Last Minute Push Keeps Poverty In Check

Recently in New York, there have been fears that many more people would fall into poverty due to the recession. Currently 19.9% of the city's population lives in poverty. Without a flood of food stamps and tax benefits for low-income families, about 250,000 more New Yorkers would have fallen into poverty. Many people feel that most poverty aid programs are ineffective but in reality, some are essential to preventing more poverty. The Center for Economic Opportunity explains further in this article:

Not every antipoverty program meets its goals and deserves to be protected,” the report by Dr. Mark Levitan, the center’s director of poverty research, says, “but calls for across-the-board cutbacks to programs that help low-income families cannot be justified by the assertion that when it comes to poverty, ‘nothing works.

It is essential to identify and expand on successful programs such as this recent one to maximize effective aid to those in need. If unnecessary programs are cut and the money is allocated more efficiently to more effective programs, poverty and homeless levels could be drastically reduced.