PathWays PA Policy Blog

Census data tells us that 13% of Pennsylvania households live in poverty. In reality, even more households don’t have the income they need to reach self-sufficiency. One in four Pennsylvania households – over 846,000 – lack enough income to cover just the necessities. Since 1997, PathWays PA has worked with Dr. Diana Pearce and the University of Washington to calculate  The Self-Sufficiency Standard for Pennsylvania . Over the last 23 years,  The Self-Sufficiency Standard of Pennsylvania  has documented the continuing increase in the real cost of living, illuminating the economic crunch experienced by so many families today. Since 2010, PathWays PA and the University of Washington have also issued three versions of the  Overlooked and Undercounted  report, which looks at the number of households living above and below self-sufficiency. You can now use the interactive materials below to find out what it takes to be self-sufficient in your county. Click ...

As many parents know, a typical American family spends a lot of money on childcare each year. In Pennsylvania, the cost of childcare is often higher than what a family pays in rent each month. One option that some families consider is having a parent leave the workforce entirely in order to care for a child. But until now, there was little research on the financial impact of making that decision. The Center for American Progress  now has a calculator showing the hidden cost of leaving the workforce to provide childcare. The calculator shows the immediate loss (income not earned) as well as the loss in potential wage growth over a career and lost retirement savings. As PBS NewsHour points out , a 26 year old woman earning $50,000 who leaves the workforce for three years to care for a child loses more than $150,000 in salary - she loses over $500,000 in her lifetime in salary, wage growth, retirement benefits, and Social Security.  To test the calculator, I checked...

Figure A shows an example of the Self-Sufficiency Standard, with each monthly expense included in as a proportion of the total income necessary for a family with two adults, one preschooler, and one school-age child in Allegheny County. By far, housing and child care combined are the most expensive costs for families. Families with children (when one or more children are under school-age) generally spend about half their income on housing and child care expenses alone. The map (Figure B) highlights that the cost of meeting basic needs also varies geographically in Pennsylvania. The 2012-2013 Self-Sufficiency Standard for one parent with one preschooler ranges from $25,697 to $53,410 annually. The Self-Sufficiency Standard has stayed about the same since 2010 in each of the places shown for this family type in Figure C. The two largest budget items, housing and child care, had only modest changes since 2010. Since the first edition of the Pennsyl...

PathWays PA Weekly Newsletter   JOIN OUR MAILING LIST IN THIS NEWSLETTER Release of the 2012-2013 Standard Would you pay $.10? Support Pregnant Women! Human Trafficking WebEx Twitter Parade Starts Today! Volunteers Needed! Donate Blood SIGN UP-United Way Holiday Network SIGN-UP Human Trafficking Webinar Literacy Coalition Event JOIN PATHWAYS PA TO CELEBRATE OUR 34TH ANNIVERSARY!. Adult Education Classes JOIN OUR ONLINE COMMUNITY IN THE NEWS October 11, 2012 - PathWaysPA releases 2012-2012 Self-Sufficiency Report "Overlooked and Undercounted"   October 17, 2012 Study: 1 in 4 Pennsylvania households struggle to make ends meet  Read More    October 18, 2012 25 percent of Pa. households below poverty standard Read More   PURCHASE ITEMS FROM THE PATHWAYS PA ART SHOW These items and more are available for sale, with all proceeds benefiting PathWays PA! For more information and to make you...

PathWays PA Releases "Overlooked and Undercounted" The 2012-2013 Self-Sufficiency Standard Wednesday, November 28, 2012 from 2:30 PM to 4:00 PM United Way, 1709 Benjamin Franklin Parkway Philadelphia RSVP Here Come and Join us! Hope to see you there!

While the likelihood of experiencing inadequate income in Pennsylvania is concentrated among certain families by gender, race/ethnicity, education, and location, families with inadequate incomes are remarkably diverse. In terms of race and ethnicity, • 67% of households in Pennsylvania with inadequate income are White, • 19% are Black, • 10% are Latino, and • 4% are Asian/Pacific Islander. Of the households below the Standard in Pennsylvania: • 25% are married-couple households with children, • 24% are single-women households with children, • 5% are single-male households with children, and • the remaining 46% of the households below the Standard are family households without children and nonfamily households (also without children). Among Pennsylvania householders in families with inadequate income, • 14% lack a high school degree, • 39% have a high school degree, • 31% have some college or an Associate’s degree, and • 16% have a Bachelor’s degree or higher. Abou...

PathWays PA is proud to announce the of our new report, Overlooked and Undercounted: How the Great Recession Impacted Household Self-Sufficiency in Pennsylvania WHEN: Tuesday, October 16 - 10:00 AM WHERE: Harrisburg - Main Capitol Rotunda WHO: Carol Goertzel, President and CEO of PathWays PA Dr. Diana Pearce, Author of the Study Representative Marc Gergely and State House and Senate Speakers TBA While many members and organizations are familiar with PathWays PA's Self-Sufficiency Standard , this new report combines the Standard with demographic data for a first-in-the-nation look at self-sufficiency. Overlooked and Undercounted contains information on how much families need to earn to be self-sufficient in every county in the state, and also shows how many families live above and below that standard. Please join us in Harrisburg to learn more about this important publication. Call Diana Marques at 610-543-5022 x 257 or email: dmarques@pathwayspa.org to let us know if you...

We were very proud to read this morning that the United Way of Erie County will be announcing a goal of " significantly reducing the number of Erie County households living below a self-sufficiency benchmark calculated by PathWays PA , a state nonprofit organization. The self-sufficiency standard takes into account categories such as food, housing and utilities, transportation, child care, health-care costs, and miscellaneous items like clothing, medications and other basic needs. According to PathWays PA, the self-sufficiency mark in Erie County for a family of four is $53,077, more than two times the federal poverty rate of $22,050." When we last calculated how many families lived below the Self-Sufficiency Standard (in 2009), we learned that 30,000 families in Erie County alone were below the Standard. To see the Standard in your county, please visit  http://pathwayspa.org/10-11_SS_Standard.pdf .  To see how many people live above and below the Standard, pleas...

On Friday, PathWays PA presented information on our Self-Sufficiency Standard before the Bucks County Women’s Advocacy Coalition . This Coalition works to serve women and girls and is focused on achieving economic self-sufficiency for all through advocacy work in areas of child care, health care, housing, transportation, job and workforce development; domestic violence and addiction issues affect all areas of concern. Marianne Bellesorte spoke to the group about the high cost of making ends meet as shown by the Standard. For a family of three in Bucks County it can cost over $60,000 just to make ends meet. The cost of living directly relates to the amount of people living in poverty. In 2010, Bucks County had a 2.7 percentage point increase in the number of people living below the Federal Poverty Level. In other words, over 17,000 more people were living below poverty in the county in 2010 compared to 2009. This represents a higher percentage increase than in any county in the...

At yesterday's antihunger symposium organized by Philabundance, PathWays PA was among several organizations who spoke on the need for more access to food, especially in "food deserts" where fresh produce and healthy options are hard to come by. Lyn Kugel of PathWays PA also discussed the high cost of making ends meet for Philadelphians: Others speakers included Lyn Kugel, a senior director of PathwaysPA, a social service agency in Holmes, Delaware County. Citing the high costs of housing, food, and child care in the area, Kugel said a single parent with one school-age child and one preschool child would need to make $54,705 annually to live without using public assistance. "That's startling," Kugel said, saying few single parents in the area make that much money. To read the full article, please visit  http://www.philly.com/philly/news/pennsylvania/130398213.html .