News Articles Family of 4 in Ventura County needs more than $70,000 to maintain modest lifestyle
Family of 4 in Ventura County needs more than $70,000 to maintain modest lifestyle
"The Self-Sufficiency Standard is much more tailored to the local cost of living than the federal poverty guidelines," said Peter Manzo, president and CEO of United Ways of California.
Ventura County Star
October 4, 2011
By Timm Herdt
How much income does it take this year for a Ventura County couple with one child in school and a second preschool-age child to attain a "decent, though very modest" standard of living?
A study released today by the nonprofit Insight Center for Community Economic Development puts the figure at $70,573 a year, which would be sufficient to cover housing, child care, food, transportation, health care and taxes with $462 left over each month for miscellaneous expenses including clothing, telephone, cable TV, Internet access and entertainment.
That represents an 8 percent increase since 2008 — the smallest increase among California's 58 counties.
The standard is just below the median household income in Ventura County in 2009, which the Census Bureau reports as $71,246.
While some might see the study "as just more bad news" in an economic environment in which many families are struggling to get by, the information is intended to serve as a tool to help government and philanthropic organizations better design their services to help "build economic security in their communities," said Jenny Chung Mejia, program manager for the Oakland-based group.
"The Self-Sufficiency Standard is much more tailored to the local cost of living than the federal poverty guidelines," said Peter Manzo, president and CEO of United Ways of California. "If one were to just use the poverty guidelines, you might underestimate the level of need in the area you're working in."
The federal poverty guideline for a family of four this year is set at $22,350.
Using regionalized cost data, the study calculates the level of income needed for 156 family types, ranging from a single adult living alone ($30,174) to a multigenerational household with three adults, two infants and two preschool age children ($135,123).
Manzo said the data "just gives you a richer tool to help identify the levers you can pull" to provide community services to help families get by.
The standards reflect the wide variances in the cost of living across California. The same family that requires $70,573 to maintain a modest lifestyle in Ventura County would require just $59,967 in Fresno, for instance, but $83,640 in Santa Clara County. The statewide average is $63,000.
The fact that the increase in Ventura County was the lowest statewide, Mejia said, reflects only a slight increase of 7 percent in local housing costs since 2008. Many other counties experienced overall increases of 20 percent or more over the last three years.
The largest increases were in taxes (29 percent), health care (27 percent) and child care (22 percent). The biggest increase by far in Ventura County was in health care, which jumped 31 percent.
Mejia said the increase in taxes resulted because, even though tax rates have not been increased, the higher incomes needed to maintain a self-sufficient standard of living moved many such families into higher income-tax brackets.
The peer-reviewed study was directed by Professor Diana Pearce, founder of the Women and Poverty Project at the University of Washington. It used data from state and national sources such as the Census Bureau, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the California Department of Education and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.