Living Conditions and Hardships among the Poor

Overall, the living standards of most poor Amer*icans are far higher than is generally appreciated. The overwhelming majority of poor families are well housed, have adequate food, and enjoy a wide range of modern amenities, including air condition*ing and cable television. Some 70 percent of poor households report that during the course of the past year they were able to meet "all essential expenses," including mortgage, rent, utility bills, and impor*tant medical care.[31] (See Chart 6.)

However, two caveats should be applied to this generally optimistic picture. First, many poor families have difficulty paying their regular bills and must scramble to make ends meet. For exam*ple, more than a third of poor families are late in paying the rent or utility bills at some point dur*ing the year.

Second, the living conditions of the average poor household should not be taken to represent all poor households. There is a wide range of living conditions among the poor: a third of poor house*holds have both cell phones and landline phones; a third also have telephone answering machines. But, at the other extreme, a tenth of the poor have no telephone at all. Similarly, most of America's poor live in accommodations with two or more rooms per person, but around 7 percent of the poor are crowded, with less than one room per person.



These points are illustrated in Table 6, which lists the financial and material hardships among poor households in 2003.[32] During at least one month in the preceding year, 21 percent of poor households reported they were unable to pay their fuel, gas, or electric bills promptly; around 4 percent had their utilities cut off at some point due to nonpayment. Another 14 percent of poor households failed, at some point in the year, to make their full monthly rent or mortgage payments, and 1 percent were evicted due to failure to pay rent. One in 10 poor families had their phones disconnected due to non*payment at some time during the preceding year.

Overall, more than one-third of poor families experienced at least one financial difficulty during the year. Most had a late payment of rent or utility bills. Some 16 percent had phones or utilities cut off or were evicted.

Poor households also experienced the material problems listed on Table 6.[33] Some 13 percent had a family member who needed to go to a doctor or hospital at some point in the prior year but did not go; 7 percent reported that they did not have enough food at some point in the previous four months; and around 7 percent were overcrowded, with more than one person per room. Around 3 percent of poor households experienced upkeep problems with the physical conditions of their apart*ments or homes, having three or more of the physical problems listed in Table 7.

Overall Hardship

Altogether, around 62 percent of poor households experienced none of the financial or physical hardships listed in Table 6 These families were able to pay all their bills on time. They were able to obtain medical care if needed, had enough food, were not crowded, and had few upkeep prob*lems in the home. Another 17 percent of poor households experienced one financial or material problem during the year. Around 21 percent of poor households had two or more financial or material problems.

The most common problem facing poor households was late payment of rent or utilities. While having diffi*culty paying monthly bills is stressful, in most cases late payment did not result in material hardship or depriva*tion. Relatively few of those who were late in payments subsequently had their utilities cut off or were evicted. If late payment problems are excluded from the count, we find that 71 per*cent of poor households had none of the remaining problems listed in Table 6. Some 18 percent had one problem, and 11 percent had two or more problems.





While it is appropriate to be con*cerned about the difficulties faced by some poor families, it is impor*tant to keep these problems in per*spective. Many poor families have intermittent difficulty paying rent or utility bills but remain very well housed by historic or inter*national standards. Even poor families, who are overcrowded by U.S. standards or face temporary food shortages, are still likely to have living con*ditions that are far above the world average.

Reducing Child Poverty

The generally high living standards of poor Amer*icans are good news. Even better is the fact that our nation can substantially reduce remaining pov*erty, especially among children. To accomplish this, we must focus on the main causes of child pov*erty: low levels of parental work and high levels of single parenthood.

In good economic times or bad, the typical poor family with children is supported by only 800 hours of work during a year: That amounts to 16 hours of work per week. If work in each family were raised to 2,000 hours per year—the equiva*lent of one adult working 40 hours per week through the year—nearly 75 percent of poor chil*dren would be lifted out of official poverty.[34]

The decline in marriage is the second major cause of child poverty. Nearly two-thirds of poor children reside in single-parent homes; each year, an additional 1.5 million children are born out of wedlock. Increasing marriage would substantially reduce child poverty: If poor mothers married the fathers of their children, almost three-quarters would immediately be lifted out of poverty.[35]

In the late 1990s, the United States established a reasonable record in reducing child poverty. Suc*cessful anti-poverty policies were partially imple*mented in the welfare reform legislation of 1996, which replaced the old Aid to Families with Depen*dent Children (AFDC) program with a new pro*gram called Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF).

A key element of this reform was a requirement that some welfare mothers either prepare for work or get jobs as a condition of receiving aid. As this requirement went into effect, welfare rolls plum*meted and employment of single mothers increased in an unprecedented manner. As employment of single mothers rose, child poverty dropped rapidly. For example, in the quarter-century before welfare reform, there was no net change in the poverty rate of children in single-mother families; after reform was enacted, the poverty rate dropped in an unprec*edented fashion, falling from 53.1 percent in 1995 to 39.8 percent in 2001.[36]

In general, however, welfare reform has been lim*ited in both scope and intensity. Even in the TANF program, over half the adult beneficiaries remain idle on the rolls and are not engaged in activities leading to self-sufficiency. Work requirements are virtually nonexistent in related programs such as food stamps and public housing. Even worse, despite the fact that marriage has enormous financial and psychological benefits for parents and children, welfare reform has done little or nothing to strengthen marriage in low-income communities. Overall, the welfare system continues to encourage idle dependence rather than work and to reward sin*gle parenthood while penalizing marriage.

If child poverty is to be reduced, welfare must be transformed. Able-bodied parents must be required to work or prepare for work, and the welfare system should encourage rather than penalize marriage.