|
Time to Revise the Poverty Guidelines: Heating Oil, Head Start Show the Need for New Income Standard
By Joe Diamond and Laura Russell
THE response of the federal and state governments to the home heating oil crisis last month was heartening. The federal government released three emergency allocations of assistance to states. In addition, the State Legislature and the Governor exhibited leadership and teamwork when they provided emergency state fuel assistance for Massachusetts’ families.
These emergency home heating allocations provided much-needed resources to working poor households earning up to 200 percent of poverty through programs that are administered by the state’s community action agencies (CAAs). As a result, residents of Massachusetts do not have to choose between heat and food, or medicine and clothes.
The emergency allocations are significant for three reasons. First, they are appropriate and timely responses by government to a serious crisis. Second, the state allocation signals a return of the state to providing fuel assistance. Third, and perhaps most significant, the decision by the state legislature and the Governor to help households earning up to 200 percent of the federal poverty guidelines makes a statement about the difficulty more and more families are having in meeting basic needs and how outdated and inadequate the federal poverty guidelines really are.
Using only the poverty level as a guide can satisfy the letter of public policy but not the spirit. In Massachusetts, more and more of the population earns more than the poverty level, but much less than enough to get by. As a result, states like Mississippi for example, with higher percentages of their populations below the poverty level, will benefit more than states like Massachusetts with large working but still poor populations.
The federal poverty guidelines were developed nearly 40 years ago, by taking the cost of a minimally nutritionally adequate diet, and multiplying it by three. Since that time, they have been adjusted only for inflation as measured by the consumer price index. The 2000 federal poverty guideline for a family of four is $17,050.
To illustrate how out of touch with reality that is today, imagine trying to feed a family of four on $3.89 per person, per day for food. That is $3.89 not for lunch, but for all three meals. Then imagine trying to live on $7.78 per person, per day for all other needs: rent, heat, clothing, child care, health care, transportation, etc. This is not reality-based.
In recognition of that fact, most federal and state programs allow people making more than the federal poverty level to qualify, but only a few allow people making twice the poverty level to qualify. A fuel assistance program serving households up to 200 percent of poverty is a recognition that even if you make $34,000 a year and you are in a family of four, for example, you still need help paying to heat your home.
In contrast, the eligibility level for Head Start, for example, is the federal poverty level. Head Start is a direct federal allocation with no flexibility provided to the state to address the local income variations, leaving thousands of families just above the poverty line with no access to this important early education program. This should be changed.
Each year, the state should distribute federal fuel assistance to households earning up to 200 percent of poverty and, when warranted, expand eligibility to households making up to 60 percent of state median income, as President Clinton suggested this year. In addition, the state legislature and the Governor should include in the state budget a state fuel assistance allocation supplementing the federal program and matching the federal eligibility guidelines.
At the federal level, it is time to update the federal poverty guidelines and adjust them for regional cost differences. At the state level, we now have a much better measure of living costs for families: the Self-Sufficiency Standard for Massachusetts.
Massachusetts should adopt the Self-Sufficiency Standard as a measure of living costs, and update it on a regular basis. As is already being done in Connecticut and Pennsylvania, the Standard can be used to help low-income families increase their education, skills and earnings to become economically self-sufficient.
With the spring thaw in the air, keep in mind the federal poverty guidelines directly or indirectly determine how much federal assistance Massachusetts receives for programs that range from child health insurance and Head Start to school lunch programs and food stamps for low-income families.
We can keep more families warm, adequately fed, and in better health, and more children ready to learn, in the months and years ahead by making these changes now.
Joe Diamond is the Executive Director of Massachusetts Association for Community Action (MASSCAP) and Laura Russell is Director of the Work and Family Resource Center at the Women’s Educational and Industrial Union.
|
