Successes and Failures of City’s Anti-Poverty Agency

NEW YORK—City Council questioned the success of the mayor’s Center for Economic Opportunity (CEO), established in 2006 to combat poverty, at a hearing on Monday. To evaluate CEO’s success or failure thus far, the council first had to establish what exactly its purpose is. 

CEO representatives met with mixed expectations.

Councilman Ydanis Rodriguez expected CEO to know, after six years of research and analysis, how much money it would take to fill the gap between the current resources and growing need resources in the city—even if this figure could only be obtained in an “ideal” world. 

CEO could not provide the answer, but Director of Poverty Research for CEO Mark Levitan did hit on one big-picture answer during the course of his research. Councilman Brad Lander praised Levitan for being the first person to prove Obama’s stimulus money saved hundreds of thousands of Americans from falling below the poverty line. 

“Where were the headlines?” asked Lander, who said this news didn’t make a big enough splash in the media when Levitan released his study in March. 

Levitan showed that the poverty rate increased 0.3 percent from 2008 to 2009. According to his projections, the poverty rate would have increased 3 percent without the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) stimulus funds. 

Levitan got his results by tweaking the official method used to evaluate poverty to include overlooked factors. The official method evaluates pretax income, ignoring tax credits and in-kind benefits, such as food stamps, used to combat poverty. 

Part of CEO’s mission, as Levitan sees it, has thus been successfully accomplished: finding a more accurate method to measure poverty and inform policy decisions. 

By including up-to-date data on day care, food, transportation, and other living costs, Levitan also established a new poverty line. The official threshold is $21,756 annual income; Levitan places the threshold 36 percent higher, at $29,477.

Chair of the Committee on General Welfare Annabel Palma decided that CEO failed to use its findings to guide city policy. She expected CEO to inform and work closely with city agencies that already take care of the poor: the Department of Homeless Services, Administration for Children’s Services, and the Human Resources Administration.

Levitan says CEO will not have the impact of food stamps, or unemployment insurance, or any of these major programs. 

“What CEO does doesn’t compare,” admitted Levitan. “We have had some modest success … [Our job is to] find what works, advocate for it and bring it to scale.”

His colleague, Kristin Morse, added that CEO has had budget cuts like every other agency and has been working within its means. It established education and employment programs with approximately $50 million in collaboration with the City University of New York, Small Business Services, and SBS, and the Department of Youth and Community Development. 

“That is good, and that is a blessing,” said Councilman Albert Vann of all the individual lives CEO has changed, “But as council and administrators, we are looking at how do we provide hope and a ladder to everyone who needs it.”