Albany and Erie County's day care cuts forcing people onto welfare.
GCASA has a number of "working poor" who are employees and many who are clients. This screw up in social policy hurts our employees and clients alike. In the long run it weakens our communities and decreases the quality of our lives.
I am aware that the Goldman Sachs folks got their bonuses and are running up record profits because of the largess of us taxpayers. What about our neighbors and their kids?
Something is not right when the rich get rich and the poor get poorer and the inequity between social classes spreads wider.
We see it at GCASA every day and it is very disturbing.
Read Donn Esmonde's editorial. It is worth it. You can access it by clicking here.
This is article #2 in a series on working poor.
Showing posts with label Working poor. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Working poor. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Monday, January 25, 2010
Is Genesee County a good place for low income people to work?
I have gotten interested in how day care subsidies are administered in New York State when I realized that day care subsidies seriously affect GCASA's workforce and its clients, especially its female clients who, if a GCASA client, is parenting in her home is usually a woman.
It came to my attention that there is wide variability in day care subsidies from county to county for no rational reasons. New York is one of a handful of states that allows local social services districts to determine child care subsidies. So fo example a family of three living in Livingston County earning $36,620.00 per year would pay a family share of $1,831.00 for day care which is 5% of the household income, while the same family in Genesee County would pay $6,408.00 or 17.5% of its household income. This is a difference of %4,577.00 which is significant to the family. Such a person, of course, based on this one expense would be far better off to move out of Genesee County.
Only 11 out of 92 employees at GCASA make over $40,000.00 per year. 81 of the remaining employees average $26,500.00 per year. If they have children and would need a child care subsidy, they would be much better off living in Livingston County than in Genesee County even with commuting costs. These kinds of patch work policies make it difficult for GCASA to attract and retain a qualified work force especially when its salaries are already often very low.
This is article #1 in a series on working poor.
It came to my attention that there is wide variability in day care subsidies from county to county for no rational reasons. New York is one of a handful of states that allows local social services districts to determine child care subsidies. So fo example a family of three living in Livingston County earning $36,620.00 per year would pay a family share of $1,831.00 for day care which is 5% of the household income, while the same family in Genesee County would pay $6,408.00 or 17.5% of its household income. This is a difference of %4,577.00 which is significant to the family. Such a person, of course, based on this one expense would be far better off to move out of Genesee County.
Only 11 out of 92 employees at GCASA make over $40,000.00 per year. 81 of the remaining employees average $26,500.00 per year. If they have children and would need a child care subsidy, they would be much better off living in Livingston County than in Genesee County even with commuting costs. These kinds of patch work policies make it difficult for GCASA to attract and retain a qualified work force especially when its salaries are already often very low.
This is article #1 in a series on working poor.
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