Contact: Abby Hughes Holsclaw

Kentucky Youth Advocates, Policy Analyst

For Immediate Release

Wednesday, November 28, 2001

The Basic Cost of Living In Kentucky’s Counties

New Report Shows How Hard It is for Families in Kentucky to Meet Their Bare Bones Budget

Frankfort--- To meet her family’s most basic needs, a single adult in Louisville with one preschooler and one school age child must earn $17.18 per hour. In Lexington-Fayette County, she must earn $16.43 per hour, and in Bowling Green-Warren County, she must earn $13.80 per hour, according to a report released today by Kentucky Youth Advocates. The Self-Sufficiency Standard for Kentucky: Real Budgets, Real Families, which defines the income working families need in each county in Kentucky to meet their basic needs without public or private assistance. The report is a collaborative effort among Kentucky Youth Advocates, the University of Washington, Wider Opportunities for Women, and thirty Kentucky organizations.

The report calculates a self-sufficiency income for 70 family types in 120 counties in Kentucky. It finds that families in Kentucky with incomes well above the federal poverty standard are hard pressed to meet all their basic needs such as housing, child care, health care, food, transportation and taxes. Many families with incomes above the poverty level still do not have enough to cover the costs of basic necessities. “In all counties in Kentucky, it takes twice the minimum wage to meet a family’s bare bones budget. Our research confirms what working families all over Kentucky already know as they struggle to stretch their family budgets to meet their families’ needs,” noted Debra Miller, Executive Director of Kentucky Youth Advocates.

“For years KYA and various groups have known about the limitations of the federal poverty line and minimum wage. We now have solid evidence that it takes at least $10 an hour in income for a family to meet their real needs,” commented Abby Hughes Holsclaw with KYA. “Too many families in Kentucky simply cannot make it, even when working full time. That is why it is imperative that we have strong public policies to help families help their children.”

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“What the Standard tells us is that lower-wage jobs alone – even those well above the minimum wage – simply do not allow Kentucky families to meet their needs, even at a minimally adequate level,” said Dr. Diana Pearce with the University of Washington. Dr. Pearce developed the research methodology for the report and has completed similar studies in other states. “Unfortunately, many families do not have a self-sufficient income, particularly if they have recently entered the workforce. They cannot afford their housing and food and child care, much less their other basic needs. As a result they are forced to make painful choices between necessities, accepting substandard or inadequate child care, or making do with insufficient food or substandard housing.”

The Self-Sufficiency Standard for Kentucky: Real Budgets, Real Families also reveals that existing public assistance policies help families more forward on their path to self-sufficiency. This tool will help policy makers evaluate whether they need to restructure subsidy programs, change co-payment schedules, or implement other policy reforms to provide more assistance to working families. The report can also serve as a model to determine the interactive effects of taxes, tax credits, and government subsidies on income levels.

Garry Throckmorton, a Senior Vice President with Republic Bank, comments that “The new study is invaluable for businesses such as my bank and other organizations that are assisting low-income Kentucky families with home ownership, credit counseling, and financial skills development as well as government officials targeting programs to help low-income families. The data from this study validates the importance of these initiatives. Families raising children will be better off”

“Across the country, we’re finding that families – especially those with young children – require incomes well above the federal poverty level to meet their needs,” said Jennifer Brooks, WOW’s Director of Self-Sufficiency Programs and Policy. “To get those incomes, employers need to pay adequate wages and provide benefits; government needs to ensure access to education and training and work supports to lower costs; and individuals need to take advantage of opportunities to invest in themselves.”

The report concludes that families have the best opportunity of meeting their families’ needs when employers help with decent wages and benefits, when employees take advantage of education and training opportunities, and when public policies include:

v Helping families with child care costs

v Helping families with health care costs

v Tax relief

v Emphasizing education and training opportunities for parents

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Kentucky Youth Advocates, a non-partisan, non-profit, child advocacy organization, represents the interests of all Kentucky children by vigorously promoting positive public policy changes that impact children. KYA researches, publishes, and distributes information on emerging policies affecting Kentucky’s children, especially those who are poor and otherwise disadvantaged. KYA worked with numerous organizations in Kentucky that came together to assist in shaping the Real Budgets, Real Families report.

Wider Opportunities for Women (WOW) is a 37-year old national women’s employment organization that works to achieve economic independence and equality of opportunity for women and girls. WOW leads the Family Economic Self-Sufficiency Project – a national project to develop the Self-Sufficiency Standard in states across the country; coordinates the National Workforce Network – a network of women’s service and training organizations in all 50 states that reaches more than a million women and girls every year; and is a leader in the areas of nontraditional employment, literacy and welfare-to-work strategies.

The Simon House in Frankfort served as the backdrop for the release. The Simon House provides a home to homeless pregnant women or women who are caring for young children. SIMON stands for Serving Infant and Mothers Ongoing Needs. The Simon House has the ultimate goal of providing each woman as she leaves the House to join her community, with the opportunity to obtain housing and a job, and the skills to cope with every day life on an independent basis.

To obtain copies of The Self-Sufficiency Standard for Kentucky: Real Budgets, Real Families, please contact Abby Hughes Holsclaw at (502) 875-4865, or download a copy from KYA’s web site: www.kyyouth.org .

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