This report was published in 2017
For more up-to-date insights, please visit the Family Sustainability Index by Maven Collaborative or the Real Cost Measure by United Ways of California.
Making Ends Meet shines a light on the economic challenges faced by many Californians by showing the cost of supporting a family or a single individual in different parts of the state. This analysis presents basic family budgets for each of California’s 58 counties for four types of households: a single adult, a single-parent family, a two-parent family with one parent working, and a two-working-parent family. (All family types except single adult are assumed to have one preschool-aged child and one school-aged child.) These family budgets estimate the amount of income that households would need to cover basic expenses through earnings only, without publicly funded benefits or supports. Read the Making Ends Meet report, including methodology details.
