Pa. families having trouble making ends meet

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.post-gazette.com/breaking/20040616costsp5.asp

Rebecca Sebastian and her boyfriend together earn about $25,000 a year — well above the federal poverty threshold, but not enough to make ends meet.

“The cost of living is going up, but nobody’s paycheck is going up, and that’s what’s making it hard,” said Sebastian, 26, who has a 4-year-old daughter and works full-time at a Harrisburg day-care center. “We can’t get ahead because we don’t make enough money.”

Increases in child-care, health-care and housing costs have left many working families in Pennsylvania unable to meet basic needs, although in recent years tax breaks for parents have stabilized what had been a widening gap between family incomes and the real cost of living, according to the new report.

“The Self-Sufficiency Standard for Pennsylvania,” released today by the family advocacy organization PathWaysPA, concludes that “for most parents, earnings that are well above the poverty level are nevertheless far below what they need to meet their families’ basic needs.”

[phantom power]

1. Does the "poverty level" keep pace with inflation?

Sounds like not, but does anybody out there know?

[mom cat]

2. Not at all. Adjusted for inflation, the minimum wage keeps falling.

Remember when families could live on one salary and the US criticized Russia for "making women work and forcing babies into daycare? We proclaimed our superiority based on the fact that a family could do ok on one salary. Do those criterion matter anymore? Shouldn't we declare our system a failure if we are sinking to Russia's harsh living standards? People are being squeezed dry. The only ones keeping up with inflation are the people at the top of the food chain and they are having a feeding frenzy.

[Mnemosyne]

3. In NW Pa

hard to find even part-time minimum wage job.

You may find one for 10 - 20 hrs, then try for another, but most places will not work with you on schedule so you can live below poverty level and work 30 hrs if lucky and totally forget getting 3 part-time min.wage jobs.

Very, very bad here.