By Terry Benjamin Boulder Daily Camera
EFAA
began in 1918 as a way for neighbors to help neighbors through temporary hard
times. Almost daily we see news reports about the challenges facing low-income
families. Visits to Emergency Family Assistance Association from Boulder and
Broomfield County families have increased 24 percent in the past year. They
come for food, assistance with rent, energy bills and emergency shelter.
Today,
more and more of the families we help are working, but at wages too low to live
on. As a result they rely on EFAA and on important public benefits such as SNAP
food assistance, Medicaid and child care assistance to make ends meet every
month. With well-paying jobs in short supply and costs to raise a family
dramatically increasing, an increasing number of Boulder County families are
hurting.
Some
recent reports:
·
One in five
children under five in Boulder County lives in poverty, and child poverty has
increased in Colorado faster than any other state. The stress of poverty is
particularly harmful to children and can have long lasting effects. Boulder
County enrollments in SNAP food assistance benefits have increased 150 percent
since 2008 and Medicaid enrollments have increased 63 percent.
·
Even though the
Colorado economy is growing, incomes fell for the bottom four fifths of
Colorado households since 2007, rising only for the top fifth. This trend is
alarming and is affected by the loss of mid-wage jobs, stagnant and declining
wages, underemployment and part time hours. Household incomes are not keeping
up with increasing costs of housing, education, energy and health care. The
Colorado minimum wage of $7.64 is not enough to keep even a single person out
of poverty. If the minimum wage had kept up with inflation in the last thirty years,
it would be around $11.
·
A single mother
with two young children needs to earn $29/hour to be entirely self-sufficient
in Boulder County, yet half of the jobs in Boulder County pay less than
$25/hour. 41 percent of families with a single mother live in poverty.
·
More than one in
three Boulder County renter households pay more than 50 percent of their income
for housing, and rents increased more than 10 percent just in the last year.
Over 1,750 school-age children in Boulder County are without permanent homes.
The
recession has affected many families and businesses but poverty is not just a
result of the recent downturn. There are broader issues of economic and public
policy at play. Of the jobs with the highest projected growth in Boulder County
in the next ten years, one in four are in sectors such as leisure/hospitality,
retail, and personal services that pay less than $15/hour, frequently without
benefits. One quarter of Boulder County's mid-wage jobs have forever
disappeared in the last ten years. Colorado's state budget is constrained so
that education and important
work supports such as the earned income tax credit and child care assistance
have been cut. In the U.S. Congress, the House voted to cut over $16 billion
from nutrition assistance, and cut Pell Grants that reduce the cost of higher
education, help for the long-term unemployed, and assistance for rental
housing.
There
is not a simple answer to poverty, but we know that it takes a combination of
individual commitment, support
from the faith community and community organizations like EFAA, an adequate
safety net, good education,
access to health care, more jobs that pay decent wages and benefits, and
possibilities to accumulate assets and retirement savings.
We
have to face these economic and political realities. Ignoring these trends,
blaming working families, walking away from support of effective public
programs, cutting education and other investments, and continuing to push the
problem to local governments and faith-based and community nonprofits cannot
get us there.
Terry Benjamin is Executive
Director, Emergency Family Assistance Association.
DeAnne Butterfield
1674 Yellow Pine Ave
Boulder, CO 80304
303.588.1840
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