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Economic Recovery Leaves Low-Income New Yorkers Behind

CSS Annual Survey Reveals Highest Level of Hardships In Four Years of Tracking Trends

New York, NY - October 18, 2005 – This year’s Community Service Society survey of low-income New Yorkers finds that hardships among low-income New York City residents are at a four-year high. More than half experienced three or more serious hardships, such as falling behind in the rent, failing to get needed medical care, or difficulty feeding or clothing one’s family. The most dramatic increase was for the working poor, families with a full-time worker living at or below the poverty guidelines, $16,090 for a family of three. Their likelihood of reporting three or more hardships jumped 30 percentage points to 70% in 2005 compared to 39% the previous year.

These are among the findings of The Unheard Third: Bringing the Voices of Low-Income New Yorkers to the Policy Debate (PDF), released today by the Community Service Society (CSS). The Washington-based firm of Lake Snell Perry Mermin & Associates conducted interviews with 1,000 low-income New York City residents and a comparison sample of 500 moderate and higher income New Yorkers. Most low-income families surveyed had at least one member who was employed.

“The economic hardships we found among New York City’s low-income population parallels the vulnerability we witnessed in New Orleans.” Action must be taken to level the playing field such as indexing the minimum wage to inflation, attracting more mid-wage jobs to the city, investing much more in education and training, and strengthening the federal safety net at risk of cutbacks.”

Health care has emerged as the greatest worry for low-income New Yorkers, with 41% of respondents reporting they were unable to fill a needed prescription and 36% saying they postponed medical care or surgery for lack of money or insurance coverage.

Two-thirds of the low-income workers surveyed were employed by small businesses with fewer than 50 employees, and it is most often small firms that have found it hard to provide health insurance as premium costs have soared. This trend was reflected in the data. Among poor full-time wage earners half are uninsured and barely a fifth have private insurance. Medicaid and Medicare partly filled the gap, covering about 27% of respondents. Full-time workers just above the poverty level fared somewhat better, with 31% uninsured and 55% covered by their own or a spouse’s employee plan. In contrast, only 7% of moderate and higher income New Yorkers reported being uninsured at the time of the survey.

“The widening gap in health insurance is one factor behind the rising hardships we are seeing,” according to the lead researcher, Nancy Rankin, director of policy research at CSS. “In addition, in the past few years wages in New York City have actually fallen by 5.5 % for workers at the bottom third of the earnings scale, while rents have climbed upward in the city’s hot real estate market. That leaves low-income New Yorkers out in the cold.”

The poor see themselves as stuck or moving down the economic ladder: more than two-thirds claimed that they were no better off economically than their parents, and 44% said they were worse off. In comparison, 72% of the moderate and higher income New Yorkers said that they were better off.

Low-income black and Hispanic respondents were more dissatisfied with the direction that the city is headed and the job the mayor is doing than low-income white respondents.

The margin of error for the low-income component is +/-3.1 percentage points; for the higher income component +/- 4.4 percentage points. Funding for this project was provided by the Rockefellar Foundation and the United Way of New York City.

CSS is an independent, nonprofit organization that for more than 150 years has provided innovative solutions to help New Yorkers in need defeat the problems of poverty and strengthen community life for all. Through a combination of service initiatives, policy analysis, and advocacy we bring about systemic change that empowers those in need to advocate for themselves.

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