City’s Fair Fares Half-Priced MetroCard Program to Be Made Permanent for Low-Income New Yorkers (Greenwich: low income, transplants)
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The city program that offers half-priced MetroCards to low-income New Yorkers is going to be made permanent, Mayor Eric Adams announced Monday.
Fair Fares will be funded for years to come following an agreement reached by Adams and Council Speaker Adrienne Adams. The pair agreed that funds would be put aside each year for the program and that they would baseline $75 million in the next budget.
“The path to an equitable recovery runs through our public transit system,” Mayor Adams said in a statement. “Since its inception, Fair Fares has proven to be a transformative program for so many New Yorkers struggling to get by, and we are proud to announce this investment in its future to help even more people going forward.”
The program, first launched in January 2019, offers a 50 percent discount on subway and bus fares to straphangers with incomes at or below the federal poverty level — $13,590 for one person and $27,750 for a family of four. More than 260,000 New Yorkers have enrolled in the program, according to the city’s most recent data.
The announcement marks the first time the city has guaranteed annual funding for the program. Previously, Fair Fares was funded on a year-by-year basis through budget negotiations between the City Council and the mayor’s office.
Nearly half of New Yorkers eligible for the city’s Fair Fares program, which offers MetroCards at a 50% discount to low-income riders, have not applied for the initiative and almost one-in-seven didn’t know how to do so, according to a new report.
The survey by the non-profit Community Service Society found that many working class New Yorkers who could get half-priced fare cards have not done so and the advocacy organization called on city leaders to better advertise Fair Fares.
“Our mass transit system can be our city’s great economic equalizer and an engine for upward mobility and an inclusive recovery,” reads the report. “But if people remain unaware of their right to Fair Fares or not enrolled, the program’s potential impact as a powerful poverty-fighting tool will be diminished.”
Fair Fares is a 2019 program by the city allowing working-age New Yorkers living at or below the federal poverty line to get MetroCards at a 50% discount.
Do you need to show ID, to get into this program. I'm told that getting ID is very difficult for some people. Maybe that's why the #'s are so low.
Maybe the city should set up some help stations in the appropriate neighborhoods to help those who can't figure out how to get an ID. Perhaps the good reverend could help with getting ID's for those poor folks.
The program, first launched in January 2019, offers a 50 percent discount on subway and bus fares to straphangers with incomes at or below the federal poverty level — $13,590 for one person and $27,750 for a family of four. More than 260,000 New Yorkers have enrolled in the program, according to the city’s most recent data.
So it basically only covers people who refuse to work, right? Those incomes are impossible otherwise.
If you can’t afford $2.75 train fare, believe me, you’ve got no place important to go.
So just f*ck the poor people of New York right? You transplants are really showing your privilege off today.
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