The good news: social programs (CalFresh, CalWORKs, EITC) reduce California's child poverty rate. The bad news: Santa Barbara County has the third highest child poverty in California.
Those are among the findings of "Child Poverty in California" -- a new study by the Public Policy Institute of California and Stanford University.
Santa Barbara Independent politics reporter and opinion/analysis columnist Jerry Roberts wrote an August 9 column on the study. Note: Roberts' column references the 2013 Poverty Report. Some of the County's actions to address poverty in the wake of that report are discussed in this 2015 Board of Supervisors session.
Santa Maria Sun reporter Spencer Cole wrote this August 1 story on the issue and quoted Barb Finch.
Santa Barbara News-Press reporter Josh Grega wrote an August 14 story on the new PPI/Stanford as well; read it after the jump.
SB County poverty rate third highest in state
Santa Barbara County has the third highest poverty rate of all California counties, according to a recent study.
Calculated by the California Poverty Measure, a joint research effort between the Public Policy Institute of California and the Stanford Center on Poverty and Inequality, Santa Barbara County's 23 percent poverty rate trails only Los Angeles County's 24.3 percent and Santa Cruz County's 23.8 percent.
According to the PPIC report, 19.3 percent of Californians are in poverty and another 18.9 percent live fairly close to the poverty line — meaning 38.2 percent of Californians in 2016 were poor or near poor.
Of those, a large majority, 79.5 percent, were in families with at least one working adult. Of impoverished families, 46.1 percent had at least one adult working full time year-round, while 33.4 percent had a family member working part-time.
Some Californians managed to squeak by the poverty line in 2016 and the PPIC largely attributed this to social safety net programs. According to the report, programs such as CalFresh, CalWORKs, the Earned Income Tax Credit, and Supplemental Security Income kept approximately 7.8 percent of Californians out of poverty.
Of those programs, CalFresh and the EITCs were most effective, lowering the poverty rate by 2.1 percent and 2 percent, respectively. CalWORKs lowered the poverty rate by 1 percent. These programs apparently were more effective at curbing poverty in inland areas.
"If we subtract these resources from family budgets, 13.9% more people in the Central Valley and Sierra would be poor, compared with 4.0% more in the Bay Area," the report reads.
Statewide, child poverty is a greater problem than adult poverty. The study found a child poverty rate of 21.3 percent, higher than those for adults between 18 and 64 and those older than 65. The latter two groups have nearly identical poverty rates of 18.7 percent and 18.8 percent, respectively.
This is also the case in many areas of Santa Barbara County. According to figures from the Insight Center in Los Angeles, mid and north Santa Barbara County have respective child poverty rates of 18.9 percent and 20.9 percent. By contrast, its adult poverty rates are 13.8 percent and 10.6 percent.
However, this not the case in the south county, with an adult rate of 17.2 percent and child rate of 12.9 percent. For all three areas, the rate of senior citizens in poverty was less than 10 percent.
The PPIC's report indicates that poverty is particularly widespread amongst the state's Latino population. 26.1 percent lived in poverty in 2016, less than the 30.9 percent measured in 2011. Latinos make up 52.8 percent of poor Californians while only comprising 39.2 percent of the population.
Unsurprisingly, differences in education were also shown to be associated with poverty rates. Whereas the poverty rate for adults between 25 and 64 with a college degree was 8.4 percent, this was more than quadrupled at 34.5 percent for individuals without a high school diploma.
The study found that 19.4 percent of Californians lacked resources enough to meet their basic needs in 2016, which is approximately $31,000 annually for a family of four. The PPIC study also provides different figures cited from "official poverty statistics," stating that 14.3 percent of Californians lacked the necessary resources to meet basic needs in 2016, putting this figure around $24,300 for a family of four.
According to the CPM's findings, 5.6 percent of Californians live with less than half the resources necessary for basic needs, a smaller percentage than official poverty statistics indicate.
