Video, Audio, Photos & Rush Transcript: Governor Hochul Announces $350 Million in Direct Financial Assistance to Low And Moderate Income Families Across New York

Video, Audio, Photos & Rush Transcript: Governor Hochul Announces $350 Million in Direct Financial Assistance to Low- And Moderate-Income Families Across New York

Earlier today, Governor Kathy Hochul announced New York State is delivering approximately $350 million in supplemental payments to low- and moderate-income families statewide through the Empire State Child Credit program. More than 1 million families will receive this financial assistance without any need to apply, as each eligible family will receive a direct payment of up to $330 per child. This continues Governor Hochul's efforts to address the cost of living for working New Yorkers, including $2.6 billion in supplemental payments and savings delivered to taxpayers since 2022, as well as the Governor's recent announcement of a digital portal to help more New Yorkers get financial assistance to cover child care costs.

VIDEO of the event is available on YouTube here and in TV quality (h.264, mp4) format here.

AUDIO of the Governor's remarks is available here.

PHOTOS of the event will be available on the Governor's Flickr page.

A rush transcript of the Governor's remarks is available below:

Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us on this beautiful summer day in our State's Capital. As Governor, I travel all around the state. I talk to plenty of New Yorkers, especially parents and I get into those kind of conversations - having been there. What's on your mind? How are the kids? How you feeling? How they doing? What keeps you up at night? And when I'm talking to parents who are raising young children, the answer is always the same. The cost of living is just too damn high.

So, this is something that I can relate to having been a mom. I'm still a mom. My kids still consider me their mom, which is great. They've despite growing up with a political mother since they were preschoolers, they've stuck with me. I appreciate that. And I'm a grandma, and I understand profoundly how hard it is for families, just trying to make it all work out. It's so hard. And every night, the parents sit at the dinner table and talk about the math, and I remember seeing the stack of bills keep getting higher, and how we're going to pay the property tax bill or our rent, and just the basic needs, right? And then, of course you think you're doing fine, and it's oh yeah, school is around the corner. They don't fit into anything from last year. We need all new sneakers, they need new backpacks, they need to do everything. And it's just so hard, and you know what? You can't hear those stories and not feel compelled to act.

And I want to acknowledge two individuals who've been at the forefront of trying to solve this affordability crisis here in our State of New York. We have with us the Majority Leader of the New York State Senate, Andrea Stewart-Cousins. I want to acknowledge her and her strong support for what we're talking about here today. Let's give her another round of applause. The Speaker of the New York State Assembly, Carl Heastie, who has been a great partner of mine as well. Let's give him a round of applause.

As I mentioned at the outset, New Yorkers are facing really serious financial pressures. And all I can do is look at the cost of the bills, right? The cost of groceries have gone up 23 percent in the last five years. Who doesn't have to buy groceries, right? Every family needs to buy groceries every single week.

Housing prices, if you're trying to buy a house, have gone up 17 percent the same time. Child care has gone up 20 percent. And I think it's not a newsflash that wages have not kept up with that, right? So, the strain on working families is too much, and we're losing some families who are going elsewhere where they don't have the same challenges. And that actually threatens New York State's long term viability. And that's why, since becoming Governor, making New York State more affordable has been one of my top priorities. And as I said, "I have great partners who have the same feeling of who we're fighting for and what we must do."

We fought to raise the minimum wage, and for the first time in history, tie it to inflation. Now that was back when inflation wasn't even a big factor. Leaders, aren't we glad we did that for New Yorkers? We tied the cost of minimum wage to inflation. We doubled tuition assistance together. We held the line on income taxes. We negotiated a historic deal to build more affordable housing because nothing was being built driving up the prices everywhere. We also are protecting our renters.

And we talk about child care. Together we secured a $7 billion investment to overhaul our state's child care system and making child care more affordable. And just a couple weeks ago, we announced a new digital portal to make free and low cost child care available for eligible families online. Get this, and I hope you all heard this last week: for a family earning up to $108,000 - a family of four earning up to $108,000, their child care expenses will not cost more than $15 a week. The average cost is $350. That's real money back in New Yorkers pockets, and I'm really proud of that as well.

As I said, it doesn't happen without the partnership of the State Legislature, but we know our work is far from over. We have to figure out ways - we're constantly seeking ways to ease the burden on New Yorkers. And there's a lot of talk about it used to be the three men in the room, remember? During budget negotiations. Now you have the two women and the man. And we're all parents. We're all parents and we talk about intensely how we can put more money back in the pockets of New Yorkers.

And today we're going to announce one of the many ways we've done just that. And so, I'm announcing we're delivering $350 million in direct financial assistance to low- and moderate-income families statewide through the Child Tax Credit program. $350 million meaning one million New York families with children will be receiving a check in the mail by the end of August.

Now depending on your income and the size of the family, that will determine the amount. Some families will receive up to $330 per child. You have three children, that's $1,000 in your family, doubling the amount of assistance that they've received in the past. And can you imagine the timing of that? While you're out there doing that last minute school shopping. That's why we wanted to do this for New Yorkers. And the best part is New Yorkers don't have to do anything to receive this payment. No forms, no phone calls, no hoops to jump through. It's just going to come to them.

As I mentioned, back to school in September. Those costs add up a lot. What do I know about this? I checked. A backpack today costs around $30-40. Some kids want the fancy ones. Some of the lower end sneakers cost about $45. They go way up from there. Some kids need uniforms, a lunch box, notebooks, and pens. I'm having PTSD from buying all this. I used to go in that shopping cart and just pile it all in, pile it all in, and it just seemed unending.

And with this check, this is how parents will be able to cover the cost of back-to-school supplies and even some clothes in there. And that's why I'm so proud of this. And no other Governor and no other State Legislature in the history of this great state has distributed this much direct financial assistance to the degree we have to families in New York.

In the last two years alone, we provided over $2.6 billion in financial relief for families and helped homeowners with their bills. What we've done: we helped homeowners with their property tax bills, we had additional assistance from the Earned Income Tax Credit recipients and we even saved gas - the cost of buying gas at the pump for New Yorkers during the pandemic.

So, this all comes back to our collective commitment to support New York's working families, and this child tax credit program is a vital program offering support to families with kids. And I know this is going to make a real difference.

This is part of the cornerstone of our collective efforts to help families navigate the cost of living in New York. We're going to continue finding ways to drive the cost down. And I will also say this - what I realized when I became Governor, this tax credit was only available for families with kids aged four and up.

Any parents in this room? Yeah, I thought so. They're kind of expensive as newborns, aren't they? They outgrow everything in three months. The clothes say, 'zero to three months,' 'three to six,' 'six to nine,' because your babies are growing. And then they want to buy little sneakers, and they don't stay in those very long. And then all of a sudden the cost of formula - my gosh, formulas and diapers. I told my husband as soon as our kids are out of formula and diapers, we're going to be rich again. It was that much of a strain on us. I'd run out to BJ's, just fill up the shopping cart with everything I could buy as cheaply as I could. So, we said "no." We're going to make that tax credit available from birth on upward and not just the age of four.

That's a huge change. So, we did that last year, so that means over 600,000 more children are covered with this from infants all the way on up to high school and that's one more way we're just making life a little bit easier.

But I know I threw a lot of numbers at you, but I wanted you to hear from a real person in a couple minutes - not that we're not all real people - a person who's living through this right now. A young woman, Lisa Chin, a mom from Westchester, Mount Vernon, who's going to tell her story in a few moments about what it's like with a 2.5-year-old daughter and a 2-month-old son. I think she came up here just to get a little break in the action. So, let her - Lisa, you can stay as long as you want here.

And this year, since we expanded the eligibility, her family received the tax credit for the very first time. And she's balancing life as a full-time mom, pursuing her own dreams, and she's finishing up her bachelor's degree at FIT, and she's one of the recipients of our Tuition Assistance Program.

So, with the state's support, she's just an example of the people that we care about, why we do what we do, and how we're helping, not just her future, but her children's future as well.

It's not just making life livable in New York, it's also making it affordable for every single family, and we won't stop fighting.

There's always ways that we can work together to alleviate that burden, and it would not have been possible, as I mentioned, without incredible partners in our State Legislature. And I want to bring up someone who's been a real champion for families all over our state, and that is my friend, Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins.

Contact the Governor's Press Office