3 in 10 state families scrape to get by

Three in 10 working Georgia families still struggle to get by, according to a report issued Tuesday by a public policy study group.

“It used to be that if you worked hard with your muscle and showed up on time you could earn enough” to support a family, said Brandon Roberts, the principal author of the study produced by the Working Poor Families Project. “That’s increasingly no longer the case.”

The report counts how many working families are low-income, defined as making less than $41,228 a year. The percentage of Georgia working families the report classified as low-income was also about 30 percent four years ago when the Working Poor Families Project last crunched the numbers. WPFP’s Web site says it was launched in 2002 by national philanthropic leaders who saw the need to strengthen state policies affecting working families. Both reports used 2-year-old data from the census, the latest available numbers.

The report often uses the term “low-income” instead of “poor” because the census’ definition of poverty is so narrow it is unrealistic, the authors say.

The figure of $41,228 is double what the U.S. census defined as the poverty level for a family of four. In 2006 the census found that an average U.S. family of four was above the poverty level if it made more than $20,614, or $21,134 for a family with one child.

The study calls for more government investment in adult education so people can get better-paying jobs.

Among low-income working families in Georgia, 32 percent have no high school diploma or GED and 60 percent have no post-secondary education. That’s in the bottom 10 among the states, Roberts said.

The office of Gov. Sonny Perdue and the Georgia Chamber of Commerce didn’t respond to questions about the report. Benita Dodd, vice president of the free-market-focused Georgia Public Policy Foundation, said Georgia was “doing an excellent job with adult education” and throwing government money at the problem was not the solution. She said Georgia’s technical colleges were working on partnerships with private companies that provide adult education and “I think we’re going to see major strides.”

Sarah Beth Gehl, deputy director of the Georgia Budget and Policy Institute, which works with the report’s authors, disagreed.

“When we look at how much Georgia spends on adult basic education per adult that lacks a GED, we are at the bottom of states,” she said.

The Baltimore-based Annie E. Casey Foundation helped fund the report. The foundation says it backs public policies that “more effectively meet the needs of today’s vulnerable children and families.”

The quality of the jobs available in the state may be a factor in Georgia’s ranking, Roberts said. In Georgia, 29.3 percent of jobs fall in occupations paying below the poverty level, putting the state in the bottom quarter of all states. The national average was 22.2 percent.

The 2004 report ranked the state as 30th in the nation in the percentage of low-income families, but this year’s report ranks Georgia 32nd. Nationwide, the new report found 350,000 more families fall into the low-income worker category than before.

“These are working families, they work hard, play by the rules,” said Roberts. They can generally pay the rent or mortgage and buy food, he said. Occasional events that set other families back a bit, such as a car breakdown or a sickness, “can really be a catastrophe” for low-income families, he said.

In this year’s report, New Hampshire ranked first, with only 15 percent of its families falling into the low-income working category. New Mexico came in last, with 41 percent. The national average was 28 percent.

The report notes that half of states have a minimum wage above the federal one, $6.55 an hour. Georgia generally follows the federal minimum wage, but the state minimum wage of $5.15 per hour applies to a small number of workers, Gehl said.