Sidebar newsletter: Self-Sufficiency Standard shows the true cost of living for Colorado families

An article from the winter 2012 edition of Sidebar, CCLP's quarterly newsletter.

Staff and volunteers serve lunch at OUR Center in Longmont. Helping families with food enables them to stretch their budgets so they can put the money they save toward other expenses. Many people enjoy coming for meals because they appreciate the fellowship and support they receive from other folks who are also working toward self-sufficiency.

A critical part of alleviating hardship is identifying the true cost of basic expenses for Colorado families. That baseline, whether it’s annual income of $83,980 in Aspen or $43,220 in Pueblo, sets a standard families can use as a goal and lawmakers can use to guide policy.

Those are the ideas behind the Self-Sufficiency Standard for Colorado 2011, which the Colorado Center on Law and Policy released in October. The research shows the true cost of living for various family types in each Colorado county.

Organizations across the state use the Self-Sufficiency Standard to help families move toward long-term economic security. One of them is OUR Center (online at ourcenter.org), a Longmont-based agency that provides a range of services for families in need.

OUR Center uses the standard and related tools to evaluate what resources would have the greatest effect on family financial stability, said Executive Director Edwina Salazar.

“It actually is reassuring to clients that ‘there isn’t anything wrong with me, that this is why I’m struggling. I’m struggling because the cost of child care is enormous, and until I get some resources to address this I’m not going to feel successful. There’s nothing intrinsically wrong with me, there are structural issues here,’” Salazar said.

The Self-Sufficiency Standard for Colorado 2011 was prepared for CCLP by the Center for Women’s Welfare at the University of Washington School of Social Work. It’s online at
bit.ly/cosss2011.

Wages in many of Colorado's most common occupations fall short of self-sufficiency

Given how much is needed to meet basic needs for Colorado families, how many Colorado occupations provide a self-sufficiency level income? The table below compares median wages for Colorado's 10 most common occupations to self-sufficiency income in Larimer County for a family with one parent, one preschooler and one school-age child. It shows six of the 10 most common occupations in the state pay wages that are insufficient to reach self-sufficiency.

Learn more by checking out the Self-Sufficiency Standard for Colorado 2011, a measurement of the true cost of making ends meet for Colorado families.

The cost of making ends meet for Colorado families, our most popular research of 2011, second place

The Self-Sufficiency Standard for Colorado is a signature product for the Colorado Center on Law and Policy. It was the second-most popular research from CCLP during 2011, as measured by visits to our website. Released Oct. 28, the research shows many workers throughout Colorado have earnings that fall far short of what’s needed to meet basic family needs, even if their income is well above what the federal government classifies as poor. The Self-Sufficiency Standard for Colorado 2011 offers a detailed accounting of the cost of living for different family types in each of the state’s 64 counties.

Read the full report on our website.

Cost of living rises faster than family wages during past decade

The cost of paying basic family expenses rose 41 percent across Colorado from 2001 to 2011, while median family earnings rose only 13 percent, according to the Self-Sufficiency Standard for Colorado 2011. The table below shows where the costs increased in Larimer County and statewide.

Learn more by checking out the Self-Sufficiency Standard for Colorado 2011, a measurement of the true cost of making ends meet for Colorado families.

Western counties saw the sharpest increase in cost of basic expenses during past decade

The cost of basic family expenses rose sharply from 2001 to 2011 in several counties in western Colorado including Rio Blanco, Ouray, Hinsdale, Jackson and Lake counties, according to the Self-Sufficiency Standard for Colorado 2011. The map below shows how the cost of making ends meet has changed during the past decade for a family with one adult, one preschooler and one school-age child.

Learn more by checking out the Self-Sufficiency Standard for Colorado 2011, a measurement of the true cost of making ends meet for Colorado families.

Self-sufficiency wages are considerably higher than most other benchmarks

To put the Self-Sufficiency Standard for Colorado 2011 in context, it is useful to compare it to other commonly used measures of income adequacy. In the graph below, a comparison is made between the Logan County Self-Sufficiency Standard for one adult, one preschooler, and one school-age child and the following income benchmarks for three-person families:

• Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly the Food Stamp Program), and WIC (Women, Infants and Children);
• The Federal Poverty Level (FPL) for a family of three;
• The Colorado minimum wage; and
• The HUD median family income limits for a family of three in Logan County.

However, none of the benchmarks are as specific as the Self-Sufficiency Standard in terms of age and number of children and/or geographic location. Note that this set of benchmarks is not meant to show how a family would move from a lower income to economic self-sufficiency. Rather, the concept of self-sufficiency assumes a progression that takes place over time. As indicated in the fourth bar from the left the graph, the Self-Sufficiency Wage for this family type in Logan County is $36,931 per year.

Learn more by checking out the Self-Sufficiency Standard for Colorado 2011, a measurement of the true cost of making ends meet for Colorado families.

Self-sufficiency wages in Denver are similar to D.C. and Phoenix

While Denver and especially Grand Junction are less expensive than some other places with which they have been compared, families with one adult, one preschooler, and one school-age child in Denver require hourly wages that are over three times the (and in Grand Junction two and a half times) Colorado minimum wage of $7.36 per hour to meet their basic needs.

The graph below shows self-sufficiency wages for one adult, one preschooler and one school-age child in Denver, Grand Junction and other cities.

Learn more by checking out the Self-Sufficiency Standard for Colorado 2011, a measurement of the true cost of making ends meet for Colorado families.

Self-Sufficiency Standard shows dramatic differences in family budgets

One of the weaknesses of the federal government's official poverty thresholds is that they account only for the number of people in a family, not where the family lives or the ages of family members. The Self-Sufficiency Standard for Colorado 2011 shows how much income is required for a family to pay basic expenses and accounts for factors the federal poverty level leaves out. Here's a breakdown of basic expenses for three family types in Prowers County.

Learn more by checking out the Self-Sufficiency Standard for Colorado 2011, a measurement of the true cost of making ends meet for Colorado families.

The income needed to make ends meet varies widely across Colorado

The 2011 Colorado Self-Sufficiency Standard for a single adult with one preschooler ranges from $24,033 to $59,408 annually depending on the county. The map below shows a noticable disparity between higher cost suburban and resort areas and lower cost non-mountainous rural counties in Colorado.

Learn more by checking out the Self-Sufficiency Standard for Colorado 2011, a measurement of the true cost of making ends meet for Colorado families.