Chair asks about income threshold 300% vs 150%
Won says OCH declined to lower the income threshold for income-based community hires from 300% to 150% of federal poverty guidelines. She asks whether that remains the case. Harry says the 300% threshold was based on feedback from CBO and agency partners.
Okay, this one is very disappointing to me.
When adopting the rules, OCH declined to lower the income threshold for income-based community hires from 300% to 150% of the federal.
poverty guidelines stating that referral sources may prioritize lower income job seekers.
So does that remain the case in practice?
So we did have the ability to set the specific threshold for what meets an income-based community hire.
That decision was not made by us alone.
We worked very closely with many agency partners, many CBOs, to get to a place that we thought was appropriate.
And so 300% was the one that we were hearing the most amount of feedback and recommendations that we do that because it allows CBOs and the city workforce system to continue to serve.
Um,
the lowest income, but also people who are just getting 200, 300%, also being able to serve those who had expanded the pool a bit, and intentionally so.
And that was based on feedback, largely from our CBO partners, as also our agency partners who are serving these populations.