Orange County, NY – The poorest place in the United States is not a dusty Texas border town, a hollow in Appalachia, a remote Indian reservation or a blighted urban neighborhood. It has no slums or homeless people. No one who lives there is shabbily dressed or has to go hungry. Crime is virtually nonexistent.
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And, yet, officially, at least, none of the nation’s 3,700 villages, towns or cities with more than 10,000 people has a higher proportion of its population living in poverty than Kiryas Joel, N.Y., a community of mostly garden apartments and town houses 50 miles northwest of New York City in suburban Orange County.
About 70 percent of the village’s 21,000 residents live in households whose income falls below the federal poverty threshold, according to the Census Bureau. Median family income ($17,929) and per capita income ($4,494) rank lower than any other comparable place in the country. Nearly half the village’s households reported less than $15,000 in annual income.
About half of the residents receive food stamps, and one-third get Medicaid benefits and rely on federal vouchers to help pay their housing costs.
Kiryas Joel’s unlikely ranking results largely from religious and cultural factors. Ultra-Orthodox Satmar Hasidic Jews predominate in the village where many of them moved from Williamsburg, Brooklyn, beginning in the 1970s to accommodate a population that was growing geometrically.
Am I dreaming? Or did the NYT write an almost identical article last year about KJ?
Either way the tone and bias in the article is -as usual- dripping with bloody anti semitism….
Lakewood is a close second
I have to say that I read this article with interest. I also saw the above poster’s comment. I think I agree with the last paragraph. We as a frum people take more in food stamps, and medicaid. But we do not spend government resources the way other communities do. I believe we equal out.
What was antisemitic about this article?
It tells the absolute truth! Is it antisemitic to point out that most of the residents of KJ are leeches on society who live off the backs of their neighbors? It isn’t. It is the TRUTH. My generation allowed this disgrace to happen. It is our fault. We (as a whole) did not educate our children and did not provide them a way to make a living. They certainly took no initiative on their own, and now lead lives devoid of any REAL means of supporting a family.
I’m sorry to say, but welfare, food stamps, WIC, etc. are meant for people who fall on hard-times… not a “lifestyle choice”. When you are on these programs, you are taking money from the taxpaying workers of NY who are more than happy to see their money spent on HELPING people who are in NEED. The residents of KJ are not in NEED. They CHOSE to live a life of ignorance with no education and no means of supporting themselves.
What will you do when Conservatives are finally elected to office and they turn off the spigot?
As I said earlier, my generation allowed their children to become freeloaders. It is high-time we realize it and FIX IT before it is too late!
The article is truthful and the solution is evident. Lets stop debating the obvious. There is nothing contradictory between being shomrei torah umitzvot and supporting your family, except of course in KJ. Working to support your family has always been the way frum yidden have lived. This decision that half of the population must beg for tzadakah is a new development.
Dear PMOinFL (#6)
Did you ever come to think what the cost would have been when our kids would’ve gone to the government’s public schools??
Ask any public official, they’ll all agree that after all we cost for the government the least!
How many of our kids grow up drug addicts
?? You know how much this costs the government by the non jews??
this is clearly a anti semtisim article, u see they trying to show that chasidim r cheating the gov with food stamps
Yes they are leaving on food stamps, because this is the system that was shut up to keep the democrats in offices year after to year. The system is broke and must be stop. I know many many uneducated Charedi and they are doing better off than the rest because they work hard, and set up their own business. They own camera shops 47th street photo, lumber yards, paint store, are plumbers, electrician, real estate agents, etc. So please don’t tell me if you educate them they will succeed. Look at how many man earning $100m a year are out of work. I am for one who wants to government to stop funding like mad and give people vouchers for education. The teachers unions perpetuate the myth of public education. Ask how many povery level people including blacks, Jews, Hispanics would prefer vouchers
Its nothing less than a chillul hashem. That chasidim need to live on welfare.
The satmar rebbe was for working not shnorring from the state. How can you reconcile the two, call yourself a satmar chosid and be oiver on his way of life. They should stop calling kiryat yoel satmar. Anyone can have thick stockings and be against zionism, that is hardly what satmar is all about. Its about a lifestyle al pi torah. And living off others is not al pi torah.
It’s the NY Times and their liberal politicians who are responaible for this.
Could someone explain why a person with 8 children who earns 15 thousand dollars should strive to earn 30, 40 or even 50 thousand, when at the same time he’ll lose all the government programs?
Let’s take a look at the numbers. Whe earning 15k the family receives additional annual income of:
Section 8 – 20,000
Medicaid (cost of health ins) – 20,000
Food stamps – 10,000
Tax return credits 10,000
If the same person earns additional 35,000, totaling 50,000 per year, they lose all the above benefits plus they must pay income taxes on their earnings.
To be “the poorest” does not mean to be unhappy. There are plenty of people who earn much less than the federal poverty threshold, but who are happy and lack nothing, Boruch Hashem, and chassidim are among those people. We were raised in large families with not too much income, but we never lacked nothing, and more important, we were happy in our families and happy with our religion.
Being leeches is not living al pi Torah. Our tax money is not for people unwilling to work! If these people want to live their lifestyle they should not be unethically sponging.
Did any of the previous commenter’s read the second page of the article
“David Jolly, the social services commissioner for Orange County, also said that while the number of people receiving benefits seemed disproportionately high, the number of caseloads — a family considered as a unit — was much less aberrant. A family of eight who reports as much as $48,156 in income is still eligible for food stamps, although the threshold for cash assistance ($37,010), which relatively few village residents receive, is lower. “
lets hear what ex. gov. Como said when he was criticiezd by so calld groups who dont let their oponents do nothing wrong….per capita the state of N.Y. spends X. thousend dollers for education,hopitals,police,fire fighters,anti violence in schols,anti abortion,anti drugs,etc.eetcc….in Kiryas Yoel thanks god no such expence so we spent gov. mony this beutiful city should grow ALL ALL gov. spending special loans section 8 food stamps wic etc.etc. dosent cost the gov.per capita in Kiryas Yoel the half of the cost of elsware .thats why I em proud to help souch a comunity no more explaning chag samaech
As an outsider without enough information on whether everything that goes on at KJ is right…I will comment on the beginning of the article
“It has no slums or homeless people. No one who lives there is shabbily dressed or has to go hungry. Crime is virtually nonexistent.”
The community may not be perfect but they do have high level of respectful behavior. How many other poor communities live up to that standard of little to no crime and active systems in place to help each other?
Maybe you went to the same school as he or she ,the late hour school
The caption under the picture: “Mothers and children along one of the village’s main streets. Women marry young, remain in Kiryas Joel to raise their families. Credit: Richard Perry/The New York Times”
How terrible for the New York Times to state this! Those are NOT the mothers of the children! Those are single, unmarried, teenage girls! The most obvious reason being – their hair is not covered! (They are probably older sisters babysitting their younger siblings!)
Motzi Shaim Rah – Evil Slander – on the part of the New York Times. Yet again.