Why Paterson
Paterson’s children get about a third of the philanthropy Newark’s do
A philanthropic desert is a city with severe need but little private institutional capital: few legacy endowments, little corporate giving, no deep local trusts to cushion public shortfalls. Policy conversations often treat high-need New Jersey cities as a single category, but the evidence points to a sharper divide, and Paterson fits the philanthropic-desert description closely.
A large, young, growing population
Paterson is New Jersey’s third-largest city, home to 43,898 children under 18, a population growing faster than the county’s or the state’s: up 11% over five years, against 2% growth countywide and 4% statewide. Roughly 30% of those children are under age five, and 70% have at least one foreign-born parent.
Economic need far above county and state
On nearly every measure of family economic security, Paterson’s children face roughly double the state’s rate of hardship.
Children living in poverty
29% Paterson19% Passaic Co.13% New Jersey
Below 100% of the federal poverty level, 2020–24.
Children in low-income families
60% Paterson40% Passaic Co.28% New Jersey
Below 200% of poverty, a more realistic hardship line in New Jersey.
Families with children under 5 in poverty
31% Paterson16% Passaic Co.8% New Jersey
Median income, families with children
$51,841 Paterson$93,877 Passaic Co.$130,331 New Jersey
Grew 38% in five years, faster than the county or state, yet still about 40% of the state figure.
Households headed by one parent
57% Paterson41% Passaic Co.31% New Jersey
Homes that are owner-occupied
27% Paterson53% Passaic Co.64% New Jersey
Low ownership means a thin residential wealth base.
Renters paying 30%+ of income on rent
56% Paterson54% Passaic Co.49% New Jersey
Housing built before 1980
77% Paterson77% Passaic Co.63% New Jersey
A proxy for lead-paint exposure risk.
Health outcomes lag, and several are getting worse
Birth outcomes and coverage trail the county and state, and early prenatal care and infant mortality have moved in the wrong direction since 2020.
Children without health insurance
9% Paterson6% Passaic Co.4% New Jersey
Up from 7% in 2015–19, while the state held at 4%.
Mothers starting prenatal care in the first trimester
51% Paterson66% Passaic Co.74% New Jersey
2024. Down from 61% in 2020, a 23% drop in early care.
Births that were preterm
14.9% Paterson12.2% Passaic Co.9.4% New Jersey
Babies born at low birthweight
12.0% Paterson9.4% Passaic Co.7.8% New Jersey
Infant deaths, per 1,000 live births
5.9 Paterson3.7 Passaic Co.3.5 New Jersey
2021–23. Rose from 4.6 in 2018–20 while county and state rates fell.
Heavy reliance on public safety nets
Most Paterson children depend directly on public programs for food and health coverage. An estimated 34,000 children, roughly three in four in the city, are enrolled in NJ FamilyCare or Medicaid, and 18,420 receive SNAP benefits, though that figure is down 24% since 2021. Another 9,309 women, infants, and children are enrolled in WIC. That dependence leaves Paterson families especially exposed as federal changes to SNAP and Medicaid take effect.
Schools under strain
Paterson Public Schools serve a high-need, fast-changing student body, with real signs of progress alongside continued strain.
Chronically absent students
34% of district students
Nearly double that rate among students experiencing homelessness.
School incidents, per 100 students
3.32 Paterson2.13 New Jersey
3rd graders meeting ELA expectations
22% of district students
Up from 15% two years earlier.
Multilingual learners
41% of district students
Up from 27% two years earlier.
The funding gap
Compared with Newark, Paterson’s public budgets differ mostly because of scale. The sharpest gap by far is in private philanthropy, the flexible money that seeds pilots, covers emergencies, and funds multi-year work that state grants won’t touch.
School district annual budget
$800M Paterson$1.677B Newark
Paterson’s budget is 48% of Newark’s.
Municipal operating budget
~$340M Paterson~$920M Newark
37% of Newark’s.
Local property tax to schools
$48M Paterson$144M Newark
33% of Newark’s.
Private foundation grantmaking
~$10M / yr Paterson~$50M+ / yr Newark
Just 20% of Newark’s, the sharpest gap of all.
Total grantmaking runs roughly 5 to 1 in Newark’s favor; per child, using the $263 and $714 estimates, the gap is closer to 2.7 to 1. But using ACNJ’s current count of 43,898 Paterson children, that same $10 million actually works out to about $228 per child, suggesting the true per-child gap may be wider than the headline figures show.
Comparable need, fewer resources
Paterson’s need sits at or above Newark’s level on several measures, yet it draws a fraction of Newark’s private capital. Paterson’s rate of children without health insurance (9%) is actually lower than Newark’s (11%), and more of its mothers receive early prenatal care (51% versus 43%). Median family income is comparable, roughly $52,000 in Paterson against $50,000 in Newark. Yet estimated philanthropy per child runs $263 in Paterson versus $714 in Newark, nearly three times as much. The gap in capital cannot be explained by a gap in need.
What keeps the desert in place
School funding below adequacy
The district operates tens of millions of dollars below its SFRA adequacy budget, squeezing non-academic supports.
A residential tax base
Only 27% of homes are owner-occupied, so the local tax load falls on residents with limited means, and few corporate ratables help carry it.
A thin philanthropic anchor
Few local multi-million-dollar trusts and little corporate giving exist here to draw on.
One safety-net hospital
Heavy reliance on St. Joseph’s Health means uncompensated care pressure concentrates rather than spreads.
How the gaps shape our allocation
Those gaps directly shape where we put capital. Our $40,000 commitment to Passaic County Community College and $5,000 to NJCDC target the last-mile point where students most often stall before finishing a degree, usually over a financial shortfall too small to matter anywhere else. Our $70,000 to Grameen America offsets the shortage of commercial lending available to women entrepreneurs trying to build something lasting. And our support for Oasis, Eva’s Village, Servants Heart, CUMAC, and United Way fills the food security, housing, and emergency-aid gaps that a stretched municipal budget cannot fully absorb on its own.