A single mother raising two young children in Rhode Island needs to earn $17.50 an hour, on a full-time basis, to meet the entire family’s most basic needs: food, housing, clothing, child care, transportation and medical care. That figure is the result of a study conducted by faculty and graduate students working for the Poverty Institute at the Rhode Island College School of Social Work. It is the first time the group has produced the Rhode Island Standard of Need study and Nancy Gewirtz, the Poverty Institute’s director, said they plan to make this an annual project.
”I think of it as the good news and the bad news,” Gewirtz said. “I think what it shows is that Rhode Island has done a good job recognizing that single parent families in particular, can’t really make it on their own.”
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The Standard of Need study also reminds readers of another study, conducted by the Rhode Island Public Expenditure Council, that shows one of every three children in Rhode Island now lives in or near poverty level. The “1999 Rhode Island Kids Count Factbook” shows that the same number of children are living in homes with an income of less than $25,000 a year, and that 22 percent of the state’s children live in single parent homes.
”Female single heads of family really need help,” said Gewirtz, adding that the state’s Family Independence Act leans toward recognizing that fact.
Since President Bill Clinton signed the Welfare Reform Act, states have been under a mandate to reduce the number of people they have on financial assistance and the length of time people receive that aid. However, Rhode Island has taken a less Draconian approach to this than some other states, by retaining welfare recipients on public assistance while they participate in training programs. The result is a more gradual process of moving welfare recipients to work and removal from public assistance. As a result, the state hasn’t seen the same reductions in its welfare role as have some other states, New York for example.
”We’re 49th in the country in terms of getting people off welfare. You look at that statistic and say ‘what are we doing wrong?’ But we designed this program for people to have two years training to help people get off welfare and succeed,” she said.
Among the study’s findings:
A single parent earning $6.50 an hour or $1,127 a month – which meets the Federal Poverty Level – would have only $21.30 to spare after basic expenses. That’s paying $655 a month for rent and utilities; $355 on food, which is based on the USDA’s Low-Cost Food Plan; $207 for transportation; $234.20 for miscellaneous expenses, such as hygiene products, clothing and unsubsidized products; nothing for child care and medical costs, because it’s subsidized at that pay level; and $16.40 in sales tax.
Single parents earning less than that or relying entirely on state and federal assistance would wind up in the red every month. If the parent were not working at all, he or she would accumulate debt of $408.40 each month.
As workers go up the pay scale and earn more money and lose child care and medical subsidies, they again wind up in the red. A worker earning $16.41 an hour – which is actually two-and-a-half times higher than the Federal Poverty Level – would be short $33.60 each month. That’s because child care costs rise to $955 a month.
”We think it’s a good tool to help people understand the day-to-day costs of living and the issues people face in going from welfare to work,” said Bob Carey, director of research for RIPEC, which is a non-profit, nonpartisan government watchdog organization. “People making $6, $7 an hour still face issues in child care and (other needs).
”There are costs to move people from welfare to work,” Carey said. “A lot of studies nationwide (show) increased use of food pantries and other private charities.
”I think it’s easy, especially in today’s economy, to suggest there are plenty of jobs to be had. The question is do people have the right training?,” he added. “In a booming economy more people will have work; once the boom stops, will people have the skills to continue to work?”
The study “illuminates the cost of living, and I think it does it in a fair way,” Carey said. “They used numbers that are generally accepted costs. Housing was listed at $600 or so, that’s not living on Benefit Street,” he said in reference to one of Providence’s more upscale neighborhoods.
The Standard of Need study is based on a research protocol designed by Diana Pearce, director of the Women and Poverty Project of Wider Opportunities for Women, Inc. Pearce, who is a Ph.D., conducted similar studies in Iowa and California and first published her results in 1996. It is designed to show roughly how much money a single parent with two children would have to pay in a given area for the most basic of needs. It excludes more extravagant expenditures such as the occasional visit to a fast food restaurant and after school activities for the kids.
”One of the reasons we did this study is because the Federal Poverty Level is really inadequate,” Gewirtz explained. Many social programs in the region don’t require people to meet poverty guidelines before extending assistance, she said.
Carey added that part of the problem is that it’s a national number, which “doesn’t take into consideration regional differences in cost of living.”
In 1997, for example, he said the Federal Poverty Level for a family of four was $18,800, which would likely be a struggle for some single people in New England.
Gewirtz said the study has been sent to elected officials throughout the state as well as various state agencies. “We hope this study will help policy makers think about what else we should be doing. What other policies do we need to put in place so our children aren’t poor?”
