To use the “Family Budget Calculator” simply enter your city, state or zip code. The budgets generated “estimate community-specific costs for 10 family types (one or two adults with zero to four children) in 618 locations,” says the EPI, “Compared with the federal poverty line and Supplemental Poverty Measure, EPI’s family budgets provide a more accurate and complete measure of economic security in America.”
Entering “Rhode Island” for two adults and two children brings results for the Providence/Fall River metro area, where monthly costs of living are estimated at $5,955, or $71,455 annually. This includes $913 for housing and $1338 for child care. One adult with no children needs to generate $2,543 monthly/$30,522 annually to maintain a “secure yet modest standard of living.”
Needless to say, many Rhode Island families are not meeting this basic income level. Locally, the Economic Progress Institute launched an online “Cost of Living Calculator” that showed that “Rhode Island’s recent move to raise the minimum wage from $9 to $9.60 is not nearly sufficient… since a ‘single adult without children needs to earn $24,640 a year or $11.85/hour to meet his or her basic needs.’”
The EPI report is one more indication that Rhode Island is not on the right track economically when it comes to working families. Members of the General Assembly need to take note.
The EPI describes itself as “an independent, nonprofit think tank that researches the impact of economic trends and policies on working people in the United States. EPI’s research helps policymakers, opinion leaders, advocates, journalists, and the public understand the bread-and-butter issues affecting ordinary Americans.”
]]>The EPI released this sobering news along with an updated version of its Cost of Living Calculator, designed to provide “a more realistic measure of economic security than the commonly used federal poverty level (FPL) which measures economic security based on the cost of food,” according to a press release. “The Calculator allows users to see what it costs families of different sizes to pay for housing, child care, health care, food, transportation and taxes and then calculates the pre-tax (gross) income they need to meet their expenses.”
Rhode Island’s recent move to raise the minimum wage from $9 to $9.60 is not nearly sufficient says the EPI, since a “single adult without children needs to earn $24,640 a year or $11.85/hour to meet his or her basic needs.”
In addition to the Cost of Living Calculator, the EPI also publishes a “comprehensive ‘Guide to Assistance’ explaining the government assistance programs and community resources available to help individuals and families meet basic needs including food assistance, tax credits, and child care subsidies which can all help lower-wage working families make ends meet.”
“We hope these tools serve to better educate the public and policymakers about the cost-of-living in the Ocean State and the importance of government assistance programs for the large number of Rhode Islanders working in low-wage jobs” said Kate Brewster, executive director of the Economic Progress Institute, in the press release. “Many people often don’t realize they are eligible for help paying for basic needs like child care and food. We encourage Rhode Islanders who are struggling to pay the bills to review the Guide to see if they qualify for assistance.”
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