Compiled by Coalition for Human Needs, Connect For Kids, Voices For America’s Children

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On August 26, 2004 the U.S. Bureau of the Census released the newest income and poverty data. There will be national data from 2003 and state and local figures from 2002-2003. For a better understanding of what the numbers mean, it’s useful to take a look at information already available about how families with children are faring. Here are facts about jobs and earnings, about hardships in making ends meet, and about shrinking government assistance for low-income families. The facts cited cover the same period as the forthcoming Census data or as close to it as possible. Individual facts from around the country were included where possible.

Fewer Jobs and Shrinking Wages Plague Working Families
From December 2000 to December 2003, the U.S. economy lost 2.4 million jobs. Despite job gains in 2004, the U.S. is still down more than a million jobs from the December 2000 level. (Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics, Total Nonfarm Employment, Seasonally Adjusted; available online at http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/surveymost)

Average wages (adjusted for inflation) are at their lowest point since May 2002. They have been in decline since July of 2003. Middle and low income workers have seen their wages stagnate or lose ground. The wages of the lowest income workers (in the bottom 10 percent) declined 0.7 percent in 2003 compared to the previous year. (Sources: Economic Snapshot: Jobs Up, Wages Down, Economic Policy Institute, June 28, 2004; available online at http://www.epinet.org/content.cfm/webfeatures_snapshots_06282004; Weak Recovery Claims New Victim: Workers’ Wages, Bernstein and Mishel, Economic Policy Institute, EPI Issue Brief #196, February 5, 2004; available online at http://www.epinet.org/content.cfm/issuebriefs_ib196. )

The federal minimum wage has been stuck at $5.15 an hour for seven years. Taking inflation into account, the minimum wage has lost more than a quarter of its value (26 percent) since 1979. According to the Economic Policy Institute, more than 1 million married couples with children and 623,000 single mothers with children would benefit from an increase to $7.00 an hour by April 2006. (Source: Minimum Wage Facts at a Glance, Economic Policy Institute; available online at http://www.epinet.org/content.cfm/issueguides_minwage_minwagefacts)

Job Losses Hit Single Mothers Hard
Employment rose dramatically for single mothers from 1995 to 2000, but the recession and slow recovery wiped out a third of their job gains by 2003. For welfare-to-work mothers, the numbers were worse – half of the increased employment by single moms with Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) was wiped out over same period. Three million single moms a month were jobless in 2003; up from 2.6 million jobless in 2000. (Source: Children’s Defense Fund.)

It Takes an Income Well Over the Poverty Line to Make Ends Meet
The organization Wider Opportunities for Women estimated the actual costs of basic family needs, including housing, food, child care, transportation, and health care, in ten communities. They found that on average, a parent with two children earning $12 an hour would only be able to pay for 72 percent of those necessities, assuming they receive no government help with child care, health coverage, food, or housing. To cover all their needs, they would need earnings of more than $16 an hour, full-time, year-round. (Source: Wider Opportunities for Women, Coming up Short, 2004, available online at http://wowonline.org/docs/dynamic-CTTA-43.pdf.)

What is the Definition of Poverty?
For 2003 (the year for the poverty data being released on August 26), the Census Bureau sets the poverty threshold for a parent and two children at $14,824 ($7.13 an hour); for two parents and two children, the poverty line is $18,660 ($8.97 an hour). Each year, the definition of poverty is adjusted for inflation.

Working Families Face Deepening Hardship

Food Insecure Households Grew in 2002
Food insecurity means limited or uncertain access to enough nutritious food.

Millions Lack Health Coverage
More than one-third of all children had no health insurance for at least part of 2002-2003. Nearly 55 million adults aged 18 – 64 had no health insurance during some or all of the same period. (Source: One in Three: Non-Elderly Americans Without Health Insurance, 2002-2003, Families USA, June 2004; available online at http://www.familiesusa.org/site/DocServer/82 million_uninsured_report.pdf?docID=3641)

Poor Children are at Risk for Poor Health
Compared with children who are not poor, poor children are:
· 1.6 times more likely to die in infancy.
· 1.9 times more likely to be born at low birth weight.
· 2.7 times more likely to have stunted growth.
· Three to four times more likely to have iron deficiency during preschool years.
· About two times more likely to have serious physical or mental disabilities.
(Source: Children’s Defense Fund, Arloc Sherman, Poverty Matters, 1997.)

More Families Struggle to Meet Child Care Costs
Nearly two-thirds (65 percent) of mothers with children under age 6 were in the labor force in 2001 as were 79 percent of mothers with children age 6 – 13. Good quality child care costs typically range from $4,000 to $10,000 a year – but one-quarter of families with young children earn less than $25,000 a year. (Source: Children’s Defense Fund analyses of Census Current Population Survey 2001 data, in Quality Child Care Helps Parents Work and Children Learn, Children’s Defense Fund; available online at http://www.childrensdefense.org/earlychildhood/childcare/quality_child_care.pdf).

More Families Struggled with Finding Safe Affordable Housing

Struggling Working Families Need Help Because Wages are Too Low to Make Ends Meet; But Fewer Are Getting Public Help

Poverty in 2002

Poverty Rose Again

Poverty was Deep
On average, poor families had an income that was $7,205 below the federal poverty line in 2002 ($2,123 below on a per capita basis). The ‘poverty gap’ – the dollar amount below the poverty line – for an average female-headed household was $7,648 ($2,371 per capita). An average poor single mother with two children would have an income of $7,381.

47 Million Low-Income People
There were more than 47 million (16.5 percent) people living below 125 percent of the federal poverty line in 2002; 5.8 million were 65 and older and 16.2 million were children. For a mother and two children, 125 percent of the Federal Poverty Line (FPL) = $18,118 in 2002.

Other Nations Have Far Less Poverty
The Luxembourg Income Study, a multi-year effort that analyzes income and poverty comparisons among developed nations, found that nearly 22 percent of U.S. children were in households below half the national median income (a measure different from the federal poverty level in order to carry out international comparisons). In contrast, 16.3 percent of Canadian children, 15.4 percent of children in the United Kingdom, and 9 percent of children in continental Europe met the same low-income measure. (Source: John Micklewright, “Child Poverty in English-Speaking Countries,” Luxembourg Income Study, Working Paper No. 376 (Syracuse, NY: Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, Syracuse University, March 2004).

In February 2001, a Syracuse University analysis of Luxembourg Income Study data concluded that California and New York had the highest child poverty rates not only in the nation, but among the developed nations of the world. The study adjusted for a number of factors commonly excluded from such comparisons, including the lack of a state earned income tax credit, and concluded that of the children of the remaining 48 states, all of Europe and Russia, achieved lower child poverty rates. It placed the California poverty rate at 25.7 percent and the New York rate at 26.3 percent. Rates in Russian were pegged at 23.2 percent, and European nations at lower levels, e.g., Germany at 8.7 percent, Sweden at 2.5 percent.

State Poverty Data:
Here are the links for charts that include state data:

For Percent of People Below Poverty Level by State, 2002 American Community Survey: http://www.census.gov/acs/www/Products/Ranking/2002/R01T040.htm

For Percent of Related Children Under 18 Years Below Poverty Level by State, 2002 American Community Survey:
http://www.census.gov/acs/www/Products/Ranking/2002/R11T040.htm