New York City provided cash assistance to 787,400 residents last fiscal year, the most welfare checks issued in at least 20 years during the Giuliani administration.
Taxpayers have already been collected more than $5.5 billion in the past two years to provide shelter and other services to the large influx of immigrants, but they are also separately dealing with the surge in New Yorkers seeking benefits. I had to.
Mayor Adams announced that the federal, state, and municipal budget will be released in the fiscal year ending June 30, after previously budgeting $1.99 billion for fiscal year 2023 and $1.57 billion for fiscal year 2022. The fund has budgeted $2.46 billion in cash assistance payments.
The biweekly checks ($91.50 for a single adult, $144.50 for a household of three) are supposed to go towards utilities, rent, clothing and other necessities.
The number of New Yorkers who received welfare checks last year was 19.1% higher than the 660,800 recipients in 2023, according to the statistics. Mayor's Annual Management Report.
In August alone, 569,981 New Yorkers received benefits. That was a 16.5% increase over the same period a year ago, and the biggest number the Big Apple has seen in a single month since part of 2000. a Post-mortem inspection of city records shows.
This is 48.2% higher than the monthly welfare roll that Adams inherited when he took office in 2022.
The city's Department of Human Services says the large increase is the result of the “unprecedented” challenge of helping New Yorkers get back on their feet after the pandemic hit many people, especially people of color, hard. .
The agency insists the immigration crisis is not causing a surge in welfare checks.
The city estimates that about 2% of current cash assistance recipients (approximately 11,200 people) are “non-citizens,” but the city believes that only a “small percentage” of them will enter the country after spring 2022. They claim that they are illegal border crossers.
In March, the agency estimated that 1.3%, or nearly 7,000 people, of the 535,184 recipients that month were noncitizens.
But as the Post reported in February, even after the state's Office of Temporary Disability Assistance revised the system, thousands of immigrants who don't qualify for typical welfare assistance still receive a total of hundreds of dollars in lost benefits. They are given a substantial monthly check. “Safety net support” The program's eligibility provisions include noncitizens with pending legal asylum claims.
Similar to welfare, the SNA has traditionally provided cash payments to poor New Yorkers who don't qualify for traditional public assistance, such as single adults, childless couples, and families of people who abuse alcohol or drugs. .
“Immigration may not be the cause of the increase in cash aid, but there are still clear similarities here,” said Steven Eide, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank that studies public aid. he says.
“With both welfare rolls and spending on immigrant shelters, the city essentially supported the expansion of two extremely expensive benefits: strategically deciding that more people should be on welfare; , I don't know which is worse: accidentally allowing an increase that would undo 20 years of progress in reducing dependence.”
When Rudy Giuliani became mayor in 1994, he inherited a welfare crisis that saw an increase in the number of New Yorkers receiving monthly cash assistance. By the time he implemented a series of reforms in March 1995, the number had soared to a record 1,160,593.
He prioritized getting recipients back to work, especially those who prefer receiving checks to stamping at work, and said many recipients would help clean up the city's parks and streets or make phone calls at City Hall. In response, he promoted welfare reform initiatives such as work experience programs. in exchange for temporary assistance.
That number plummeted to 497,100 in mid-2001, the final year of Mr. Giuliani's term, and the downward spiral continued under his successor, Michael Bloomberg. In December 2013, the last month of the Bloomberg administration, 346,398 New Yorkers received unemployment checks.
In May 2014, under then-Mayor Bill de Blasio, the city's monthly enrollment dropped to 336,403, the lowest since the early 1960s. But by the time de Blasio left office at the end of 2021, monthly recipients had grown to 384,523, thanks in part to policies introduced by Mr. de Blasio to simplify the application process and help with the economic burden of the pandemic. .
DSS spokesperson Nicholas Jacobelli said the Adams administration has “connected a record number of New Yorkers with cash assistance in accordance with state and federal regulations, including the recent reinstatement of work requirements that had been suspended during and immediately after the pandemic.” I'm here,” he exclaimed. To accelerate New York City's recovery. ”
“The agency will continue to work to … connect them to key employment supports and enable them to become self-sufficient,” he added.
