January 2002 - Vol. 1, No 1

• Cost of Living Calculated for California Families
• Two New Studies Reveal Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Poverty Levels and Education in California
• Recent Child Support Rulings and Legislation Could Benefit Low-Income Families
• Child Support Clients Entitled to Complaint Procedure and State Hearing
• California Faces Budget Crunch
• Nonprofits Report Decreased Funding During Period of Increased Clientele Need
• "Three Strikes" Law Reconsidered
• Immigrants Now Eligible for In-State Tuition at California State Colleges and Universities

Cost of Living Calculated for California Families

The California Budget Project has released figures on the wages necessary to cover basic living expenses of families in ten different regions of California. The report calculated a minimum basic survival level by adding up the costs of rent, food, childcare, transportation, and health care in each region. Though the calculated wage surpasses the state minimum wage of $6.75/hour, it was determined by the most basic living standard and does not include additional money for savings or family vacations. Specific figures follow:

• Based upon the living costs of the Bay Area region (including Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, Solano, and Sonoma Counties), it was calculated that a single adult would need to make $24,442/year or $11.75/hour (working forty hours a week, 52 weeks a year) to pay for basic rent, transportation, food, health care, taxes, and miscellaneous expenses. A single-parent family with two children would need to make $54,069/year or $25.99/hour and a two-working-parent family would need to make $61,593/year or each make $14.81/hour.
• The cost of living was significantly higher in the Bay Area than the rest of the state due to substantially higher rent ($842/month compared to $594/month for a one-bedroom studio and $1,270/month compared to $867/month for a two-bedroom apartment) and higher taxes. The state-wide average for self- and family-support in California was calculated at $9.86/hour for a single adult, $20.89/hour for a single-parent family, and $12.51/hour each for a two-working-parent family.

For more details see www.cbp.org

Two New Studies Reveal Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Poverty Levels and Education in California

A recent study of U.S. Census Bureau data by the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) announced key findings on the rate of poverty within California:

• Twenty-four percent of Californians are poor, based upon a poverty level defined as half the median earning of Californians ($26,347 for a family of four). According to this measure, California is second only to Washington, D.C. in the nation for poverty.
• Foreign-born Hispanics had the highest rate of poverty at 27%, seconded by foreign-born Southeast Asians with a poverty rate of 23%. African Americans and U.S.-born Hispanics had a poverty rate of 17%, twice that of white non-Hispanics.
• Though single female-headed households had the highest rate of poverty (37%), California's poverty rate for married couples with children (12%) was notably higher than that for the rest of the U.S. (7%). A larger percentage of married families in California are comprised of foreign-born Hispanics, a group with an especially high incidence of poverty.
• Working families constituted the greatest percentage of poor families. Over the last twenty years, the percentage of poor families with one member working at least thirty hours per week doubled.

Additional data from California indicates similar disparities by race and ethnicity in education. Hispanic students, a growing population representing 40% of all public school students in the state, and African American students are more likely than their peers to score low on basic proficiency tests and less likely to complete high school. These two groups of students were also the poorest in the state with less access to childcare, preschool, computers, and funds for college education. English proficiency is an additional barrier for a quarter of Hispanic students. In examining school quality, the study found that public schools serving Hispanic and African American were of lesser quality than those serving white and Asian students, with twice as many of their teachers not being fully credentialed and with larger class sizes and fewer course offerings. Educational opportunity is often considered a key indicator for future access to employment, income, and healthcare.

Both reports can be accessed at www.ppic.org

Recent Child Support Rulings and Legislation Could Benefit Low-Income Families

• A California superior court ruled in August that the state of California could not deny benefits or reduce the amount of aid given to a teen parent living with her parent based upon the child support income received by the grandparent on her behalf. Teen parents are required to live at home to receive welfare benefits, and it is speculated that hundreds of teen mothers lost welfare income between November 1997 and February 2001 due to this miscalculation by the state. These mothers were eligible to seek retroactive payments by the state until December 31, 2001, though the state refused to notify teen or former teen welfare recipients of this eligibility during the four-month interim between the ruling and the deadline. Though perhaps many more were eligible, seventy-five mothers filed for retroactive aid through a class action suit led by the NCYL. While the state is no longer required to provide retroactive payments past the December 31 deadline, current teen welfare recipients should ensure that their aid amount is correct according to the ruling.
• As of Fall 2001, a new state law gives local child support offices the right to forgive all or part of foster care child support debt, including a 10% interest on arrearages, for TANF aid given to caretakers of children in foster or kinship care. Additionally, before referring TANF foster care cases to child support, TANF offices must consider the current and future financial needs of children. It is hoped that by forgiving these arrearages, the debt will no longer inhibit reunification efforts by putting newly reunited custodial parents and children in additional financial peril, or by forcing families to choose between paying child support debt and fulfilling other reunification requirements more directly related to the care of the child.

For further updates on child support, visit the National Center on Youth Law's website at www.ncyl.org.

Child Support Clients Entitled to Complaint Procedure and State Hearing

A federal mandate issued in December 2000 requires that each local child support office in California have a complaint process in effect for clients on the issues of order establishment, enforcement, and collection of child support. The State of California set up procedure for the state in July 2001 in accordance with the mandate. Such a process would allow for a grievance procedure for custodial parents, but would also enable noncustodial parents to seek redress if they think their case was handled unfairly. The complaint process provides for a hearing from the state if a client feels his or her case has not been resolved by the local complaint process within 90 days. Alameda, San Mateo, Fresno, and San Benito Counties have reportedly been slow in implementing a local procedure.

The required child support complaint form and details of the complaint process are available at the National Center on Youth Law (NCYL) website at www.ncyl.org. Advocates seeking additional assistance with the complaint process or state hearings can contact Sarah Kurtz at the NCYL at (510) 835-8098.

California Faces Budget Crunch

In his budget released on January 10th, Governor Davis proposed $2.2 billion in spending reductions to the state legislature. According to the governor's plan, half of spending reductions, or $1.1 billion, would come from social service programs. Substantial savings within CalWORKS would come from denying a cost-of-living increase in benefits for the coming year to welfare and disability aid recipients. Additional cuts proposed included the de-funding of two welfare-to-work programs: $36 million in adult education and career training, and $58 million in programs serving welfare recipients at community colleges. During the coming months, the state legislature will consider various aspects of Davis' proposal in order to balance the budget deficit by June 2002. Though the final budget is yet to be decided, practitioners may want to be mindful of potential program cuts that could effect the funding of their programs in the future.

For analysis of the proposed budget, visit www.cbp.org. Additional details can be found in the January 13th L.A. Times article at www.latimes.com.

Similar budget shortfalls were to be found at the county-level in recent months. In December 2001, Del Norte County sought $1.7 million in additional funds from the state to meet an increased demand for state-mandated programs. Facing its own budget problems, as described above, the state was unable to provide assistance to the county. Similarly in January, Los Angeles County announced a $70 million deficit in its CalWORKS budget due to the over-projecting and advanced spending of funds. To rectify the shortfall, the county has proposed to cut specific CalWORKS programs.

For further details see the December 17th The Mercury News article at www0.mercurycenter.com and the January 16th L.A. Times article at www.latimes.com

Nonprofits Report Decreased Funding During Period of Increased Clientele Need

California Cares, a coalition of California philanthropies, reported that Fall 2001 saw an increase in demand for services and a decline in donations, due to a weakening economy across the state that was worsened by the events of September 11th. Four hundred thirteen nonprofit groups were surveyed, including food banks, homeless shelters, healthcare providers, domestic violence groups, job training programs, parenting services, and legal aid. Among the findings:

• The organizations surveyed predict an increase of 750,000 to 1.1 million Californians seeking services in the coming year. Food banks and crisis/disaster relief services (three-fourths of these organizations experienced an increase in demand for services) reported the greatest increase in proportion of agencies experiencing greater demand for services. Well over half of shelters (68%), health services (65%), and mental health services (56%) experienced an increase in need as well.
• The organizations averaged a $62,000 loss in funding in the last three months. If such a figure was extended to all California nonprofits, it is projected that the total amount lost in the state would be greater than $300 million. A loss of corporate funds affected the greatest proportion of safety-net organizations (39%). Additionally, thirty percent lost foundation money and 26% lost government funding.
• To deal with financial constraints, one-third of the organizations reported reducing their services, staffing, and/or intake of new clients.
• Organizations serving the Latino population have suffered particular challenges with even greater loss of funding and a significantly greater increase in demand for services (72% of organizations versus 52% of organizations serving the general population). The increased demand for services corresponds with the recent layoff of many Latino workers in service industries.

The full report can be found at www.calendow.org.

"Three Strikes" Law Reconsidered

A U.S. federal appeals court ruled in opposition to California's "three strikes" law on November 2nd. In the first ruling to challenge the highly publicized 1994 law which requires progressive sentencing for repeat offenders, the court ruled 2-1 that a fifty-year sentence for the theft of $153 worth of merchandise (which would have otherwise incurred a six-month sentence) was "cruel and unusual" and thus unconstitutional. Though the author of the law and Republican gubernatorial candidate, Bill Jones, defended the law as voter-approved, advocates suggest that voters backed the law in 1994 in support of harsher punishments for violent crimes. During its seven-year existence, two-thirds of those sentenced under the law have committed no more than a series of non-violent thefts. It is expected that others sentenced to near-life terms for similar petty crimes may legally challenge their sentences due to the court ruling.

Prior to the ruling, The Sentencing Project, a nonprofit advocacy group in Washington, D.C., released a study on the effectiveness of the "three strikes" law since its inception in 1994. Though crime has decreased by 41% since 1993, the report cites a similar decline in crime in New York City and Washington, D.C. over the same time period to suggest that a decline in crime may be due more to a strong economy, reduced gang activity, and increased community policing than harsher sentencing laws. The study shows that the law has rather had the consequence of producing an aging prison population due to a mandated minimum 25-year to life sentences for what are often repeated minor nonviolent offenses.

For further information, see www.sentencingproject.org and the November 2nd Contras Costa Times article at www.contracosta.times.com.

Immigrants Now Eligible for In-State Tuition at California State Colleges and Universities

On October 11, Governor Davis signed AB 540, which will allow illegal immigrants who 1) graduated from a California high school or obtained their GED, 2) attended a high school in California for at least three years, and 3) have filed or have the intention of filing an application to legalize their immigrant status, to pay the same rate of tuition as other in-state students at state colleges and universities (though UC System schools are not yet included in this eligibility). Such a measure is intended to give access to higher education to immigrants who before faced out-of-state tuition rates of $7000 more a year at universities and $119 more per unit at community colleges than other students. It is yet undecided if these same students might be eligible for financial aid to further enable them to access California-system schools.

For more details see www.globalexchange.org and www.nilc.org/ciwc/ciwcindex.htm.