Executive Summary

• Highlights
• The Workforce Investment Act and Self-Sufficiency
• What is the Self-Sufficiency Standard?
• About this Guide
• Order a Hard Copy

What is the Self-Sufficiency Standard?

The WOW Self-Sufficiency Standard is a measure of how much income families need to cover their basic costs, depending on where they live and who is in their family.1 The Standard adds up the costs of housing, child care, food, transportation, health care and taxes and subtracts out tax credits to calculate the income a family would need for long-term economic self-sufficiency—assuming no public or private supports or subsidies. The Standard takes into account the cost differences associated with the number and age of children and where the family lives.2 The Self-Sufficiency Standard is a useful tool for workforce policymakers at the local, state and federal levels because it is both geographically-specific down to the county level and is calculated using a consistent methodology—allowing state and federal policymakers to compare outcomes across the state or across the country. More information on how the self-sufficiency has changed communities is available at: http://www.sixstrategies.org/files/Changing%20Communities%20FINAL.pdf.

1 The methodology embodied in the Standard was developed by WOW’s research partner, Dr. Diana Pearce, when she directed the Women and Poverty Project at WOW. Today she teaches at the School of Social Work, University of Washington . The Self-Sufficiency Standard undergirds the six strategies of the Family Economic Self-Sufficiency Project (FESS). The FESS Project is lead by Wider Opportunities for Women and was created to provide tools to communities to help low income working families make ends meet.

2 All data are collected or calculated using standardized or equivalent methodology, come from scholarly or credible sources such as the HUD’s Fair Market Rents, are updated at least annually, and are age- and/or geographically-specific.