Financial & Food Stability
Families that are financially secure have enough income to pay their rent and utilities, buy food and clothing, pay their bills and save for the future. Unfortunately, far too many New York families are struggling with financial insecurity and more than half a million NYC children live below the poverty line. New York State and New York City have programs to help families become more financially stable.
CCC’s Financial & Food Stability Work
Citizens’ Committee for Children of New York wants to end childhood poverty and ensure families are able to save money for future expenses.
CCC advocates to:
Protect and expand the social safety net of government programs that assist families living in poverty:
- We fight to protect and increase funding for government programs, such as public assistance, food stamps and child support enforcement, which help low-income New Yorkers financially support their families.
- We speak out against practices and policies that prevent families from receiving the financial help to which they are legally entitled.
Support fair economic policies that will enable low-income workers to provide for their families:
- We advocate to expand eligibility for and increase the value of tax credits, such as the Earned Income Tax Credit and the Child Care Tax Credit, so that more working families can benefit financially at tax time.
- We support increasing the minimum wage.
Ensure families can save money for the future:
- We champion innovative asset development policies and programs that help all families to save for long-term goals, such as higher education and home ownership.
Ensure every family has access to healthy, affordable food:
- We advocate for more healthy food options in “food deserts,” or neighborhoods without full-sized grocery stores.
Current and recent issues:
- We supported a bill to allow New Yorkers to split their tax refund and direct a portion to 529 college savings accounts.
- We supported legislation to allow farmers markets to accept SNAP benefits, increasing New Yorkers’ access to healthy food options.
- We supported paid family leave legislation at the city and state levels to provide for paid time off for new parents and people providing care for family members in need.
- We helped ensure universal access to free school lunch in all NYC public schools.
- We are advocating for salary parity in the early education workforce between educators at community-based organizations and educators at Department of Education schools.
- We are advocating for the expansion of transportation options in communities without convenient and regular access to subways and buses.
