The Pattersons rent a modest two-bedroom apartment, rarely use their cars except to commute to work, and never go out to eat. ![]() Together, their income totals about $42,000 a year before taxes, and Monica’s job provides affordable family health insurance. Both parents are employed full-time and earn $10 per hour. Monica and Sam Patterson live in Des Moines with their two daughters. As seen in Figure 1, a single parent with two children needs to earn $15 an hour to afford basic necessities in a rural area of New Mexico, $20 an hour in Des Moines, and $27 in San Francisco. While family expenses are somewhat lower, there is only one worker to shoulder the cost. In rural Grays Harbor County, WA, a Basic Needs Budget for this family is higher: $41,000 a year, or two full-time, year-round jobs paying $10 an hour.įor a single parent, making ends meet presents an even greater challenge. In the low-cost rural areas of Alamosa County, CO, Curry County, NM, and East Carroll Parish, LA, a two-parent family with two children can make ends meet with an income of $35,000 to $37,000 a year. The cost of living is typically less in rural areas, though there is wide variation across the country. Des Moines, Detroit, San Antonio, and Tampa fall into this range. In more moderate-cost cities, the same family needs about $45,000 to $47,000 a year to cover the cost of day-to-day necessities. That means two full-time workers earning at least $13 an hour each.įigure 1: Basic Needs Budgets for Two Family Types Some smaller cities, such as Burlington, VT, cost just as much. To make ends meet in the large, high-cost cities of Chicago, New York, and San Francisco, for example, a two-parent family with two children (one preschool-aged and one school-aged) needs an income of $52,000 to $67,000 a year. The cost of living varies dramatically both within and across states. Users may also substitute their own numbers for one or more expense estimates, and the Calculator adjusts the family’s tax liability and overall budget totals accordingly. Budgets assume that all families include at least one full-time worker for two-parent families, users make choices about the employment status of the other parent. Users select the number of parents and number and ages of the family’s children. ![]() NCCP’s Basic Needs Budget Calculator provides access to budgets for 76 localities across 12 states, with more states coming soon. While the struggle to make ends meet is particularly difficult for single parents, paying the bills is a tough challenge for two-parent families as well. The largest expenses are typically child care and housing, although health care and transportation can cost nearly as much – and in some cases more. Examples are drawn from 12 localities and are based on families with two children budgets for other family types and localities are available through NCCP’s Basic Needs Budget Calculator.īasic Needs Budgets show that it takes an income of about 1.5 to 3.5 times the official poverty level ($22,050 a year for a family of four), depending on locality, to cover the cost of a family’s minimum day-to-day needs. Using examples from these bare-bones budgets, this brief examines the question of how much families need to get by and provides insight into the struggles that working families face. The Basic Needs Budgets developed by the National Center for Children in Poverty (NCCP) show the cost of basic day-to-day necessities for families with children. Even a full-time job is no guarantee of economic security, with the high cost of everyday expenses and a federal minimum wage of just $6.55 an hour – less than $14,000 a year with full-time, year-round employment. Millions of parents find themselves struggling to make ends meet, despite hard work. Learn about our Making Work Supports Work project.
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