Children Receiving Public Assistance 0-17 yrs[view
data]
Data Provider:NYS Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance
Life
Area: Economic Security
Definition:
Public assistance programs provide cash aid to meet the basic support needs of individuals and families. To be eligible for public assistance, a family's countable income and resources must fall below certain limits. Families receive the difference between countable income and a standard of need based on their family size and the housing costs for their district (districts include New York City and each of the Rest of State counties).
The profiles show the number and percent of children (i.e., persons less than 18 years old), who received public assistance in New York State at the end of the respective years.
Children were counted as receiving public assistance at the end of the year if they received aid under the State’s Family Assistance (FA) program or the State’s Safety Net (SN) program. A federally subsidized program, FA is the state's primary public assistance program for families with children. SN, a state funded general assistance program, provides public assistance for single adults, childless couples, and a relatively small number of families with children who are not eligible for aid under FA. Prior to and including 1997, children were counted as receiving public assistance if they received aid under either the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program or the Home Relief (HR) program, programs that predated the FA and SN programs discussed above.
Significance:
The number and percent of children receiving public assistance is primarily a measure of the extent to which New York State children are dependent on government aid to meet their basic economic needs.
Findings:
The rate of public assistance receipt among children varied greatly across the State. In 2008, the percent of children receiving public assistance was almost three times higher in New York City (9.4%) than in Rest of State (3.8%).
Among Rest of State counties, the rate of public assistance receipt ranged widely, from a high of 9.5 percent in Monroe to a low of 0.2 percent in Putnam. The counties with relatively large urban and suburban populations, such as Monroe, Erie, Broome, Onondaga, and Albany, had relatively high rates of public assistance use. Highly suburban counties, such as Putnam, Nassau, and Suffolk had relatively low rates of public assistance use. Use of public assistance in highly rural counties in Rest of State was widely varied.
The number and percent of children receiving public assistance declined considerably from 2000-2008. By the close of 2008, 6.3 percent of all children received public assistance, a decline of about one-fourth in the rate of public assistance receipt.
The rate of decline was higher in New York City than in the Rest of State. The share of children depending on public assistance declined by about a third in NYC and by about a fifth in Rest of State.
KWIC
Indicator(s) and Narrative For: