Student poverty drops on LI as hardship continues

Daily Point

Families could have moved above poverty line while still struggling, expert says

Federal data suggests that fewer children enrolled in Long Island's public schools are experiencing poverty today than several years ago. Those on the ground see a different picture.

An estimated 6.4% of the student population, or 27,300 students, in Long Island's K-12 public school system lived in poverty in 2024, according to the most recent data from the U.S. Census Bureau's Small Area Income and Poverty Estimates (SAIPE) program. This was a decline from the 8.6% estimated poverty rate among school-age children in 2016, when around 37,800 school-age children between ages 5 and 17 were estimated to be living in poverty.

Overall public school enrollment declined about 2.2% between 2016 and 2024, alongside a 0.2% drop in the number of students who were not in poverty. In contrast, the sharp 28% drop in the number of students living in poverty could suggest that many families changed their district or left Long Island.

Nearly every public school district on Long Island — including those considered affluent — was estimated to have at least one student living in poverty according to the 2024 data. Jericho, where nearly half the district's households make over $200,000 in income a year, had about 176 students experiencing poverty out of 3,134 enrolled. About 6% of East Hampton school district's 1,568 students, or an estimated 93 students, experienced poverty.

Broken down by school district, Hempstead had the highest rate of poverty, with 17.9% of 8,013 students enrolled, or 1,435, coming from households experiencing such financial distress. About 12.4% of Brentwood's school district, or 1,980 students, and 12.8% of William Floyd school district’s 8,508 students, or 1,088 students, are estimated to be living in poverty.

Pockets of extreme wealth, poverty

The Census Bureau measures poverty by comparing household income to a threshold set by federal standards. For a region like Long Island, where the cost of living is exponential, the federal measure could be vastly undercounting thousands of households that face financial hardship. Experts caution against assuming that poverty on Long Island is on the decline.

According to the Census Bureau, an estimated 13,180 households in Nassau County and 14,747 in Suffolk fall below the poverty threshold. However, a regional poverty estimation from ALICE — an annual report from United Way of Long Island — suggests 354,716 households struggle with affording life in the region. These families make too much income to qualify for benefits afforded to those below the federally accepted poverty line, but too little to comfortably meet the cost of living on Long Island.

A statistical drop in poverty in a region where the cost of living is high could mean that families can move above the poverty threshold while still struggling to afford necessities, The New York Community Trust's Long Island vice president David Okorn said in an email.

"We know Long Island has pockets of extreme wealth and extreme poverty," Okorn wrote. "And while poverty exists across the Island, it is not evenly distributed ... This shows up among school students in different ways, including with thousands of Long Island students experiencing homelessness and 90,000 who depend on free or reduced-price school meals." Last month, The Point reported on the decline in school enrollment across Long Island — a result of its aging population and younger families moving out of the region owing to a lack of housing and affordability.

— Karthika Namboothiri karthika.namboothiri@newsday.com

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Reference Point

The politics of postal rates, then and now

This month, the price of the Forever stamp jumped to a record 82 cents, a 4.8% increase, as the U.S. Postal Service struggles with declining mail volume and operational challenges that have heightened over the past decade.

But funding the Postal Service has long been debated.

"The post office is a losing proposition," the editorial board lamented in a 1954 editorial titled "The House Plays Post Office," accompanied by a cartoon.

That July 72 years ago, the House of Representatives had just voted down a proposal to raise postal rates and give Post Office Department workers a 5% raise. It was an election year, so they "wouldn't touch" the rate increase, but were "all for the pay raise," so much so that they considered splitting the bill to pass the pay raise without the rate increase.

"Which makes no sense, economically or politically," the board wrote, emphasizing that the rates must be high enough to meet costs.

Historically, mail rates were first set in the United States based on distance and number of sheets the package contained and was paid upon delivery. In 1847, the first national system of postage stamps was created, setting uniform rates regardless of distance, and increases were very rare. In 1954, when the board penned this editorial, the country was in an era when the price of first-class stamps was famously held steady at 3 cents for more than two decades until 1958.

"The taxpayers, most of whom use the mails, have to make up the deficit anyway. If it doesn't come out of the taxpayer's miscellaneous budget, it's got to come out of taxes," the board concluded in 1954.

That all changed in 1970 when Congress passed the Postal Reorganization Act that turned the Post Office Department into the U.S. Postal Service, an independent, self-funded entity no longer supported by taxes and congressional appropriations. It established the Postal Regulatory Commission that set mail rates and allowed for more regular price increases. Then in 2007, USPS premiered the Forever stamp at 41 cents to stabilize pricing once again.

Since 2020 when the PRC made a regulatory change that allowed USPS to consistently raise prices twice a year, the price of Forever stamps has surged 49% — a losing proposition for mail senders indeed.

— Amanda Fiscina-Wells amanda.fiscina-wells@newsday.com

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