Children are particularly vulnerable to many specific risks when parents lack the earnings, assets, and access to financial services to consistently meet the needs of the family. These risks include low birth weight, lead poisoning, child abuse and neglect, teenage pregnancy, and not completing high school.

Family economic success (FES) is one indicator that suggests families with access to strong financial futures in strong neighborhoods can avoid those risks. It is a crosscutting issue that affects Voices other priorities of health, foster care and adoption, and early care and education.

Voices’ FES work includes issues that contribute to workforce development, asset building and asset protection.

Voices current FES priority issues include:

• Child Care Subsidies for Low-Income Working Parents
• Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) Issues
• Discouraging and Regulating Predatory Lending

FAMILY ECONOMIC SUCCESS GOALS

• Repeal the Payday Loan Act of 2002, which would prohibit lenders from charging interest rates above 36% for small loans. The current average interest rate is 386%.
• Impose an annual percentage rate ceiling of 36% on all car title loans.
• Increase the state minimum wage, which has not been increased since 1997.
• Increase funding for child care subsidies for low-income working parents, to reduce the current waiting list (averaged 11,000 kids in past year) by at least 50%.

FAMILY ECONOMIC SUCCESS PUBLICATIONS AND CALCULATORS

The Self-Sufficiency Standard for Virginia calculates how much money working adults need to meet their basic needs without subsidies of any kind. Unlike the federal poverty standard, the Self-Sufficiency Standard accounts for the costs of living and working as they vary by family size and composition and by geographic location.

• Family Budget Calculator from the Economic Policy Institute. The Family Budget Calculator lets you determine the income needed for particular types of families to make ends meet. Because costs of goods and services vary across the U.S., the calculator customizes the budgets for every U.S. community—over 400 in all. Technical documentation is available on this web site so you can update each budget item.
• Self-Sufficiency Standard calculations for all family types for Virginia localities (Excel, August, 2006). Some of the localities are grouped into Metropolitan Statistical Areas. You may need to conduct a "find" to locate your locality.
• Self-Sufficiency Standard Modeling Tables (Adobe pdf, August, 2006) This document explains the various work supports (for example, food stamps or child care subsidies) and also shows the impacts of different wages on work supports. These modeling tables might be helpful for work on minimum wage issues.
• Self-Sufficiency Standard Appendix (Adobe pdf, August, 2006) This document provides the assumptions used for the calculations as well as the sources for the data.
• Join the Self-Sufficiency Standard list serve. Send your email without a message.
• Implementing the TANF Changes in the Deficit Reduction Act: “Win-Win” Solutions for Families and States, jointly by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and the Center on Law and Social Policy, May 10, 2006.
• Analysis of New Interim Final TANF Rules, jointly by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and the Center on Law and Social Policy, July 21, 2006.

FAMILY ECONOMIC SUCCESS PROJECTS

New Coalition to Push for Child Care Subsidy Funding Increase: Voices, in partnership with other prominent advocacy organizations, has launched the Working Families Child Care Coalition. the coalition will implement a systematic campaign to raise awareness of the lack of child care assistance funding and promote legislative support for a funding increase. Voices administers the coalition. For more information, contact John Morgan (john@vakids.org).

Virginia Partnership to Encourage Responsible Lending (VAPERL) is a coalition working to reduce the dangers of predatory lending in Virginia. If you are interested in learning more about predatory lending in Virginia or would like to join the VAPERL listserv, please contact Dana Wiggins, VAPERL’s Responsible Lending Coordinator.

Join FESS-VA and receive email updates on the Family Economic Self-Sufficiency Standard.

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