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Taxes

NYC mayor Bloomberg announces expanded EITC

New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and a deputy mayor focused on healthcare have announced a pilot program to expand the Earned Income Tax Credit for low-income single workers without dependent children, with the goal of increasing employment and earnings.

New  York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and a deputy mayor focused on healthcare have announced a pilot program to expand the Earned Income Tax Credit for low-income single workers without dependent children, with the goal of increasing employment and earnings.

The city’s $11 million, four-year pilot will offer up to $2,000 for three years to participants earning $26,500 per year or less.

The pilot will feature a total of 6,000 participants, with 3,000 eligible to receive the supplement and 3,000 forming a control group. The program is the 64th antipoverty initiative launched by Center for Economic Opportunity, which was found in 2006 to explore innovative solutions to deeply entrenched poverty challenges.

“New York City’s job market continues to grow and as the national recession has slowly turned to recovery, New York City has seen job growth at nearly double the national rate,” said Mayor Bloomberg. “The Center for Economic Opportunity was created as a laboratory to test innovative solutions to the intractable problem of poverty, and this pilot program will test whether expanding the income tax credit will incentivize work for those at the beginning of the economic ladder.”

Our Administration is committed to finding new solutions to some of our most difficult social problems, working to ensure economic opportunity for all New Yorkers, said Deputy Mayor Gibbs. We are committed to funding what works, which means we will not continue to fund programs that fail.

Since its launch in 2006 the Center for Economic Opportunity has maintained a unique flexibility in testing new approaches in the fight against poverty, and the Earned Income Tax Credit demonstration marks a significant milestone in that research, said Center for Economic Opportunity Executive Director Kristin Morse. As the most successful antipoverty program in the United States, it’s time to build an evidence base to test whether even more low-income households can benefit from this critical resource.

The Federal Earned Income Tax Credit has played a role in the tremendous gains in single mothers’ employment we have seen since welfare reform, said Human Resources Administration Commissioner Robert Doar. This pilot has the potential to make a difference in promoting work among adults without minor children at homeincluding noncustodial fathers.

“We applaud New York for this important innovation that reshapes the Earned Income Tax Credit to better reward thousands of workers who are financially vulnerable,” said Neera Tanden, President and Center for Economic Opportunity of the Center for American Progress. “The Earned Income Tax Credit has lifted millions above the poverty line, but does very little for workers without children.”