The Self-Sufficiency Standard

As Self-Sufficiency Standards are developed for additional states, they will be added to this section. Helpful examples of how the Self-Sufficiency Standard has been used can be found on our Tool Kit page, and Self-Sufficiency Standard-related materials are listed in our Resources section.

• What it is and why it works
• Approaches
• Toolkit to use as a policy, advocacy and counseling tool
• State and federal legislation
• Resources pertaining to this strategy
• Standard for your state

What it is and why it works

The Self-Sufficiency Standard calculates how much money working adults need to meet their basic needs without subsidies of any kind. Unlike the federal poverty standard, the Self-Sufficiency Standard accounts for the costs of living and working as they vary by family size and composition and by geographic location.

The Standard defines the amount of income necessary to meet basic needs (including paying taxes) in the regular "marketplace" without public subsidies—such as public housing, food stamps, Medicaid or child care—or private/informal subsidies—such as free babysitting by a relative or friend, food provided by churches or local food banks, or shared housing. The Standard, therefore, estimates the level of income necessary for a given family type—whether working now or making the transition to work—to be independent of welfare and/or other public and private subsidies.

The Standard provides important guidance for policymakers and program providers regarding how to target their education, job training, workforce development, and welfare-to-work resources. It helps individuals choose among occupations for work experience and educational training. It also shows policymakers how subsidizing child care, transportation or health care impacts the wages necessary for working families to make ends meet.

• The Standard assumes that all adults (whether married or single) work full-time and includes the costs associated with employment—specifically, transportation and taxes, and for families with young children, child care.
• The Standard takes into account that many costs differ not only by family size and composition (as does the official poverty measure), but also by the age of children. While food and health care costs are slightly lower for younger children, child care costs are much higher-particularly for children not yet in school—and are a substantial budget item not included in the official poverty measure.
• The Standard accounts for regional variations in cost. This feature is particularly important for housing. Housing in the most expensive areas of the country costs four times as much as in the least expensive areas for equivalent size units.
• The Standard includes the net effect of taxes and tax credits. It provides for state sales taxes, as well as payroll (Social Security) taxes, and federal and state income taxes. Two credits available to working adults, the Child Care Tax Credit (CCTC) and the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) are "credited" against the income needed to meet basic needs—thus reducing the income needed to become economically self-sufficient.
• The Standard accounts for the fact that, over time, various costs increase at different rates. For example, food costs, on which the official poverty thresholds are based, have not increased as fast as housing costs. This failure to account for differential inflation rates among other non-food basic needs is one reason that the official poverty thresholds are no longer an adequate measure of the money required to meet real needs.

Approaches

• The Pennsylvania Family Economic Self-Sufficiency(PAFESS) project—led by the Women's Association for Women's Alternatives—has worked with over 1,200 case managers and social service administrators across the state to use the Self-Sufficiency Standard for Pennsylvania as a counseling tool to demonstrate the real costs of becoming economically independent. Through use of the Standard, PAFESS has encouraged social service providers to talk about higher-wage and nontraditional jobs and the importance of career ladders with their clients.

  A new companion tool, the Self-Sufficiency Standard Budget Worksheet, allows case managers to work with individuals—using their real costs—to test whether different wages will enable them to meet their basic needs. The Worksheet facilitates a dialogue between case manager and client around choice of an initial job, job training opportunities and career paths. Career developers in the workplace to plan for employees' career advancement can also use it. Contact Jane Eleey, Women's Association for Women's Alternatives, (610) 543-5022 or jeleey@womensassoc.org.

• The Massachusetts Family Economic Self-Sufficiency (MassFESS) project—which is the Massachusetts arm of the State Organizing Project for Family Economic Self-Sufficiency and is led by the Women's Educational and Industrial Union— released a new report called The Self-Sufficiency Standard: Where Massachusetts Families Stand. This report addresses the question of how families are faring in relation to the Self-Sufficiency Standard for Massachusetts. It estimates the number of families who have incomes above and below the Self-Sufficiency Standard in each of Massachusetts' 351 cities and towns. The baseline estimates were made by comparing 1990 Census data on household incomes in each community to the Standard, adjusted for inflation and for the area in which the community is located.

  The report provided good news and bad news. The good news was that nearly three-quarters of Massachusetts' families had incomes above the Self-Sufficiency Standard, suggesting that the economic circumstances for these families was encouraging.

  For the other one-quarter who had incomes below the Standard, however, the picture was not so bright—these families were working hard and yet still struggling to get by. The report showed that single-parent families had the most difficulty making ends meet. These families were about twice as likely to have incomes below the Standard as two-parent families. The report broadens the discussion about whether welfare reform in Massachusetts is really working by providing a clearer picture of who is making it and who is not. Contact Elizabeth Zarrella, Women's Educational and Industrial Union, (617) 536-5651, ext. 143 or ezarrella@weiu.org.