Taxing Long Island: Nassau & Suffolk's low poverty rate percentages may not show complete picture
Former State Sen. John Brooks (D-Seaford) says many state lawmakers refer to the percentages rather than the real number of people in need.
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More people are living below the poverty line in Nassau and Suffolk counties than most of the rest of the counties in New York state. That's despite state-leading low percentage rates, which experts say are misleading.
Data from the National Institutes of Health shows that just 5.3% of Nassau County residents are living below the poverty line. That's the lowest percentage in the state. And 6.4% of Suffolk residents are living below the poverty line.
However those percentages still translate to Nassau having more than 72,000 people living below the poverty line. Suffolk has more than 95,000 people in the same situation.
Former State Sen. John Brooks (D-Seaford) says many state lawmakers refer to the percentages rather than the real number of people in need when determining where to allocate state funds to aid those who are struggling to make ends meet.
"This ability for some people in Albany to use numbers and paint a picture ignored the difference in sizes," Brooks said.
Health and Welfare Council of Long Island President & CEO Vanessa Baird-Streeter says the situation is even more dire on Long Island than the federal data suggests.
"A family of four making the federal poverty level cannot sustain itself," Baird-Streeter said. "That is due to the cost of housing, that is due to child care costs...the cost of groceries, transportation, much higher on Long Island."
The same NIH data set finds that Nassau County ranks 60th out of 3,143 counties across the United States in the number of people living below the poverty line. Suffolk ranks 128th.
