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Resources: Welfare
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TANF BENEFITS ARE LOW AND HAVE
NOT KEPT PACE WITH INFLATION:
Benefits Are Not Enough to Meet Families’ Basic Needs
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, October 14, 2010, 17 pgs..
The paper outlines the 2010 TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, formerly known as welfare) benefit levels for the 50 states and the District of Columbia. The paper includes information about how benefit levels have declined in real dollars under TANF, how benefit levels are inadequate to provide for housing, and how benefit levels (even when combined with SNAP: Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly known as food stamps) fall well below the federal poverty line.
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Earned Income Tax Credit
Piton Foundation'; web site fact sheet.
The EITC can make a significant difference for hardworking families. For tax year 2010, it is worth as much as $5,666 to families. For example, a single parent raising two children and earning $12,200 is eligible for an EITC refund of $5,036 -- a 41% increase in family income. Many qualifying families also will be eligible for the Child Tax Credit, worth as much as $1,000 per child
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Women, Children and Minorities among the Hardest Hit Groups
as Poverty Rises across Colorado
Colorado Fiscal Policy Institute; September, 2010; 5 pages.
U.S. Census Bureau figures released today show 45.2 percent of single-mother families in Colorado with kids younger than age 5 were in poverty last year. Single-mother families with children younger than five suffer poverty in Colorado at more than three times the rate of the population as a whole.
Alarmingly, Colorado has seen a dramatic increase in the number of kids living in poverty. In 2009, 17 percent of Colorado’s children lived in households earning below the poverty level, up from 14.8 percent in 2008.
The poverty level is set by the federal government and varies by family size. For a family of four this year, that means an annual income of $22,050. Numerous studies have demonstrated that the threshold used to measure poverty does not reflect the costs of making ends meet, so the reach of hardship across Colorado is even higher than Census Bureau figures suggest.
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Contact Us:
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Phone: 303-350-5064
Email: civj@civj.org
Mailing Address:
Voices for Justice
1717 East Colfax,
Denver, CO 80218
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Child care and food costs are rising dramatically. Energy, transportation, and housing prices are increasing. More and more families are finding that they are unable to stretch their wages to meet these rising costs for basic yet vital necessities. It begs the question, what is an adequate income? And how does that standard vary among different families and communities in Colorado?
This report addresses this fundamental question. What does it take to make ends meet? How much does it take to be self-sufficient? And what kinds of common-sense, innovative policies can Colorado pursue to help more families get there?
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