Report: More Than 100,000 Jews in City Are Living Just Above Poverty Line

About 104,000 New York Jews live just above the poverty line, caught in a world where they are too poor to lead a comfortable life but too wealthy to receive government assistance, a report released yesterday said. The report, by the Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty with help from the UJA-Federation of New York, documented 53,000 Jewish households whose income was at least $22,530 - or 150% above the federal poverty line - but less than $35,000 for a household of three people.

"The idea is we don't want people to struggle to get out of poverty only to say, you know, 'It's not better here,'" the executive director of the council, William Rapfogel, said. The study is based on a 2002 report that found that the number of Jews living in poverty in the city's five boroughs, plus Nassau, Suffolk, and Westchester counties, doubled to 244,000 in the past decade, contradicting a trend that saw a decrease among the general population in the number of New Yorkers living below the poverty line.

The report published yesterday said one-third of Jews in the metropolitan area living near the poverty line were struggling to cope with a serious or chronic illness; needed help finding a job; needed help caring for the elderly, or had a child with a learning disability.

Many Jews living just above the poverty line shared characteristics with those living below the poverty line. While 42% of Jews in households that made more than $35,000 had graduate degrees, only 14% of Jews living near the poverty line and 18% of Jews living below had such degrees. The report found that 34% of Jews living just above the poverty line had no more than a high school education, similar to the 38% of Jews who had a high school education and lived in poverty.

Greater help is needed from health care, employment, and housing agencies that recognize the needs of people just above the poverty line, many of whom "have less money available to meet their basic needs than a household whose lower income entitles them to governmental aid," the report said.

The study was based on extensive telephone interviews of 4,533 Jewish households living near the poverty line.