The question is easy. Getting the answer that is right for you and your family is a bit more complicated. I just came from a two day conference organized by the National Economic Development and Law Center, a non-profit organization based in Oakland CA, who manages Californians for Family Economic Self-Sufficiency, a project designed to help answer this very question. The conference brought many anti-poverty advocates working on ways to help families achieve self-sufficiency.

Most people believe or think about the poor in singular terms, meaning that they believe all poor families and their problems are the same. Consequently, they believe that solutions and programs to help the poor should be the same. The reality is much more complicated and diverse; there are varied numbers of working poor families that require just as varied number of supports to help them achieve self-sufficiency.

The Self-Sufficiency Standard is a tool to help asses those needs based on family type, the number of family members and their respective stations in life. It’s a simple idea, really. The self-sufficiency standard tells us exactly how much it costs to make ends meet, say, for a single parent raising an infant and a preschooler. In Los Angeles County, this parent would have to earn $17.92 per hour in a full time job just to cover the basic costs of living in that county. In Shasta County, this parent would need to earn at least $13.99 to do the same. But how many jobs actually pay that much? And what happens to families only earning the minimum wage, currently only $7.50? How do they make ends meet?

Indeed, the self-sufficiency standard is a powerful tool with a great potential to help educate us on the real costs of living in poverty – and what it would take to help those families not quite making it.

For more information visit the Californians for Family Economic Self-Sufficiency (CFESS)