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.
You may also be interested in the following resources:
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Report
Poverty is Rising in California: What Can Policymakers Do?
The end of the pandemic-era investments in the Child Tax Credit and other policies that help families make ends meet led to a huge increase in poverty in 2022 in California.Poverty & Inequality -
Fact Sheet
Millions of Californians Are Struggling to Make Ends Meet
More than 6 in 10 households in California earning less than $35,000 had difficulty paying for basic expenses due to high costs of living and inflation.Poverty & Inequality
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