Achieving economic self-sufficiency means not having to choose between the most basic needs—choosing between housing and health care, or between child care and food. Each day, hundreds of thousands of Bay Area families struggle with these choices because their incomes are simply insufficient to pay for basic household costs for themselves and their children. Where do they turn? Although some low-wage workers do utilize public programs like subsidized food and child care, these programs are structured to be emergency assistance. Other low-wage workers are in the double bind of earning too much to qualify for public assistance, but too little to cover those costs out of pocket.

Eligibility for many assistance programs is based on the Federal Poverty Level, which measures only the cost of food multiplied by three. The Federal Poverty Level simply no longer adequately represents the cost of living for today's working parents, who must pay for not only food but also child care, housing, transportation, and health care. Thirty-five states have responded to this gap by researching and developing a new bottom line, the Self-Sufficiency Standard. The Self-Sufficiency Standard measures the actual cost of living on a county-by-county basis, including costs of transportation, taxes, child care, housing, food, and health care. The Standard is an improvement on the Federal Poverty Level because it accounts for variations in family size, ages of children and local variations in costs.