The Price of Survival

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

By Henry Sweets

Jackson Hole, Wyo.-As a single mother living in Teton County, Olivia Baldock lives paycheck to paycheck to make ends meet. The county’s notoriously high rents, expensive childcare costs and rising food and gas prices make providing for her 1-year-old Fayden a struggle, she said.

According to recent statistics released by the Department of Workforce Services, young mothers like Baldock are finding it harder than ever to get by.
“I knew when I got pregnant that it was going to cost an arm and a leg,” she said. But the gap between what she earns now and what it takes to raise an infant is an intimidating figure.

Baldock, 19, makes about $10.50 an hour, or about $22,000 a year. The latest figures from the state’s workforce department estimate that a single mother with an infant in Teton County needs to earn $43,000 a year to survive.
“That doesn’t seem like enough money to get by on,” Baldock said. Olivia can laugh about it now, her voice strengthened by newfound confidence, though her outlook was not always so bold.

“If you told me that three months ago, I probably would have passed out,” she said.
Despite alarming statistics, local and state agencies said a growing population of poor, working-class people in the county is being swept under the rug.
The Family Economic Self-Sufficiency Standard (FESS) was developed by the Wyoming Department of Workforce Services (DWS) to give more accurate definition to a living wage for each Wyoming county. The Federal Poverty Guidelines are based on what some experts call an archaic system developed from a 1955 food consumption survey. The guideline extrapolates numbers from the Consumer Price Index based on a subsistence diet. Baldock would need to make $14,000 or below to be considered living in poverty by national standards.

The FESS says that Baldock needs $43,121 to survive in Teton County. In Sheridan County, the second most expensive county in Wyoming, she would only need $29,080 to raise an infant. In Lincoln County that figure is estimated at $28,995 and in Sublette County, the figure is $27,513.

As Teton County’s cost of living continues to outpace the rest of the state, many people’s wages are grossly below what it takes to support the life they have made for themselves here. And it is not just single mothers who are feeling the squeeze.
Smokey Rhea, director of the Community Resource Center, said the fastest growing demographic her organization assists are people older than 50, who have lived in Jackson for more than 20 years. People living in Teton County for more than 20 years account for 37 percent of the center’s dollars dispensed, more than any other sector, Rhea said.

She said that the growing cost of living in the area has created a struggling class – some of whom qualify for federal assistance, but many of whom don’t.
“Think about people on fixed incomes, affected by the rising cost of food, transportation and medical care,” she said. “People might be shocked at a neighbor who comes to get help from us.”

On a fixed income, with Teton County’s cost of living on the rise, a small medical emergency or other financial hurdle can throw a family into a spiral of debt, she said.
As gas prices rise, a family might be forced to buy less food, or if housing costs go up, a family might drop their medical insurance.

Rhea’s organization exists to help these people manage their debt, find free food, clothing or health assistance provided by Jackson’s web of human services organizations. Sometimes they help clients pay bills, as part of a plan to get them back on their feet.
The CRC lends help on a case-by-case basis and has no income or asset-based restrictions.

In the past, most of the people the center assisted were new in town, but as the cost of living increases, Rhea expects to see more long-time residents, she said.
Jackie Lance, case manager for the Department of Family Services (DFS) is responsible for dispensing federal aid in the form of food stamps, childcare assistance and Medicaid. Lance said that her caseload of 600 people is one of the highest in the state.

“It’s a hidden thing that no one talks about,” Lance said. “I did not realize how much poverty is not spoken about it Teton county. There are probably more people growing into the poverty level than growing into the wealthy community.”

Though speaking anecdotally about who is growing into what class, Lance said that some of her clients grew up in a culture of poverty, while others grew up in the middle class.
“People move from all over the states who are seeing all of the jobs that we have here and don’t realize the cost of living,” Lance said. “They’ve spent all of their money to get here, and then it costs how much money to get into an apartment? What I see are people moving into Teton County and getting stuck here.”

But Lance, echoing Rhea’s point, said the most tragic cases she sees and can’t do anything for, are people older than 50 who might be battling cancer or other medical problems, but are prohibited from receiving Medicaid because they own a home or are otherwise disqualified from aid.

Lance can only help people who qualify with an income at or below a certain percentage of the national poverty level, according to a complicated assessment of family size and need.
In a county where parents need to make an estimated $25,000 more than the Medicaid and food stamp guidelines, a lot of people who need help can’t turn to the government for support.

For some, like Baldock, getting the support she needed was crucial to helping her get on her feet.
She recently received her GED and will enroll in Central Wyoming College in September, to get a degree in early childhood development. She said that CLIMB Wyoming, a non-profit for single mothers, made that plan possible.

Baldock never received a diploma because she dropped out of high school at age 16 to take care of her younger sister, Isabel, when her family returned to Teton County from a brief stint in Hicksburg, Penn.

When they returned from Pennsylvania, the cost of housing had skyrocketed, and childcare was prohibitively expensive. Baldock explained that, at the time, she had to drop out of school and get a job in order for her family to survive.
On a chilly night earlier this month, Baldock sat on the couch in her mother’s home, holding Fayden while her sister Isabel inspected everyone’s face with a flashlight. Baldock has to talk over the noise of two barking, scampering dogs, the sizzle of taco meat, Fayden’s whims, and Isabel’s inquisitions.

Her mom, also a single parent, raised five children in Teton County without assistance from non-profits and government agencies, until she recently moved into a house built by Habitat for Humanity.

Baldock said that when she told her employer she was pregnant, she was let go. She couldn’t find a new job until a few months into the pregnancy, and worked until within two weeks of giving birth. After the baby was born, she could no longer afford to stay in the workplace.

A friend told Baldock about CLIMB Wyoming, a nonprofit agency that works with single mothers, to put them in touch with the tools and resources she needed to get on a self-sustaining career track. Their goal is to connect women with the resources they need for financial, physical and mental health, and then place them in careers that offer advancement to self-sufficient wages.
Baldock’s apartment is rented through a local service agency at a price well under market rate. Combined with childcare assistance provided by the Wyoming Department of Family Services, Baldock will receive about a $15,000 head start on her way to supporting her family.

CLIMB Wyoming was started 20 years ago in Cheyenne to give single, Wyoming mothers a way to get the job training - and confidence - to get off government aid. A recent Temporary Aid for Needy Families grant allowed CLIMB to expand their offices to six offices statewide. In order to be eligible for CLIMB, a single mother must be earning below 185 percent of the Federal Poverty Guideline for their family size, or $23,108 for two people, $28,989 for three, and so on.

In Teton County, CLIMB helps clients find careers offering, for instance, $43,121 for a single mother with an infant or $56,364 for a mother with an infant and a preschooler.
Jeff White, who spearheads the Family Self Sufficiency project for the Department of Workforce Services, said programs like CLIMB are a holistic way to get families on their feet.

Statewide, 47 percent of infants are born to women on Medicaid. A growing gender wage gap is one reason that CLIMB exists. Wyoming Women earn 66 cents on the dollar to males.

“The goal is to get people to a place in life where they’re earning a better wage and no longer need government assistance,” he said.

The FESS numbers were tabulated to generate awareness among employers and employees about what a family really needs in order to survive, White said.
When the numbers are posted, or updated, White said he hears from employers who say they are too high and unrealistic. On the other side, parents tell him the figures are too low and don’t adequately represent the expenses they confront in their daily lives.
The FESS numbers make assumptions that no take-out or restaurant food is purchased. They do not include games, video games or extra-curricular activities. The only miscellaneous expenses included are clothing, diapers, cleaning products and other household needs. They also assume that around $230 per month is spent on transportation.

Some costs could be cut if affordable housing is found, or a grandparent is available for childcare. Some workers in Teton County take public transit to work and spend far less than $235 per month on transportation, but many people spend far more than that on gas, White said.

“I fear that [the FESS] numbers are somewhat antiquated already because of the increase in price of gas,” White said.
National retail fuel price averaged $3.07 according to the Energy Information Administration (EIA), on December 3, 2007 – around the time the numbers were calculated. On Sunday, June 8, the national average climbed above $4.
Food prices are rising too.

According to the national   Consumer Price Index (CPI), food is forecast to increase 4.5 to 5.5 percent in 2008, as retailers continue to pass on higher commodity and energy costs to consumers. The CPI for food increased 4 percent in 2007, the highest annual increase since 1990.

These increasing costs might be catching other states by surprise, but White said that programs like CLIMB, which strengthen Wyoming’s workforce with a holistic combination of job training, mental health care, case management and peer support, are unique to Wyoming.
“Wyoming is really leading the way in this area rather than following someone else’s footsteps. That’s not to say there’s still not much left to be done, but I think we can hang our hat on that,” White said.

Though things like property tax breaks and schoolteachers’ salaries have been amended to take into account the cost of living or property values in each county, most government support is based on federal guidelines that can’t be amended.

In Teton County, a new group called “Compassion Moves Mountains” is getting together to draw attention to the county’s human services needs and to try to direct a larger piece of the county’s philanthropy pie to its human services organizations.
Tommy Wood, who works with Rhea at the CRC, said the voice of the working poor is the quietest one in the community, but it is the one that knows the community best. The “culture of poverty,” he said, has a worldview that does not extend beyond their immediate surroundings, whereas middle class and wealthy people consider their sphere to extend nationally or internationally.

A national program that he is bringing to Jackson, called “Bridges Out of Poverty,” aims to build understanding between different classes, and give the “culture of poverty” a voice in the development of its community.

The program has one component where human service organizations are trained to understand the hidden rules of the “culture of poverty,” so those not stuck in poverty can better understand the way a person must think when they are in survival mode.
The “getting ahead in a just-getting-by world” portion of Bridges out of Poverty will work with struggling families and single people to help them improve their stake in Teton County. The program will provide support for people motivated to make a better life for themselves and help them break old habits that keep them living in poverty.
The first “getting ahead” group will start sometime this summer, and Wood is currently looking for motivated applicants. There are no income or asset restrictions, and all applications will be considered on a case-by-case basis.

Wood, who is also running for town council this fall, said that he hopes to bring light to the underclasses of Jackson, whose struggles are sometimes overlooked, like Baldock’s might have been.

Baldock said she will have to work her way through college but hopes to be a second grade teacher in the next four or five years.

“I know it’s going to be difficult, but I have pretty thick skin, so I’m going to make it … hopefully in one piece,” she said.

Photo by Derek Diluzio
Olivia Baldock and her daughter, Fayden, the day they moved into their new apartment.

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