources, are directed to keeping children out of poverty, because we believe not only is it the moral thing to do, but we do believe that if we invest in children when they're young and in families when they have young children, that long term, we're going to be better off as a community that we will reduce future health care cost, other needs.

Children will be better able to learn, be more ready to learn when they go to school, which we know within creates better long term outcomes.

So we think the investments are important for our community.

that doesn't mean there's not places within government that can be trimmed.

I think we would prefer an approach that was a bit more thoughtful, and discriminate in terms of the actions that are being taken and for people to think through before they announced something, what the ramifications would be.

so, you know, we think we think investing in children is, is worthwhile.

You know, I don't know, Pete, if we're in an era where we're going to see a whole lot of thoughtful consideration before a press release, a good example was the wildly inaccurate claims about Social Security last week, that Elon Musk is out there musing about how we've got millions more people getting Social Security than are even alive.

Or there's 300 there's 150 year old person getting Social Security.

It took me ten minutes of reading to see how inaccurate that stuff was, but that's already going out there and there's millions of people who believe it.

It sounds to me like, I think your colleague is saying that, of course there is some waste in government.

It is rarely in the realm of supporting kids and families.

But how would you explain it to chess?

Yeah, I think that's right.

I mean, I think, we should we should always as a community.

And we're looking at our local government, how it spends money, how the state spending money, how the government spending money.

We should always, you know, recognize that there are better ways to do things, that there are, efficiencies that can be found.

but, but for the kind of the purpose of what we're talking about here, with families that are experiencing economic hardship and, really struggling to afford to pay the rent and to get food on the table and, you know, make a car payment or buy a bus pass or anything like that.

you know, we're these are not that's not where we need to target the the sort of scrutiny of some of this is wasteful spending.

There are people that take advantage of systems, and we need to have safeguards for, for those things.

But, we do not have a, as, supportive of a safety net as we could in a way that would help, children and families thrive.

And so, I'm all for taking a look at other things.

There's plenty of things in the state budget that I could I could point to, you know, can I have more freedom to do so than the commissioner may?

But, but I don't think that, you know, we shouldn't be targeting, you know, the amount that we're our public assistance grant amounts are painfully low, for for families that that are relying on cash assistance.

we have waiting lists for things like section eight vouchers.

we we don't have enough supports for families that qualify for, for different services.

and, and that's, that's harming children and it's, it's harming the, the future, the current and future vitality of of this community, many others.

Well, let me get Jason to lose his story here, which I think will inform some of the, the list of, of ideas and policy, agenda items that Pete and Barbara are going to talk about.

Jason, you're Rochester, born and raised.

Born and raised.

I was born in Canandaigua.

we came up when I was a month old or something.

Okay.

So to you, it's Rochester for life.

Yeah, yeah.

And, how are you doing these days?

I am currently, for the first time, considered at the over, right over or at the age of poverty.

But I've been in poverty most of my life in Rochester.

What do you remember most about your childhood?

you know, what's what's the first memories that come to mind for you?

food insecurity?

Definitely.

My mom was also a very heavy smoker, and that was the choice that she made and had to spend the little bit of cash assistance she got.

Unfortunately, I don't think most people use cash systems like that.

But, you know, that's the way that she did choose to use it.

And food insecurity really stands out to me.

And I'm going to food cupboards using using food stamps or paper.

Then that was always a memory.

do you remember being actually physically hungry?

Yes.

And I remember prizing food because of the hunger, to an extent that it very much created a very unhealthy dynamic for me, that that is persistent.

tell me a little bit more about that.

because, we didn't have cash and there was this colorful kind of alternate money that could be handed to you.

And it was what was available.

I learned to prize money.

It was a poverty cycle, I think where you go and you get handed a few, you know, dollars, you know, food stamps, and it's something you can spend.

But if you go to the store, you can't get a toy, you can't get, you know, it's food.

And, whether or not I do believe in the freedom of choice in snaps usage, but, you know, kids going to get junk food and candy if they're alone.

And then I did, and that created a cycle for me.

It was based on poverty.

When do you remember the first time that you actually thought about, you know, what your own life would be like as an adult and thinking about poverty in that way?

Yeah.

I, I was working, at tops, and I had just started going to MCC and, so I was, you know, freshly 18 years old, and I was thinking along the lines of, okay, I'm an adult, but I've, you know, I just got a check from Topps for $150, and it's the most money I've ever had in my hands.

and then MCC sent me a check for 20, 20, $100 or so, and I freaked out.

I didn't know that you could get free money from pal assistance and all that, and it was the most money I ever had.

And I realized I had to actually think about the future and what I was going to do, because I had never every moment was day to day, you know, handing out, just working through it and making sure that everything was okay and it wasn't often.

And suddenly I did have to think about my future.

And I started and picked a major and that was really okay.

What am I going to do with the future now?

And I still wasn't sure.

And so what are you doing with your time these days?

I work, I'm an urban farmer.

I haven't been cleared for media yet, so I can't say where I work from.

An urban farmer and I do community development, and it's kind of everything I want to do, so I'm very glad to be doing it in, you know, in Rochester.

and I spend a lot of time volunteering with things like TCM and Leadership Training Institute.

I volunteer a lot to kids I do.

I have an eight year old who is in World of Inquiry.

He's in third grade there, and I have a second grader who's in daycare in the city.

Okay, how are they doing?

I'm sorry, two year old.

Sorry.

they're they're doing fairly well.

we're we're working, you know, we're working through a separation.

So they're about 5050 between us.

both parents live in the city.

the poverty level in the city is noticeable.

We we.

My son stands out to him, and he talks about it, including at school.

and then he's aware that that families are hurting.

The kids are hurting?

Yeah.

Not just there, but just the feeling of being in, let's say, the city school district, every kid doesn't have a big birthday party.

we were in Fairport, last year at, my, my mom's.

And every kid had a big birthday party, so just some there are noticeable differences in the day to day that, I mean, that's an interesting point, that if you don't grow up with poverty, you don't think about just a birthday party might seem common.

You know, something that just happens for for all kids and kids notice.

Yeah, yeah.

do you think about the way you grew up and do you think about, you know, your desire to make sure your kids have as good a life as possible given the context that you've had?

Yeah.

I because I was raised in poverty in Rochester because I was raised by a single parent and I'm a single parent now, I really do think about the context of, you know, I'm currently on snap, but it's probably going to be fading off because of the new job.

and that's nice.

But I'm also at the so called benefits cliff, which is a little scary.

But my childhood informed the choices that I make very much.

I always make choices towards advocacy towards, especially as I get older with my children and they're watching me.

I want them to not have the talent that I had, but I also want to extend that into Rochester itself, who we have just a staggering poverty rate.

So I think that's beyond my kids.

You obviously love your kids.

They're they're lucky to have you.

And I admire you for not only the work you're doing, but also the way that you're thinking through these challenges.

I mean, we'll talk about the benefits, Cliff, coming up here.

That's something that Pete and I've talked about many times here.

You're literally living.

Yeah, I'm about to have a couple things fall off, and I.

It'll be interesting to change over.

Wow.

but for for now here, you know, we we kind of open the program talking about what's been kind of chaotic for, you know, for agencies for organizations like Children's Agenda, for those who lead state agencies.

That.

Has it affected you?

I mean, are you are you looking at what's going on in Washington with the different kind of and I, I, I will say that I do watch the news pretty closely.

So I like to stay informed because I view myself as an advocate.

And when you're informed, you're a better advocate.

So I do consistently stay informed.

I mean, it it feels to me, I work in things like food security, and local sustainability.

It feels to me that we should double down on those efforts.

Very much so.

we have we have threads that the federal government is going to cut funding to everything eventually.

so I'm definitely watching that in a local sense of, you know, what does happen.

You know, I'm encouraging community gardens to be grown around the city.

And now I'm doubling down on that because what happens when Snap goes away?

I think of those lines at the public market waiting to get their Snap tokens.

But do you do you buy Jason, the argument from the new Trump administration, from Elon Musk, that all they want to do is cut waste, they don't want to hurt people, and they're for helping everybody.

They want to cut the waste out.

They want to save all the taxpayers money.

You don't buy that.

No.

both The Atlantic and Vox recently had articles about childhood poverty continues in the United States because of generational poverty.

We don't actually get people out of poverty.

So that cycle continues.

And unfortunately, I, I kind of feel like we're heading towards the, you know, coal miner, you know, train worker era.

And that's intentional.

I know Trump has talked at least once about the Gilded Age being an ideal thing to head towards, and I have a bad feeling that the more support structures they cut off, the more we become a country where poverty is a very deep trap.

And then you become an impoverished worker, which is hard for your life, hard for everything around you.

It's hard for your community.

What do you think the average person, but especially government leaders, don't understand about the reality of poverty?

that we've gotten to a weird point where it is easy to afford certain comforts.

And I think that when a government leader sees an iPhone in someone's hand, which is only 10% of, you know, a very low income wage, even that anyone can get an iPhone eventually, or you can get it from a free something, a family will give it to you.

Those are available.

People see food is available food, but they see food is available in a junk store and a junk food store.

Having comforts available is not having resources available.

The climb out of poverty and I think they view that and go.

Everyone's fine because their let them eat cake, they're eating cake, but cake doesn't progress forward.

People don't have structures to climb out of poverty and we don't fix that in the United States, the smartphone is the new cake.

Oh, absolutely.

And we spend a lot more time eating that than cake.

Yeah.

so you mentioned the benefits Cliff.

What for people who are like well I don't know what you mean.

How do you describe it.

What's the benefits Cliff.

The benefits cliff is a point where you are told that you have reached a certain percentage below or above the poverty rate for an individual of your children, number of children, spouse, whomever is in your household where suddenly you either have a marked decrease or completely lose things like Medicaid, snap free daycare, a lot of benefits that, when you add them up, are so much money that there is a possibility at a certain point in the benefits cliff, that you are losing money, and by losing that snap, you know, if you got $2 last an hour, you could keep the snap, which would give you the same eight or more thousand dollars a year.

And it's a it's a goofy line.

So it's actually a bad deal to get a raise at times.

Oh, absolutely.

If suddenly you have to reapply for Medicaid and they cancel you and now you have to pay a premium.

Absolutely.

Okay.

So, I want to ask Pete and Barbara if there's anything they think we should do about that.

Then what we'll do is we'll take our only break of the hour, and we're going to work through some of the specific proposals that could animate the next number of years in the state as we address some of these issues.

But that benefits.

Cliff story is one that we've talked about.

What do you want listeners to understand about that situation?

Yeah, it's it's a really, challenging public policy, issue that many families encounter all the time.

and we see it with lots of well-meaning programs.

We in, in New York, in the United States.

We we want to target assistance to those who need it the most.

And so we, you know, we prioritize, you know, providing whether it's health insurance through Medicaid or Snap benefits or temporary assistance, whatever.

we, you know, we say, okay, you're below a certain level, you get that benefit fully.

And then, we have scarce resources.

And so we say, okay, it's going to phase out or hopefully we say it's going to phase out.

Sometimes it just goes away if you get $1 more.

but because we have that desire to target, we, you know, we often have these very steep phase outs of these programs or these cliffs.

And I think when these programs are being designed, they're sort of they've been designed in a vacuum and not also taking into account that other programs are also phasing out at that time.

And so we have all sorts of people, between 100% of the federal poverty level, 200% of the poverty level are facing.

At the same time, you know, phase outs from a loss of Medicaid or that's a cliff in that instance or, Snap benefits or the earned income tax credit is facing down at that point, your eligibility for section eight or, you know, public housing could be going down and it's really difficult for a family to get past those points by just, you know, that $1 an hour increase or or something like that.

And, and it's, it's a real challenge that families in this community face all the time.

I think our, our council wants to be mindful of those things and not, you know, add to them a lot of these things are driven by federal policies, but where we have the ability to we should be designing, programs that that help people avoid those cliffs or, or don't add new ones.

Right.

And so I think one example through our recommendations, if as we were talking about, expanding different tax credits for families, we looked at expanding the earned income tax credit versus, expansion of the child tax credit and looking at where in New York State's minimum wages right now and the existence of a federal income tax credit, we pretty quickly decided that a broader child tax credit that goes to more families, it doesn't phase down so steeply, you know, at families, making it a 30 to $50,000 a year where you're losing quite a bit of benefit as you as your income increases.

We do want to add to that problem.

So we said let's let's propose a child tax credit expansion here.

and that's going to continue under the governor's proposal, to a family making, you know, $75,000 a year for single parent, $110,000 a year for a married couple.

And that's passed a lot of those cliffs that families face.

And so it's something we want to be mindful of.

but, we do need to, to try to fix some of these other programs like, you know, like some of the cliffs people experience with snap, for example, and, and I think there are ways we can do that, and I'm sure the commissioner has plenty of ideas, but, but it's certainly we didn't want to add to any of that harm from the, from those benefit cliffs and where we can we wanted to to, you know, start to try to address them.

Commissioner.

Gwen, you want to add to that?

I would I would just add that I think government also programs should be built with policies that gradually fade, right, that the program steps down as income rises.

And I think we also need to do a better job of making individuals better informed about what's going to happen and what options they have.

So, for example, while someone may lose eligibility for Medicaid, what options do they have in the health care system and in terms of getting a subsidy and make sure that they apply for those subsidies so that they do have very low co-pays.

child care is another good example where we've increased that eligibility threshold significantly so that higher income families can still access child care with a co-pay.

But we still have Snap is a good example of where there isn't a very strong earned income disregard so that it doesn't go down gradually.

And we also have limits with federal programs, including child care, where there is a federal cap.

So it it does hit a limit where if we're drawing down the federal funds, that kind of step down is eroded and it does become a cliff.

what we tend to see also, though, is people usually are better off from a resource standpoint when they work more hours.

However, when time is worth a lot, right?

Especially if you're a parent.

And so what we often see is that you may be better off, but the extent to which you're better off is not that great.

That that your time is necessarily worth it to invest those additional 10 to 15 hours a week in the job because you're because you are losing on the benefit side.

after we take this only break, we're going to work through more of the specific ideas that are out there to address the subject of child poverty.

New York State, fourth in the country.

We have been saying that.

Is that right, Peter?

That turn right.

it's.

Yeah.

Okay.

The commissioner and yes, fourth in the country, everybody agrees that's too high.

We're talking about what could be done to change that.

Barbara Gouin is commissioner of the New York State Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance and co-chair of the Child Poverty Reduction Advisory Council, Pete Noble, and he is a member of that council and policy director for the Children's Agenda.

Jason Deleuze is, with us, a father and parent advocate, and we're right back on connections.

I'm Evan Dawson.

Friday on the next connections, my colleague Sonia, our host.

The program a conversation in the first hour about AI models, open AI announced a big shift.

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We know the saying there are a lot of fish in the sea, but just how many fish?

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This afternoon at four.

This is connections.

I'm Evan Dawson.

Let me grab a phone call from Michael in Fairport, who's been listening.

Hi, Michael.

Go ahead.

Hello, Evan.

Thank you very much.

I'm calling because it's a little frustrating.

I listen to the conversation about reducing poverty, which is important.

And it seems that everything revolves around getting the government to give more money.

Whether it's the state of the federal getting more money to give to people and what what I see is not being addressed are ways to, to, to, address the underlying cause of poverty.

It's one thing to help people that are in need, but nothing that's been discussed today is addresses what can be done so that, you know, people in 30 years from now that are kids today won't be in poverty, because if you're going to just give money every year to everybody, you know, I mean, if the government guaranteed everybody over the age of 18 a minimum monthly income of $5,000, so if they worked in a job that paid less than that, the government would make up the difference would be almost no poverty.

But it's sort of like, you know, give a man a fish, eats for a day, teach him how to fish, eats for a lifetime.

And I think that's one of the problems.

That's why when Evan started the show, talks about the poverty rate has been high for a long time in Rochester.

And even though there's organizations like the ones you guys are from and our math, it doesn't really change.

And it doesn't change, in my opinion, because it's all about getting money from the government to give it to people.

I'm all in favor of these.

The child tax credit, the earned income credit that will help people, but it helps people in need.

It doesn't address the problem.

I think it needs to be effort made to address the underlying cause.

So there's fewer people in poverty in ten, 20 years from now.

Okay, Michael, thank you, as always for the phone call.

I'll ask our guest.

Barbara.

Do you want to start?

call her.

Oh, Barbara is having a hard time hearing the caller.

Okay, so.

So some of what?

let me just restate a little bit of some of what Michael said.

I'll let Pete start here.

His concern is that direct cash assistance may ameliorate emergency situations, but it does not fundamentally change how someone is able to to create earnings for themselves going forward.

And he thinks too much of anti-poverty efforts are just giving direct assistance to people as opposed to helping them, teaching them, guiding them toward a better life.

Pete.

Yeah, I mean, I think, a couple of things.

I mean, first of all, you want to do both, right?

We want to make sure that people's basic needs are being met.

that, you know, we are a wealthy country that has, plenty of resources.

And it's, I think, a moral imperative in all of us to ensure that kids aren't growing up without, you know, food and shelter and the basics to, to get off to a good start to life and and, I think that's a social obligation that we all have.

And I think most people would, would agree with that.

and, I think, we should invest in programs, you know, whether it's job training programs, different employment, efforts.

There are lots of those programs out there.

We, there's plenty of folks who focus on workforce development and, you know, different ways to help people develop, develop, or further their sort of skills to, to get those jobs that, you know, help them, earn a little bit more money, be able to provide more for their family and, those things are important.

I think one of the things that sort of at least animates my work in how I try to think about, about this is that the some of the strongest predictors of being an adult who's experiencing poverty is having grown up in poverty.

and, if you look at anything, whether it's, test scores, educational outcomes, health outcomes, all these things, being a child who experiences, you know, hardship in that way, can lead to a lifetime of that.

And what we're trying to do at some level is, is interrupt that cycle.

if we can get families, the resources that kids need to thrive in this generation, then we're setting up that next generation to not have those same level of needs.

and, and I think that's, that's a as good of a case as any for, for some of these programs.

you know, we want to invest in these things today.

So that children in the future won't be in that position because their parents, had more resources when they were growing up.

And there's lots of data that kind of backs up that sort of approach.

The federal child tax credit, you can use wonky terms.

It's just money per kid.

Yeah.

for a set amount of time might be on a monthly basis at sunset.

It after two years, whatever it was.

and so that's direct assistance.

And I'm not trying to contradict part of what Michael's saying.

I hear.

Michael, I hear you very much, Michael.

that is an example.

The kids were literally pulled out of poverty by that direct assistance.

Was it?

Yeah, that's what the data showed.

Yeah.

most evaluations of it showed that it, reduced child poverty nationwide by, you know, 40 to 50% was was the estimate.

and so that's that was a federal program that that accomplished most of the what we're trying to tackle here at the state level.

And so that's informed a lot of our thinking about how to how to address this.

the only the only other point I'll make to, to Michael and others that may be thinking about this, our council was given a charge of finding a way to reduce child powered by 50% in ten years, and it's.

And that ten years is important.

You know, we want to act swiftly.

We need to get programs up and running.

We need to address this now in ten years.

It's a it's a long time, you know, that's that's more than half of a child's, lifetime.

and and yet it's not long enough to say, okay, we're going to invest in something that will, you know, let's pretend for a moment that we could just invest in long term solutions, not helping families.

Now, so that that next generation doesn't experience poverty.

Well, if that worked, and I'm sort of skeptical that that it would, you know, you wouldn't see the return on that for 25 years when those folks have their own children.

And so our time horizon for this work really did need to look at how could we do some how can we put policies in place today, tomorrow, the next couple of years that will reduce child poverty and set those families up for breaking that that generational cycle that we're we've been talking about.

Commissioner Gwen, do you want to add to that?

Yeah.

I think, it makes me think of a quote from the National Academies of Sciences roadmap that they developed for reducing child poverty, which is a negative income itself leads to negative outcomes for children, especially when the poverty occurs when they are very young.

So we're talking about investments to help in particularly focused on times in a family's life when they have young children, when there is so much emotional social development happening at that point, that those investments should lead to better outcomes for education, health, etc., and lead to better employment outcomes for those children as they get older.

At the same time, yes, we also need to, continue to invest in workforce services to encourage businesses to invest in their employees, in order to give them advancement opportunities.

So it's very difficult as an adult, especially an adult that has children, to increase your education at that point.

And so anything employers can do as well to invest in their employees and help develop that workforce, we should be doing all of it.

But I think, again, the focus of this council is really investing in young children.

Jason Toulouse, as a father of two, if you remember those federal tax credits a few years ago, do what what do they mean to you?

So I was an AmeriCorps member at the time where I was making about $15,000 a year.

It was a substantial increase, to my income.

I think, you know, having another 300, $300 come in.

That's what it was at the time, 300 every month when my paycheck was $500 or so, every two weeks was it was very noticeable.

So when that when that went away, it was it was quite substantial.

And I was in refugee resettlement at the time, and I was serving families who had between 3 and 11 children, and the differences in their lives when they got between 250 and $300 for every single kid like they were, they were buying things that they just hadn't been able to buy.

And it was the same for my household.

I only had one child at the time.

My daughter hadn't been born yet.

And we had better birthday.

You know, we had we had better things happening.

Rent was easier, it was very noticeable.

And I was really disappointed in our in our nation.

I will say, when that faded away, when it was just allowed to to sunset.

And that really is, I think, the answer to your caller that when we see that funding is put in the right direction in the family, is that poverty goes away, then that's what we should be doing.

Michael, thanks.

And those are themes that will continue to stand.

Michael.

And I know it's important to examine the outcomes towards a lot of investment.

so let's talk about this now.

So the recommendations that are coming from this council's report include, that child tax credit, it would decouple the Empire State child tax credit from a federal child tax credit increase.

the maximum of $1,500 per child.

No age distinctions.

Eliminate the minimum income requirement and wage phasing that currently prevents the lowest income filers from receiving the full credit, thereby making the credit fully refundable for all eligible new Yorkers.

Is there did I say that right?

That you nailed it?

Okay, so so that's that's proposal number one.

Is there momentum for this in Albany right now?

Yes.

Yeah, absolutely.

the governor's proposed a sort of a steps towards that process.

she's proposed a $1,000, child tax credit, for families, for children under the age of four, so thousand dollars annually, annually.

So, you know, the Child Poverty Action Advisory Council has a recommendation of $1,500.

you know, in in our report, we, we acknowledge that things may take some time to implement.

I mean, these things are costly.

the governor's proposal this year is to have a $1,000 credit for families, you know, for young children, and then next year to increase the, credit for children 4 to 16 to, from the $330 credit that we have today to, to $500.

And so that's getting us in the direction of, the, council's recommendations.

And, you know, it.

Talk to folks in the legislature.

I think there's a lot of interest in, in the legislature in enacting that or going further.

I think a lot of folks want to see, you know, speeding up the timeline on that, and, and making the credit larger for, for those older kids, too.

so we'll see how that plays out with the, with the state budget process.

but I definitely think there's a tremendous amount of interest.

And I'd be I'd be surprised if nothing, went through this year.

It seems like it's, it's really moving forward in a really positive way.

Commissioner, I think you agree with that based on your reaction to Pete's comments there.

Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely.

we're really happy that Governor Hochul is putting kind of a down payment on the recommendations from the council.

you know, every budget season, there are a lot of difficult choices to be made in terms of where revenues are invested.

And she made a decision she wanted to invest $825 million to help support families.

so and I would just also add that the estimate that we have from, the Urban Institute that we're working with on the child poverty reduction advisory Council, they have estimated that if the governor's proposal advances, it would reduce child poverty in New York State by 8.2% and about 10% for children and for children under four.

So that is the child tax credit portion.

Then there's, portions of recommendations on public assistance, housing assistance and some reforms as well.

And and so in our remaining time, let's make sure people understand that.

So I'm going to give the commissioner, Putnam County, from the Children's Agenda some time to talk about that public assistance.

What what should we know about this recommendation.

So the recommendation from the Council on Public Assistance is to increase what's referred to as the basic portion of the public assistance grant.

There are different pieces, some intended for shelter, etc.. and so the recommendation is to essentially double that amount of assistance.

Right now, I believe it's $158 per month for a single individual, and $336 per month, I believe, for a family of three.

So the recommendation is to double that.

What really surprised me was the extent to which this would reduce child poverty.

It was estimated to reduce by again by the Urban Institute that it would reduce child poverty by 18% in New York state.

So, it's an expensive proposal.

But I do think, and I hope that in the future that there's something that the governor can move forward with in terms of increasing public assistance, grant values, anything you want to add there?

Yeah, I'll just say, I think it's it's really effective because the families who are receiving public assistance are the neediest families.

and the folks who are really struggling the most with, you know, economic hardship.

and so and that amount hasn't been increased in several decades.

And so, we know the cost of living has gone up considerably since the early 2000.

And yet, that grant amount has been fixed.

There's lots of reasons for why that's been fixed.

Some of it has to do with the fact that the funding we get from the federal government has not gone up since the 90s for this kind of program.

The, you know, ten of welfare block grants, that we get and, and so the state's been reluctant to, to increase that looking at the funding they have available.

But, public assistance should be a way to get people out of poverty, to give them enough resources so that they can get back on their feet.

And unfortunately, the the amounts are so low right now that it's not it's not working as intended.

And and hopefully we'll see some, some progress on that.

if not this year, then then real soon.

On the subject of housing assistance, the proposal is to create a state level housing voucher program based on the Federal Housing Choice Voucher Program to fill the known gaps in that program, with the value of assistance aligned with the housing market, allowing application regardless of immigration status.

Without an arbitrary cap on the number of households that can apply.

Why would this have an impact?

Commissioner?

So obviously, the more housing is a large portion of every household's budget, right?

And we know housing cost rents have been going up, certainly putting a strain on households that the the proposal, again similar to the federal housing vouchers would limit a family's contribution to 30% of their household income.

So certainly by being able to maintain or to contain the amount of your income that needs to go toward housing, obviously that makes additional funds available for other necessities, food, transportation, maybe a birthday party or things like that.

That would just make families better off.

And I know some listeners, given the current political climate, heard me say allowing application regardless of immigration status.

You want to elaborate on that?

Yeah.

I mean, we we have people in our country that are largely barred from many benefit programs.

even if these even if individuals are here legally, they are still barred from many programs based on federal rules and regulations.

They are in our country legally.

We're not talking about undocumented, but every every household, especially households with children we would like to be able to support so that they can become better established within our neighborhoods.

And we think that, you know, helping those households is just as important as helping someone who may have been born and raised.

All right.

those are the big prongs.

And then a number of reforms that are meant to strengthen existing programs as well exist.

I want to ask, Jason, you know, when you think about what you need most, we've been talking about housing assistance.

We've been talking about, public assistance, child tax credit.

What do you need most?

I do think that when we talk about poverty, we really focus on unjust money, but poverty, a lot of the time is a lack of being able to reach for anything.

So hearing these rungs in place of a socioeconomic ladder, of housing, of public assistance is great.

But, you know, we're also looking at I would like to see New York definitely step up, in a sense, to really provide for these things.

When we're seeing the possibility at the federal government steps back dramatically.

So I'm concerned for my community as I, for the first time, am doing a little bit okay economically.

I'm looking at, how do I figure this out as I move forward when I'm stepping in to where I work in advocacy and I'm saying they're looking at my community and saying, are we in a long term trouble?

That's my concern.

It's February break week, by the way.

In.

We've been hanging out with Jason in and his kid, who's amazing.

You're doing great, man.

You're doing great.

I want to thank you for sharing your family's story, your own story.

Thank you and wish you luck.

Thank you for making time for us.

And I want to ask Pete and the commissioner what you want listeners to know is they want to maybe follow along more with this.

I mean, we're we're on the cusp now.

Hear more from the state.

obviously there could be federal chaos, but a lot of what we're talking about is going to be focused on state efforts.

What do you want people to know, Commissioner?

I want people to know that, you know, we'll continue to, to fight for New Yorkers, in particular, New Yorkers that need resources to stand up against federal cuts and also just ask people to stay engaged.

I think it's important for people to be engaged, to be aware about what's going on and how that impacts, even if it doesn't impact you directly.

To think about how, policy changes impact individuals in your community and that really think forward about supporting communities.

20s Pete, any final thoughts?

So we're meeting next week, as a council, and we meet every two months.

And I'd encourage people to go to the TDA website, look at the materials we put out.

you can live stream our meetings if you'd like.

It's all very public.

and really dig into this issue because there's a lot of work to be done, and we'd love to hear from folks about other ideas that the council can advance peace with the children's agenda.

And a member of the Child Poverty Reduction Advisory Council, thanks for being back here.

Thanks so always.

And Commissioner Gwynn of the New York State Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance and co-chair of the council.

Thank you for being here.

Thank you so much.

And of course, Jason as well, the whole family.

Thanks for being here from all of us of connections.

Thank you for listening.

Thank you for watching.

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