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Investments in the programs described above help children escape poverty and the cradle to prison pipeline . Expanding each program also contributes to more positive child health and well- being, higher academic and life success, and less costly social spending .
Conclusions
New York has the opportunity to end child poverty now . Using a two-generation approach— simultaneously helping parents and children with their needs to help them thrive—child poverty could be dramatically reduced in New York (by 73 percent) if there were federal investments in the programs described above . CDF-NY recommends that the State make the following investments to further reduce child poverty:
1 . Expand state housing subsidies available for low-income families and enact rent control and stabilization policies statewide that protect affordable housing;
2 . Increase participation in SNAP by expanding eligibility levels and increasing access to the program by integrating enrollment with other benefit enrollment systems;
3 . Expand the refundable state EITC to 40 percent of the federal credit;
4 . Expand child care subsidies to serve all eligible children in the state up to 200 percent poverty; and
5 . Expand programs to poor children that help improve their outcomes, including increasing access to universal pre-K, health care, etc .
If the above policy improvements were made, children from families whose income received a boost from these investments would also reap benefits such as: better birth outcomes, higher academic achievement rates, higher high school graduation rates and higher college attendance rates, better health outcomes, and better financial stability as an adult . Moreover, if policy efforts to increase the economic resources of poor families were supplemented by policies that ensure children and families have access to quality early learning and affordable and accessible health care, New York would further break the cycle of poverty for many of its children . •
Impact: Collected Essays on the Threat of Economic Inequality