Editing Kiryas Joel, New York (section)

===Large families===
[[Image:Grand Rabbi Aaron Teitelbaum, Satmar Rebbe, in synagogue, on Hanukkah, in Kiryas Joel, New York State.jpg|thumb|Grand Rabbi [[Aaron Teitelbaum]], celebrating [[Hanukah]] in the main synagogue in Kiryas Joel]]

Women in Kiryas Joel usually stop working outside the home after the birth of a second child.<ref name="NYT-Santos"/> Most families have only one income, and many children. The resulting [[poverty]] rate makes a disproportionate number of families in Kiryas Joel eligible for [[Welfare (financial aid)|welfare]] benefits, when compared to the rest of the county. ''The New York Times'' wrote,

{{blockquote|Because of the sheer size of the families (the average household here has six people, but it is not uncommon for couples to have 8 or 10 children), and because a vast majority of households subsist on only one salary, 62 percent of the local families live below poverty level and rely heavily on public assistance, which is another sore point among those who live in neighboring communities.<ref name="NYT-Santos"/>}}

A 60-bed post-natal maternal care center was built with $10 million in state and federal grants. Mothers can recuperate there for two weeks away from their large families.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://failedmessiah.typepad.com/failed_messiahcom/2011/04/again-hasidic-village-kiryas-joel-poorest-place-in-us-456.html|title=Again: Hasidic Village Kiryas Joel Poorest Place In US - FailedMessiah.com|work=typepad.com|access-date=September 5, 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150725022707/http://failedmessiah.typepad.com/failed_messiahcom/2011/04/again-hasidic-village-kiryas-joel-poorest-place-in-us-456.html|archive-date=July 25, 2015|url-status=live}}</ref>

====Hepatitis A and vaccine trial====
In the 1990s, the first clinical trials for the [[hepatitis A]] vaccine took place in Kiryas Joel, where 70 percent of residents had been affected. This disproportionate rate of hepatitis A infection was due in part to Kiryas Joel's high birth rate and crowded conditions among children, who bathed together in pools and ate from communal food at school. Children who were not infected with hepatitis A were separated into two groups, one receiving the experimental vaccine and the other receiving a placebo injection. Based on this study, the vaccine was declared 100 percent effective. Merck licensed the vaccine in 1995, and it became available in 1996, after which the hepatitis A infection rate fell by 75 percent in the United States.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://blog.advocatesaz.org/2012/05/22/sti-awareness-viral-hepatitis/|title=STD Awareness: Viral Hepatitis|date=May 22, 2012|website=advocatesaz.org|access-date=September 26, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170926102310/http://blog.advocatesaz.org/2012/05/22/sti-awareness-viral-hepatitis/|archive-date=September 26, 2017|url-status=live}}</ref>