One in three families with young children cannot afford basics such as food, housing and health care, according to a study by the Economic Policy Institute, Hardships in America: The Real Story of Working Families.
The majority of these families are two-parent families, often with one or more workers, and they generally earn incomes above the official federal poverty level, according to the study authors. "Work alone doesn't ensure a decent standard of living," said Heather Boushey, an EPI economist and lead author of the study.
"This report shows that official poverty measures don't tell the real story of working families today, and it provides strong evidence of the need for policies that strengthen our social safety net and boost wages."
The most comprehensive study of family hardships ever published, Hardships in America, analyzes the cost of living in every community across the nation and determines separate "basic family budgets" for food, housing, child care, health insurance, transportation, and utilities - for each community.
The Family Budgets Calculator generates an itemized budget for over 400 metropolitan areas by various family types. Statistics reveal that basic family budgets for a two-parent, two-child family can range from just over $27,000 a year in Hattiesburg, MI to $52,000 a year for Nassau-Suffolk County, New York. The national median is $33,511, roughly twice the official federal poverty line of $17,463 for a family that size.
The study's authors propose "raising the earnings of low-income and poor families, including a minimum wage hike, the removal of obstacles to obtaining union representation, an expanded Earned Income Tax Credit, more comprehensive job training programs, and stronger pay equity policies that help to ensure that women are paid as much as men."
The findings also concluded that families that don't have private health insurance are far more likely to face other kinds of hardships - they are twice as likely to miss meals and pay bills. Increased funds for affordable housing should also be made available, since the national housing policy is biased toward middle-income homeowners. Providing affordable housing closer to work could be accomplished through "transit lead development," where mixed-use, high-density developments are built near transit hubs.
Pat Rioux
