Groups Criticize Lawmakers for Protecting the Rich over Poor Children and their Families

Anti-poverty organizations and faith leaders held a vigil outside of the Senate chambers today to protest lawmakers’ failure to raise the welfare basic grant for the 18th year in a row.

A counterprotest was organized by Billionaires for Bruno to celebrate the defeat of the Millionaire's Tax.

The Assembly had proposed a 30% increase in the basic grant over 3 years. The basic grant is now $291 a month for a family of 3. The overall welfare grant is less than half the federal poverty level.

The failure to raise welfare benefits comes despite the fact that New York has a surplus of more than a billion dollars in welfare funding from the federal government that could be used to pay for the hike. The Senate and Governor also rejected the so called millionaires tax would have raised $1.5 billion in revenues to help resolve the state’s deficit.

“While lawmakers cited the state’s financial problems for the lack of action this year on the welfare grant and a host of other issues, the Senate and Governor decided to protect the very rich rather than the poor and the middle class,” noted Mark Dunlea, Executive Director of the Hunger Action Network.

The state tax cuts primarily given to wealthy New Yorkers over recent years cost the state $16 billion this year, a major factor in the projected $5 billion deficit. The Senate and the Governor refused to go along with the Assembly proposal to enact a small increase (less than 1% point) on incomes above one million dollars, despite public opinion polls showing strong support (77% to 19%). Even Republican voters supported it by 65 to 31%.

The poorest New Yorkers now pay twice as much of their income for state and local taxes as do wealthy New Yorkers like Donald Trump.

“It is immoral that in the richest nation, New York leads in the growing gap between the poor and rich. Nothing illustrates that gap better than the decline in value of welfare benefits to only half of the federal poverty level. No industrial democracy fails children more than the United States,” stated Rev. Debra Jameson, Community Minister of the FOCUS Churches of Albany. The statewide Faith and Hunger Network has been one of the coalitions speaking out on the need to raise the welfare grant.

The groups said they were disappointed that Governor Paterson hadn’t done more to help poor New Yorkers in the budget.

An earlier letter sent to the Governor’s office by three dozen groups stated: “We see a terrible loss of hope among those who depend on the State for the necessities of life. We see the despair of families pressed to the limits of endurance. New York's inadequate support for the poor and the marginalized has developed into a social crisis. The Jewish, Christian and Islamic traditions all speak for the dignity of people in poverty, that it is society’s responsibility to address and alleviate such inequities. We as a state are failing. As it states in Article 17 of the State Constitution, “the aid, care, and support of the needy are public concerns and shall be provided by the state.”   Former New York Governor President Franklin Delano Roosevelt once remarked, "The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little." 

The annual billion dollars plus surplus in welfare funds is because the federal government’s payment to the state for welfare benefits was turned into a block grant in 1996. The amount of funds provided to New York ($1.6 billion) doesn’t change regardless of the number of people receive benefits. Welfare caseloads have declined dramatically in recent years, to slightly more than half a million (300,000 of whom are children). The annual cost of benefits is now less than a billion dollars. Instead of using the surplus federal dollars to provide higher benefits to the people they are intended to, the state uses it – legally – to free up money for the rest of the state budget. Advocates in particular have been urging that programs such as the Earned Income Tax Credit should be paid for out the general budget.

More than 2.6 million New Yorkers are living in poverty – one in five children (858,000) and one in ten families (575,000) had incomes below the official federal poverty thresholds in 2006.

Several members of Billionaires for Bruno were also outside the Senate chamber to thank the Senators for blocking the millionaire’s tax. “Tax the poor to feed the rich,” was one of their chants.

“Despite overwhelming public support, the Senate leadership blocked the so-called millionaire’s tax. They blocked proposals to save consumers money, at no expense to taxpayers, on their prescription drug costs. The only ones who benefited from their action are the drug companies. They fought to keep empty prisons open at great expense. Who exactly are they representing?” asked Mark Dunlea, Executive Director of Hunger Action Network.

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