New York’s rates of poverty and hunger have worsened dramatically, according to the latest available data.
City Harvest, which annually feeds more than 1 million hungry and/or homeless New Yorkers, is facing a busy holiday, pledging to deliver a whopping 11 million pounds of food this November through January.
The recovery has certainly helped ease the worst of the city’s unemployment and has led to job gains in some sectors.
But it didn’t bring much relief to New York City’s 1.7 million residents living below the federal poverty level, according to a study by the nonprofit City Harvest. (The latest federal poverty-level guideline for a family of four is an annual income of $23,550.)
The City Harvest study breaks out the latest available data, comparing 2012 with the previous year — and it’s not pretty.
The worst-hit borough is the Bronx. “The Bronx [includes] the poorest congressional district[s] in the US,” City Harvest’s Leslie Gordon told The Post.
Nearly 1 in 3 children in New York City, 31 percent, lives in poverty. Nearly 1 in 5 seniors, 19 percent, lives in poverty.
Analysts cite several reasons for New York’s grim statistics. For example, food prices have risen about 15 percent locally since 2008, Gordon notes.
Of course, New York City’s official 2012 unemployment rate, 9.4 percent, was well above the national average of 7.8 percent.
More recently, cuts this month in the food-stamp program, now known as SNAP, have resulted in the average recipient losing $30 monthly, according to City Harvest. This cutback will be reflected in the next round of statistics.
The latest figures are grim.
- In the Bronx, 23 percent of people are food-insecure, up from 20 percent.
- In Brooklyn, 20 percent are food-insecure, up from 18 percent.
- And in Manhattan, 16 percent are food insecure, up from 13 percent.