United Way of San Luis Obispo County is glad to partner with United Ways of California on the release of Struggling to Stay Afloat: The Real Cost Measure in California 2018, our new statewide report on financial challenges for working families.
Unlike the official federal poverty level, which does not accurately account for local costs of living, the Real Cost Measure looks at current costs of a basic needs (barebones) budget for housing, food, health care, child care, transportation and other basic needs to determine what it truly costs to live in every county in California for households of different compositions (e.g., 2 adults, no children, or 2 adults, 1 infant and 1 school-age child). The results of this extensive study are presented in a data-rich website that enables users to examine each of California’s 58 counties at the neighborhood level, with county profiles and interactive maps. The URL is https://www.unitedwaysca.org/realcost.
“The Real Cost Measure puts a stake in the ground on the cost of a decent standard of living for different family sizes in every county in California, and then analyzes how many families in each county and neighborhood cluster struggle to meet those costs,” said Peter Manzo, president and CEO of United Ways of California. “We found that 1 in 3 (33%) households in California struggle to stay afloat, which is roughly three times as many as federal poverty statistics would indicate.”
Some of the key findings from The Real Cost Measure in California 2018 include:
- More than one in three California households (33%) do not earn sufficient income to meet basic needs
- Workers: Of the estimated 3.3 million households in California that fall below the Real Cost Measure, 9 in 10 have at least one working adult (when you control for households led by seniors and people with disabilities)
- Housing Burden: Nearly 4 in 10 households in California (38%) pay more than 30% of their income on housing. Households below the Real Cost Measure report spending from 45% of their income on housing to as much as 79% of their income for households below the federal poverty
- Households of all Ethnicities Struggle, but the Rate is Higher for Latino and African Americans: Latino households are more likely to struggle compared to other ethnic groups. Over 1.5 million Latino households are estimated to fall below the Real Cost Measure compared to over 1 million white households, 429,000, Asian American households, and 269,000 African-American households
- Single Mothers: Over 7 in 10 single mothers in California (72%) fall below the Real Cost Measure
- As Education Increases, rate of Struggling Households Falls: Nearly three-fourths of California householders without a high school diploma or equivalent (71%) fall below the Real Cost Measure compared to those with at least a high school diploma (48%), at least some college education (33%), and at least a bachelor’s degree (15%)
- 6 in 10 Young Children Live in Struggling Households: 45% of households led by a person born outside the U.S. are below the Real Cost Measure, and that number rises to 63% when the householder is not a citizen. Households led by Latino non-citizens struggle most, especially if the household does not include someone over 14 years of age who speaks English well (82% below the Real Cost Measure).
- Seniors: Nearly 1 in 3 seniors struggle to meet basic needs (29%) according to the Elder Index, a measure by the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research
To help people visualize the hardships households throughout California face, the Real Cost Measure online resources include interactive maps that reveal the number and percentage of households living below the Real Cost Measure, median household earnings and areas in which housing burden greater than 30 percent of a household’s gross income.
The study results also offer county profiles with detailed budgets that reflect minimum annual household needs at the county level. These household budgets, calculated for 2016, include the cost of housing, child care, food, health care, transportation, 10 percent miscellaneous expenses, tax credits and taxes. To learn more about the Real Cost Measure, please visit https://www.unitedwaysca.org/realcost.
Rick London, CEO of United Way of San Luis Obispo County will facilitate a public presentation by the authors of the Real Cost Measure Report on Tuesday, October 16th from 2pm-4pm at the Copeland Health Education Pavilion at French Hospital in San Luis Obispo. Details about the specific statistics for San Luis Obispo County and our neighboring counties will be shared and compared to the California statistics outlined above. Economic mobility will also be discussed.
For more information, please call the United Way at 805-541-1234 or visit www.unitedwayslo.org/about-slo-county