Mayor de Blasio Says his Policies “Uplifted 521,000 New Yorkers Out of Poverty”

By Yehudit Garmaise

 Did Mayor Bill de Blasio “uplift more than 521,000 New Yorkers out of poverty”? as he said he did this morning as he summed up the accomplishments of his eight years in office?

In 2015, the mayor said that he set a 10-year goal to move 800,000 New Yorkers out of poverty by 2025.

Today, to provide evidence that made significant progress, the mayor presented New York City’s annual report, which only went up to 2019, before, the mayor said, the pandemic changed many dynamics in the city.

“By 2019, the poverty level [in NYC] was the lowest it had ever been in this city,” claimed the mayor, who said that the progress was true across races and age groups.”

 The policies the mayor said will continue the positive trends that he set into motion are: “the child-tax credit, the stimulus payments, and a lot of the actions that have been taken in Washington,” he said referring to President Biden’s $2.2 trillion spending bill, which only the House of Representatives, but not yet the Senate, has passed. “We are hoping and praying that Biden’s vision is fully realized by the Congress.”

Many Democrats compare Biden’s spending bill to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal, which was a series of domestic programs enacted from 1933 to 1939 that some say helped the country recovery after the Great Depression, but others say deepened and extended the Depression even longer.

Similarly, Biden’s $2.3 trillion bill has many Americans worried about the inflation, which has already begun, and the higher taxes that could result from such a pricey spending bill.

The mayor then listed the policies he set into motion that he said significantly “redistributed wealth,” a plainly Communist phrase.

“Pre-K for all, and 3-K for all had not just a huge educational impact, but lifted a huge financial burden off of families, who previously paid $10 to $15,000 per year, per child for Pre-K and 3-K,” Mayor de Blasio pointed out. “After school programs, saved families money, and summer youth jobs brought income into families. Paid sick leave made sure people kept more of their paychecks, even when they were sick.

In terms of affordable housing, the mayor said, “We [have built or preserved] 200,000 apartments for families who need it.”

In Boro Park, however, two years ago, the Southern Brooklyn Community Organization began construction on 37th Street, on nine buildings that are a part of the Culver El Affordable Housing Project.

The project was supposed to create affordable housing units, but only 36 of the 68 units have been completed, and they are all still sitting empty.

The mayor also pointed out, “everything he has done to change the rent laws,” such as by “going to Albany to fight that fight, and we succeeded in that also to ensure that rent increases were fairer.

 “All of that put money back in the pockets of working people,” said the mayor, who also pointed to the $15 minimum wage, his work to prevent evictions, and provide legal services for residents who were evicted or at risk of being evicted.

“All of these things created profound change,” the mayor said.

Other facts, such as the number of single adults in homeless shelters, which have increased over the tenure of Mayor de Blasio’s tenure, stand out in contrast to the mayor’s claims.

When asked why he thinks he was not able to reduce the 18,236 single adults, who slept in homeless shelters in New York City, reports, the Coalition for the Homeless, which says the total number of homeless in the city is 47,916: including 14,946 children who sleep in the city’s shelter system each night, the mayor said the was “very concerned.”

“The big picture reality is that street homelessness has gone down,” said the mayor, who pointed to his programs, such as Journey Home and Safe Havens. “Shelter population is down substantially from the time I took office because fewer and fewer families are in shelters, and that’s great.

“Also, we have gotten about 170,000 people out of shelters and into permanent affordable housing.

“In the first years, I think we missed some strategic opportunities that we later figured out, but since we have implemented them, since 2017, I think the trend line has been really good, and I think we can overcome this recent surge when we come out of COVID.”

After eight years, Mayor de Blasio said, “You can uplift working people. You can fight inequality at its core and make a real change.”

Photo: Flickr