Study outlines plight of the working poor

from the York Dispatch

by KATHY STEVENS

A biennial study released Wednesday highlights the plight of low- to middle-income individuals in York County and statewide who in many cases live a paycheck away from financial trouble.

These families often earn a couple of hundred dollars more than federal eligibility requirements allow, resulting in a gap in services that could make the difference in economic prosperity, said Marianne Bellesorte, senior policy analyst for PathWays PA, a Philadelphia-based agency that serves women, children and families.

In York County, for example, a bare-bones budget -- which is the minimum amount of money needed to survive -- is $17,780 per year for a single adult.

Families comprising two adults and two children -- one preschooler and one of school age -- must earn $48,304 annually to cover the minimum expenses including food, taxes, health care, child care, and mortgage or rent, according to the study.

These amounts are more than 200 percent of the federal poverty guideline, which for most services is the cutoff for assistance, Bellesorte said.

The goal: Backers of the study -- the Self-Sufficiency Standard for Pennsylvania 2008 -- have called on legislators and advocates to use the financial information gathered this year as a gauge to better serve a growing number of working poor.

The goal is to aid legislators, work-force investment boards, industry partnerships and career centers in training and counseling customers to better enable them to obtain education or skills training so they become or remain economically self-sufficient -- meaning not reliant on government subsidies or assistance.

The study was prepared for PathWays PA with contributions from the state Department of Labor and Industry, the University of Washington, the United Way of Southwestern Pennsylvania and numerous advocates.

"The study offers the most bare-bones budgets for self-sufficiency," Bellesorte said. "The budgets don't include credit card debt, student loans or high mortgage payments, but the minimum that people need to earn to survive."

Diana Pearce developed the self-sufficiency standard in 1977. The standard is a realistic gauge of what it costs to live by taking into account the true cost of living from one county to another, and one state to the next, according to Pearce, Bellesorte and others involved in the study now available in 35 states.

Child-care factor: The most troublesome finding for families is the ever-increasing need and cost for child care ,which accounts for one-third of the total budget, according to the study.

In York County, a single parent of one preschooler pays about $566 monthly; a single parent of an infant and preschooler pays $1,127, which is the same price a two-parent household would pay for two children.

Add one more child to the mix, and the cost increases to $1,610, according to the sixth edition study. These days, that is among the greatest expenses for parents and one that often prevents them from working outside the home because wages earned barely cover child care costs.

The federal poverty guideline, implemented in 1965, is an across-the-board assessment of cost. The federal guidelines allot 30 percent of the family budget for food versus the 10 percent the study shows families actually spend on food.

But the guideline also doesn't account for transportation costs that minimally comprise about 10 percent of the budget, according to the study. That amount allows for five 20-mile commutes and one trip to a grocery store each week, a monthly vehicle payment, and insurance, Pearce said.

The Self-Sufficiency Study, which lists the true costs of living in each of Pennsylvania's 67 counties, is available online at www.pathwayspa.org. The biennial study was complied for Philadelphia-based PathWays PA through a cooperative effort of the Department of Labor and Industry, United Way of Southwestern Pennsylvania and the University of Washington and numerous advocates.

Link to full article. May expire in future.