This indicator shows the annual income required for a family of three (one adult, one preschooler, and one school-aged child) to live in Montgomery County without financial assistance.

This indicator is important because the self-sufficiency standard wage specifies the amount of income that meets a family's most basic needs without public or private assistance, and explains that many families cannot achieve self-sufficiency immediately. The self-sufficiency standard is calculated by adding expenses and taxes and subtracting tax credits. It is based on the cost of each of seven basic needs, determined independently, which allows each cost to increase at its own rate (i.e. housing, child care, food, transportation, health care, taxes, and miscellaneous).

It is a better indicator than the federal poverty measure because for most families, in most places, it is simply not high enough to reflect low-income realities. As a result, many assistance programs use a multiple of the FPL to measure need. For instance, energy assistance programs are available for households earning up to 150% of FPL. However, simply raising the poverty level, or using a multiple of
3 the threshold, cannot solve the structural problems inherent in the official poverty measure.

In recognition of those realities and in the absence of a more accurate formula to determine eligibility, local states and federal authorities have established their own measures, for example, using local median incomes. The result is that residents seeking assistance must navigate complex systems, each with varying requirements for eligibility and multiple applications and documentation processes. As a result, many families who are eligible for public assistance find it impossible to understand the maze of eligibility requirements.

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This indicator shows the annual income required for a family of three (one adult, one preschooler, and one school-aged child) to live in Montgomery County without financial assistance.

This indicator is important because the self-sufficiency standard wage specifies the amount of income that meets a family's most basic needs without public or private assistance, and explains that many families cannot achieve self-sufficiency immediately. The self-sufficiency standard is calculated by adding expenses and taxes and subtracting tax credits. It is based on the cost of each of seven basic needs, determined independently, which allows each cost to increase at its own rate (i.e. housing, child care, food, transportation, health care, taxes, and miscellaneous).

It is a better indicator than the federal poverty measure because for most families, in most places, it is simply not high enough to reflect low-income realities. As a result, many assistance programs use a multiple of the FPL to measure need. For instance, energy assistance programs are available for households earning up to 150% of FPL. However, simply raising the poverty level, or using a multiple of
3 the threshold, cannot solve the structural problems inherent in the official poverty measure.

In recognition of those realities and in the absence of a more accurate formula to determine eligibility, local states and federal authorities have established their own measures, for example, using local median incomes. The result is that residents seeking assistance must navigate complex systems, each with varying requirements for eligibility and multiple applications and documentation processes. As a result, many families who are eligible for public assistance find it impossible to understand the maze of eligibility requirements.

See Larger