The Self-Sufficiency Standard and the Federal Poverty Guideline,
for a Single Adult; an Adult and Preschooler;
an Adult, Preschooler and a Schoolage Child; and
a Couple with Preschooler and Schoolage Child

Census Data and Poverty

The data:

• Column 1 shows the Self-Sufficiency Standard for a single adult in various counties. Column 2 compares that figure to the Federal Poverty Guideline for a single person household in that year. Detail on single-person household spending categories is available here.
• Column 3 shows the Self-Sufficiency Standard for an adult with a pre-school age child in various counties. Column 4 compares that figure to the the Federal Poverty Guideline for a two-person household in that year. Detail on adult-and-preschooler household spending categories is available here.
• Column 5 shows the Self-Sufficiency Standard for an adult with a preschooler and a schoolage child in various counties. Column 6 compares that figure to the the Federal Poverty Guideline for a three- person household in that year. Detail on single-person household spending categories is available here.
• Column 7 shows the Self-Sufficiency Standard for two adults, a preschooler and a schoolage child in various counties. Column 8 compares that figure to the the Federal Poverty Guideline for a four-person household in that year. Detail on single-person household spending categories is available here.
• Column 9 shows the cost of adding a preschooler to a single-adult household (column 3 minus column 1). In every county, it is significantly more than the Federal Poverty Guideline's allowance for each additional family member (for 2006, $3,400). It varies from $4,500 to over $20,000. (The cost of an infant is somewhat higher, because the higher childcare costs offset the lower food costs. For more detail, see the appendix tables of any of the SSS studies, linked here.)
• Column 10 shows the cost, after taxes and tax credits, of adding a spouse to a family consisting of an adult, a preschooler and a school-age child (column 7 minus column 5). The cost is fairly consistent across counties, at around $7,000, or roughly twice the amount the Federal Poverty Guideline allows for each additional family member. The difference is due to additional food costs, the costs of operating an additional car or purchasing an additional transit pass, plus some additional health care and miscellaneous costs, offset by tax benefits; rent does not rise because no additional space is required. Remember that the lifestyle doesn't become any less austere, but there are now two adults to live under its constraints.
• Column 11 provides the population for the county of MSA (Metropolitan Statistical Area).
• Column 12 provides the Homeownership Rate from the 2000 Census. Homeownership in some of our largest cities, where rents and the cost of living are highest, is quite low relative to what those who live in suburban and rural areas are used to.
• Column 13 shows the median value of owner-occupied housing.
• Column 14 provides the number of households in 2000 (which can be multiplied by Column 15 to yield the number of homeowning households, and further manipulated to provide the number of renting households).
• Column 15 provides the median household income for 1999, which can be compared with Column 12 (recognizing that Column 12 is 2000 to 2005 data, but that medians tend to change slowly).
• Column 16 provides the official poverty rate for 1999, which might reasonably be viewed in conjunction with Column 8. Notice that poverty appears to be low where rents are high and high where rents are low.
• Column 17 provides a measure of population density, which generally seems to correlate with incomes and rents. (Those who have explored the themes on the wealthandwant website will understand why. See particularly population density, rent, urban land values relative to rural)
• Column 18 updates the rent figure in column 1 to 2006; where there are multiple figures shown, it represents a revision, such as one due to Hurricane Katrina.

The counties were selected from the Self Sufficiency Standard Studies. All that were shown in tables in the body of each study were included, and those were supplemented with additional counties from the appendices. Background material and links to the studies themselves are available here.

Some things you might look at:

[You might want to open a second copy of this document in a separate window so you can scroll through the data and consider the questions simultaneously. Copy the URL at the top, then tap Ctrl-N and paste the address into the top of the new window].

• While homeownership nationwide is now about 69%, and in 1999 was 66.2% (Column 15), in the places where the most people live, homeownership levels are much lower. The popular assumption that most people will become homeowners at some point in their lives just doesn't hold in our cities. People will be paying rent to others for their entire lives. Homeownership has increased in Manhattan as buildings that were once rentals have become condominiums, but the homeownership rate in 2000 was 20%, and the average value over $1,000,000. (How much over $1 million appears to be unknown, probably due to top-coding practices which conceal important detail.)
• The median value of owner-occupied housing in 2000 in these selected counties ranged from $27,500 in Todd County, South Dakota, $35,900 in East Carrol Parish, LA, and $46,500 in Knott County, Kentucky, to $90,700 in Jefferson County, Alabama (Birmingham), to $514,600 in Marin County, California and over $1 million in Manhattan, New York City.
• The Self-Sufficiency Standard for a family of four including two young children — that is, the just-getting-by budget for a renter — is often rather close to the local Median Household Income for 1999. (Notice that the SSS's are for varying years from 2000 to 2005, so the comparison is not an exact one.) That is to say that a family with young children needs to be near the local median just to meet its basic needs; typically, younger families earn less than older families.
• The official poverty rate for the US as a whole in 1999 was 12.4%. But as columns 2, 4, 6 and 8 show, the Federal Poverty measure is far lower than the bare-bones cost of living, at least for a family of four. To see how many people in 2004 had incomes at or below 100%, 125%, 150%, 175%, 185%, 200%, 250% and 300% of the Federal Poverty Guideline, click here.