Tying it all together In this analysis, we find that the majority of New Yorkers (more than 1.1 million children and 3.5 million adults) fall below 200% of the poverty line. While striking in and of itself, this figure is rendered even more sobering when examining the rates of material hardship faced by this population, lending credence to the idea that this benchmark captures the ability to afford a more decent standard of living. Across almost every mea- sure of material hardship in the Poverty Tracker, New Yorkers below 200% of the poverty line are twice as likely to experience difficulty paying for housing, energy and telephone bills, and food compared to those above 200%, with almost 1 in 5 reporting that they lived paycheck-to-paycheck in the past 12 months. Yet, despite these high rates of material hardship, we also find that government transfer policies have a reduced effect for those below 200% but above 100% of the poverty line. While government transfer policies remain critical for providing assistance to those in deep poverty, reducing the share of New Yorkers that fall below 50% of the poverty line by more than half, a large population remains ineligible for assistance while simul- taneously facing severe hardship. Taken together, these findings continue to highlight the challenges faced by low-income New Yorkers and point to the need for policy to do more to make the city broadly affordable to the majority of New Yorkers struggling to attain a decent standard of living.
THE STATE OF POVERTY AND DISADVANTAGE IN NEW YORK CITY 33
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