Child poverty on LI: These single moms make $45G a year, too much for aid
Ilonka Garcia and her daughter Eve Luna, 3, live in the basement of her childhood home in Freeport. Credit: Newsday/Alejandra Villa Loarca
The day begins early for Ilonka Garcia and Shayna Ross. It involves readying children for school or child care and preparing themselves for work.
"I get up at 5 in the morning, try to get my day set," said Garcia, 36, a single mother who lives in the Freeport home she grew up in, along with her mother, sister and her sister's children. Garcia and her 3-year-old daughter, Eve Luna, have their own space in the basement of the home.
"I pack lunch for her, snacks, a change of clothes, get myself ready, do my schedule as to what I have to do for the day, the stores I have to visit," Garcia said, referencing her job as a sales rep for a national food distributor, which has her traveling to supermarkets in Nassau and Suffolk counties and parts of Queens.
"So by the time that I get home, pick her up from where I have child care and go home, it's 7 at night. Mind you, I haven't mentioned to you that I stopped for lunch or anything. I work through the whole entire day, because that's the only way that I'm going to be able to do the hours that I have to do for work and make it to my child on time." Her annual income is about $45,000.
Ross, 36, of Glen Cove, has school-age children, a 13-year-old son and a 5-year-old daughter. She's a "direct support professional" for the Cerebral Palsy Association of Nassau County, working in the homes of clients, helping them with daily tasks, taking them to appointments and the like, generally "making sure they're well taken care of." She works from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. during the week and picks up a sixth day, for overtime, on Sundays from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. She also said she earned about $45,000 a year.
Both women, speaking to Newsday separately, talked about their financial struggles. For the most part, they earn too much, under current federal poverty guidelines, to qualify for many government benefits, with a few exceptions.
While they don't meet federal poverty standards, they are clearly within local estimates of what poverty looks like in a high-cost region like Long Island, experts say. Overall, single women with children on Long Island have higher poverty rates than other groups, at 10.9% in 2023, according to recent data published by the U.S. Census Bureau.
The federal poverty rates for Long Island are lower than the rates for the nation and New York State, but experts say the federal government's low poverty threshold masks the true level of poverty on Long Island, with its high cost of living for housing, child care and transportation, for example.
Long Island's 2023 poverty rate for all people was 6.1% — 5.4% in Nassau County and 6.8% in Suffolk County. Both counties' rates were lower than New York State's rate of 14.2%, and the national rate of 11.1%.
Experts on Long Island long have complained about the inadequacy of the federal government's poverty threshold, which is the same across the nation — except for Alaska and Hawaii — and doesn't take into account local cost differences. For a family of two adults and two children, the 2023 poverty threshold was $30,900, which would qualify families for many government benefits. Many families on Long Island making more than that still struggle, experts say.
Although New York officials have long complained about the low federal poverty threshold, changing it to take into account higher local costs would require action by Congress.
"Family Service League supports the concept of regionalizing the poverty threshold on Long Island, recognizing that the current national standard does not accurately reflect the high cost of living in the area, leaving many individuals and families struggling to meet basic needs despite technically being above the poverty line," Peggy Boyd, the league's vice president for advocacy and community service, said in an email. The nonprofit league's administrative office is in Huntington.
Boyd added, "This is particularly concerning for Suffolk County single mothers who are facing a combination of factors like rising housing costs, child-care expenses, and limited access to affordable health care, which could explain the recent increase in poverty rates as seen in the 2023 American Community Survey data."
Suffolk was the only one of the two counties that saw an increase in its poverty rate, rising from 6.2% in 2022 to 8.3% in 2023.
Long Island officials often point to various studies that looked at the "self-sufficiency standards," with a 2022 report by the Welfare to Work Commission of the Suffolk County Legislature saying that in the county an adult with a preschooler needed to earn $76,244 and two adults with a preschooler and a school-aged child needed to earn $102,682 to be self sufficient in 2021, noting the cost of child care.
Erica Schifano, assistant vice president of the Family & Children's Association's Family and Community Support division, said many of the women that seek support from the Garden City-based nonprofit, "are on their own," though some live with family members. "We do have quite a lot of families that rely on benefits from the Department of Social Services, but even with those benefits it's just barely making by."
Sometimes, Schifano said, the women can be very close to the income limit making them ineligible for government benefits. "We have families that are $5 over the limit or $13, very close. That'll usually be for food stamps, where the real need is." Just that little bit of income will mean the difference of getting $100 in food stamp assistance or $30, she said. "We have to link them to food pantries."
Schifano referred to federal income guidelines for the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program [SNAP], commonly called food stamps, that showed for a family of two with earned income and no elderly or disabled person in the household, the maximum annual gross income eligibility was $29,580, and for a family of three: $37,296.
"They're working very hard," Schifano said of many mothers. "They don't want to live off benefits anymore, but they're struggling to get there."
Jamila English, associate policy director of the Children's Defense Fund-New York, said her organization advocates proposed state legislation to establish a working family tax credit in the next legislative session. "When the 2020 child tax credit was temporarily expanded at the federal level, during the pandemic ...[child poverty] declined significantly." And after the expansion of the child tax credit expired, "The poverty level for children nearly doubled."
Push for a working family tax credit
A working family tax credit in New York, English said, would strengthen the New York Empire child tax credit and the earned income tax credit, giving families more income. "They would have more money in their pockets," English said. "With the cost of food and the cost of rent and extra expenses ... just a slight decrease in the amount of money going out of families' pockets can make children's lives a bit better and decrease poverty."
Garcia said she didn't qualify for food stamps because of her income, but her young daughter does get the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children, which provides a small monthly voucher — which for the 2025 fiscal year that begins Oct. 1 is $26 — for the purchase of fruit, a dozen eggs and bread.
Ross lamented the high cost of food, but said she earned too much money to get SNAP benefits. Sometimes she supplements her grocery shopping with items from a food pantry.
"The government doesn't give us benefits with food stamps and stuff," Ross said. She criticized the government's focus on a person's gross pay. "So it's not what we bring home ... They should go by net pay."
Ross added, "It's hard to make ends meet. Food is the issue ... There's just, like, food, clothes for the kids, then you have nothing after that."
"My son is 5 feet, 9 inches. He's 13" and still growing. I'm raising a Shaq," she said, referring to basketball great Shaquille O'Neal.
"We pay taxes, but we can't get help," Ross said. "If I'm a single mom and I work, if I need help and I fall short, why can't I get help? Why [do] I have to lose everything for them to help?"
Ross recently got good news, though. After what she said was 13 years of being on the waiting list for a Section 8 housing voucher to help her pay rent costs, she received it in July. She said she had been paying $2,500 a month at her previous residence in Hempstead. At her new three-bedroom apartment in Glen Cove, she said, the rent is $3,100 a month. She is not sure how much of that she will be responsible for paying, but will soon learn that when she "recertifies" her benefits. Recertification of benefits is a process that involves verifying household income and family composition, she said.
Food pantries are a help, Ross said, as is the Family & Children's Association, which provides a variety of programs to support vulnerable families and has provided her family with counseling services, moving expenses and sneakers and backpacks for the children.
Garcia's rent is $1,000 a month, her portion to help the family pay the home's mortgage. Then there's her $800 car payment — it's high, she said because "my credit wasn't good." However, she said, "I need a car for work. It's not even a luxury. To have a car is a necessity." There's child-care costs, which are about $55 a day. She anticipates that cost will decrease because she recently enrolled her daughter in a free child-care program operated by the Family & Children's Association office in Hempstead, which Garcia said provided a learning environment for her daughter three hours a day.
Garcia has a plea to policymakers: "Lower our taxes [and] give us more help with our kids."
The day begins early for Ilonka Garcia and Shayna Ross. It involves readying children for school or child care and preparing themselves for work.
"I get up at 5 in the morning, try to get my day set," said Garcia, 36, a single mother who lives in the Freeport home she grew up in, along with her mother, sister and her sister's children. Garcia and her 3-year-old daughter, Eve Luna, have their own space in the basement of the home.
"I pack lunch for her, snacks, a change of clothes, get myself ready, do my schedule as to what I have to do for the day, the stores I have to visit," Garcia said, referencing her job as a sales rep for a national food distributor, which has her traveling to supermarkets in Nassau and Suffolk counties and parts of Queens.
"So by the time that I get home, pick her up from where I have child care and go home, it's 7 at night. Mind you, I haven't mentioned to you that I stopped for lunch or anything. I work through the whole entire day, because that's the only way that I'm going to be able to do the hours that I have to do for work and make it to my child on time." Her annual income is about $45,000.
WHAT TO KNOW
- Overall, single women with children on Long Island have higher poverty rates than other groups, at 10.9% in 2023, according to recent data published by the U.S. Census Bureau.
- The federal government's low poverty threshold — $30,900 for a family of two adults and two children in 2023 — masks the true level of poverty on the Island, with its high cost of living for housing, child care and transportation, experts say.
- Long Island's 2023 poverty rate for all people was 6.1% — 5.4% in Nassau County and 6.8% in Suffolk County.
Ilonka and Eve Luna at the Family & Children's Association center in Hempstead last month. Credit: Newsday/Alejandra Villa Loarca
Ross, 36, of Glen Cove, has school-age children, a 13-year-old son and a 5-year-old daughter. She's a "direct support professional" for the Cerebral Palsy Association of Nassau County, working in the homes of clients, helping them with daily tasks, taking them to appointments and the like, generally "making sure they're well taken care of." She works from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. during the week and picks up a sixth day, for overtime, on Sundays from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. She also said she earned about $45,000 a year.
Both women, speaking to Newsday separately, talked about their financial struggles. For the most part, they earn too much, under current federal poverty guidelines, to qualify for many government benefits, with a few exceptions.
While they don't meet federal poverty standards, they are clearly within local estimates of what poverty looks like in a high-cost region like Long Island, experts say. Overall, single women with children on Long Island have higher poverty rates than other groups, at 10.9% in 2023, according to recent data published by the U.S. Census Bureau.
The federal poverty rates for Long Island are lower than the rates for the nation and New York State, but experts say the federal government's low poverty threshold masks the true level of poverty on Long Island, with its high cost of living for housing, child care and transportation, for example.
Long Island's 2023 poverty rate for all people was 6.1% — 5.4% in Nassau County and 6.8% in Suffolk County. Both counties' rates were lower than New York State's rate of 14.2%, and the national rate of 11.1%.
Experts on Long Island long have complained about the inadequacy of the federal government's poverty threshold, which is the same across the nation — except for Alaska and Hawaii — and doesn't take into account local cost differences. For a family of two adults and two children, the 2023 poverty threshold was $30,900, which would qualify families for many government benefits. Many families on Long Island making more than that still struggle, experts say.
Concerns about the low federal poverty threshold
Although New York officials have long complained about the low federal poverty threshold, changing it to take into account higher local costs would require action by Congress.
"Family Service League supports the concept of regionalizing the poverty threshold on Long Island, recognizing that the current national standard does not accurately reflect the high cost of living in the area, leaving many individuals and families struggling to meet basic needs despite technically being above the poverty line," Peggy Boyd, the league's vice president for advocacy and community service, said in an email. The nonprofit league's administrative office is in Huntington.
Boyd added, "This is particularly concerning for Suffolk County single mothers who are facing a combination of factors like rising housing costs, child-care expenses, and limited access to affordable health care, which could explain the recent increase in poverty rates as seen in the 2023 American Community Survey data."
Suffolk was the only one of the two counties that saw an increase in its poverty rate, rising from 6.2% in 2022 to 8.3% in 2023.
Suffolk was the only one of the two counties that saw an increase in its poverty rate, rising from 6.2% in 2022 to 8.3% in 2023.
Long Island officials often point to various studies that looked at the "self-sufficiency standards," with a 2022 report by the Welfare to Work Commission of the Suffolk County Legislature saying that in the county an adult with a preschooler needed to earn $76,244 and two adults with a preschooler and a school-aged child needed to earn $102,682 to be self sufficient in 2021, noting the cost of child care.
Erica Schifano, assistant vice president of the Family & Children's Association's Family and Community Support division, said many of the women that seek support from the Garden City-based nonprofit, "are on their own," though some live with family members. "We do have quite a lot of families that rely on benefits from the Department of Social Services, but even with those benefits it's just barely making by."
Sometimes, Schifano said, the women can be very close to the income limit making them ineligible for government benefits. "We have families that are $5 over the limit or $13, very close. That'll usually be for food stamps, where the real need is." Just that little bit of income will mean the difference of getting $100 in food stamp assistance or $30, she said. "We have to link them to food pantries."
Two adults with a preschooler and a school-aged child needed to earn $102,682 to be self sufficient in 2021.
Schifano referred to federal income guidelines for the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program [SNAP], commonly called food stamps, that showed for a family of two with earned income and no elderly or disabled person in the household, the maximum annual gross income eligibility was $29,580, and for a family of three: $37,296.
"They're working very hard," Schifano said of many mothers. "They don't want to live off benefits anymore, but they're struggling to get there."
Jamila English, associate policy director of the Children's Defense Fund-New York, said her organization advocates proposed state legislation to establish a working family tax credit in the next legislative session. "When the 2020 child tax credit was temporarily expanded at the federal level, during the pandemic ...[child poverty] declined significantly." And after the expansion of the child tax credit expired, "The poverty level for children nearly doubled."
Push for a working family tax credit
A working family tax credit in New York, English said, would strengthen the New York Empire child tax credit and the earned income tax credit, giving families more income. "They would have more money in their pockets," English said. "With the cost of food and the cost of rent and extra expenses ... just a slight decrease in the amount of money going out of families' pockets can make children's lives a bit better and decrease poverty."
Garcia said she didn't qualify for food stamps because of her income, but her young daughter does get the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children, which provides a small monthly voucher — which for the 2025 fiscal year that begins Oct. 1 is $26 — for the purchase of fruit, a dozen eggs and bread.
We pay taxes, but we can't get help.
Shayna Ross, single mom in Glen Cove
Ross lamented the high cost of food, but said she earned too much money to get SNAP benefits. Sometimes she supplements her grocery shopping with items from a food pantry.
"The government doesn't give us benefits with food stamps and stuff," Ross said. She criticized the government's focus on a person's gross pay. "So it's not what we bring home ... They should go by net pay."
Ross added, "It's hard to make ends meet. Food is the issue ... There's just, like, food, clothes for the kids, then you have nothing after that."
"My son is 5 feet, 9 inches. He's 13" and still growing. I'm raising a Shaq," she said, referring to basketball great Shaquille O'Neal.
"We pay taxes, but we can't get help," Ross said. "If I'm a single mom and I work, if I need help and I fall short, why can't I get help? Why [do] I have to lose everything for them to help?"
Ross recently got good news, though. After what she said was 13 years of being on the waiting list for a Section 8 housing voucher to help her pay rent costs, she received it in July. She said she had been paying $2,500 a month at her previous residence in Hempstead. At her new three-bedroom apartment in Glen Cove, she said, the rent is $3,100 a month. She is not sure how much of that she will be responsible for paying, but will soon learn that when she "recertifies" her benefits. Recertification of benefits is a process that involves verifying household income and family composition, she said.
Food pantries are a help, Ross said, as is the Family & Children's Association, which provides a variety of programs to support vulnerable families and has provided her family with counseling services, moving expenses and sneakers and backpacks for the children.
Garcia's rent is $1,000 a month, her portion to help the family pay the home's mortgage. Then there's her $800 car payment — it's high, she said because "my credit wasn't good." However, she said, "I need a car for work. It's not even a luxury. To have a car is a necessity." There's child-care costs, which are about $55 a day. She anticipates that cost will decrease because she recently enrolled her daughter in a free child-care program operated by the Family & Children's Association office in Hempstead, which Garcia said provided a learning environment for her daughter three hours a day.
Garcia has a plea to policymakers: "Lower our taxes [and] give us more help with our kids."
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